Why Science is Always Mythological (Aleksei Losev)

The previous doctrine of the ideality of myth is especially sharply manifested in the understanding of mythology as a primitive science. Most of the scientists, led by Kant, Spencer, even Taylor, think about the myth precisely in this way and this fundamentally distorts the whole true nature of mythology. The scientific attitude towards myth as one of the types of abstract relations, assumes an isolated intellectual function. We must observe and remember a lot, analyze and synthesize very much, and very carefully separate the essential from the nonessential in order to finally obtain at least some elementary scientific generalization. Science in this sense is extremely troublesome and full of vanity. In the chaos and confusion of empirically tangled, flowing things one must grasp an ideal-numerical, mathematical regularity, which, although controlling this chaos, is itself not chaos, but an ideal, logical conformation and order, otherwise the first touch of empirical chaos would have been equivalent with the creation of the science of mathematical natural science. And now, despite the abstract logic of science, almost everyone is naively convinced that mythology and primitive science are one and the same thing. How to deal with these chronic prejudices? Myth is always extremely practical, more than needed, always emotional, affective, vital. And yet they think that this is the beginning of science. Nobody will argue that mythology (this or that, Indian, Egyptian, Greek) is a science in general, i.e. modern science (if you have in mind all the complexity of its calculations, tools and equipment). But if development of mythology is not a development of science, then how can a developed or undeveloped mythology be an undeveloped science? If two organisms are completely dissimilar in their developed and complete form, then how can their embryos not be fundamentally different? From the fact that we take a scientific need here in small form, it does not at all follow that it is no longer a scientific necessity. Primitive science, no matter how primitive it may be, is still somehow a science, otherwise it would not enter the general context of the history of science at all, and therefore it could not be considered a primitive science. Either primitive science is science, then in no case is it mythology; Or primitive science is mythology - then, not being a science at all, how can it be a primitive science? In primitive science, despite all its primitive nature, there is a certain amount of well-defined aspirations of consciousness that actively do not want to be mythology, which substantially and fundamentally supplement mythology and do not meet the real needs of the latter. Myth is full of emotions and real life experiences; It, for example, personifies, deify, honors or hates, gets angry. Could there be science like that? Primitive science, of course, is also emotional, naive-spontaneous and, in this sense, completely mythological. But this just shows that if mythology belonged to its essence, then science would not receive any independent historical development and its history would be a history of mythology. Hence, in primitive science, mythology is not a "substance", but as an "accident"; And this mythology characterizes only its state at the moment, and not science itself. The mythical consciousness is completely direct and naive. It is generally understandable that Scientific consciousness must have a deducible, logical character; It is not direct, it is difficult to digest, requires long training and abstract skills. Myth is always synthetically vital and consists of living personalities whose fate is illuminated emotionally and intimately sensitively; Science always turns life into a formula, giving instead of living personalities their abstract schemes and formulas; And realism, and the objectivism of science is not in the colorful picturing of life, but in the correctness of the correspondence between the abstract law and the formula with the empirical Inconsistency of phenomena, beyond any picturesqueness, picturesqueness, or emotionality. The latter properties would forever turn science into a miserable and uninteresting pendant of mythology. Therefore, it must be considered that already at the primitive stage of its development, science has nothing in common with mythology, although, because of the historical situation,  exists both as a mythologically colored science and also as scientifically Conscious or at least primitively scientifically interpreted mythology. Like the presence of a "white man" does not prove anything on the topic that "man" and "whiteness" are one and the same, and how, on the contrary, it proves precisely that "man" (as such) has nothing to do with "whiteness" "(As such), for otherwise the" white man "would be a tautology,so that between mythology and primitive science there is an" accidental ", but not" substantial "identity.

In this regard, I categorically protest against the second pseudoscientific prejudice, which forces us to assert that mythology precedes science, that science emerges from myth, that some historical epochs, especially modern ones, have absolutely no mythical consciousness and that science conquers myth.

First of all, what does it mean that mythology precedes science? If this means that the myth is easier to perceive, that it is more naive and more direct than science, then there is absolutely no arguing about it. It is also difficult to argue that mythology gives for science the original material on which it will later produce its abstractions and from which it must derive its laws. But if this statement has the sense that first there is mythology, and then science, then it requires complete rejection and criticism.

Secondly, if we take real science, that is, science, which is actually created by living people in a certain historical epoch, then such a science is decisively always not only accompanied by mythology, but also really feeds on it, drawing its initial intuitions from it.

Descartes is the founder of the new European rationalism and mechanicism, and, consequently, of positivism. Not the pitiful salon chatter of the materialists of the eighteenth century, but Descartes, of course, is the true founder of philosophical positivism. And it turns out that this positivism has its own definite mythology. Descartes begins his philosophy with universal doubt. Even with respect to God, he doubts whether he is also a deceiver. And where does he find support for his philosophy, his already undoubted foundation? He finds it in the "I", in the subject, in the thinking, in the consciousness, in the "ego", in the "cogito". Why is this so? Why are things less real? Why is less real God, about which Descartes himself says that this is the clearest and most obvious, the simplest idea? Why is not there something else? Only because this is his own unconscious religious teaching, such is his own mythology, such is the individualistic and subjectivist mythology that underlies the New European culture and philosophy. Descartes is a mythologist, despite all his rationalism, mechanicism and positivism. Moreover, these last of his features are only explainable by his mythology; They only feed on it.

Another example. Kant perfectly correctly teaches that in order to cognize spatial things, one has to approach them already in the possession of representations of space. Indeed, in a thing we find different layers of its concretization: we have its real body, volume, weight, etc., we have its form, idea, meaning. Logically, the idea, of course, is before matter, because first you have an idea, and then implement it on one or another material. Meaning precedes the phenomenon. From this absolutely primitive and absolutely correct postulate Plato and Hegel concluded that the meaning, the concept - are objective, that in the objective world order, the logically different moments of the idea and things are woven into an inseparable real connection. What now Kant concludes out of this? Kant from this deduces his doctrine of the subjectivity of all cognitive forms, space, time, categories. His arguments empowered him only to ascertain the logical precedence of forms and meanings in relation to current things. In fact, any "formality", design, every comprehension and meaning for him are necessarily subjective. Therefore, it turned out that which could not have been proved and that was its original religious teaching and mythology. Rationalist-subjectivistic and separate-individualistic mythology celebrates in Kant's philosophy, perhaps, its maximum victory. Also, the early Fichte, the original unity of all comprehension, before the division into practical and theoretical science, for some reason treats not as simply the One that Plotinus did, but as I. Here too is a mythology that is not proved by anything, is not provable, and which doesn't need to be proved. And then there is nothing to be surprised at. So it always happens that the provable and the concludable is based on the unprovable and self-evident; And mythology only then is mythology if it is not proved if it can not and doesn't need to be proved.  So, under these philosophical constructions, which in the new philosophy were called upon to realize the scientific experience, there is a very definite mythology.

No less mythological is science, not only "primitive", but also modern and every. Newton's mechanics is built on the hypothesis of a homogeneous and infinite space. The world has no boundaries, that is, it has no form. For me it means that it is formless. The world is an absolutely homogeneous space. For me it means that it is absolutely flat, inexpressive, and non morphological. With incredible boredom radiates such a world. Add to this the absolute darkness and inhuman cold of interplanetary spaces. What is this but a black hole, not even a grave, or even a bath with spiders, because both are more interesting and warmer, and still speak about something human. Clearly, this is not a conclusion of science, but a mythology, which science took as a religious teaching and dogma. Not only schoolboys, but all respectable scientists do not notice that the world of their physics and astronomy is quite boring, sometimes disgusting, sometimes just a insane haze, the same hole that you can also love and honor. Holepraying, they say, are still there in remote Siberia. And I, for my sins, can not understand in any way: how can the earth move? I read the textbooks, once I wanted to be an astronomer myself, even married an astronomer. But I still can not convince myself that the earth is moving and that there is no sky. Some kind of pendulums and deviations of something somewhere, some parallaxes ... Unconvincing. It's just somehow fluid. Here the question of the whole earth is asked and you swing some pendulums. And most importantly, all this is somehow uncomfortable, all this is some kind of non-native, evil, cruel. I was on the Earth, under my native sky, I heard from them about the universe, "It can not move" ... And then suddenly there is nothing, no land, no sky, no "it will not move." They thrown that somewhere into some kind of emptiness, and even escorted that with foul language. "Here is your homeland, to spit and smudge!" Reading the textbook of astronomy, I feel like someone is expelling me out with a stick from my own house, ready to spit in my face. For what?

