The lectures on Jewish Mysticism.  Cool.  On Eastern Christian mysticism.  Cool.  On early Western monasticism – OK.  But for some reason, the lecture on female mysticism in the middle ages literally made me want to throw up.  Why???

Female mysticism is essentially lacking in almost every single institutionalized religion that exists – this includes Eastern religions.  You have the occasional female sage, but they are few and far between.  They show up in a big way in Roman Catholicism in the middle ages.  Why?  Maybe because women learned to play the system?  Of course, according to Dr. Johnson, they didn’t voice their thoughts on their own.  Their thoughts had to be approved by male confessors, and these male confessors offered heavy instruction on how their thoughts should be voiced.

Dr. Johnson says the reason women were given a voice in the medieval period is because Christianity is one of the few institutionalized religions that maintains a belief in spirit possession.  This belief allowed the marginal and lowly to assert an authoritative place through the claims of spiritual possession.  Women would have had no say otherwise. Claim spiritual possession and you gain power.

Obviously, these women had to be really careful about what they said and how they said it.  Only women who were virgins or widows were allowed to have any say at all.  According to Dr. Johnson, the celibate life was highly attractive to females in the Medieval Ages because women married around the age of 13 and had lots and lots of kids and eventually died in childbirth.  Married life was short and hard.  This made virginity a desirable option.

Religious life was a female’s only hope of a “profession”.  No other options were available to her.  If you were female and wanted an education, you had to enter into the religious life.  And if you wanted any authority whatsoever, you had to have prophetic visions.  If you were female, the only way you could be heard in a patriarchal society was through prophetic visions.

The most well-known female visionaries came from extremely wealthy households.  Which makes you wonder – maybe these females were politically savvy?  Not to say they didn’t have authentic mystical experiences, but maybe the reason these particular females were heard was because they were either virgins or widows and were savvy to the political game?

In Judaism and Islam, marriage and physical erotic love is viewed as a symbol of mysticism.  The same is true in Buddhism.  So at least women are valued in this sense.  In Western Christianity, physical love is taboo.  Why the shift from the Jewish perspective to the Christian perspective? Why are women so severely marginalized?

In Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage, Elizabeth Gilbert (The Eat, Love, Pray lady),  says marriage itself was viewed as unholy until around 1215, when the Roman Catholic Church realized it wasn’t going to be able to keep people from marrying.  Instead, it claimed authority over marriage and imposed all kinds of rules and regulations to try and control it.  Marriage had been a secular institution monitored by families and civil courts until the Roman Catholic Church claimed it for its own.  Erotic love, however, remains taboo – especially in Roman Catholicism.  Why?

What has always bothered me about Catholicism (both eastern and western forms) is not just the refusal to allow for female leaders in the Church, but the apparent hatred toward females in general (especially in Roman Catholicism).  Male spiritual leaders aren’t allowed to get married and the women that are presented as important to the church are forced, in a sense, to speak through men.  I suppose Islam suffers from some of the same phobias as the Catholicism (although female Imams do exist) but women are extremely influential in Judaism, Buddhism, Protestant Christianity and other World Religions these days. Why not Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy?

And why is it in a 36 lecture series on mystics in the Abrahamic Faiths that the only female mystics presented are those found in this little historic blip in Roman Catholicism?  (Although, maybe they’ll show up in Islam – I still have several lectures to go.)  And even here, Hildegard of Bingen is forced to explain, through the advice of her male confessors, why women cannot be priests.  Women are passive, not active.  Which, of course, is only true of a society that actively oppresses females.

I find the this attitude toward females hugely problematic, and I find the writings of female saints equally problematic because of the constraints under which they are forced to express their spirituality.

I feel like I’ve had a question within me trying to make itself known for years now and I just can’t quite bring it to the surface.  I can tell that this definitely touches upon the question, however.  There remains an active frustration within me that hasn’t yet made itself clear.

Greek had always been the language of the Bible and worship for Christians, but in the west, it was eventually replaced by Latin and Greek, in the west, was largely forgotten, which means the traditions associated with the language were also lost.  Also, with the fall of the Roman order in the 5th & 6th centuries, the Bishops in Rome became much more centralized and powerful while the power of the Bishops in the east remained regionally based.  Not surprisingly, these changes in the west led to theological and cultural misunderstandings with the east and the result was a schism in 1054.  The church was divided into Roman Catholicism in the west and Eastern Orthodoxy in the east.

Monastic Tradition

Thanks to the inspiration of the Desert Fathers, a monastic tradition began in the west.  One of the first was Benedictine Monasticism which was founded by Benedict of Nursia (480-550).  He focused on providing a stable structure for cenobites (those living in monastic communities).  He wanted to strike a balance between “ora et labora” – prayer and work.  He avoided harsh asceticism and said that contemplation was not of value in itself, but rather, common life is of value in itself.

Gregory the Great (540-604) was Pope Gregory I from 590-604.  He was both committed to the monastic life and had mystical experiences.  He wrote, “Scripture is like a river again broad and deep, shallow enough here for the lamb to go wading, but deep enough there for the elephant to swim.”

What typically happens in monasticism is that people live together and grow.  They gain and prosper which makes them lose their radical edge.  That is why monasticism in the west is constantly splitting off into monastic units.  Cistercian monasticism was one of the great reforming traditions.

Bernard of Clairvaoux (1090-1153) is one of the key figures in the spread of Cistercian reform, he was an active sponsor of the Second Crusade, and he helped found the Order of the Knights Templar.  He was also viciously opposed to the development of scholastic theology in the universities (especially Peter Abelard who introduced dialectic into scripture and wanted to make thinking more critical) .  He wrote 86 sermons on The Song of Psalms, and these writings exemplify the emerging mysticism of Western Monasticism which resembled the the interpretation of Jewish Scholars.  Monastic spirituality was primarily about reading scripture historically, allegorically and morally.

William of St. Thierry (1085-1148) sided with Bernard against Abelard.  He provides some of the best examples of an interpretation of scripture known as Lectio Devina.  This was not a scholarly exposition, it was contemplative prayer.

Richard of St. Victor (died in 1173), on the other hand, was more open to Abelard’s approach.  As is true of much of Jewish mysticism and Sufism (Islamic mysticism), Victor represents the movement of the Western tradition toward an emphasis on the ontological union with God and the constraints of the human mind in regards to this union.

Medieval Female Mystics

At the time of this writing, I have made my way through 29 of Dr. Johnson’s 36 lectures.  For some reason, this lecture made me particularly uncomfortable.  Somewhat sick to my stomach actually.   I find it extremely problematic so I am going to return to it in a separate post so I can work through my thoughts on this a bit better.

Mendicants

A Mendicant is a beggar and this tradition arose within Christianity at the same time Sufi wandering beggars appeared.  The two largest Mendican orders are the Franciscans and the Dominicans. Both contained a second order of females and a third order of lay people and were committed to the radical ideal of evangelical poverty.  Instead of withdrawing from life, members of these orders had a working life among the poor.  These orders thrived because highly energetic, frugal people tend to get rich.  So there was a constant struggle to maintain poverty.  The more institutionalized the orders became, the more they thrived.  This was especially problematic for the Franciscan order which split early on.

