write an essay on mysticism
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The words ‘mystic’ and ‘mysticism’ are believed to have originated from the Greek, and to be closely related to the Greek mystes: “one who has been initiated into profoundly esoteric knowledge of divine things”. (Summers 14) The Greek word for ‘mystic’ was used in close connexion with the Greek mysteries. Dionysius the Areopagite, a Greek writer from the sixth century, who wrote Mystical Theology, is responsible for the use of the word “mysticism” in a Christian context. In this treatise composed of five chapters, Dionysius described his teachings on the mystical ascent toward union with God as an attainment of “that divine Darkness which is radiant Light”. (Summers 24-25) Dionysius’ mystical theology influenced both the Greek East and the Latin West in their development of Christian mysticism. (Chidester 236) In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Greek theologians believed that, by “entering the radiance of divine light”, human beings could experience God’s presence directly, and ultimately reach a state of theosis. Symeon the New Theologian especially believed that God could be experienced directly through divine light, and he himself had had this experience. By the thirteenth century, the practice of hesychasm, which “transformed the practitioners…into light” just as Jesus had been in the Transfiguration on the Mount, had developed in the Greek Orthodox monasteries. (Chidester 243-244, 246) In the Orthodox Church, the hesychasts (those who practiced hesychasm) practiced “the power of prayer, including the physical disipline of the body” in anticipation of “the ultimate redemption in which the ‘body is deified along with the soul’”. (Chidester 247) In the West, the theology of Christian mysticism, under the influence of Dionysius the Areopagite’s theology, came to be regarded as having three main stages in the human soul’s ascent to divine union with God: ‘purification’, ‘illumination’, and ‘perfection’. (Chidester 241) The Eastern Church was not so systematic in distinguishing these stages. Drawing upon the biblical Song of Songs, Bernard of Clairvaux emphasized “divine love” as the driving force in the spiritual ascent to union with God. Bernard of Clairvaux thought that “by loving, desiring, and adhering to God in this passionate embrace…the soul achieved the vision of God.” (Chidester 240) In western medieval Christian mysticism, this ecstatic mystical union developed into “a spirituality of both body and soul” in which women obtained “a new intimacy with God”.