Sunday: Mysticism
Our world has been flooded by the strong waves of mysticism. The word “mysticism” is a complex term that encapsulates a huge variety of ideas. From a religious perspective, the word implies the union of the individual with the Divine or Absolute in some kind of spiritual experience or trance. This characterizes the worship experience of even certain churches. The phenomena can vary in form and intensity, but the tendency always is to replace the authority of the Written Word of God by one’s own subjective experiences. In any case, the Bible loses much of its doctrinal function, and the Christian remains vulnerable to his or her own experiences. This kind of subjective religion does not provide a safeguard against any deception, especially end-time ones.
Read Matthew 7:21-27. In light of Jesus’ own words, what does it mean to build our spiritual house “on the rock” and to build it “on the sand”?
Image © Justinen Creative from GoodSalt.com
There is a strong tendency in the postmodern Christian world to downplay the relevance of biblical doctrines, regarding them as tedious echoes of an obsolete form of religion. In this process, the teachings of Christ are artificially replaced by the person of Christ — arguing, for instance, that some biblical story or another cannot be true because Jesus, as they perceive Him, would never have allowed that to happen as it is written. Personal feelings and taste end up being the criteria for interpreting the Scriptures or even for rejecting outright what the Bible clearly teaches, often about obedience to God, which as Jesus said is so essential to building one’s house on the rock.
Those who think that it matters not what they believe in doctrine, so long as they believe in Jesus Christ, are on dangerous ground. The Roman Inquisitors who condemned to death untold numbers of Protestants believed in Jesus Christ. Those who had “cast out demons” in Christ’s name (Matthew 7:22, NKJV). had believed in Him. “The position that it is of no consequence what men believe is one of Satan’s most successful deceptions. He knows that the truth, received in the love of it, sanctifies the soul of the receiver; therefore he is constantly seeking to substitute false theories, fables, another gospel.” — Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 520.
| How can we fight the very human tendency to let our emotions and desires cause us to do things contrary to the Word of God? |
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The problem with mysticism is that it has given a bad name to so many good things like meditation. The TV personality who claimed she was a spiritual person because she did meditation, pictures a person sitting on their posterior with their legs folded staring into space with their brain in neutral.
My version of meditation is completely different. I go birdwatching and while waiting for birds to appear my brain is going over ideas (eg what to write for Sabbath School Net) That is meditation. Sitting and reciting mantras until your brain gets bored and goes to sleep is not a spiritual experience.
If you want to get close to God, you need to exercise your brain, not put it into a state of semi-consciousness and then claim that what ever you experienced was somehow spiritual.
I joined NOOM in my quest to lose some weight. One of the things that NOOM stresses that users do is being mindful. To evaluate whether I really need to eat or just want to eat because the food is there. All that to say, that is how I approach reacting or responding to how I "feel" or my "desire". I look to God's word to see if what I feel or desire is in keeping with his word. I will discuss it with a couple of trusted friends while praying about it. I try to be less impulsive in my responses and actions.
The author covered a lot of ground with the topic for today. I believe mysticism is alive and well, even in these days. From the days of the Holy Flesh movement during Ellen White's time to today in which being able to speak in tongues, sing, dance and pray in the Spirit, and being slain in the Spirit is a 'given' during worship services. The emphasis is on a union of the Holy Spirit and the believer. With our distinctive doctrines in tact, some are looking over at the perceived greener grass in our neighbor's yard.
I believe there are more, but another manifestation of mysticism, as defined as a personal communication between an individual and God is the acceptance of the significance of one's dreams even if they disagree with the Bible in their interpretation.
It is an easy trip from a personal relationship with God, based on His Word to the seductive practices of mysticism.
When I was about fourteen, my mother and I went to a church near our house; we both were members of a Baptist church. My mother decided she wanted us to visit this church, because she heard so much about the religion and the church service, that she wanted to see for herself. We got there at the beginning of the service, it was quiet and nice like any other church. But when the singers and the Pastor started, the entire environment changed. There were old people shouting loudly, like a wailing sound. There were young people and old people, male and female, that were joyfully dancing; some were even dancing up and down the middle of the aisle, and down in the front of the church. Some were supposedly speaking in tongues. Almost everyone were up, either in the pews, in the aisle, having a joyful time in the Lord.
My mother and I just looked at each other in confusion, confused about this whole church experience. Sometimes, in our Baptist church, there would be one or two people that would shout out loud and faint, or dance, what we called being “caught up in the spirit”. But we never seen where almost everyone in the church was “caught up in the spirit”.
As we were driving home from the church service, my mother asked me, “What did you think? Did you learn anything?” I told her that I thought the experience was very strange; and no I didn’t learn anything because of all the distractions. We both could not remember anything the Pastor had said because of all the other distractions. I also told my mother that a few of the young people, the teens, were doing popular party dancing, that I was acquainted with.
I’m not trying to judge any religion, because living in America, we have the right to worship who and how we choose. But I will say this, if your church has so many distractions that visitors can’t receive the “Word of God”, then there’s a problem. The primary focus of church is supposed to be on teaching people the written word of God, and extending the invitation for them to repent and accept Jesus Christ as their Savior.
Many of our churches, pre-pandemic that is, seem to had been putting more emphasis on entertaining their members, instead of just teaching them God’s word. We use to call these churches, “celebration churches”. So, we sda as not guiltless when it comes to promoting the “church feeling experience”, which this was promoted by the top down, from the pastors, elders, deacons, ushers, to give the members such a good experience that they can’t wait to come back to church next sabbath, to relive that same good church feeling that they had during this service.