St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) is the founder of the Franciscans.  He had a vision of Christ crucified and received the stigmata which he bore for the rest of his life.  He wrote very little.  Much of what we understand about St. Francis comes from Bonaventure (1221-1274) who taught at the University of Paris.  He was a Bishop, Cardinal and great mystic.  Bonaventure creates a theological and mystical compression that links St. Francis’ mysticism to that of the mysticism in the East and Islamic spirituality.  It is an emphasis of the heart (Love of God).  At some point, the mind must give up.  There is a leap – a passing over.

Dominican spirituality, on the other hand, is very intellectual.  It was founded by Dominic of Calaruega (1170-1221) and is represented by Thomas Aquinas (1200-1280) and his student Albert the Great (1225-1274), and the Rhineland Mystics: Eckhart von Hocheim (Meister Eckhardt 1260-1328), Johannes Tauler (1300-1361), and Henry Suso (1300-1366).  The Rhineland Mystics were all connected with the University of Paris, they were all from the Rhineland, and they were all very intellectual.

Meister Eckhardt used negative theology like Dionysius.  He was extraordinarily bold which got him into trouble as a heretic.  From 1327-1338, he spent much of his time defending his theology in front of inquisitors that wanted to excommunicate him.   What we find in Eckhardt is a truth that the highest form of mysticism and atheism are very closely related.  God is All is very close to God is Nothing.  God is no “thing” – otherness of God is stretched to the point that God’s isness appears as much as God’s abscence.

Johannes Tauler (1300-1361) was a student of Meister Eckhardt and was Martin Luther’s favorite German theologian.  He managed to soften Meister Eckhardt’s emphasis without rejecting Eckhardt.

Henry Suso (1300-1366) claimed the highest point of the mystical life was not about the individual, it was about God.  In order to become aware of God’s presence in other people, we must allow for the passing away of self.

English Mystics of the 14th Century

The most famous of the mystics at this time was the anonymous writer of The Cloud of Unknowing.  This is a 14th century masterpiece.  It borrows from Dionysius the Aeropagite, but we know it is a 14th century work because of its prose.  This presents the Apophatic tradition of the East in Western garb.  It claims that it is not knowledge, but desire and love that penetrates into the divine

Julian of Norwich (1342-1423) is thought to be one of the outstanding mystics of the medieval period.  She was a natural metaphysician who moved easily from what “Is” to what has been brought into being.  She is known for her female language for God and for Jesus and has an outstanding way of presenting this female language which allowed her to break the paternal barriers of language.  For instance, she emphasizes the motherhood in God; the motherhood of grace; and the motherhood of work.

Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471) write The Imitation of Christ is actually from the Netherlands rather than England, but Johnson through him into this lecture.  Kempis says the meaning of life is to be found in the journey to God.  Suffering is a way to follow in the way of Jesus and involves a personal relationship with Jesus.

Johnson concludes this lecture emphasizing that these writers show us the characteristics of medieval spirituality which is concentrated on the figure/humanity of Jesus.  Jesus IS the way to God.  We don’t get to God by doing what he did, but by accepting, embracing, and living out Jesus’ suffering.

15th & 16th Spanish Mystics

Dr. Johnson claims these are an especially special group of Christian mystics that came about, in part, as part of the counter to the Protestant Reformation. It includes Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) who founded the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and three great mystics…

Francisco de Osuna (1492-1540) is this first of these.  He emphasized the prayer of quiet recollection.  He said the way in is through Christ’s divinity and we come out through his humanity.  His was an experiential mysticism rather than a cognitive mysticism and he had a huge affect on Teresa of Avila who is considered a Doctor of the Church and was part of the Order of Mount Carmel.

Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) suffered from chronic illness and had a vision of hell which inspired her to create a more vigorous Carmelite order than the order she belonged to.  Most of her life was spent founding communities within this order and teaching.  Teresa made a distinction between “busy prayer” and “quiet prayer” and said that the real proof of maturity in mystical life is the actual behavior of the person who is the mystic.  She said there is a mystical betrothal which is the experience of unity, but this doesn’t last.  What lasts is mystical marriage.

Teresa of Avila was friends with John of the Cross (1542-1591).  With Teresa, he helped found the Discalced Carmelites which was the reform of the Order of Mount Carmel (mentioned above).  He is also considered a Doctor of the Church.  His writing is Apophatic (Nothing, Nothing, Nothing) which is reminiscent of The Cloud of Unknowing.  There is a point in spiritual development when approaching God feels exactly the same as approaching nothing.  He calls this the dark night of the soul.  Union with God is not through knowledge.  Knowledge is “nada, nada, nada” (nothing, nothing, nothing).  It is through the embrace of the heart – the giving of self completely to God in love.

I took so many notes on Christian mysticism that I had to purchase a second spiral notebook to continue.   What I find interesting is that I am far more interested right now in Jewish Mysticism and Islamic mysticism than I was in Western Christian mysticism.  It’s not that Western Christian mysticism doesn’t interest me, but I am already quite very familiar with most of it.  I’ve read essays or books from almost every Western Christian mystic Dr. Johnson cites.  Can’t say the same thing for Eastern Christian Mysticism, however.   Those lectures were extremely fascinating to me because I know so little about Eastern Orthodoxy.  I went through Dr. Dreyfus Berkeley webcast class on Existentialism and Literature a few years back.  He claimed that Dostoevsky’s answer to the seemingly unsolvable predicament Ivan Karamazov presents (Grand Inquisitor, etc.) as being Russian Orthodox Christianity.  I had a feeble grasp on why that might be at the time, but have a much better understanding now, after Dr. Johnson’s lectures.  Please bare with me as I make my way through those notes…

I suppose I should start with the Desert Fathers and Mothers who were influential on both Western and Eastern Christian mysticism.  Desert spirituality came about during the 4th century.  It emphasized askesis (asceticism).  This is the disciplined programming of the self on the way of moral transformation.   For these people, the martyr was the highest expression of Christianity.  There were two sorts of martyrdom:  red martyrdom was the actual spilling of blood while white martyrdom was a life of asceticism and prayer.  When Constantine made Christianity the religion of Rome, Christianity became a path to wealth.  This is when the monks fled to the desert and became hermits (lived completely alone), anchorites (semi-hermitical existence – lived completely alone except to pray and worship with others) and cenobites (those who have pulled away from the world but live in communities). This is the beginnings of the monastic tradition.  Purification of the passions was more important than physical asceticism.  Humility and lack of judgment were extremely important.  They did not exercise a “holier than thou” form of asceticism.

After the 4th Century, Christianity in the East developed very differently than Christianity in the West.  This is because a lot was happening in the West in the 4th and 5th centuries that wasn’t happening in the East.  Rome shifted from being the seat of imperial power to becoming the centralized power of the Pope.  Latin replaced Greek so Christians in the west were increasingly forgetting their Greek and became more and more cut off from the wisdom of the East that had preceded them.  Also, Barbarian invasions threatened the order of society, including ancient learning.

Meanwhile, none of this was happening in the East.  A slogan that persists in Eastern Orthodoxy today is “hagia pardosis”: sacred tradition.  The east maintained a continuity of its past that the west did not.  Greek remained the language of scripture (it became Latin in Rome) and Greek theologians were well aware of their past.  Also, unlike the west, the Patriarchy in the East was regional, not absolute.