So, Newton's mechanics is based on the mythology of nihilism. This corresponds to the specifically new European doctrine of the endless progress of society and culture. Confessed often in Europe in such a way that one era does not make sense in itself, but only as a preparation and fertilizer for another era, that this other epoch does not make sense in itself, but it is also manure and soil for the third era, Etc. . As a result, it turns out that no era has any independent meaning and that the meaning of this era, as well as of all possible epochs, is moved further and further, in endless times. It is clear that such nonsense should be called the mythology of social nihilism, no matter with what "scientific" arguments they surrounded it. It is also necessary to include here also the doctrine of the universal social equation, which also bears all the signs of mythological-social nihilism. The theory of infinite divisibility of matter is also completely mythological. Matter, they say, consists of atoms. But what is an atom? If it is material, it has a shape and a volume, for example, a cubic or circular shape. But the cube has a certain side and diagonal length , and the circle has a certain length of radius. And the side, and the diagonal, and the radius can be divided, for example, in half, and, therefore, the atom is divisible, and moreover, divisible to infinity. If it is indivisible, it means that it does not have a spatial form, and then I refuse to understand what is an atom of matter that is not material. So, either there are no atoms as material particles, or they are divisible to infinity. But in the latter case, the atom, in fact, does not exist either, because what is an "indivisible" atom , which was divided to infinity? It is not an atom but an infinitely thin dust which boundary size is zero and it is scattered and dispelled into the infinity of matter. So, in both cases atomism is a mistake, possible only because of the blind mythology of nihilism. To every sane person it is clear that the tree is a tree, and not some invisible and almost non-existent dust of unknown, and that the stone is a stone, and not some haze and a haze of what is unknown. Yet atomistic metaphysics was always popular in modern times until the last days. This can only be explained by the mythological creed of the new Western science and philosophy.

So: science is not born from myth, but science does not exist without myth, science is always mythological.

However, two misunderstandings must be eliminated. - First, science, we say, is always mythological. This does not mean that science and mythology are identical. I have already refuted this position. If the mythological scientists want to reduce mythology to primitive science, then in no case will I bring science to mythology. But what is that science that is truly non-mythological? It is an absolutely abstract science as a system of logical and numerical laws. It is a science-in-itself, a science on its own, pure science. As such it never exists. The science that exists really is always mythological in one way or another. A pure abstract science is not mythological. Newtonian mechanics, taken in its pure form, is non-mythological. But the actual operation with Newton's mechanics led to the idea that the idea of a homogeneous space underlying it was the only significant idea. And this is a creed and mythology. The geometry of Euclid itself is not mythological. But the belief that there really are no other spaces than the space of Euclidean geometry is mythology, for the positions of this geometry do not say anything about real space and the forms of other possible spaces, but only about one definite space; And it is not known whether it is one, whether it corresponds or does not correspond to all experience, etc. Science on its own is not mythological. But, I repeat, this is an abstract science that is not applied to anything. As soon as we started talking about real science, that is, about something that is characteristic of this or that particular historical epoch, then we are dealing with the application of pure, abstract science; And here we can act in one way or another. And here, we are governed solely by mythology. So, every real science is mythological, but science in itself has nothing to do with mythology.

Secondly, I can be objected to: how can science be mythological and how modern science can be based on mythology, when the goal and dream of any science was almost always the overthrow of mythology? To this I must answer so. When "science" destroys the "myth", it means only that one mythology is struggling with another mythology. Previously believed in werewolves. Note. Human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf. End of note. Or rather - had the experience of werewolves. "Science" came and "destroyed" this belief in werewolves. But how did it destroy it? It destroyed it with the help of a mechanistic worldview and the doctrine of a homogeneous space. Indeed, our physics and mechanics do not have such categories that could explain the werewolves. Our physics and mechanics operate with another world; And this is the world of a homogeneous space in which there are mechanisms mechanically moving. Having put such a mechanism in place of turnover, under quotation marks "science" celebrated its triumph over werewolves. But now a new, or rather very old, ancient doctrine of space is resurrecting. It turned out to be possible to think how the same body, changing its place and motion, also changes its form and how (under the condition of motion with the speed of light) the volume of such a body turns out to be zero, according to well known Lorentz's formula relating speed and volume. In other words, Newton's mechanics did not want to talk about werewolves and wanted to kill them, which is why it invented such formulas in which it does not fit. By themselves, abstractly speaking, these formulas are flawless, and in them there is no mythology. But scientists do not use only the one that is contained in these formulas. They use them so that there is absolutely no place for other forms of space and corresponding mathematical formulas. This is the mythology of European natural science, - in the confession of one favorite space; And from this it always seemed to her that it "disproved" werewolves. The principle of relativity, when speaking of inhomogeneous spaces and the construction of formulas relative to the transition from one space to another, again makes werewolves and, in general, a miracle thinkable, and only the ignorance in the subject and ignorance in science in general can refuse to accept mathematical side of this theory as Scientific. So, the mechanics and physics of the new Europe struggled with the old mythology, but only by means of its own mythology; "Science" has not refuted the myth, but simply just a new myth crushed the old mythology, and - nothing more. Pure science has nothing to do with it. It is applicable to any mythology, of course, as a more or less particular principle. If science really disproved the myths associated with werewolves, then a completely scientific theory of relativity would be impossible. And now we see how scientific passions are by no means flaring around the theory of relativity. This is an age-old dispute of two mythologies.

And it was not by chance that at the last congress of physicists in Moscow they came to the conclusion that the choice between Einstein and Newton was a matter of faith, and not of scientific knowledge in itself. One wants to spray the universe into a cold and black monster, into an immense and immeasurable nothing; Others want to assemble the universe into a finite and expressive face with morphological folds and lines, with lively and clever energies (although most often neither of them understand or are not consciousness of their intimate intuitions, which make them think so, and not otherwise).So, science as such can not destroy the myth from any side. It only realizes it and removes from it a certain rational, for example, logical or numerical, plan.

Having sketched these brief thoughts about the relation of mythology and science, we now see their entire opposite. The scientific functions of the spirit are too abstract to lie at the base of mythology. For the mythical consciousness, there is absolutely no scientific experience. It can not be persuaded of anything. On the islands of Nicobar, there is a disease from the winds, against which the natives perform the ritual of "tanangla". Each year this disease occurs, and each time this rite is performed. Despite all its apparent uselessness, nothing can persuade these natives not to commit it. If there existed at least a minimal "scientific" consciousness and a "scientific" experience, they would soon understand the futility of this rite. But it is clear that their mythology has no "scientific" meaning and in no way is "science" for them. Therefore, it is "scientifically" irrefutable.

In addition to "scientific" meaning, this mythical-magical act can have many other meanings that Levy-Bruhl did not dream of, citing this act as an example of the meaninglessness of mythology. For example, this rite may even not have any utilitarian and medical goals. Perhaps the northeastern monsoon is not considered here as an evil and harmful principle. One can imagine that the natives experience it as an act of just punishment or wise leadership on the part of the deity and that they do not at all want to escape this punishment, but want to accept it with worthy reverence; And, perhaps, this rite has such a value. And how can one know meaning of this rite if he doesn't stand on a ground of actual mythology? Researchers like Levi-Bruhl, for whom mythology is always a terribly bad thing, and science is always a terribly good thing, will never understand anything in rituals like "tanangla." From their point of view, it can only be said that this is a very bad science and helpless children's thinking, a senseless heap of idiotic manipulations. But this means that Levy-Bruhl and his fellow researchers do not understand anything exactly in mythology. Tanangla did not pretend to be scientific. It would be wild and stupid to criticize Beethoven's sonatas for their "unscientificness". By writing down a simple fact of "tanangla" and giving its "scientific" interpretation, these scientists not only do not themselves provide a significant disclosure of the myth, but also prevent us from doing this ourselves, for how do I know the true mythical content and meaning of "tanangla", if neither did i saw it, nor did the author disclose this content to me, offering me instead "criticism" of the rite with its own, conditional for me, "scientific" point of view ? So, the myth is non-scientific and is not based on any "scientific" "experience".

