I, Mystic

Someone asked me the other day what I believed. I said that I believe nothing, that I simply try to know. I then referred her to my many books, to which she replied (not for the first time) that ‘I haven’t got time to read all those!’ I then paused for a minute or two before telling her that I am a mystic. She did not know what a mystic was (why should she?!) so I said that mystics believed in secrecy. This did not go down very well until I explained that it wasn’t the mystic who was keeping the secrets, but God…

To be a mystic is to discover then claim your rightful position in the Universe. In everyday speech this means you have to be able to say, proudly, ‘I am what I am, and that is all that I am.’ This is simultaneously humbling and empowering, because that ALL is EVERYTHING, so long as you remain connected to the Universe.

Mystics, because we investigate secrets, believe that material explanations that focus on the physical body and the physical world simply will not do. This means that science, economics, sociology, psychology and every other form of academic and professional study, while interesting and informative can never sufficiently explain life and the human condition. We see the Hand of God in everything….

Now, we can split hairs forever on the difference between mystical, spiritual, and psychic. Broadly speaking I would say that the psychic deals more with interpreting phenomena (such as dreams, palms, akashic records etc), the spiritual try to apply ethics and define ‘good living’ in light of those meanings, and the mystic is more interested in the meaning behind the meaning…

Many people are mystics, or so they claim. But I find that many who try to understand the mysteries of life (mysteries – mystic – get it?!) will only do so up to the point that it runs up against their political or socially constructed identity. But that is a problem because mysticism means that Marx was wrong. It means that Freud was wrong, Jung was wrong, Adam Smith was wrong, Darwin was wrong, Einstein was wrong, and Stephen Hawking was wrong. Or perhaps, to be totally accurate it is not that these people were wrong, so much as not quite right. Actually, this does not include Karl Marx who was absolutely wrong about everything all the time. In fact, I am struggling to think of someone who was more wrong but who, directly and indirectly, unleashed their wrongness on so much of the world, past and present. Answers on a postcard please...

I describe it like this because if you want to be a mystic (or spiritual, or psychic or whatever new word is invented tomorrow) you have to be able to see the shadows in Plato’s Cave for what they are. The shadows, at this time in history, are the posts on social media, as well as tv news and entertainment.

Mysticism – alongside the psychic and the spiritual - is not for everybody, because you have to want to see the truth of things, and to escape the Great Deceit in all its many forms. That said, though mystics seek truth they also accept they aren’t likely to find it. The realisation, that without God humans are limited, weak and stupid is, if we can bear it, actually quite helpful because guess what, the many problems facing humanity today are not as the news reports describe. I do not mean that the news is lying, well not always. What they are doing is holding back the truth, in some cases deliberately but in others because they don’t know what it is themselves. They aren’t the deceivers so much as the willingly deceived…

The Great Deceit, or at least one part of it, is the false notion that human society can be perfected. It is the ultimate lie, but one which humans continue to find appealing. Genuine mystics of course know that nothing of the sort can ever happen because God, the Universe, and its invisible forces of which we know so little, rule everything. Sure, we may be able look closely at the actions of those invisible forces, perhaps for long enough to think we understand them. Except we don’t and we never will. The world will never be perfected by human hands, and all those who try just make it worse. Utopia, if it even exists at all, is an inside job.

This is a bitter pill to swallow but it one with tremendous healing power. Mysticism, Richard-style, is not about denying our human ability to create change, or to hand every problem over to Fate. Instead the mystic-pill brings great hope by forcing us to work on what is right in front of us, in our own community, in our own family, in our own house and IN OUR OWN HEAD. The mystic-pill provides perspective and enables the long view, helping us to avoid the curse of the Law of Unintended Consequences, where every noble and just initiative produces unfairness and injustice for someone else, somewhere down the line. Mystics know that none of this can be avoided though, because the Wheel of Life must turn. But that does not mean you have to be on it…