Mysticism Psychoanalyzed

Mysticism: 1) The doctrine or belief that direct knowledge of God, of spiritual truth, etc., is attainable . . . in a way differing from ordinary sense perception or the use of logical reasoning. 2) Any type of theory asserting the possibility of attaining knowledge or power through faith or spiritual insight. 3) Hence, vague speculation.

Webster neatly summarizes the conventional, science-minded attitude: an approach to truth that bypasses "ordinary sense perception" adds up to nothing but "vague speculation." Yet mystics--the experimentalists of religion--may not seem so unscientific to a mid-20th century psychiatrist. This is the case in a new book, The Cloud of Unknowing (Julian Press; $4), a psychologist's rendition of one of the great mystical classics of Christianity.

Manhattan Psychologist Ira Progoff, author of The Death and Rebirth of Psychology (TIME, Dec. 24), feels that the insights of depth psychology in The Cloud of Unknowing, written by an unknown English monk around 1375, have made it "alive again with meaning and usefulness" for modern man. To enlarge the book's modern audience, Progoff has "translated" it from vivid, lilting 14th century English--which has made it a favorite treasure-trove of poets, including T. S. Eliot--into clearer, plainer language.* Progoff has also translated many of the book's spiritual precepts into psychological terms.

The Dart of Longing Love. The author of The Cloud of Unknowing was a true man of the Middle Ages; with a healthy horror of heresy he repeatedly affirms his allegiance to the teachings and observances of the Roman Catholic Church. Yet his discipline is a highly unorthodox struggle to pierce beyond teaching and observance to the incandescent reality of God himself. "Indeed," he writes, "if it will be considered courteous and proper to say so, it is of very little value or of no value at all in this work to think about the kindness or the great worth of God, nor of our Lady, nor of the saints or angels in heaven, nor even of the joys in heaven." Instead, the disciple must force his attention down and down beneath the layers of thoughts and associations.

All the outgoing diffusion of the personality must be quenched, as must all memories, pleasant and unpleasant, all attachments to the external, sensory world. Instead, the disciple must plunge into a kind of mental darkness. "And do not believe that because I call it a darkness or a cloud that it is a cloud formed out of the moisture in the air, nor that it is the kind of darkness that is in your house at night when the candle is out . . . When I speak of darkness, I am referring to a lack of knowing . . . And for this reason it is not called a cloud of the air, but rather a cloud of unknowing that is between you and your God."

Into that cloud may come "a sudden stirring with no forewarning, instantly springing toward God as a spark from a coal." Still higher than the experience of this "sharp dart of longing love" is God's "beam of ghostly light," but of this the author forbears to speak.

Attrition of Consciousness. Psychologist Progoff sees many truths of modern psychology in this mystical method. He regards its author as one of the "early experimenters in psychological development" working in a neglected field--"the faculties of the inner life."

Progoff quotes Freud as admitting that "certain practices of mystics may succeed in upsetting the normal relations between the different regions of the mind," so that the senses are "able to grasp relations in the deeper layers of the ego and the id." In his own analysis, Progoff regards the process described in The Cloud of Unknowing as a drawing back of all "attachments or projections, whether they are valid or false," which leads to "a deliberate attrition of consciousness." In turn, this results in a greatly increased activity of the unconscious. At this point the individual begins to run into trouble, growing increasingly "out of touch with the realities of society and of his fellow men." Progoff notes that the author of The Cloud seems to have had considerable harassment from extraverts; he advised his readers to pay no attention to such carping and reminded them of Martha's irritation with contemplative Mary, who, said Jesus, had "chosen the best part."

The mystic at this stage, says Progoff, may seem to an outsider to be "lost in a schizophrenic state." Like a disciple in Zen Buddhism, he is "walking across the proverbial razor's edge . . . On either side is psychosis." But after the blinding flash of enlightenment that Christian mystics call union with the divine, his contact with the world is restored and he can return to his former life, "the same person, but altogether different." Progoff agrees with the author of The Cloud that this ultimate success may regulate "his conduct ao agreeably, both in body and in soul, that it will make him most attractive to every man and woman who sees him." It may also make him "well able to render judgment, if the need should arise, for people of all natures and dispositions."

While these good results may be paramount to the psychologist looking on the discipline prescribed in The Cloud as a kind of do-it-yourself therapy, they are mere byproducts to the true mystic, for whom union with God is the only aim. "If you desire to have this aim concentrated and expressed in one word," said the author of The Cloud, "take but one short word of a single syllable . . . The word GOD or the word LOVE . . . This word shall be your shield and your spear, whether you ride in peace or in war. With this word you shall beat uponthe cloud and the darkness, which are above you."

* "Ghostly friend in God," begins the original version, "thou shalt well understand that I find, in my boisterous beholding, four degrees and forms of Christian men's living." Progoff's rendering: "Spiritual friend in God, understand well that I find by general observation four degrees and forms of Christian living."

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