They say that the consistency of the phenomena of nature should have been compelled to interpret and explain these phenomena from the very earliest days, and that the myths, therefore, are these attempts to explain the natural pattern. But this is a purely a priori representation, which can be replaced with the same success by the opposite. In fact, why, in fact, does permanence play a role here and precisely this role? Once the phenomena are constantly and invariably (like the change of day and night or seasons), what is there to be surprised at and what exactly will make up a scientific and explanatory myth? Mythical consciousness rather, perhaps, will reflect on some rare, unprecedented, spectacular and individual phenomena, and rather gives not their causal explanation, but some expressive and pictorial image. The constancy of the laws of nature, and thus the observation of them, does not mean anything either about the essence or the origin of the myth. On the other hand, in this explanation of the origin of the myth as a kind of primitive science, again is hiding the conditional heterogenetic point of view on the subject, and not the opening of the immanently substantial content of the myth. In the myth about Helios, there is absolutely no astronomy, even if we make a less than believable hypothesis that this myth was coined to explain the constancy in the visible movement of the sun. In the Bible's account of the seven days of creation, there is absolutely no astronomy, no geology, no biology, no science at all. Absolute bad taste and absolute pointless must be considered any attempts by theologians to "unravel" the story of Moses from the point of view of modern scientific theories. Commonly known are the free exercises of, under quotation marks "theologians", in the "interpretation of the Apocalypse." Despite the fact that the classical patristic has diligently avoided such an interpretation, in spite of the fact that hundreds of historical facts can be substituted for the complex images of the Apocalypse, nevertheless the number of these "apocalyptic" does not decrease, but, perhaps, even increases. Usually,one among the "believers" who does not know how to think philosophically and dialectically-dogmatically, he is engaged in "the interpretation of the Apocalypse", for it was always easier to dream than to think. They do not want to understand that the myth must be treated mythically, that the mythical content of the myth itself is deep enough and subtle, rich enough and interesting, and that it has value in itself, without needing any scientific and historical interpretations or solutions. In addition, the Apocalypse is a revelation. What kind of revelation would it be, if instead of a literal understanding of all these amazing apocalyptic images, we grant the right to everyone to substitute images from Apocalypse with any historical epoch or event?

Let us ponder the concept of pure science once again and try to more precisely formulate its essence; And - we will see how far pure mythology is from pure science.

A)           What is needed for science as such? Do we need, for example, a belief in the real existence of its objects? I affirm that the laws of physics and chemistry are exactly the same under the condition of the reality of matter, and under condition of its unreality and pure subjectivity. I can be completely convinced that physical matter does not exist at all and that it is the product of my psyche, and still be a real physicist and chemist. This means that the scientific content of these disciplines is completely independent of the philosophical theory of the object and does not need any object. Secondly, there are a number of departments of knowledge, which, despite their full empirical significance, are deduced absolutely deductively, such as mathematics and theoretical mechanics. Secondly, if empirical research and even experiment is necessary for a particular science, then nothing prevents such a scientific experimenter from thinking that all this only seems to him, but in fact nothing exists, neither matter, nor experiment on it,nor himself. So, science is not interested in the reality of its object; And the "law of nature" says nothing about the reality of itself, not to mention the reality of things and phenomena that obey this "law." Needless to say, the myth in this respect is quite the opposite of the scientific formula. Myth is completely and completely real and objective; And even in it there can never be raised the question of whether or not the corresponding mythical phenomena are real or not. Mythical consciousness operates only with real objects, with the most concrete and real phenomena. True, in mythical objectivity, we can state the presence of different degrees of reality, but this has nothing to do with the absence of any moment of reality in a pure scientific formula. In the mythical world we find, for example, the phenomena of werewolves, the facts connected with the action of the Cap-Invisible, the death and resurrection of people and gods, etc., etc. All this is the facts of different intensity of being, facts of various degrees of reality. But here it is not non beingness, but the destiny of the very beingness itself, the play of different degrees of the reality of being itself. There is nothing like this in science. Even if it begins to talk about different voltages of space (as, for example, in the modern theory of relativity), then it is not interested in this very voltage, neither the very being itself, but the theory of this being, the formulas and laws of such a heterogeneous space. The myth is the very being itself, reality itself, the very specificity of being.

B) Next, is it necessary for science to have a subject of research? We said that the content of any "law of nature" is something that does not say anything at all about objects. Now we must categorically state that it also does not even say anything about the subject of research. Individuals accustomed to unconscious metaphysics and bad mythology will immediately attack me and repeat the boring truth a million times, from which for a long time I have felt a feeling of slight nausea: how could science have appeared and developed, if there were no objects of research, or very those who conduct a research? From these objections, I'm just nauseated and my head hurts. I will not discuss these questions here. I will only say that in no "law of nature" I can not subtract features of his erudite creator. Here is the law of falling of the bodies. Who invented it and brought it out? When, where and how did his author live? What is the character and what is the personality of this author? I do not know anything at all. If I did not recognize this from other sources, then this same "law" will not tell me anything about it. The "law of nature" is the "law of nature". In its semantic content, there is absolutely no indication of any subjects or objects. Two times two are four: try to show me the author of this arithmetic position! Myth, and in this respect, of course, is quite the opposite of the scientific formula, or "law." Every myth, if it does not point to the author, is always a very subject itself. Myth is always a living and active person. It is objective, and this object is a living person, and a pure scientific position is both out-objective and out-subjective. It is just some kind of logical design, a kind of semantic form. And one must be a very narrow and specific metaphysician to think that pure science is material or, on the contrary, subjectively-psychic. This, of course, does not mean that, for its actual implementation, it does not need things or does not need creative subjects. But does science need little for its actual implementation?

C) But if we look further into the essence of pure science, we will find that its pure semantic content, strictly speaking, does not need even a comprehensive and complete truth. In order for science to be a science, only a hypothesis is needed and nothing more. The essence of pure science is only to put the hypothesis and replace it with another, more perfect, if there is any basis for that. Of course, we talk all the time about science as such, about pure science, about science as a sum of certain semantic regularities, and not about real science, which, of course, always carries on itself numerous properties that depend on this historical epoch, on persons actually creating it, from the whole actual situation, without which science is only an abstract, timeless and non-spatial construction. Scientist who realistically works and creates is always more complex than his pure abstract scientific positions. And so, the metaphysics of modern times almost always led to the fact that, for example, the concept of matter was hypostatized and projected outward in the form of some real thing, the notion of force was almost always understood in a realistic, naturalistic way, that is, in essence, was no different from Demonic forces of nature (as we find in different religions, etc.), but only with obvious signs of rational degeneration. Does science needs all this as such? Absolutely not necessary. It is a matter of the physicist to show that there is such a dependence between such and such phenomena. Is there really such a dependence and even the phenomenon itself, whether or not this dependence will always exist, all the time and forever, whether it is true or not in the absolute sense - nothing of this physicist as a physicist can and should not say. All these endless physicists, chemists, mechanics and astronomers have completely theological ideas about their "forces", "laws", "matter", "electrons," "gases," "liquids," "bodies," "warmth," "electricity "Etc. . If they were pure physicists, chemists, etc., they would confine themselves to drawing out only the laws themselves and nothing else, and even the most basic and unshakable laws, would be interpreted exclusively as a hypothesis. This would be pure science. Here the Neo-Kantianism is infinitely right, destroying the theological prejudices of modern pseudoscientific problems. But, of course, we must remember that here we are talking only about pure science and that there is never really such a pure science, that this is not an analysis of real historical science, but only its theoretical and semantic bases and structures. From this side, mythological force in modern science from its naive "practitioners" and from all its experimenters and workers who do not think philosophically, becomes evident, and also the complete dissimilarity of the essence of science from the essence of mythology.

The myth is never just a hypothesis, only a simple possibility of truth. Why does the scientist need absolute truth or even absolute being? So I came up with some improvement in the phone, introduced some important corrections to the theory of the motion of the planets, or, finally, as a philologist, traced the history of some term or type of the word, the syntactic forms in a given language, what does it have to do with the absolute being? And the myth always has an emphasis on facts existing exactly as facts. Their being is an absolute being. I derived the law of expansion of gases from heating. For what needs would I consider my law to be an indisputable reality and unchangeable truth? It is only a hypothesis, even if everyone recognized it and it existed for several centuries. Of course, you can believe in its "correspondence of true reality". But this, your faith, does not add anything new to the "law" itself, and therefore it is not necessary for it. The hypotheticallness of science does not prevent it from building bridges, dreadnoughts, or flying airplanes. The truly scientific, purely scientific realism lies in this hypotheticallness and functionalism, in this pan-methodism. That is not real science, not the real life and, therefore, not a mythology. Myth is not hypothetical, but factual reality, not a function, but a result, not a thing, not an opportunity, but a reality, and yet vital and specifically felt, working and existing.

