Actual Experiences across Faiths
For the believer, the encounter with a transcendent, sacred reality is often proof positive of the reality described in the experience. Consider the description of such an experience by the American philosopher William James (1842–1910), writing in his Varieties of Religious Experience.
All at once I experienced a feeling of being raised above myself, I felt the presence of God — I tell of the thing just as I was conscious of it — as if his goodness and his power were penetrating me altogether … I sat down on a stone, unable to stand any longer, and my eyes overflowed with tears …. Then, slowly, the ecstasy left my heart; that is, I felt that God had withdrawn the communion which he had granted, and I was able to walk on…. The impression had been so profound that in climbing slowly the slope I asked myself if it were possible that Moses on Sinai could have had a more intimate communication with God.
I think it will to add that in the ecstasy of mine God had neither form, nor color, nor odor, nor taste; moreover, that the feeling of his presence was accompanied with no determinate localization…. At bottom the expression most apt to render what I felt is this: God was present, though invisible; he fell under no one of my senses, yet my consciousness perceived him.
James regards arguments for and against the existence of god as inadequate compared to his mystical experience of the presence of god. No wonder, then, that he regards issues in philosophy such as the existence of god, of the soul, and immortality as very much “open” questions — questions that haven't been settled by science — where one can hold a position without fear of ridicule.
St. Teresa of Avila (1515–1582)
A nun of the Carmelite Order, Teresa became disillusioned with the laxity of the order and tried to reform it by founding a convent in Avila, Spain, and by involving it in a more disciplined life of prayer. She was influenced by St. John of the Cross, and authored several books on Christian spirituality. One was entitled The Interior Castle. The castle she referred to was not a material structure but an interior one: the soul. This soul has many wonderful rooms, she explains, alluding to John 14:2. The number of rooms is seven, since in the biblical tradition seven is the perfect number. The ultimate goal is to occupy the central room and experience “spiritual marriage” with the divine reality. In the poetic language of St. Teresa, this occurs “in the interior, in some place very deep within.” This place is the soul.
Teresa wrote movingly not only the indescribable mystical union with God, but she also stressed the continual struggle of attaining heightened levels of spiritual existence. In The Way of Perfection she instructed nuns and offered a memorable account of how difficult the spiritual journey is:
Do not be frightened, daughters, by the many things you need to consider in order to begin this divine journey which is the royal road to heaven. A great treasure is gained by traveling this road; no wonder we have to pay what seems to us a high price. The time will come when you will understand how trifling everything is next to so precious a reward.
Now returning to those who want to journey on this road and continue until they reach the end, which is to drink from this water of life, I say that how they are to begin is very important — in fact, all-important. They must have a very great and very resolute determination to persevere until reaching the end, come what may, whatever work is involved, whatever criticism arises, whether they die or arrive on the road, or even if they don't have courage for the trials that are met, of if the whole world collapses.
If the Way of Perfection explains the preparatory work for the unitive experience with God, her book the Interior Castle reveals vividly the experience itself. A poem in this section is entitled “Occasions When God Suspends the Soul in Rapture, Ecstasy, or Trance.”
In her poem, St. Teresa captures several characteristics of the mystical experience. She writes of the ecstasy and rapture, which, however brief, occur when “God takes the soul entirely to Himself.” She also claims that the experience is all-embracing for the soul and the soul “seems incapable of grasping anything that does not awaken the will to love.”
The unity of the soul with God is “not something the soul can speak of afterward.” The unity occurs between the soul and God.
Teresa was canonized by the church, and proclaimed a “Doctor of the Church” by Pope Paul VI in 1970. She is recalled today as a great Catholic mystic.