In Eastern Christian mysticism, the role of scripture was fundamental, especially the Psalms.  The spirituality of the desert had a very strong influence over Eastern Christian spirituality and there remained a Platonic world view.  This didn’t impose upon the thinking in the east because it had continuously existed. (Unlike in the west where it was “rediscovered” in the middle ages.)

So, what was this thinking?  Plato made a distinction between phenomenal (perceivable by the senses) and noumenal (only known by the mind).  The distinction was between matter and ideas.  This distinction applied ontologically (to being), espitemologically (to knowledge), and axiologically (to worth or value).

Ontologically, it was understood that the realm of spirit is more real.  Things that corrupt and die are less real. Epistemologically, truth is only at the level of Spirit. In other words, it is only at the level of real being.  (Things that corrupt and die are not as real as Spirit.)  Another way of stating this is that there is a difference between truth and opinion.  (Reality and perception.) Axiologically – spirit is better than how we find ourselves.

Humanity is a necessary part of experience, but it must be transcended.  This is very similar to the Jewish thinker, Philo of Alexandria, who read the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Bible) allegorically.  For instance, Philo could read the story of Moses’ escape out of Egypt at a literal level as escaping the slavery of Egypt and entering freedom as a people of God of Israel.  But he could also read it as being the slavery of the person who is locked in the passions.  Embodiment itself could be viewed as slavery.  (Again, this is very similar to what is presented in The Book of Hebrews.)

The idea of Apocatastasis remained fairly stable within Eastern Christianity.  This is the idea that eventually there will be a restoration of all spiritual creatures, including the devil, in God.  (It is this idea that is central to Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.) It was originally developed by Origin of Alexander (184-254) who is considered to be one of the great geniuses of Christianity.  He influenced almost all subsequent Christian thinkers.  He considered himself to be Orthodox and against gnosticism, but he definitely pushed the boundaries.  His thoughts were very closely related to Gnosticism.   He was eventually deemed as heretical, but not until the 6th Century, which was centuries after he actually lived.

The Cappadocian Fathers (Cappadocia was an area in Turkey) were also extremely influential.  These were Gregory of Nyssa, Basil the Great, and Gregory of Nanzienzen.  They helped develop the Trinity and thoughts on the Holy Spirit.  Gregory of Nyssa was a mystic and provides a precursor to The Cloud of Unknowing…

What does it mean that Moses entered the darkness and then saw God in it? …  Leaving behind everything that is observed, not only what sense comprehends but also what intelligence thinks it sees, it keeps on penetrating deeper until by the intelligence’s yearning for understanding it gains access to the invisible and the incomprehensible, and there it sees God.  This is the true knowledge of what is sought; this is the seeing that consists in not seeing, because that which is sought transcends all knowledge, being separated on all sides by incomprehensibility as by a kind of darkness.  Wherefore John, the sublime, who penetrated into luminous darkness, says “No one has ever seen God”, thus asserting that knowledge of the divine essence is unattainable not only by men but also by every intelligent creature.”  (Life of Moses, Gregory of Nyssa)

Another feature of Eastern Christian Spirituality is  the Hesychastic tradition.  Hesychia means “stillness” or “quiet”.   Teachers in Eastern Christianity taught people to pray in silence.  There was also a belief in theosis which was the process of becoming divine.  For the Eastern Christian mystic, mysticism is the realization of the process of divination.

An important 5th-6th century author was Pseudo-Dionysius.   (Also known as Dionysius Aeropagite.)  He was extremely important for theology in both the East and the West.  He wrote Mystical Theology;  The Divine Names; Celestial Hierarchy; and Ecclesiastical Hierarchy.  We don’t actually know who he was or where he lived or what his exact dates were.  All we know is that he criticized the anthropomorphism (attribution of human traits to a deity) that is present in all propositions concerning the divine.  He explains that the names of God are metaphors that cannot be taken literally.  If we accept “God is good” or “God is wise”, or “God is creator” literally, God becomes captive to our language.  This is a form of idolatry.  In order to avoid this, one must not make positive statements of God (ketaphasis – affirmation or assertion).  Apophasis (denial or negation) is more important.  In other words, God is X or Y AND God is not X or Y – that’s the only way to maintain the otherness of God (which was likewise important in the Merkabah mysticism).

From The Divine Names …

If God cannot be grasped by the mind or sense perception, if he is not a particular thing, how do we know him?  this is something we must inquire into.  It might be more accurate to say that we cannot know God in his nature, since this is unknowable and is beyond the reach of mind or reason.   But we know him from the arrangement of everything because everything is, in a sense, projected out from him, and this order possesses certain images and semblances of his divine paradigms.  We therefore approach that which is beyond all as far as our capacities allow us and we pass by way of the denial and the transcendence of all things and by way of the cause of all things.  God is therefore known in all things and distinct from all things.  He is known through knowledge and through the unknowing of him.  There is conception, reason, understanding, touch, perception, opinion, imagination, name and many other things.  On the other hand, he cannot be understood, words cannot contain him, and no name can lay hold of him.  He is not one of the things that are and he cannot be known in any of them.  He is all things in all things and he is nothing among things.  He is known to all from all things and he is known to no one from anything.

This shows an ontological ink with God but an epistemological gap.  God goes beyond the human capacity of knowing.  He speaks of the radiance of God as a dark cloud.  This is akin to the ascent of Moses to God in Merkabah mysticism.

According to Plotinus (205-270), everything that is of God participates in God.  Christ represents the full offer of the divine in creation.  Christ is the divination of human nature (theosis).

In the 7th Century comes Maximus the Confessor (580-662).  There was a controversy (called the Monothelite Controversy) over whether or not in Jesus there was a real human will or whether it was totally subsumed by divine will.  Maximus held that there was a real human will.  This is standard Eastern Christian stuff.  He was arrested, tried, exiled and maimed for saying this.  Maximus wrote, “In becoming incarnate, the word of God teaches us the mystical knowledge of God.” It is through the human image we reach God.  Paradoxically, the closer one gets to God the more one comes in touch with one’s own humanity and humility.  The process of divinization is ontological, not epistemological.

John Climacus (579-649) taught that discipleship is a process of ascent.  He wrote, “Stillness of body is the accurate knowledge and management of one’s feeling and perceptions… The powers of heaven join in living and worship with the man who practices stillness in his soul.”  In this sense, hesychia is a profound state of concentration on what is not there.  It is a movement of the heart, not of the mind.

Words are not important – when man has found the Lord, he no longer has use for words when he is praying, for the Spirit Himself will intercede for him with groans that cannot be uttered.

Let the remembrance of Jesus be present with your every breath.  Then indeed you will appreciate the value of stillness.

Sounds like meditation to me!!  The Jesus Prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner”) doesn’t become popular within the Hesychastic tradition until it is more fully developed by Gregory Palamas (1296-1359) in the 14th century.  Then it becomes virtually synonymous with the Hesychastic tradition.