Another very important explanation, and - we can consider the question of delimiting mythology from science in principle clarified. Namely, the opposite of mythology and science can not be brought to such an absurdity that mythology does not have exactly any truth, or at least a regularity. To such absurdity brings his doctrine of the myth of E. Kassirer. According to his teaching, the object of mythical consciousness is the complete and fundamental indistinguishability of the "true" and "ostensible", the total absence of degrees of reliability, where there is no "foundation" and "Founded". Further, according to Cassirer, in the myth there is no difference between "Imagined" and "real", between "essential" and "nonessential". This is his complete opposite with science. Cassier is right, if we mean the "scientific" opposition of "true" and "ostensible", "Imagined" and "real", "essential" and "nonessential". In myth there is no "scientific" opposition of these categories, because myth is an immediate reality, in relation to which no abstract hypotheses are constructed here. But Cassirer profoundly distorts the mythical reality, when he denies in it every possibility of the just indicated oppositions. The myth has its own mythical truth, mythical authenticity. The myth distinguishes or can distinguish between true and ostensible and Imagined from the real. But all this is not  happening in scientific, but mythical way. Cassirer was very carried away by his antithesis of mythology and science and brought it to the complete absurd. When Christianity struggled with paganism, wasn't there, in the minds of Christians, really no evaluation of pagan myths, did the mythical consciousness here not separate myths from others from the point of view of truth? What was this struggle then? Christian mythical consciousness struggled with pagan mythical consciousness for the sake of a certain mythical truth. Of course, there was no struggle for scientific truth; Especially if science is understood in principle and abstractly, as we did, and how Cassirer is right in that. But the myth has its own, mythical truth, its own, the mythical criteria of truth and credibility, mythical patterns and systematicness. Having taken any mythology, we, after sufficient study, can find the general principle of its construction, the principle of the relationship of its individual characters. Greek mythology contains a certain structure, a certain method for the emergence and formation of separate myths and mythical characters. This means that this mythology is leveled from the standpoint of one criterion, which for it is both specific and true. To them it differs from any other, as, for example, the pagan mythology from the Christian, even if in isolation we found some similarity and even identity in the laws of myth formation. Also, the struggle of Gnostic mythology with the Orthodox Christian or Protestant with the Catholic could be only because the mythical consciousness is characterized by a category of truth. If for any myth the question of "reality" and "imaginary" was completely indifferent, then no struggle within the mythic consciousness itself would be possible.

The general result: the myth is not a scientific and, in particularly, not a primitive scientific construction, but a living subject-object interconnection containing in itself its own, out-of-science, purely mythical truth, reliability and principle credibility and structure.



The above excerpt is available in the description of this youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeATTkjyZHM all credits are his 

Pavel Florensky: Antinomic truth (Andrew Louth)

An alternative to Kant

Kant’s antinomies occur in the treatise that was the turning point in his philosophical career, and ushered in the concerns that are characteristic of modern philosophy, his Critique of Pure Reason; they form part of his ‘Transcendental Dialectic’. There are, he argues, four antinomies of pure reason: in each case the antinomy is a contradiction both terms of which can be demonstrated by reason alone, or pure reason. Because we can prove both sides of a contradiction, we have in effect demonstrated that reason here fails: we can go no further, there is no longer anything on the basis of which reason can proceed. His four antinomies are these:

1 Does the world, the cosmos, have a beginning in time and is it limited in space? Or does it have no limits with regard to time or space, as it is infinite? Kant shows how you can demonstrate both: that it can be shown to be both finite and infinite.

2 Is matter composed of atoms that cannot be divided further, or is matter infinitely divisible? Again it can be shown that either is true.

3 Is causality in accordance with the laws of nature the only causality there is? Or is it possible for humans freely to act as a cause of actions? Again, either can be demonstrated.

4 Is there within the cosmos an absolutely necessary being, either as a part of it or as its cause, or not? Again both positions can be argued for.12

For Kant this demonstrates that reason cannot establish anything sound about the nature of the cosmos, the nature of matter, the nature of causality, or the existence of God. All the so-called problems of metaphysics – about God, the soul and the cosmos – are beyond human reason. The antinomies constitute for Kant what one might call roadblocks to reason; they prevent reason from going any further in pursuing the central questions of metaphysics. For Kant, it follows that there is no speculative metaphysics; what speculative metaphysics is concerned with is relegated by Kant to the realm of the regulative, which is derived from moral presuppositions, but is not in any ordinary sense a matter of knowledge at all. We shall be better moral beings if we act as if God existed, as if the soul were immortal, if we believe that good will be rewarded beyond this life, and evil punished. But we have no reason to suppose that any of this is true.

Fr Pavel Florensky turns this on its head, and in so doing challenges Kant’s notion of the nature of reason, and argues for something very different. In the Divine Liturgy, just before the creed is sung, when we confess our faith in what the Church teaches, the priest says: ‘Let us love one another, that with one mind we may confess’, and the people reply: ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Trinity consubstantial and undivided!’ The third letter of The Pillar and Ground of the Truth, which is about Tri-unity, Triëdinstvo, picks up this response in its first words: ‘“Trinity consubstantial and undivided, unity trihypostatic and eternally co-existent” – that is the only scheme that promises to resolve epoche, if the doubt of scepticism is at all resolvable.’13 It is the Trinity, the incomprehensible Three-in-Oneness, that can alone resolve the suspension of judgement, the epoche, of the ancient sceptics; only the apparently incomprehensible dogma of the Trinity can cut through the doubt that underlies, and undermines, all human thought.

How this is so is explored in Letter 6, concerned with contradiction, and it is here that Florensky introduces the term antinomy. For Florensky, antinomy is central to the recognition of truth, for without antinomies, without contradiction, we would simply be faced by rationally convincing proofs. This would mean that we would be compelled to accept the truth, for one cannot arbitrarily reject the conclusion of an argument, if one has accepted the premisses. This would have two consequences, both unacceptable to Florensky: on the one hand freedom would be abolished – truth would be imposed, as it were, rather than accepted and embraced; but on the other hand truth would be transparent, obvious, ‘clear and distinct’, as Descartes put it; but such truth would bear no relation to the world we live in, which is fragmented by sin and finitude, and thus – far from being transparent – is utterly opaque. Truth without antinomy, Florensky maintains, is both tyrannical and also something that makes no sense in the world in which we live.

In fact, Florensky continues, reliance on rationality would lead to irreconcilable contradictions between different systems of belief, and therefore to conflict between those who are committed to them. We would be left with rationality’s egoistical isolation and its egoistical opposition. Now this is indeed what we experience; this is the nature of fallen humanity. Argument based on reason sets humans one against another; it drives them more deeply into the fallen world that they constitute. Kant’s deployment of antinomy is naive: the use of reason on which it is based is not going to stop at the roadblocks constituted by Kant’s antinomies; it will lead back to where one started from – conflicting ways of understanding the world and humanity, a conflict that is not necessarily confined to learned argument, but can lead directly into conflict between different people and different societies. Kant’s philosophical heritage seems to me to bear that out.

Florensky’s solution is the embrace of antinomy, for such an embrace will lead us to question the claims of reason, its claims to coerce what it maintains is the truth. As he puts it in Letter 6:

In other words, truth is an antinomy, and it cannot fail to be such. And truth cannot be anything else, for one can affirm in advance that knowledge of the truth demands spiritual life and therefore is an ascesis. But the ascesis of rationality is belief, i.e., self-renunciation. The act of the self-renunciation of rationality is an expression of antinomy. Indeed, only an antinomy can be believed. Every non-antinomic judgment is merely accepted or merely rejected by rationality, for such a judgment does not surpass the boundary of rationality’s egoistical isolation. If truth were non-antinomic, then rationality, always revolving in its proper sphere, would not have a fulcrum, would not see extrarational objects and therefore would not be induced to begin the ascesis of belief. That fulcrum is dogma. With dogma begins our salvation, for only dogma, being antinomic, does not constrain our freedom and allows voluntary belief or wicked unbelief. For it is impossible to compel one to believe, just as it is impossible to compel one not to believe. According to Augustine, ‘no one believes except voluntarily’ (nemo credit nisi volens). (P 109)

Whereas for Kant the antinomies constitute roadblocks to reason, for Florensky they trip up reason, as it were, expose its deficiencies, and make us realize that truth can be attained by no method such as that of rationality, but only by the spiritual life, which demands self-renunciation, ascesis, which explores the world opened up by dogma, which is the realm of freedom, the freedom of the spirit that discovers truth through opening itself to God. This idea that the defeat of reason enables reason to transcend itself and attain what it is really searching for recalls the way in which Origen justifies allegory: the contradictions in the narrative of the Scriptures force us to look beyond the literal meaning and attain the true meaning of the Scriptures by a sensitivity to symbol and allegory – but this means moving into a realm where conventional certainties are abandoned, and the way forward proceeds through repentance, self-renunciation, progress in the spiritual life, which is not a matter of achievement, but of surrender to the love of God. More nearly it recalls Solov′ev who, as we saw last time, sees love as an encounter with the other that displaces the centre of the self, and overcomes egoism.

