STUDIES IN MYSTICISM.* Tars curious work is written "for those
who are sufficiently concerned" in mysticism "to have ceased from talking nonsense." The author thus appeals, as it were, to but a remnant even among the chosen people. Procul, o precut este profani ought to be printed on his title-page, while he indicates his contempt for criticism by stating that "the most remark- able contribution to transcendentalism made in England during the early part of the nineteenth century fell dead from the press," just because "it is quite certain that no one would have understood it who was on the staff of the literary journals at that time." Now, however, that what Mr. Waite calls the " middle nights" of that dark period are over, we might expect, if not some intelligence in the Press, at least some lucidity in a writer of books. Quand celui qui parte 9ilentend riot et celui qui ecoute n'entend plus, c'est Inetaphysique, said Voltaire somewhere, and the benighted critic who meets with a volume on mysticism which serves chiefly to mystify is tempted to repeat the epigram. For, after all, even though Jacob Boehme "expounds the greater mysteries in the terminology of profound concealment," a.book offered nowadays to the p u bile is commonly supposed to be intelligible. Mr. Waite, however, thinks other- wise, and sets the highest value on cryptic literature. "All great books," be tells us, "from the Bible to Don Quixote are ' written within and without,' that is to say, they carry a meaning within them which does not always appear on the surface"; but he forgets to add that the two "great books" which he so curiously places side by side are " great " exactly because their plain meaning appeals instantly even to the simplest mind, whereas the distinction of the present volume is that it certainly cannot be "understanded of the vulgar." Its style and purpose are almost equally obscure. The student never learns what it is that he is studying. He has to be content with finding out here and there that " the root-matter is getting back whence we came" ; that "the mystic life is the soul's advance in the path of transcendental religion " ; that this path is, "as the Zohar calls it, the path of ecstasy"; or that mysticism is "an anagogic movement or symbolic progress in God by pure and fervent love," about which movement we are a few lines later said to be "illumined in absolute immobility of the mind." Amid a chaos of such phrases the unhappy reader "O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense or rare, With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way, And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies," because the second part of the book allures him with the hope
• Studios its Mysticism. By A. E—Waite. London Hodder and Stoughton. [10e. 6d. net.] that there at least he shall find " Vestiges of the Outer Ways" which lead to the sanctuary. But these vestigia Vera viai conduct us in fact only to a weary discussion of modern spiritualism. We are introduced to " Rosicrucian societies" which "held meetings at a tavern in Fleet Street"; to "Andrew Jackson Davis, an illiterate ploughboy," whose revelations "have been taken into their heart of hearts by many thoughtful and cultured persons " ; to Joanna Southcote, "one of the martyrs of transcendentalism" to whom "the seal of sanctity" cannot be denied; to Mesmer, Cagliostro, Pasqualles, Cahagnet, and a score of other charlatans or rogues. And when at last in Part III. "The Courts of the Temple" are reached, when after passing through "the Garden of Venus" the reader stands at last in the final chapter before "The Veil of the Sanctum Sanctorum," it is only to find that Mr. Waite, "speaking as a student who, under this or another obedience, holds nearlylall the existing rites, can say, with first-hand knowledge, that, clouded by many veils and under the elusive appearance of almost numberless aspects," the doctrine of "the passage of the soul from sacra- mental death into the mystical life" has been symbolically preserved in the higher grades of Masonry.
And yet, in spite of its eccentricity, this book has a certain living interest. "The Sense of the Infinite," which Mr. Waite discusses in a brief and brilliant chapter, lies at the root, not only of mysticism, but of all great thinking. The relation of man to the unseen is, in the ultimate issue, the one thing most worth studying ; but the very complexity and variety of modern civilisation tend chiefly to distract the mind from dwelling on the subject, while each advance in science necessitates a continually higher specialisation, and forces all inquirers into "the path of those particulars, those details which, wonderful as they may be, is not the path which leads to the things that are universal, while it is these only which lend value to life and can alone be added to the abiding heritage of man." Either the whirl of the busy world dazes us, or the pursuit of knowledge forces us remorselessly into an ever narrower groove, while in both cases we lose that "larger consciousness," that sense of "contact with things immeasurable," which is k" precisely the element which constitutes the greatness of Plato in philosophy ; of the Fourth Gospel as it can be appraised in a literary sense; of Dante and Spenser in poetry ; of St. Thomas in theology ;
of- Jeremy Taylor in personal religion; of Francis Bacon at his
highest just as it is no less evident in Gothic architecture; in the early Italian masters ; and in such • great tone poets' as Sebastian Bach." The soul, harassed and dis- turbed by the tumult of the world, and the infinite perplexity of what is called knowledge, has no time to look into itself. Our condition is wholly altered from those primitive times when the poet depicts the three friends of Job as sitting down with him "among the ashes" for "seven days and seven nights," while " none spake a word unto him." So, in those long meditative hours, as night by night they watched Arcturus circling round the zenith, until at last " the eyelids of the morning" opened, and day by day the cloudless meridian sky was " spread out" above them, " strong, and as a molten looking-glass," they learned to look into the realities of things, and to speak words which will last out the ages. It is, indeed, only from long silences, from great with- drawals, like that of St. Paul into Arabia, that living words of spiritual truth ever spring. A man must sometimes at least " commune with his own heart in his chamber, and be still," if he would any way find real wisdom. There is no point about which, in these bustling days, men ought to take more careful heed, and as to its importance mysticism and religion are absolutely at one, as they are also at one in continually setting before us the supreme and unquestioned pm-eminence of the spiritual life. But where they part company is, we think, in this. The aim of all religious self-inspection and self-communing is activity. The goal of mysticism seems to he exactly the reverse. The mystic seeks, as the object of his highest endeavour, to induce a certain curious mental state which he cannot closely define, but which is undoubtedly not an active state. Rather it is a state of "still rest and changeless simplicity," of "absolute immobility," of complete absorption into another Being or form of existence, of contented acqui- escence in the presence of a Beatific Vision. The mystic life, in fact, seems in its final development to be not only different from,. but even contrary to, religion, for its, purpose appears to be to secure a condition of purely personal, and therefore selfish, satisfaction. Its ideal is an individual ecstasy, a self- indulgent dream. Though the universe is God's work, and his fellow-men "are made in the image of God," the mystic is self-centred in the study of his own soul, with the result that what be finds there is often not truth but hallucination. There is, no reason wily we should not err merely because we close our eyes to the external world, but rather the reverse, inasmuch as the concepts thus attained must be wholly individual and may be wholly imaginary ; nor is it more foolish to ignore the mysteries of life than to suppose that we can solve them by ceaseless prying into the inner self. Mysticism, indeed, is condemned by its own history. Starting with the loftiest aspirations, it has everywhere, as this volume shows, got entangled with jugglery, imposture, and self- deception, while, for the most part, it has done no good in the world, and probably not a little harm. There have been saints who have become almost mystics, but there have been far more mystics who have been only prophets of "lying wonders" and "strong delusions." Even the "outer ways" of truth do not often lead through the study of spiritualism, nor do those who would go up into " the Courts of the Temple" need any initiation into the higher grades of Masonry. The closing words of this book tell us that " the mystic life leads no one from the life of the Church," and perhaps it does not necessarily do so. But the simple teaching of Christ knows nothing of " ecstasy " or "trance," but very much of that living activity of human service which is the best test of the indwelling Spirit. In vastissimum divinitatis pelagus navigare is a sounding phrase; but the true adept is he who has learned what " giving a cup of water to drink " in the name of the great Master may possibly mean.
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