Dr. Johnson offered an entire lesson on the Gnostics and my notes barely touch on all he covered.  But I found the following to be extremely interesting…

Not much is known about the Gnostics.  There is a wide variety and diversity of compositions attributed to them with the only single unifying element being “revelation”.  We don’t know if there was an actual Gnostic community or not.  We don’t know why these compositions were written or who was reading them or what their purpose was.  What is most important about Gnosticism is how it helped shape early Christianity through the orthodox response to it.  The Patristic authors (“Church Fathers”) of Christianity, in response to Gnosticism, created a public, historical, exoteric religious tradition…

• a closed cannon of scripture (Old & New Testaments) were the only texts allowed to be studied.
• a rule of faith/creed was established.
• a public apostolic succession of bishops as guarantor of faithful teaching was established.

Interestingly, the early Church Fathers’ main objection to Gnosticism was that it was a philosophical sect.  But this appears to be untrue based on the Gnostic literature now available to us.  Very little of the extensive collection found at the Nag Hammadi library contains philosophical writings.  It is likely that the early Church Fathers (Iranaeus, Tertullian, etc.)  were creating Gnosticism according to their own interpretation of Gnosticism, not according to what it actually was.  Yet, the early Church was shaped, in large part, as a reaction to this understanding of Gnosticism.  What’s ironic is that the Christian tradition, handed down to us by the early Church fathers, became increasingly philosophical.

In Gnosticism, the body and community is not viewed as particularly important.  It is the salvation of the individual, through revelatory knowledge, that is the primary connecting thread of the literature.  Beyond that, the literature varies significantly.

Christian mysticism, in general, is far more diverse than Jewish mysticism.  This is because the figure of Jesus complicates the understanding of God, the scriptures and even prayer.  For Jews, Jesus was at best a failed Messiah.  Things were no better for them after he came.  In fact, they were much worse.

Christianity is based primarily on what was written about Jesus.  Why was so much written on him?  His public ministry was not exactly impressive.  He was only in the public eye no more than 3 years, maybe as little as 1 year.  His teaching was non-systematic and he didn’t lay out a systematic teaching on anything.  His success was minimal.  He was betrayed, denied and abandoned by all of his followers.  His death on the cross was a stumbling block because it was the means of punishment for petty criminals, not Messiahs.

Even Paul, the Apostle agrees that the cross is a stumbling block to Jews and a matter of ridicule and foolishness for Greeks.  (1 Cor. 1:23 “but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles”).  Jesus is not the founder of Christianity in the same sense that Moses and Muhammed are founders of Judaism and Islam.  He didn’t teach a noble path like the Buddha, either.  Christianity exists because it is written that Jesus is Lord.  He is Messiah because he is Lord.  He shares God’s light and is the very embodiment of the divine.  “God was in Christ” is understood ontologically.   Jesus does not act in a powerful way.  He is regarded as a revelation of God.  This is similar to the Jewish tzaddik, but the difference is that this is not a marginal conviction.  It is a central one.

Christianity is completely exoteric in the sense that the salvation happens as the result of an historical event.  A real event happens outside of the believer and the believer accepts this event which changes the structure of the believer’s existence.   Also, Jesus becomes the model for true humanity.

Christians participate in Christ.  They are in union with God through the mediation of the Holy Spirit.  The Eucharist is also understood ontologically.

In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus is a prophet and a mystic.  He is always at prayer when mystical things happen to him.  As a mystic, he is the path toward God.

A substantial number of books in the Bible are attributed to Paul, who never physically met Jesus, but claimed to have a mystical experience of him.

From Paul, 2 Corinthians 12:1-5…

I must boast; there is nothing to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord.  I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven – whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know, God knows.  And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise – whether in the body or out of the body I do not know.  God knows – and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.  On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf, I will not boast, except of my weaknesses.  Though if I wish to boast, I shall not be a fool, for I shall be speaking the truth.

Paul is borrowing from Merkabah mysticism.  He has extraordinary mystical experiences involving the risen Lord which allows him to claim he has a very strong relationship with the crucified Jesus.  Galatians 2:20…

I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me… The world has been crucified to me and I to the world.  Henceforth let no man trouble me for I bare on my body the marks of Jesus.”

The marks he bares are known as stigmati – the wounds of Jesus.  This shows up frequently in Christian mysticism.

Paul views the community as the body of Christ.  1 Corinthians 12:12…

Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.  For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

This is the mystical body of Christ, a common symbol in Christian mysticism.

Paul also says we should “Pray without ceasing”.  1 Thessalonians 5:17.  Much of Christian mysticism is focused on how to actually do this.

It is understood that Jesus becomes increasingly “Son-like” through his obedience to God.  The moment of death, subsequently, becomes the opening to divine life.  Discipleship is based on this pattern and is understood as a movement/pilgrimage.  Externally, it is described as a journey, but this refers to internal transformation.  Disciples are on their way to a heavenly homeland with Christ as the pioneer of their faith.  Their goal is not the fiery place full of fear.  Their goal is where Jesus lives and they are destined to go there if they follow him in obedience.

The Book of Revelation describes the classical ascent, like that described in Jewish Merkabah mysticism.  (Along with Hebrews, the Book of Revelation establishes a primary mysticism of Christianity.)  Human experience on earth is intricately linked to heavenly realities.   Revelation 1:9, 12-15

I… share with you in Jesus the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance…  Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and a golden girdle round his breast; his head and his hair were as white as wool, white as snow, his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters.

This is the vision of a resurrected Jesus that is very similar to the vision Ezekiel had of the heavenly thrown chariot.  It goes on, Revelation 4:1-2…

After this I l looked and lo in heaven an open door!  And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said “Come up hither, and I will show you what must take place after this.”  At once I was in the spirit, and lo, a throne in heaven, with one seated on the throne!

This describes the heavenly palace, hekel, the sea of glass, and the heavenly throne – all symbols from Jewish Merkabah mysticism.    But what is different is the presence of the resurrected Jesus.  Revelation 5:6 -

And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a Lamb standing as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven yes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into [all] the earth.

This is the recasting of the Jewish Merkabah in light of the resurrected Jesus.

I have never lived in a small town.  My parents moved from a suburb of Chicago to Houston, Texas when I was four years old.  Then we moved to a suburb of Dallas when I was almost 17 years old.  I went to college in Waco (Baylor) and College Station (Texas A&M) and moved to Austin right after graduating college.  Moved back to a suburb of Dallas in my 20s, to a suburb in Southern California in my 30s, and back to a suburb of Austin in my 40s.

My roommate at Texas A&M was from a very small town.  I ended up dating a guy from her small town for 3 1/2 years (almost my entire college career) so ended up quite familiar with the characters from that little town.  They were like the characters in Utopia.  Many of the ranch owners, ranch hands, restaurant owners, grocery store owners.  They were hard working, tough, intelligent, kind hearted, opinionated, and mostly conservative.  I was in love with that little town.  The newspaper had articles explaining how a local boy broke his arm or that a local restaurant was getting a new state of the art oven.  Everybody knew everybody and who they were related to and how (with the exception of the oil field workers who came through seasonally).  Many of them were extremely gossipy and even sometimes seemed to be outright hateful.  But it was clear that in the end, the town rallied behind its citizens.

I liked it so much that when I decided to teach school, I chose a teeny tiny little town that required a long commute.  It was a little bigger than Utopia because it had a football team and it had just gotten its first McDonalds.  That was a HUGE event.  The marching band was present at the grand opening and the kids were elated.  That was over 25 years ago.  It’s not a small town anymore.  It’s an exurb.  I’m not sure what’s become of my friend’s hometown from college.  I haven’t been back since my boyfriend and I broke up many moons ago.