I used to attend a local sda church, where the people, as they were coming into church, would ask the ushers or greeters that were at the front door, “what choir will be singing today? Who will be preaching today?” If they didn’t like the choir or Pastor, they would leave our church before even coming inside, and go to one of the other sda churches, because they were in search of the “church feeling experience”, not searching for, or wanted to know more about, the word of God. This is why Jesus will tell those people, “l never knew you”, because you never desire to know Jesus, you just wanted that Jesus feeling.
But Jesus is still love-suffering with us, and that why He gave them, and us, the Parable of the Two Builders. He wants to give us all salvation. Let our desires be to love Jesus, learn more about His word, and obey His written word.
God’s blessings to you all. Have a great week!!
Toni, thank you for such a deep and insightful post. It’s so easy to point a pharisaical self-satisfied lukewarm finger at the publican of other religions, and churches without recognising that we may have also bought into the enchantment of feelings and experiences and other distractions instead of worshipping in spirit and in truth. May GOD grant us to be like the publican in Luke 18:13 and plead for GOD’s mercy about our sinful condition, that we may be justified by His grace.
Could somebody bring me into full light about 'transcendental meditation' in relation to mysticism?
Transcendental meditation, a practice popularised by a yogi (Mahesh) involves mentally repeating a mantra while remaining completely silent. Transcendental meditation focuses on bringing your body into a relaxed state of alertness. You are fully awake despite your deeply relaxed body and quiet mind. Your active mind becomes still during this type of meditation, allowing you to "transcend" into a state of "pure consciousness."
As the author describes so well, mysticism "implies the union of the individual with the Divine or Absolute in some kind of spiritual experience or trance."
Posa Aswani provides the usual description for "transcendental meditation." He writes that "Your active mind becomes still during this type of meditation, allowing you to "transcend" into a state of "pure consciousness."
Translated, this means that TM teaches that you essentially join the divine in "pure consciousness." This is a Satanic deception.
I am in possession of a research paper by a group of German researchers of the "para-normal" who wanted to understand the scientific basis of such experiences. (Their research covered an array of practices, with TM just being one of them.) They discovered that. during such a state of an "inactive mind," other powers seem to have access to the mind and can influence the mind. The researchers were not Christians, but, as Bible students, we know very well who those "other powers" are. They are the spirits of demons.
Transcendental Meditation is a component of all practices that teach anyone to empty the mind or "be still" in the mind, including yoga. It is very different from Christian meditation which consciously focuses on God and His Word. In other words, in Christian meditation, the mind is filled with thoughts of God and thus open to God's responses. In TM, the mind is blank and open to *any* influence, and demons are more than happy to respond to the invitation.
That said, I believe God often protects innocent people who engage in such practices as yoga with no idea of the dangers of the accompanying "meditation." Others engage in only the physical relaxation exercises of yoga. But it's important to be aware of the danger. Relaxation can probably be better achieved by going for a walk in nature and filling our minds with thoughts of God's goodness.
Maurice had it right when he wrote succinctly, "If you want to get close to God, you need to exercise your brain, not put it into a state of semi-consciousness and then claim that what ever you experienced was somehow spiritual."
The Apostle Paul is very clear that to be "carnally minded" is death. But to be "spiritually minded" is life and peace. Going off into "nature" to view birds may not necessarily be a "spiritual experience." When a spiritual experience also contains elements of "righteousness," then this is a "spiritual experience," like feeding the hungry, visiting a sick person, etc. Also, the parable of the builder on a rock and the one on the sand is like the difference between one who only looks to themselves for spiritual support and another who looks to the Holy Spirit, Scripture, prayer, Jesus, and the Father, for their spiritual support.
I once had a very interesting experience. I watched a show, I think it was 60 Minutes, about how people are hypnotized. It had several "experts" explain how they do it. After the show was over, I was flipping channels and ran across a broadcast of a service by a very famous "preacher" who has a large audience of followers. My mother had told me about how she started to watch this show and it made her feel very uncomfortable and she felt it was from the devil. I was curious what made this preacher so attractive. As I started to watch the broadcast, they first played music with a steady beat and repetitive words by the worship team. Next the preacher came out and started praying in a very rhythmic, repetitious manner. It was in the same rhythm as the music had been. Then he started to preach his sermon, again in very calm, syncopated speech and then building and building into a very excitable but repetitious form of words. Instantly, the Holy Spirit influenced me to think about what I had just viewed in the previous program about hypnotism. It was exactly the same process, put into this "religious service". There was no doubt in my mind that this preacher had perfected the art of hypnotism to attract his following. Satan had worked the plan well, without the people even realizing they were being caught up in this form of mysticism. The preacher continued, and then began doing his "slaying the spirit" healing part of the service. These people were totally under the control of Satan by this point. He also included an offering appeal to give "seed money" so that they could receive a harvest of blessings. In other words, give money to his ministry. These people were already under the spell, so giving would easily be the next step to follow what they believed to be from the Lord. Even people such as I could easily be hypnotized by watching on TV and do the same. We must be careful with introducing things along this line into our own churches. While I enjoy praise music, and I'm not anti contemporary music, there is a balance to be made so it does not fall prey to this type of mind control. We must make our church services appealing and well conducted, but not in such a manner as to follow the world in this cadence of words and music, with Satan being placed in control instead of God.