Another way of putting the point Florensky is making would be to say that rationality proceeds by success: arguments only convince if they are successful. But such success does not lead to the truth in any fundamental way, though it may help one to get some things right, especially in relation to the material world. The way to truth is through the spiritual life; it is a way that proceeds through repentance and self-renunciation. One could say that, in contrast to the way of rationality, it proceeds through failure, defeat, which dislodges the self, displaces it, and opens up the realm of freedom and dogma.

Antinomic truth

Several consequences follow from this understanding of the nature of truth and the way to embrace it. First, for Fr Pavel, the danger with rationality, or rationalism, is that it places the reasoning self at the centre; it entails an egoistic or egocentric view of the world, and that entails the illusion that here on earth it is possible to transcend the fragmentariness of the world, due to sin and finitude. In reality, this is impossible: lots of egos produce lots of clashing views of the world, which compete with each other, and prevail through power. In reality truth and its apprehension demand self-renunciation; there is an asceticism of the truth. As Florensky exclaims, ‘Contradiction! It is always a mystery of the soul, a mystery of prayer and love. The closer one is to God, the more distinct are the contradictions’.14

Second, the ultimate overthrow of reason – by reason – is the realization that reason is not enough, that proof is not enough. What is needed is commitment to the spiritual life, to repentance and self-renunciation – to experience. As Florensky put it at the end of the prefatory letter to the reader in The Pillar and Ground of the Truth:

The Orthodox taste, the Orthodox temper, is felt, but it is not subject to arithmetical calculation. Orthodoxy is shown, not proved [an anticipation of Wittgenstein!]. That is why there is only one way to understand Orthodoxy: through direct Orthodox experience . . . To become Orthodox, it is necessary to immerse oneself all at once in the very element of Orthodoxy, to begin living in an Orthodox way. There is no other way.15

And third, for Florensky truth is dogma – not something we confect or make up, but something to which we surrender, and no brief moment of surrender, but a constant attempt to surrender to the truth that embraces us. Florensky would have been sympathetic to T. S. Eliot’s conviction that sanctity involves a ‘lifetime’s death in love’.16

Dogma is hardly understood in our modern world; its overtones in use are almost always negative. But it is dogma, its apparent arbitrariness from a merely human perspective, that points us to truth enshrined in antinomy as offering the only possibility of meaning. So Florensky said, in the letter on Tri-unity, in a remark paraphrased by Vladimir Lossky, a theologian supposedly so far removed from the religious philosophy of Florensky:

Either the Triune Christian God or dying in insanity. Tertium non datur. Pay attention: I do not exaggerate. That is precisely the way things are . . . Between eternal life within the Trinity and eternal second death, there is no clearance, not even a hair’s breadth. Either/or . . .17

At moments like this, Florensky reminds one of Pascal, or of Anselm. Indeed Florensky mentions Pascal’s wager in this letter (P 49) and quotes Anselm’s credo ut intelligam (P 47). But Florensky takes a step further than Anselm: instead of an ontological argument for the existence of God, we might regard him as offering an epistemological argument for the existence of the Trinity.

Mysticism of the East and Mysticism of the West (M. V. Lodyzhenskii)

A conversation [colloque] takes place when man imagines before him Jesus Christ, crucified on the cross. 

 —From the teaching of St Ignatius Loyola on contemplation 

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Of thyself do not form imaginings, and do not pay attention to those that form of themselves, and do not allow the mind to imprint them on itself. For all that is imprinted and imagined from without serves to entice the soul. 

—From the teachings of the ascetics of the Eastern Church 

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May the reader not think that having titled this chapter “Mysticism of the East and Mysticism of the West,” we have taken upon ourselves to research in detail the comparative mysticism of the Eastern and Western Churches in all their characteristic manifestations and in various eras. We must say that such a task would go far beyond the scope of the present work, which concerns the lives of the saints of the Eastern Church proper and the manifestations of their spiritual contemplation. Such a comparative account of Eastern and Western mysticism would be an undertaking so broad that it would require a great deal of specialized research. It would have to contain an accurate study of the lives of notable Catholic mystics, parallel with a study of the lives of Orthodox clairvoyants and contemplative ascetics. We are not taking upon ourselves such a task. In this chapter we will dwell only upon some striking manifestations of Western mysticism, manifestations appearing in the Catholic world after Francis, so that by comparing these manifestations with the mysticism of the Philokalia we can understand the significance of Eastern mysticism, the most perfect mysticism of all that humanity has attained in this direction for its long life on earth. 

Therefore, we will not talk about the many notable Catholic saints showing forth in the mysticism of the West. We will not, for example, touch on the life of such a famous Catholic saint as the Franciscan monk Bonaventure¹ (thirteenth century). We will likewise only slightly touch on the mysticism of such Catholic ascetics as Thomas à Kempis (fifteenth century) and St Teresa of Avila (sixteenth century). However, we will dwell at length on the mysticism of the Catholic spiritual striver, St Ignatius, for this mysticism is interesting to us in that Ignatius broadly developed Francis’s mysticism in the direction of mentalism. This trait of Ignatius’s mysticism especially characterizes Catholic mysticism and distinguishes it most from the mysticism of the Eastern Church. 

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Thus, the mysticism of Francis was developed, as we said, by another prominent representative of the Catholic world—St Ignatius. This is the same Ignatius Loyola who (three centuries after the death of Francis) founded the famous Catholic order of the Jesuits, the main difference between the statutes of this order and the statutes of the Franciscans being the fact that in the rule of the Jesuit order, it was clearly and definitely stated concerning the vow of each Jesuit to continually and faithfully serve the vicar of Christ on earth—the Roman pope. And the chief means of attaining this goal in the aforesaid order was by preaching and educating youth. 

Ignatius Loyola left the Catholic world a vivid memory of his mysticism. Among his other works, he wrote a remarkable guide to attaining states of ecstasy. This guide is called Spiritual Exercises (Exercitia spiritualia). We consider it necessary to expatiate on this guide because it very distinctly defines that direction toward mentalism and sensuality that contaminated the Catholic spiritual world. 

But before all this, let us say a few words about the author of this guide—Ignatius himself. Ignatius Loyola was born in 1491 in Spain of an aristocratic family. He spent his early years at the court of the Spanish king, and in his youth, just like Francis, was fascinated by novels of the Middle Ages. He was ambitious. At the age of thirty, he took part in a battle with the French defending Pamplona, and was severely wounded. During his illness, he began to read the lives of the saints, whose endeavors—especially those of Francis of Assisi—took on in his eyes the very same value as earlier did the endeavors of the knights and heroes. The example of Francis fascinated Loyola. The greatness of the apostolic vocation was pictured in his imagination, and he decided to devote himself to preaching. At first he gave himself over to the ascetic life (in the small town of Catalonia, Manresa). He acknowledged later that at that time he was overshadowed by various visions. Subsequently, in 1528 he went to Paris to receive a theological education. In Paris, he formed a circle of friends who were very interested in preaching. The forming of this circle was finalized in 1534. In 1537, Loyola left for Rome; he obtained from the pope a blessing on the organization of the Society of Jesus. The rule of this order was established in 1540. Loyola was able to soundly organize and develop this institution, making of it a powerful instrument for Catholic propaganda. Undoubtedly, Loyola possessed an enormous talent for organizing. Loyola died in 1556 in Rome. Almost seventy years after his death, the Catholic Church canonized him. 

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At first acquaintance with Loyola’s treatise Spiritual Exercises and with how these exercises are practiced in the Catholic world,² one comes away with the general impression that Loyola’s method of spiritual exercises has in many ways bases similar to the method of exercises in the Hindu Raja yoga, of which we spoke in detail in our book, Super-Consciousness. There we pointed out that, according to the explanation of A. Besant, the method of Raja yoga is always a method of thinking and requires concentrated thought and 

contemplation.³ And so as we said, these mental exercises begin with meditation, that is, with devoting oneself for several minutes to deep reflection on some noble thought,⁴ after which this meditation passes over into a more concentrated form of mental contemplation, and in these contemplative states the chief role be- 

longs to the power of cerebral imagination. 

Similar meditations and contemplative exercises are recommended by Loyola as well, and the chief role in these exercises, just as in Raja yoga, belongs also to mental imagination. But Loyola’s mentalism is not as pure as in Raja yoga. A. Besant says that the method of Raja yoga is always a method of thinking. 

With Loyola, it is united also with religious emotions, inflamed by the work of the imagination, the main subject of contemplation most often being a vivid scene from the life of Christ. 