I genuinely enjoyed reading Karen Valby’s book on Utopia.  It follows the lives of four people: a teenage boy who can’t stand country music and dreams of getting out of Utopia, a teenage girl who is the only African American girl in the school, the mother of multiple sons who have joined the army, and an elderly gentlemen who used to own the local grocery store.  He still shows ups to the store every single morning for a male coffee drinking ritual that has been going on for decades.

It’s kind of sad to think that the remaining few towns like Utopia are becoming a thing of the past as corporate America takes over.   I hate to see them go!  Of course, I live in suburbia.  I’m part of the problem.

First of all, Judaism is not the same as what we read about in the Ancient Hebrew texts.  Judaism formed between 350 BCE and 200 CE.  This was in direct response to Rome bringing Palestine into the Roman Empire.  Most Jews, however, lived in the Diaspora, not Palestine, and they were far better off than those in Palestine because they could learn Homer then go to Synagogue and learn Torah.  They weren’t as confined as Palestinian Jews who would have been chastised for learning Homer by Pious Jews and chastised for learning Torah by the Roman authorities.

Second of all, in Jewish mysticism, the mystic is one who can read the Torah and unfold and reveal to others the deeper meanings of the texts that are not obvious to the literal mind.

Merkabah Mystics of Ancient Palestine

The Essenes were possibly the oldest Jewish mystics.  They created a community far from the rest of the world and contemporized Ezekiel.

Philo of Alexandria represents the earliest mysticism in the Diaspora (15 BCE-50 CE).  He read the Septuagint (Greek translation of OT) allegorically (in the style of Greek philosophers), so had a Platonic understanding of the world -phenomenal (Earth) vs. noumanal (Heaven).  He read the ascent of Moses as a transition from the phenomenal to the noumanal.  What we see in Philo becomes the future of Jewish mysticism – seeking in the texts deeper meanings which can reveal the realities of God.

A problem arose, especially after the destruction of the Temple in 70 ACE.  What was written by Moses was written for agricultural realities, not urban realities.  Plus, the temple has been destroyed so there is no way to carry out the sacrifices.  How do you take the words of Moses and apply them to these new realities the Jews found themselves in?

Scribes began making interpretations through Midrash (which means “to search out or seek”).  Halakic Midrash was expertise applied to law.  (Halak means “walk”.)  Haggadic Midrash was applied to stories and songs. (Haggad means “recite”.)   This process of interpretation is what is known as “The Oral Torah”.  Seeking to understand the Torah becomes the equivalent of carrying out the sacrifice/observance.

Obeying God’s law was a community responsibility.  There was a strong conviction that the Shekinah (divine presence) was among humans, particularly among those studying the Torah.  It was said that when 2 or 3 are gathered together to study Torah, the Shekinah is among them.  (Sound familiar?)  And mystics were considered to be the most learned and observant – the only people worthy to speculate on certain aspects of the Bible, like the throne chariot and heavens (Merkabah – see previous post).

Merkabah mysticism is outwardly about an ascent, but it is really about a descent into interiority.  The deeper you go, the more dangerous it gets.  There are seven heavens.  The mystics ask (Torah study), why not just one?  Because it is an arduous task to reach the transcendent.  The transcendent is protected.  You can’t reach it just by desiring it.

Merkabah mysticism is a mysticism of the mind, not the heart.

Hasidism of Medieval Germany

The Hasidism of Medieval Germany (Hasidic Ashkenazi) is a mysticism of the heart over the mind.  It maintained elements of Merkabah Mysticism, but interestingly was primarily based on the mistranslation of a rationalist philosophical text – The Book of Philosophic Doctrines and Religious Beliefs by Saadia Gaon (892-942).  The book was written in Aramaic but mistranslated into Hebrew where it appeared as a mystical text rather than the rationalist text it was originally meant to be.  It was read by Eleazer ben Juhudah (one of the founders of Hasidism) as a mystical text and had great influence on his ideas.

Hasidism picks up a lot of elements from Christianity.  For instance, for the first time in Judaism through Hasidism, there is a huge emphasis on penitence and repentance.  (Jews had always emphasized “turning away from sin”, but never feeling bad for it until now.)  With Hasidic Askanazi, mysticism becomes a practice for ordinary Jews.  All you had to do was be a pious member of the sect.  You didn’t have to be a scholar.  It introduces a popular, practical mysticism, which includes the ability to do extraordinary things.  God is not understood as transcendent, but rather, imminent.  And there is more emphasis on “love” than on “knowledge”.  (There is a very healthy attitude toward sexuality in Hasidism.)

This Hasidism presents the first intonation of monotheism becoming pantheism.  (Monotheism as pantheism preoccupies every form of mysticism in the three traditions.)  “Everything is in Thee and Thou art in everything; Thou fillest everything and dost encompass it; when everything was created, Thou was in everything; before everything was created; Thou wast everything.”.  Song of Unity

Early Kabbalists of Gerona

Kabbalah was first introduced by Moses Maimonides in the 12th & 13th century.  The Zohar is considered to be the authoritative text.  Tradition holds that it is much older because it is written in an ancient style, but it is a 13th century text.  Some claim that Kabbalism is closely linked to Christianity, but it arose directly from within Jewish tradition.  The Zohar had been preceded by a century of fantastic mystical developments – Merkabah, which has already been discussed.  And The Book of Creation which discussed the idea of emanations from God (Sefirot) that are likes rays of light – God extending God’s self into the world.

The Book of Brilliance is actually the first Kabbalah text and was written by an anonymous author in the 12th century.  Obviously, this also preceded The Zohar.  It introduces a female component of the divinity for the first time – the Shekinah – which creates a sort of dualism.  Evil is connected to the material world, which creates a further dualism.  And, there are 10 Sefirot.  The Sefirot are understood in contrast to the Eyn Sof – God in God’s self.  God cannot be known in God’s self, but God can be known in God’s emanations (the Sefirot.)

Adepts of the Zohar

Kabbalah comes to maturity with The Zohar, (The Book of Splendor).  This is the canonical text of Jewish mysticism.  It introduces innovation as though it were ancient – as though it were written by the first generation of rabbinic teachers (specifically Simeon ben Yohai 2nd Century CE).  Some Kabbalists believe it came from this time period, but it was not introduced with Judaism.  It came much later.  The author of The Zohar was a Spanish Jew named Moses de Leon (1250-1305).  He studied Maimonides and was interested in classical sources and The Book of Brilliance.  In Aramaic, the text is over 2400 pages long and very little of it has been translated into English.  So moderns who claim to be Kabbalists actually know very little about it.  You have to be able to read Aramaic in order for the text to be valuable, spiritually.

The Zohar combines all mystical elements of Judaism up until this time.  Kabbalists understand a mystic to be someone who finds mysticism wherever they happen to look.  It isn’t the subject matter that makes something mystical, it is the mystic’s eyes that make it mystical.  Much of The Zohar is ordinary and down to earth, but is extremely powerful mystically.

The Zohar is scholarly, not popular.  It appears to be exoteric but requires initiation and intense study.  It works from the exoteric to the esoteric.  It is a theosophy.  God is both completely other and can only be approached through negation.  But God in the world is knowable and approachable through the Sefirot.  God is in the Torah.  God is in the world.  God is in humans through the divine emanations.

