A common criticism raised against the mystics is that they represent an unsocial type, of religion, they follow personal and individual spiritual enthusiasms, and that they shun the corporate life and institutions of the church or community they are part ofchristian mysticism And as a matter of fact, the relation that does and should exist between personal religion and the corporate life of the church frequently appears in them in a peculiarly intense, a peculiarly interesting form; and in their lives, perhaps, more easily than elsewhere, we may discern the principles which do or should govern the relation of the individual to the community.definition of mysticism

Personal religion is raised higher than ever in a true mystic, who is often erroneously referred to as a religious individualist. If we accept his experience as genuine, it involves an intercourse with the spiritual world, an awareness of it. This transcends the typical experience, and looks to be independent of the general religious consciousness of the community to which he/she belongs. The mystic speaks with God as a person with a Person, and not as a member of a group. He survives by an immediate knowledge far greater than by belief; by a knowledge possessed in the hours of direct, uninterrupted intercourse with the Transcendent, which he calls ‘an union with God’.” The certitude then gained-a certitude which he cannot impart, and which is not generally diffused-governs all his reactions to the Universe. Even in his times of deepest darkness when he loses his entire sense of spiritual reality, that certainty still continues to support him.

This personality seems to stand without the need of support, while the smaller nature,having more of a religious consciousness, recieves from the corporate spirit. But even so, the term ‘mystic’ alone indicates a certain aloofness from the majority, suggesting that he holds a secret that the community together does not and cannot share and that he lives at levels to which they cannot rise.we indicate a certain aloofness from the crowd, suggest that he is in possession of a secret which the community as a whole does not and cannot share; that he lives at levels to which they cannot rise. It seems that a lot of the distrust of him comes from the feeling of independence from the group that he experiences - his apparent separation from the often clumsy and always symbolic methods of institutional religion, and the further fact that his own methods and results cannot be criticized or checked by those who have not shared them.

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