Now passing on to a closer examination of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises, we see that after the first steps of the exercises, acknowledged to be very important, namely the exercises of a recluse in examining his conscience (examen) and in repentance of sins,⁵ the next most important exercises are defined by Loyola using the terms mediter [meditation] and contempler [contemplation]. By the word meditation is understood the exercise in abstract contemplations (by abstract thought), “when a man calls to mind a memory of some Christian dogmatic or moral truth, when along with this thought he begins to strive to penetrate it, while the will of the Christian ascetic is directed toward submission to the truth, toward suggesting to oneself the desire to become attached to it.”⁶ By the word contemplation is understood contemplation not of something abstract, but rather contemplation of the truth, incarnate in the life of the Savior, the soul of man training itself in its imagination to see and hear the Word made flesh, merging with the God-man, contemplating Him.⁷ 

Finally, besides these contemplative states, with Loyola there is still a higher state—“application des sens.” This is “when the effort of the working imagination has already ceased, when the mystery from the life of the Savior appears freely before the soul of the contemplative, when it takes place before his eyes and makes an impression on all his bodily senses.”⁸ 

The method of leading a man into all of these contemplative states is as follows: 

The object or subject of contemplation, according to Loyola, should be envisioned in advance and arranged into two or three points (en deux ou trois points), which rivet the memory and which contain within themselves circumstances worthy of note. Then the ascetic approaches the beginning of the exercises, called entrance (prelude). He seizes control of his memory, his imagination, and his will. “The memory provides the points fixed in advance in the brain. The imagination forms in it a kind of picture, the heart in fervent prayer asks for knowledge and love, and all this is done, as it were, in the presence of Christ Himself.”⁹ 

According to the words of the Catholic book, Manrese, St Ignatius proposes with the help of these exercises and, above all, the exercises in examining one’s conscience (examen) and repentance of sins, to give man the possibility of attaining the following: 

Even if a man starting out in spiritual striving is sinful, yet if he is armed with good intentions, if he is reasonable, and if he is free for spiritual striving (is master of his own time and future), then of such a man, although he be a “wretched sinner,” St Ignatius hopes to make a saintly man, and even a great saint.¹⁰ 

Let us cite from Ignatius Loyola’s book, Spiritual Exercises, examples of his contemplative exercises. We have said that, according to Loyola’s directions, the object or subject of contemplation should be envisioned in advance and arranged into two or three points that rivet the memory and that contain within themselves 

circumstances worthy of note. 

We will first take examples of such points and indicate the rather interesting points that Loyola advises the one doing the exercises to fix in his brain before the contemplation of hell. (The purpose of this contemplation is to bring the recluse to a sincere repentance of sins.) 

The first point is that the one doing the exercises see with “the help of the imagination” the terrible flames of hell. Loyola says, “I will see there, will look attentively at the souls of people imprisoned in their burning bodies, as if in eternal dungeons.” 

The second point is “also with the help of the imagination to hear the groans, complaints, heart-rending cries resounding in this ruinous place, hear the curses constantly being spewed out against Jesus and His saints.” 

The third point is again to imagine that one smells the smoke, brimstone, pitch, in a word, that foul smell that is emitted by the den of all sorts of putrefaction. 

The fourth point is to “experience all that is most bitter in the world. In this way, try to make oneself sensitive to the tears continually being shed by those who are excommunicated; try to suffer pangs of conscience—the worm gnawing in sinners.”¹¹ 

Now we will cite an example of the exercises called entrance (prelude). The entrance that we are now taking pertains to contemplation of the “first day of the incarnation of God the Word.” The first prelude of this contemplation is to imagine to oneself, as if this were before one’s eyes, the whole historical course of the mystery of the incarnation, namely, how the three Divine Persons of the Holy Trinity look down upon this earth, populated with people who in great crowds are rushing into hell; how the Holy Trinity, touched with compassion, decides to send down the Word to be incarnate of man in order to save the human race; how, as the result of this decision, on a foreordained day the Archangel Gabriel appears as a messenger to the blessed Virgin Mary. 

The second prelude consists in “a vivid imagining of a place which they see as if before their own eyes. Here they represent to themselves at first the earth, populated by various tribes, and in one corner of this world, in Galilee, in Nazareth, a small house in which the Holy Virgin lives.” 

The third prelude is described this way: “This is a supplication that I, the supplicant, may know the mystery of the incarnation of the Word for my sake, a supplication that this knowledge kindle more and more my love for Him and compel me to serve Him exclusively.”¹² 

And here is an example of a contemplation presented already in the form of a conversation (colloque) between the recluse and the crucified Christ, Whom he sees in his contemplative state. We take this conversation word for word as it is set forth in Spiritual Exercises. 

This conversation takes place when the person imagines before himself Jesus Christ crucified on the cross…. At that time, when this striking picture appears before the person’s eyes, he begins to ask himself, to ponder, weigh what exactly inclined the Creator to become man and take on the form of a creature and slave. How did it happen that, possessing by His very essence an eternal nature, He willed to come down to a state of death, to true mortal sufferings. 

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Moreover, one should blame oneself, reproach one’s conscience, asking: what have I done so far for Jesus Christ? Can I say that I have really done anything for him? And at the least, what will I do from now on? What should I do? 

————— 

Directing in such a way my gaze on the crucified Jesus, I will tell Him all that my mind and heart prompt me to say…. The present conversation can be compared to a conversation between two friends or a conversation of a servant with his master.¹³ 

Here one must not ignore the close similarity of this contemplative conversation of Loyola with how St Francis prayed on Mt Alverna, when he pictured to himself “two great lights,” in one of which he recognized the Savior, and in the other himself. 

Along with this, we consider it interesting here to mention some purely external methods that Loyola advises the one doing these exercises to employ. Thus, for example, Loyola says that “during the exercises in contemplation of hell and repentance, the one exercising should deprive himself of daylight as much as possible. For this he should keep the doors and windows closed all the time while he is occupied with this endeavor, and he will admit to himself daylight only as much as needed in order to read or in extreme 

necessity.”¹⁴ 

From all these excerpts taken from Loyola, one can see that his mysticism leads almost to pure mentalism, that it is close to Raja yoga, in which cerebral imagination plays a large role. For this, it is enough to recall, for example, this exercise in yoga that Vivekananda advises to carry out: “Picture to yourself,” he says, “some place in your heart and in the center a flame; imagine that this flame is your own soul, that within this flame there is a radiant space and that this space is the soul of your soul—God—contemplate this is your heart,” and so forth.¹⁵ 

Yet if St Ignatius Loyola developed St Francis’s mysticism in the direction of pure mentalism, in this regard taking it to the extreme, still one must say that in the Catholic world there were also deviations from such enthusiasms; that there were spiritual strivers who did not attempt in their mystical states to give themselves over solely to the impulses of their cerebral imagination, but rather strove for spiritual super-consciousness. We number among such Catholic saints the famous Thomas à Kempis (died 1471) whose ideas were not far from those of the ascetics of the Eastern Church, which is why Thomas à Kempis’ main work, The 

Imitation of Christ, was translated many times into the Slavonic and Russian languages. (The first translation into Slavonic was made in 1647.) 

Thomas à Kempis understood well the higher stages of spiritual super-consciousness. This is evident, for example, in the following statement in his composition, “De nativitate Christi” [“On the Birth of Christ”]. He says that 

there are such holidays of the soul, in which the sweet rapture of the inner feeling is so strong that the weakness of human nature can barely endure it; no signs or words can possibly express what the soul feels within itself at such visitations…. When the soul, forgetting itself and all else, remembers God alone, when freeing itself from all corporeal imagination and contemplating only eternity, plunging itself into the abyss of 

divine light, when illuminated by the rays of the eternal Sun, it soars higher than all creation, then it accomplishes this great and mysterious celebration, a celebration that belongs more to the glory of eternal blessedness than to the grievous state of our present life.¹⁶ 

If one were to compare this description of a mystical state with the description by St Isaac of Syria (see Chapter 1, note 19), many common traits would be found. 

Speaking of typical manifestations of Western mysticism, neither can we be silent about St Teresa of Avila, recounting her mystical experiences in her autobiography written in 1561–1562. To define the mysticism of this saint, it is sufficient that we refer to the authoritative opinion of William James, who studied the writings 

of St Teresa. 

In his book The Varieties of Religious Experience, James says that the piety of St Teresa does not give the impression of great depth and in general “her presentation of religion amounts to, if one can 

express it like this, an endless amorous flirtation between a suitor and his Divinity.”¹⁷ 

The mystical rapture of Teresa aroused her physical nature; she tells of a feeling of delight as of something that is diff cult to endure and almost bordering on physical pain. Of the part played by the body in heavenly joys, she says that the feeling of joy “pierces it (the body) to the marrow of the bone, while earthly delights act only superficially. This is only an approximate description,” she adds, “but I am unable to express myself more clearly.”¹⁸ 

From this information it is evident that a sensual element also entered into the super-consciousness of St Teresa; and this quality of her mysticism she has in common with the sensual mysticism of St Francis, expressing itself, as we already know, even in such physiological phenomenon as stigmatization. 