At the head of the Sefirot, there is a triad.  Keter (“the crown”), Binah (“womb, palace, understanding”), and Hokhmah (“wisdom”). The Sefirot are not static, but dynamic.  Each Sefirot uses a Biblical term so that when you read the Bible, you are constantly encountering God’s revelation.

Marriage is highly valued in this mysticism.

Lurianic Spirituality

Then comes Issac Luria and Safed Spirituality – which is the 17th century version of Kabbalah and becomes more of a practical, popular mysticism (like Hasidism) than a prophetic mysticism.  This, to me, is where it gets really interesting because it directly addresses my my concern with those who want to popularize mysticism, today.

The Jews were exiled by Catholicism in the 17th century which caused Kabbalism to spread.  Those who ended up in Egypt and Palestine found Muslim rule to be much more tolerant and welcoming of Jews than were Christians and so the Jews flourished.  Safed in upper Galilee became the new center for Jewish mysticism and had a prestigious group of scholars.  Gilgul, transmigration of souls, was already an idea well established in Judaism, but it began to take on a new understanding.  People started to think in terms of a soul leaving one body and entering another.  (This mimics history – people lose one self during exile and gain another self in restoration.)  Messianism begins to arise again as a hope for the restoration of the people and it is this Messianism that creates a new Kabbalah.

Isaac Luria is the most influential of the Safed teachers.  He fits the stereotypic mystic: visionary, distracted, wandering around, seeing souls everywhere and thinks he is in contact with Elijah.  He had a very strong sense of the transmigration of souls.  Out of Lurianic Spirituality comes these themes:

• transmigration of the souls
• emphasis on visionary
• emphasis on the individual mystic as a public figure who manifests the presence of God miraculously through mysticism.

These themes made their way like wildfire throughout Northern Europe.  It is a practical mysticism which often involves the manipulation of reality through the manipulation of symbols.  Lurianic spirituality becomes far more mythic than what is found in The Zohar.

Sabbatianism – Messianic Mysticism

As was mentioned earlier, Lurianic spirituality is a popularization of mysticism with the focus being on the mystic.  It is not prophetic, scholarly mysticism.  This popularization of mysticism allowed for a dangerous move to Messianism.

There have been lots of Messianic figures over the years, but Sabbatai Zevi (1626-1676) presented something totally different.  He created a crisis in the heart of Judaism. The Ghetto had been established in 1516 in Italy which required that Jews all live in a single quarter, wear identifying clothing and were allowed on the streets at certain hours.  Judaism became more of a prison than the marginalism it had been previously.  Meanwhile, the Christian expectaion of the end of the world was at an all time high.  In England, it was thought that 1656 would be the year the Messiah wold return.  Many Kabbalists were identifying 1648 as the year the Jewish Messiah would return.

In 1648, Sabbatai Zevi proclaims himself the Messiah and he basically plays out the script of Jesus’ life.  He claims he is the Messiah by pronouncing the divine name – the tetragrammaton.  So, like Jesus, he breaks Jewish law in order to establish himself as Messiah (Jesus openly broke Sabbath laws, hung out with “low lifes”, kept company with “loose women”, etc.).  This is called the antinomian Messiah – it is a reaction to socially established morality.

Sabbatai Zevi meets Nathan of Gaza (1644-1690) who is said to be Sabbatai Zevi’s John the Baptist and Paul the Apostle combined.  With Nathan of Gaza, Sabbatai Zevi gains immense fame.  In 1666, Sabbatai Zevi claims he embodies Elijah and would conquer the world without bloodshed and that he would lead the 10 lost tribes back to Israel.  And he claims he will do so riding on a lion with a seven headed dragon in his jaws.   He gets kicked out of Jerusalem for these claims, but a large part of the Jewish population believes he is the Messiah.  People were willing to leave their homes and totally change their lives to follow him.

Sabbatai Zevi begins to issue decrees about the non-observance of rules.  Fasting days are turned into days of celebration.  Again, he is likely following the script provided by Jesus.  Jesus declared that people cannot fast when the bridegroom is with them.  They can only fast when the bridegroom is absent.  When the bridegroom is present, they should feast.  (Mark 2:19-20)

What Sabbatai Zevi establishes is the idea that the mystic/Messianic figure can overturn Torah.  He was arrested by a Muslim ruler in Instanbul and stories abound about the miracles he performs there.  Prayers for Sabbatai Zevi are offered in almost every synagogue.  A more serious arrest is made and he has to go before Sultan Mehmed IV.  So like Jesus facing Pontius Pilate, Sabbatai Zevi is facing an imperial power.  This is his chance to die as a martyr.  But what does he do?  He takes off his Jewish clothing, puts on a turban, and declares himself Muslim.  As a reward, he is made a minor official and takes on more wives.  He declares that God has made him an Ishmaelite.

Despite this, Sabbatianism continues amongst the Jews.  People begin to reinterpret Apostasy in terms of Lurianic Kabbalism – as a form of self-exile.  By entering into the realm of evil and the abyss, his restoration will occur in the future.  Sabbatians expect the return of Sabbatai Zevi in the future.  This movement was rejected by the majority of Jews, but it had 100s of 1000s of believers who practiced the ritual of the breaking of the commandments.

The Ba’al Shem Tov and the New Hasidism

A new Hasidism arose in Eastern Europe in the 18th century.  This was, in part, a response to the enlightenment which threatened Jewish observance.  Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), a Jewish thinker, was one of the first influential critics of the Bible.  He regarded the Bible as “not true” but said it was still meaningful.

Spinoza’s panentheism mirrored Kabbalism – he offered a secularized version of Kabbalah.  He made a distinction between thought and extension which virtually mirrored the Eyn Sof and Sefirot.

The New Hasidism began in the Ukraine where Jews were scattered in rural villages.  There were no centers of great learning here, so Hasidism arises out of popular mysticism.  The founder was Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer (1698-1760).  He was a healer and had been known as a pious, poor man.  Even the elite would come to hear him teach.  He taught by means of stories and said that all things are filled with God and reveal God.  (Panentheism)

This movement spread quickly.  Soon Talmudic scholars had joined the movement which gave it even greater credibility.

Eliezer is known as a Tzaddik.  A Tzaddik is at the center of a community’s life because of his personality and life of prayer.  He is not at the center of the community because of his knowledge of Torah.  Because personality is central, the role of Tzaddik is handed down from father to son.  Sometimes Tzaddik are messianic figures, but not always.  Because of how Tzaddik is handed down, different lines of Hasidism have developed.  The largest group of Hasidic followers is Chabad Lubavitch.

Today, Hasidic Jews look like the most orthodox of all Jewish observers.

Mysticism in Contemporary Judaism

There has not been much development in mysticism in modern times because of the challenges to Judaism in the 19th and 20th century.

