[KALKI]

James posits that it is a commonplace of metaphysics that God’s knowledge cannot be discursive but must be intuitive; that is, it must be constructed more after the pattern of what in ourselves is called immediate feeling than after that of proposition and judgment [faculties of the intellect]. But, James asserts, our immediate feelings have no content beyond what the five senses supply. Yet, we have seen and shall see again that the mystics may emphatically deny that the senses play any part in the very highest type of knowledge which their transports yield.

In the Christian church there have always been mystics. The experiences of these mystics have been treated as important precedents and the church has codified a system of mystical theology based upon them. “Orison,” or meditation, is the groundwork for the methodical elevation of the soul towards God. And, it is through continued practice of orison the higher levels of mystical experience may be attained. It is odd however, James notes, that Protestantism, especially evangelical Protestantism, should seemingly have abandoned everything methodical in this line apart from what prayer might lead to.

The first thing to be aimed at in orison is the mind’s detachment from outer sensations for, these interfere with its concentration upon ideal things. Such manuals as “Saint Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises” recommend the discipline to expel sensation by a graduated series of efforts including imagined holy scenes. For example, an imaginary figure of Christ coming fully to occupy the mind. But, in certain cases imagery may fall away entirely and in the very highest raptures it tends to do so.

As you may recall, James, in a previous chapter, wrote not all that favorably about Saint Teresa. However, here he includes quite a few passages of her mystical experiences from her autobiography [much abridged]:

“In the orison of union, the soul is fully awake in regards to God, but wholly asleep in regards to things of the world and in respect to herself. During the short time the union lasts, she is deprived of every feeling and cannot think of a single thing. She needs to employ no artifice in order to arrest [employ] the use of her understanding. For, it remains so stricken in inactivity that she neither knows what she loves, nor in what manner she loves, nor what is that she wills. In short, she is utterly dead to the things of the world, living solely in God.”