Tuesday 27 June 2017

Why Mystical Studies Are Still Important Today

By Charles Kelly


Mystics can trace their roots to the most ancient of religions, many of which can have a surviving tradition, sect or denomination. A lot of methods for worship come also come from these and may be found in traditions, customs or cultural mores in a country who had them. In one sense, the virtues in these are founded on the rituals or ceremonies that they used.

This will be mostly lost nowadays, or they may be driven into the subconscious of the people, and come out only in their traits and habits. Mystical studies have this kind of concern, and is driven in part by a search of connections to religions that are far gone. The memories and records are lost, and memory is a sensitive thing that can be affected by wars and constant migrations.

Shamanism was also very widespread before, a kind of worship that was about the more physical aspects. The worship was for trees, rocks and animals, later denounced as barbaric by churches and also other religions. There was a custom for having kings that acted like real divinities, but when one white hair appeared anywhere on his body, he would be sacrificed on a fallow field.

The ceremonial killing of this king on the fields was supposed to fertilize them, to make them fruitful. The blood of this once powerful being will satisfy the divinities of nature and therefore make the land bear bountiful harvests. When the problems about agricultural and nature became less, another kind of mysticism came in.

This was a more philosophical kind of mystic view, and it came during the age of the Judaic fathers, or earlier. There would be more philosophical mystics later, founding the most enduring religions that are formally constituted today. These have created academic systems, and provided impetus for all sorts of advances in culture, the arts, science and technology.

Today, formal studies in mysticism are those that are academic in nature, the preserve of theologians and similar experts. The studies have been sanitized to fit the concept of higher consciousness that all axial religions espouse. The axial religions are those founded on a historical thousand year human turning point, like Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism and Islam.

Practices considered base are often seen as throwback behavior embedded in racial memory, and these can include herd violence. But then, there is really no proved connection to the religions accused of being their cause. These studies will be those whose aim is to look for those elements of these practices that operate or are active deep in modern cultures.

Churches consider many base practices cardinal sins, related to domestic practice or in the more social settings of public places. The studies here can make this the threads leading into the dark labyrinths of religious practice said to have died centuries ago. The axial establishments once were zealous in wiping these out, although no one is sure that they have really died out.

The relevant studies in this sense are therefore those that are clean, contemplative and intensive. There may even be vows for abstinence or penitence, but these studies can be secular too so that it can shed light into human experiences of the past. The aim here is to create a very refined high sense of the divinity that can help humanity progress.




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