• The Jewish political emancipation was a mixed blessing.  Their assimilation into the wider culture has caused many Jews to leave their religion (intermarriage, etc.)
• There was a continued and increased anti-semitism.  One of the great problems of modernity is that everyone is accepted as long as they are the same.  If you insist on being different, you are despised.
• Haskalah – The Enlightenment threatened the sacred text of the Torah even more than did Christianity.
• Jews responded to continuing persecution by embracing Zionism.
• The Shoah (Holocaust) took place in 1932-1945

Jews had various ways of responding the the demystification that took place during the Enlightenment.  Reform Jews abandoned the Talmudic tradition altogether.  Prophets, rather than Law, became the focus and the emphasis was placed on a call to social justice.  Orthodox Jews insisted upon maintaining the tradition, but did so in a reactionary way.  Conservative Jews sought a middle ground between Reform Jews and Orthodox Jews.  They continue to observe the Talmud as the basis of their practice, but they are also free to accept elements of the current culture.

Zionism was the hope for a Jewish homeland.  This began with Moses Hess (1812-1875) and became an organization under Theodore Herzl (1860-1904) with the World Zionist Organization.

Emil Fackenheim said that the Bible should be read as a history of the people rather than as mysticism, and Elie Wiesel said that the Shoah (holocaust) demanded silent witness and a very cautious recovery of meaning.

One form of mysticism is represented by the Chabad Lubavitch sect of Hasidism which is still going strong.  It emphasizes ecstatic experience and the role of the mind.  Rebbe Menachem Mendel Shneerson (1902-1994) served as the head of the community for 44 years.  He was a messianic figure.

Another form of mysticism comes from Rabbi Abraham Issac Kook (1865-1935).  He was the Chief Rabbi of Palestine from 1921-1935 and provided a restatement of Lurianic Kabbalism.

Kabbalism has taken on a totally new (and in comparison to Zohar adepts, quite shallow) understanding through the pop-spirituality realm (see Kabbalah.com).

There remain thinkers like Martin Buber and Abraham Heschel that are both deeply marked by the mystical tradition.

Johnson says it is unclear whether Jewish mysticism will be able to gather itself back together.  But what is clear is that “if mysticism is to be authentically, genuinely Jewish, it must involve deep study and devotion to the Torah and the God therein.”

I appreciate Hedges arguments.  I’m just not quite sure what to make of his conclusion that we are on the fast track to totalitarian rule.

Hedges claims that a growing majority of us are living in a fantasy world thanks to the increasing oligarchical rule of corporate America.  For instance, we are obsessed with a celebrity culture.  The fame of celebrities disguises those who posses true power: corporations and the oligarchic elite.  Hedges says it is as though we are controlled, manipulated and distracted by the celluloid figures on Plato’s cave, and it is a fantasy that is specifically designed to keep us from fighting back.  Hedges calls reality shows like Big Brother “a celebration of a surveillance state”.  People are increasingly willing to be placed on round-the-clock video monitoring and this is problematic.  The use of hidden cameras in these shows reinforces the notion that not only is it normal, it is enviable, to be constantly watched.  You, too, can have celebrity fame simply by being willing to have cameras on you 24/7.   Constant surveillance used to be something we feared.  By manipulating our fascination with celebrity, the elite have made it seem like something we want.

Meanwhile, we are experiencing an epidemic of illiteracy in North America.  Nearly 1/3 of us are illiterate or barely literate and this number grows by 2 million people a year.  42% of college graduates don’t read another book for the rest of their lives!   (Statistics are similar in both Canada and the United States.)  Instead, we are bombarded with spectacle.  Hedges finds this extremely disturbing because he says it hasn’t been since the fascist dictatorships or maybe the authoritarian control of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages that content has been so ruthlessly and skillfully controlled.  We are allowing propaganda to be a substitute for ideas and ideology.

Hedges says that our faith in illusions has become a secular version of being born again…

These illusions assure us that happiness and success is our birthright.  They tell us that our catastrophic collapse is not permanent.  They promise that pain and suffering can always be overcome by tapping into our hidden, inner strengths.  They encourage us to bow down before the cult of self.  To confront these illusions, to puncture their mendacity by exposing the callousness and cruelty of the corporate state, signals a loss of faith.  It is to become an apostate.  The culture of illusion, one of happy thoughts, manipulated emotions, and trust in the beneficence of power, means we sing along with the chorus or are instantly disappeared from view like the losers on a reality show.

As an example of the cruelty of the corporate state, Hedges turns to the pornography industry.  There are 13,000 porn films made every year in the United States, most of these in the San Fernando Valley.  In 2006, porn revenues exceeded $97 billion which is more than the revenues of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix and EarthLink combined.  Porn is very lucrative to large corporations like General Motors and AT&T that receive 80% of all porn dollars spent by consumers (through DIRECTV, Adult Pay Per View, etc.)

Porn is becoming increasingly mainstream, and it is also becoming far more cruel than it has ever been.  Women endure horrible acts of degradation and extreme violence.   Porn has always been about male power, but today it is about the expression of male power through the physical abuse and torture of women. Hedges quotes Robert Jensen who wrote, Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity..

What does it say about our culture that cruelty is so easy to market?  What is the difference between glorifying violence in war and glorifying the violence of sexual domination?  I think that the reason porn is so difficult for many people to discuss is not that it is about sex – our culture is saturated in sex.  The reason it is difficult is that porn exposes something very uncomfortable about us.  We accept a culture flooded with images of women who are sexual commodities.  Increasingly, women in pornography are not people having sex but bodies upon which sexual activities of increasing cruelty are played out.  And many men – maybe a majority of men – like it.”

Hedges says that porn reflects the endemic cruelty of our culture.  Porn is now fused with the mainstream commercial industry and has evolved to its logical conclusion.  “It first turned women into sexual commodities and then killed women as human beings.”  It’s no wonder we don’t blink when hundreds of thousands of innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan are killed.  It’s no wonder we can throw our mentally ill out onto the street, imprison millions of our youth for non-violent drug crimes, and deny health care to the poor.  According to Hedges, “The violence, cruelty, and degradation of porn are expressions of a society that has lost the capacity for empathy.”

Hedges turns from the mainstream cruelty inherent in the porn industry to America’s elite universities which have become overly specialized and reliant upon the corporate hierarchy.  Hedges says that the development of specialized vocabularies amongst so-called experts in these specialized fields are meant to thwart universal understanding.  “It keeps the uninitiated from asking unpleasant questions.  It destroys the search for the common good.  It dices disciplines, faculty, students, and finally experts into tiny specialized fragments.  This allows students and faculty to retreat into these self-imposed fiefdoms and neglect the most pressing moral, political, and cultural questions.”

Hedges claims that the bankruptcy of our economic and political senses can be traced directly to an assault against the humanities.  By neglecting the humanities, the elite have been allowed to organize education and society around predetermined answers to predetermined questions.  “Students are taught structures designed to produce these answers even as these structures have collapsed.”  Those in charge “have been trained only to find solutions that will maintain the system…They have forgotten, because they have not been taught, that human nature is a mixture of good and evil.  They do not have the capacity for critical reflection.”

Universities are becoming nothing more than glorified vocational schools for the corporations, and must adopt the values and operating techniques of the corporations they serve.  “The flight from the humanities has become a flight from conscience.  It has created an elite class of experts who seldom look beyond their tasks and disciplines to put what they do in a wider, social context.  And by absenting themselves from the moral and social questions raised by the humanities, they have opted to serve a corporate structure that has destroyed the culture around them.”   Ironically, the universities are training students for vocations that will soon no longer exist because “they have trained people to maintain a structure that cannot be maintained.”

