Mysticism
is an effort to establish a direct communication with the divine and
to have an immediate intuition of the transcendent; it is therefore
a personal and subjective attitude based upon an interior experience.
From
a linguistic point of view, "mysticism" (from the Greek mustês,
“initiate”) has the same root as "mystery" and
"mystification". The three notions denote something obscure,
enigmatic and inexplicable, that has historically put the mystical path
in opposition to the rational path in the East as well as the West.
From
the psychological point of view, the experience of the transcendent
appears as a negation of the exterior world and a way out of this world
via an illusory satisfaction of primordial desires. The experience of
the transcendent is thus typical of those who have a sense of reality
that is little developed and who show to the contrary an excessive interest
for their own subjectivity: in one word, the adolescent and the psychotic.
As with the mystic, the adolescent and the psychotic don’t shy
away from the use of auxiliary techniques that have the goal of leaving
the world by other means, such as drugs and sex (think only in this
regard of the Vedic soma and of tantric practices). From the physiological
point of view, the ultimate goal of mysticism is to arrive at ecstasy;
mysticism is therefore a sublimation of the libido and of the pleasure
principle, implicating both the visceral system and the Id, and procures
joy and veritable orgasms. We can therefore consider it as the phallic
stage of religion.
Ritual
is an attempt to obtain control of the natural via the supernatural,
by means of techniques that seek to reconcile the spiritual forces that
we imagine are behind the functioning of the world. It is a form of
superstition that differs from magic only in that it does not seek to
control the natural forces directly but works, on the contrary, via
spiritual intermediaries. From the psychological point of view, ritual
activity seems like a repression of the inner world by means of the
repetition of formal and stereotypical actions. It is therefore typical
of those who have a sense of reality that is too developed to the detriment
of their subjectivity: in one word, the mature man and the neurotic.
Thus, ritual and obsessive neurosis are two sides of the same coin;
to put it in Freudian terms, religious rites are the manifestation of
the collective neurosis, and individual neurosis is the ritual expression
of a personal religion.
From
the physiological point of view, ritual is expressed by a compulsive
repetition and manifests as a dysfunctional activity. It unites the
muscular system and the Ego and produces anxiety and a sense of guilt.
We can consider it as the anal phase of
religion.
Theology,
to finish, is an attempt to penetrate the divine via language, discourse
and reasoning: it is therefore an impersonal and abstract study that
seeks to understand the absolute in the way that logic and mathematics
study ideas or science natural phenomena. Precisely, based upon this
resemblance and whether we consider it a deductive or an inductive investigation,
we distinguish between a rational or a priori theology on the one hand
or a natural or an a posteriori one on the other hand. As an intellectual
and cognitive activity, the theology mobilises
the nervous and cerebral systems. It is typical of the balanced and
reflective man. We can consider it as the oral phase of religion on
the one hand and as final point of arrival of religiosity in old age,
after the mystical intemperances of adolescence and
the ritual excesses of maturity.
Our
investigation will concentrate exclusively on the epistemological aspects
of a natural or rational theology and will not touch upon the psychotic
aspects of mysticism and contemplation nor on the neurotic aspects of
ritual and action.
These aspects happily come together at certain times: witness the example
of Bernard de Clairvaux, the mystic who was not afraid of organizing
the crusade of 1147.
It
is useless to treat mysticism for the simple reason that it is irrefutable
for someone who has had a direct experience and it is indemonstrable
for those who have not. The attempts at translating the mystical experience
in linguistic formulas have always stumbled upon the inevitable insufficiencies
of language.
From an intellectual point of view, they can only evoke the judgements
such as that made by Neitzsche in Le Gai Savoir (126): "Mystical
explanations pass for profound: the truth is, they are not even superficial."
For
analogical reasons, it will also be pointless to look at rites: as with
experiences, acts are on a level that is neither linguistic nor rational,
and we can not reduce them to such without violence and misunderstanding.
As compared with mysticism, that can simulate a great illusion, ritual
can not even mask its own concrete pettiness.
Plato
had already remarked in his Laws (X, 909 d): the idea that we can win
over a divinity by offerings and prayers is to lower them to the level
of a guard dog that we can soften up with a mouthful of food and, in
this way, and puts them below the
honest man who cannot be bought under the table or via bribes. In one
word, for Plato, ritual is a vulgar form of atheism, worse even than
the idea that God does not exist or that He does but does not intervene
in human affairs.[L'Èvangile selon la science, Piergiorgio Odifreddi,
pp 27-30, co 1999, Turin]