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Now we will turn to Eastern mysticism and remind the reader of its principal foundations. We said that the super-consciousness of St Seraphim, developed according to the way of the Christian ascetics of the Philokalia, was concentrated in Seraphim’s heart. There, within himself he sensed the fire of Divinity; he sensed Christ. This feeling of unity with God descended upon him naturally and freely, as the direct result of his spiritual growth, as the result of his enormous work on himself in the path of humility and repentance. Spiritual consciousness descended upon St Seraphim just as St Isaac of Syria said of it—Seraphim’s soul perceived this super-consciousness within itself immaterially and unexpectedly, without thinking about it (i.e., without deliberately searching for it). This realization of super-consciousness in Seraphim was the same realization of that pure spirituality overshadowing the heart of man, spoken of by the Christian ascetics of the Philokalia, which we discussed in detail in the last four chapters of our book, Super-Consciousness. 

Therefore, now that we have acquainted ourselves with Western mysticism, as it differs from Eastern mysticism, it would be interesting to learn how the Eastern ascetics regarded the kind of mysticism we see in St Francis and St Ignatius; namely, to ascertain whether or not there were any indications in the Philokalia on the possibility of similar ecstatic manifestations as we saw in Francis and about which Loyola speaks in his writing, and what opinions concerning such states of ecstasy were expressed by Eastern Christian ascetics. 

After a close study of the works of the ascetics in the Philokalia, it turns out there are such indications. Although the mysticism of the Catholic saints, Francis and Ignatius, took root and became established considerably later than the time of the lives of the Eastern Christian ascetics, as for example, St Isaac of Syria, Nilus of Sinai, and Symeon the New Theologian, nevertheless, it seems that directions in mysticism similar to Loyola’s arose in their era. Therefore, in the aforementioned Eastern ascetics we found writings defining their views on such mysticism. We also found typical instructions on such mysticism in saints of a later era, namely, Gregory of Sinai and Gregory Palamas. 

We will quote the writings of these Eastern Christian ascetics as they pertain to the question of interest to us. We will begin with the fifth-century Christian ascetic, Nilus of Sinai. Nilus of Sinai, addressing monks with his instructions on prayer, says, 

When you pray, do not attach to the Godhead some sort of appearance and do not allow your mind to become transformed into some kind of image (or conceive oneself in the form of some image, or that any kind of image become im- pressed in your mind); but immaterially approach the Immaterial One and come together with Him.¹⁹ 

Further, he says, “Do not think that the Godhead is qualitative (takes up space, is extended, has parts); as the Divinity has neither quantity nor form.”²⁰ Besides this, Nilus of Sinai says definitely, “Do not desire to see sensorially Angels or Powers or Christ, so as not to go out of one’s mind, accepting the wolf for the pastor and worshipping the enemy demons.”²¹ He adds, “If you wish to pray in the spirit, borrow nothing from the flesh.”²² 

And here is what St Isaac of Syria says: “As long as man uses force so that spirituality come down to him, it does not submit. 

And if he is boldly puffed up and raises up his gaze to the spiritual, and approaches it in his mind before the time (before acquiring true holiness), then soon his vision will become dulled and instead of reality he will perceive phantoms and shapes.”²³ 

Also of interest are the following words of St Symeon the New Theologian on the state of one praying, close to what Ignatius Loyola is striving after in his spiritual exercises. Symeon the New Theologian says, 

When someone standing in prayer and raising to heaven his hands, eyes and mind, keeps in his mind divine thoughts, imagines heavenly blessings, the ranks of angels, the abodes of the saints … and sometimes even elicits tears and weeps, then during this type of prayer, he little by little begins to be conceited in his heart, he himself not understanding this: it seems to him that what he is doing is from the Grace of God…. But this is a sign of prelest [delusion]. 

In the opinion of Symeon the New Theologian, such a state can be very dangerous for a Christian ascetic, and “if it turns out that he does not go out of his mind, yet still it will be impossible for him to acquire virtue or passionlessness” (higher spiritual super-consciousness). Symeon says further, “Those standing in this path are in prelest who see light with their bodily eyes, smell fragrances with their sense of smell, hear voices with their ears, and so on.”²⁴ 

The fourteenth-century ascetic Gregory of Sinai has this to say about the same thing: “From yourself do not form imaginations and do not pay attention to those that form by themselves and do not allow them to be imprinted upon yourself. For all this which from without is imprinted and imagined serves for the captivation of the soul.”²⁵ “The mind (the lower reason) in itself has the natural power to dream and can easily build illusory images of what it desires…. Then the one experiencing this is now a dreamer, and not a keeper of silence.”²⁶ “May he who approaches contemplation without the light of Grace know that he is forming fantasies and does not have contemplation, is in a dreaming spirit, being entangled in fantasies and deceiving himself.”²⁷ 

Finally, Gregory Palamas, also a Christian ascetic of the fourteenth century, says concerning contemplative states, 

In this case, man rises up not on fantastical wings of the imagination, which like a blind man wanders around everything and does not receive a true and certain understanding of either sensory or mental subjects; but here man rises up to truth by the ineffable power of the Spirit, and with his spiritual ear hears ineffable words and sees the invisible, and all this is a miracle.²⁸ 

These views of the Christian ascetics of the Philokalia passed on, along with the spreading of religious enlightenment, into Russian Orthodox mysticism as well.²⁹ 

Here, in conclusion, we cite one very characteristic opinion of a Russian Orthodox writer close to us in time—the ascetic, Bishop Theophan the Recluse (who died in 1894)—on mysticism based on the ecstasies of an exulted imagination. Thus he writes to one of his students, who was carried away by rapturous prayers, 

May the Lord deliver you from rapturous prayers. Raptures, strong movements with excitement are simply the sanguine mental movements of an inflamed imagination. For them Ignatius Loyola wrote many instructions. Men reach these ecstasies and think that they have reached high degrees, but meanwhile all this is soap bubbles. Real prayer is quiet, peaceful and it is such in all its degrees.³⁰ 

In another of his letters, Theophan says, 

The imagination—the ability to form and retain images—is an unskilled labor ability … the very lowest! So therefore it is not proper to allow it to appear with its images in a higher realm such as prayer … mental/contemplative activity is lofty, but spiritual activity as manifested in prayer is still loftier…. If one 

admits images, then there is the danger of praying to a dream. There is one path—heartfelt prayer (prayer of pure feeling)…. It comes to mind what was said of a staretz [elder] who always imagined God in a form. When it was explained to him that this should not be done, he said: you have taken God from me…. But they did not take God from him, but rather his dream.”³¹ 

And so we see that the kind of mysticism for which Francis laid the foundation and which Ignatius Loyola subsequently developed was disapproved of by the Eastern ascetics, and they even considered the path of this mysticism unsafe for the soul of a Christian ascetic.³² 

————— 

There is one aspect that we have still not touched upon in this comparison of Eastern and Western mysticism—this is the aspect of special manifestations of mystical power in both forms of mysticism, manifestations expressed in the performance of so-called miracles, namely, those of healing. We did not have to concern ourselves with this in comparing the lives of St Seraphim and St Francis because of the number of books from which we studied the life of St Francis (the works of Jørgensen, Ger’e, Sabatier, and Jebar); Francis’s miracles of healing are only brief y mentioned in the research of Sabatier and Ger’e, and this information was not sufficient for judging the process of these miracles. It is to be supposed that these researchers did not find in the original sources on Francis trustworthy information regarding this side of the saint. And this explains why in Jørgensen also nothing is said of such miracles by Francis. In his extensive research Jørgensen expatiates only on one, as he says, big miracle (le grand miracle) of Francis, his stigmatization. In our opinion, it would be most probable to assume that in general Francis did not perform miracles of healing. Such an assumption concurs with Francis’s spiritual super-consciousness (which generally gives the power to perform healings) being darkened by the impulses of his mentalism. 

Francis could not perform those mentalistic miracles which yogis perform by their conscious will³³ because the path of Francis’s mysticism was still the Christian path in which faith in the power of God comes first; and in this faith can be manifested the action of a great super-universal power, called divine grace, which is immeasurably more powerful than man’s will. In any case, for a believing Christian one’s own will cannot receive that tension attained by yogis, who believe first of all in their own mental power and will and with this power create phenomena that from the outside resemble miracles performed by holy people. 