Hedges views the Positive Psychology as a further method of corporate control.  He says, “Positive psychology is to the corporate state what eugenics was to the Nazis… It throws a smokescreen over corporate domination, abuse, and greed.  Those who preach it serve the corporate leviathan.”  This is an interesting argument and one I hadn’t fully considered previously.  I’ve liked what I’ve read of Positive Psychology, but I haven’t paid attention to how it is being used within corporations.

Hedges says that it’s use within corporations, makes it possible to claim that those who fail to exhibit positive attitudes are somehow ill when they may have a legitimate claim to their negative attitudes (lack of appropriate pay, insufficient health care, over worked, etc.) Positive psychologists often make arrogant, vague claims using a religious tone.  They have learned to manipulate social behavior and by promoting social harmony under the guise of achieving happiness, they have designed a mechanism for conformity.

According to anthropologist Laura Nader, most oppressive systems of power, including classical Western colonialism and proponents of globalization, make use of the idea of social harmony as a control mechanism.  Nader claims that the drive for harmony always lends itself to covert censorship and self-censorship.  The tyranny of harmony, when pushed to an extreme, leads to a life of fantasy that shuts out reality.  It slowly dominates and corrupts the wider culture.  (Again – think Brave New World!)

Hedges says, “The corporate teaching that we can find happiness through conformity to corporate culture is a cruel trick, for it is corporate culture that stokes and feeds the great malaise and disconnect of the culture of illusion…Here in the land of happy thoughts, there are no gross injustices, no abuses of authority, no economic and political systems to challenge, and no reason to complain.  Here, we are all happy.”

So what is to become of us? Hedges thinks our future is bleak. “Never before has our democracy been in such peril or the possibility of totalitarianism as real. Our way of life is over.” And there is little President Obama can do to stop it. It’s been in the making for decades and cannot be undone with a few trillion dollars in bailout money. Hedges points to those who saw it coming… Sheldon S. Wolin, John Ralston Saul, Andrew Bacevich, Noam Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson, David Korten, Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, Wendell Berry, and Ralph Nader.  Also, social critics who wrote books immediately following WWII – David Riesman (The Lonely Crowd), C. Wright Mills, (The Power Elite), William H. White (The Organization of Man), Seymour Mellman (The Permanent War Economy: American Capitalism in Decline), Daniel Boorstin (The Image: A guide to Pseudo-Events in America), and Reinhold Niebuhr (The Irony of American History) – have proven to be prophetic.

Hedges says that fear and instability has plunged the working class into profound and personal economic despair which, unsurprisingly, drives them into “the arms of the demagogues and charlatans of the radical Christian Right who offer belief in magic, miracles, and the fiction of a utopian Christian nation.  And unless we rapidly re-enfranchise our dispossessed workers into the economy, unless we give them hope, our democracy is doomed.”

Hedges says that the moment China, the oil-rich states, and other international investors stop buying U.S. Treasury Bonds, the dollar will become junk and we will become Weimar Germany, unprepared to deal with the backlash of a betrayed and angry populace.  Christian demagogues and simpletons like Sarah Palin and loudmouth talk-show hosts will make promises of revenge and moral renewal, while the elites retreat into the shelter of privilege and comfort.  The rest of us will be left to the mercy of a security state.  He quotes George Orwell, “A society becomes totalitarian when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud.”

Hedges says there are powerful corporate entities that do not want to lose their influence or wealth and that are waiting for a national crisis that will allow them, in the name of national security and moral renewal, to take complete control.  Hedges says the tools for doing this are already in place.  “These antidemocratic forces, which will seek to make an alliance with the radical Christian Right and other extremists, will use fear, chaos, the hatred for the ruling elites, and the specter of left-wing descent and terrorism to impose draconian controls to extinguish our democracy.  And while they do it, they will be waving the American flag, chanting patriotic slogans, promising law and order, and clutching the Christian cross.  By then, exhausted and broken, we may have lost the power to resist.” The worse reality becomes, the less we want to hear about it and the more we are willing to distract ourselves with manufactured illusions.  This is what eventually happens to a dying civilization.

But Hedges says this will not be the end of hope, because the power of love has always been greater than the power of death.  Love cannot be controlled.  It constantly rises up to remind a society of what is real and what is illusion.

The three “Western” religious traditions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (called western because they moved westward, not because they originated in the west) are monotheistic which means they share an understanding of God in relation to the world.  God is other/different than what is seen in the empirical world.  In order to approach God, one must likewise be “other”/different (holy).  This one God has created the world which is real, but relative.  It is dependent upon the creator.  God and world are constantly created in a process of becoming.

All three religions are prophetic religions and they are “religions of the book”.  The primary prophets are Moses, Jesus and Muhammed.  Prophets do not predict the future.  But they are able to see what others do not see through the use of the “third eye”.  Each tradition has scripture and a means of interpreting scripture.  In Judaism, the means of interpretation is the Oral Torah.  In Christianity, it is the Holy Spirit.  In Islam, it is the Hadith.  The first response to God is not love, it is obedience – doing the will of God.   Piety toward God is understood as morality toward the neighbor.  Prosperity that neglects the need of the poor is condemned in all three traditions.

Today, scripture is read more for information than for transformation.  Prior to the 1800s, it was read for transformation.  The Bible was used as a set of examples for its readers to follow.

The TaNak (Old Testament) is a direct source for Christians and Jews, and an indirect source for Muslims.  Moses is the first and greatest of prophets and provides the first great experience of God.  (A prophet is a mystic – somebody who has a direct vision of God).   There were those before Moses who had encounters with God, but it is through Moses that the Bible first shows a life permeated by the direct experience of God.

Moses goes up the mountain and draws close to the thick darkness where God is.  The ascent up the mountain is an ascent into darkness.  This ascent is an exoteric symbol for an esoteric experience.  It is described as an outward ascent but is actually a descent into interiority (inner experience).  The approach to God is often described by ascent or pilgrimage.  These are spatial metaphors for what is happening internally.

The most common symbols of human access to God:

• crossing the sea and desert
• ascending the mountain
• experiencing a dark cloud and fire
• a sea of glass or sapphire
• the land of rest

Isaiah had a vision of a throne inside a palace.  The place is known has hekel and recurs frequently.  Ezekiel’s vision remained at the heart of Jewish mysticism for centuries.  The heavens open, there is a storm in the North, flashing flames, and the appearance of four living creature with four faces, four wings, moving in fire-filled clouds.  Ezekiel also describes the merkabah, the heavenly movable throne chariot.  Daniel provides the first apocalyptic writing.  Like Ezekiel, he describes a heavenly throne, flames, and wheels which shows literary dependence – the symbols of previous prophets are used by later prophets.

Daniel refers to the covenant of marriage between man and woman to describe God’s relationship with His people.  Jeremiah introduced the language of the heart into the prophetic.  Ezekiel uses the language of eroticism between God & human beings, which has proven to be quite dangerous when misread by literalists.  The punishment of the bride refers to God’s people, but literalists take it to mean the punishment of actual female brides.  The Song of Solomon provides powerful erotic poetry without an explicit religious motif and it becomes one of the most important sources for erotic poetry for God.

Mystics within Judaism, Christianity and Islam work and rework these sets of symbols for centuries.