The difference of the Jesus Prayer and other forms of Meditation

I used to be very involved with Centering Prayer and the Christian Meditation taught by Benedictine monk John Main.  I led weekly “Christian meditation” groups and retreats at parishes, coordinated retreats led by a well-known Benedictine monk, etc.  This was my life for many years.  In the final year of my involvement with this movement, I was in a period of novitiate as a Benedictine Oblate (one who tries to follow the Rule of St. Benedict while living in the world), trying to decide whether to take my final vows as an Oblate and remain in the Christian Meditation movement, or whether to enter the Orthodox Church.  As I entered more and more deeply into the discipline of Christian Meditation over many years and came to know others who were very experienced in this practice, and simultaneously studied the Orthodox faith and the tradition of the Jesus Prayer, I came to see that Christian Meditation/Centering Prayer were of a very different spiritual origin and orientation than the tradition of the Desert Fathers and its continuation in the Orthodox Church today.  I came to the conclusion that CM/CP were completely incompatible with the Orthodox tradition, and so in the end I had to make a choice of which to follow for the rest of my life.  

Christian Meditation (CM) and Centering Prayer (CP) were attempts to “Christianize” Hindu mantra meditation as taught by Swami Satyananda in Malaya (in the case of CM) and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (in the case of CP).  While abbot of Spenser Abbey in Massachusetts, Fr. Thomas Keating would invite Zen masters to teach his Trappist/Benedictine monks to meditate.  Since Christian Meditation/Centering Prayer methods come directly from the non-Christian East, there is no surprise that one would come to a similar experience by practicing these same methods even within different religions.  In fact, the experience is very much the same, which is why within the CM/CP circles it is very popular to believe that at their “mystical core” all religions experience the same thing and only describe this experience in different terms.  Some describe their experience in terms of “God” and “Love”, while others in terms of “Emptiness” or the “Absolute”, for instance, depending on the religious doctrines through which this same experience is interpreted.  

From my ever deepening engagement with Orthodoxy, I came to see that this “common experience” at the “mystical core” of all these practices is only the experience of our own created nature, our own created human spirit.  This experience of our own created spirit is often described in terms of experiencing “reality” outside of the consciousness of time and space, an experience of limitlessness, of eternity, of boundlessness, of oneness, etc.  This is a very enlightening and transformative experience for people, but it is purely the experience of created reality arrived at as a natural consequence of applying a certain psycho-somatic technique.  In other words, this experience has nothing to do with entering into communion with the Uncreated God through His divine and uncreated energies (grace).  But, is such an experience of one’s created spirit a bad thing?  

In Christian Meditation and Centering Prayer, one is often taught about the experience of communion with God, when in reality the practitioners of these methods are only being led to the experience of the limitlessness of their own created spirit.  When one experiences their own created spirit and mistakes this for the experience of the Uncreated God, this is a delusion, and this delusion becomes the greatest obstacle to actually knowing God and entering into communion with God.  This delusion, in fact, creates a greater obstacle to knowing God than even the grossest passions because one has been brought ultimately to the worship of his own self as God.  This is the experience of the Hindu that says “Atman is Brahman” or “Self is God”.  Through the belief that one’s own created spirit is God or equal to God, which is the same as mistaking your created spirit for the Uncreated Spirit, one falls into the same delusion as Lucifer at the time of his great fall.  

The contemplative movement in the West today, which is led primarily by the teachings of Centering Prayer and Christian Meditation, has at its core this spiritual deception and confusion regarding the experience of God and one’s own created spirit.  It is no wonder, then, that the leaders of this movement, from the famous Thomas Merton to the “teachers” of our own time, see no problem with Christians learning to meditate from Zen masters and Hindu gurus (I have met a few Roman Catholic religious who are also certified Zen Roshis, for instance).  The practice of these methods have led to a “New Christianity” which is not a return to the tradition of the Desert Fathers (which this movement tries to exploit for its own justification) and the early Church, but is rather a betrayal of the very foundation of the apostolic faith and the establishment of a new faith which lays the foundation for the future religion of Antichrist.  

It is very popular in the CP/CM teachings to refer to the Orthodox tradition of the Jesus Payer as being of the same tradition.  This, in fact, is how I first learned of the Orthodox Church.  As one looks deeply into each tradition, however, one will see that everything is approached very differently.  You can then see the continuity and consistency of the Orthodox tradition of the Jesus Prayer and its complete inseparability from baptism in the Orthodox Church and participation in an Orthodox sacramental life.  You can then compare this to the recently created traditions of Centering Prayer and Christian Meditation which have no living continuity with the early Church but which were revived only through contact with the non-Christian East.  You can then look for the fruits of these traditions, you can see the Desert Fathers of old and the contemporary Desert Fathers of the Orthodox Church that have the exact same tradition and worldview as the fathers of old; and compare this to the fact that the CP/CM movements have produced no such contemporary saints that are as the Desert Fathers.  The deeper you enter into these subjects, the more you will see their divergence, and yet only one of these traditions is consistent with the faith “once and for all delivered to the saints”.   

A few quotes from Elder Sophrony of Essex and Hieromonk Damascene of Platina from Hieromonk Damascene’s book “Christ the Eternal Tao”:

Fr. Damascene says concerning the experience of inner light: 

“Here we are treading on dangerous ground, so it is necessary to step lightly. This is where many who have practiced watchfulness have fallen into delusion over the centuries. Everything depends on the purity of one's intention in going within. If one's intention (conscious or unconscious) is not to face one's sin-condition, repent and thus be reconciled to God, but instead to "be spiritual" while continuing to worship oneself, then one can - upon becoming aware of the light of one's spirit - begin to worship it as God. This is the ultimate delusion.” 

Archimandrite Sophrony is then quoted as saying: 

"Attaining the bounds where 'day and night come to an end,' man contemplates the beauty of his own spirit which many identify with Divine Being. They do see a light but it is not the True Light in which there 'is no darkness at all.' It is the natural light peculiar to the mind of man created in God's image. 

"The mental light, which excels every other light of empirical knowledge, might still just as well be called darkness, since it is the darkness of divestiture and God is not in it. And perhaps in this instance more than any other we should listen to the Lord's warning, 'Take heed therefore that the light which is in you be not darkness.' The first prehistoric, cosmic catastrophe - the fall of Lucifer, son of the morning, who became the prince of darkness - was due to his enamored contemplation of his own beauty, which ended up in his self-deification."

Fr. Damascene then comments on this passage: 

“The darkness of divestiture of which Fr. Sophrony speaks is the state of having risen above all thought processes, which we have described earlier. If a person's motive is prideful, he will stop at this point, admiring his own brilliance; but that brilliance will still be darkness. He will think he has found God, but God will not be there. He will find a kind of peace, but it will be a peace apart from God.

“To go beyond thought is not yet to attain true knowledge. Such knowledge comes from the Word speaking wordlessly in the spirit that is yearning for Him; it does not come from the spirit itself. The Word will come and make His abode with the spirit only if the person approaches Him in absolute humility, for He Himself is humility, and like attracts like.” 

Fr. Sophrony writes further on those who go within themselves without humility: 

"since those who enter for the first time into the sphere of the 'silence of the mind' experience a certain mystic awe, they mistake their contemplation for mystical communion with the Divine, whereas in reality they are still within the confines of created human nature. The mind, it is true, here passes beyond the frontiers of time and space, and it is this that gives it a sense of grasping eternal wisdom. This is as far as human intelligence can go along the path of natural development and self-contemplation...

"Dwelling in the darkness of divestiture, the mind knows a peculiar delight and sense of peace... Clearing the frontiers of time, such contemplation approaches the mind to knowledge of the intransitory, thereby possessing man of new but still abstract cognition. Woe to him who mistakes this wisdom for knowledge of the true God, and this contemplation for a communion in Divine Being. Woe to him because the darkness of divestiture on the borders of true vision becomes an impenetrable pass and a stronger barrier between himself and God than the darkness due to the uprising of gross passion, or the darkness of obviously demonic instigations, or the darkness which results from loss of Grace and abandonment by God. Woe to him, for he will have gone astray and fallen into delusion, since God is not in the darkness of divestiture."

To experience the darkness of divestiture and the light of the mind, says Fr. Sophrony, "is naturally accessible to man," but to experience the Uncreated Light of the Divinity is given to man by a special action of God. These two experiences differ qualitatively from each other. Fr. Sophrony writes: 

"It has been granted to me to contemplate different kinds of light and lights - the light the artist knows when elated by the beauty of the visible world; the light of philosophical contemplation that develops into a mystical experience. Let us even include the 'light' of scientific knowledge which is always and inevitably of very relative value. I have been tempted by manifestations of light from hostile spirits. But in my adult years, when I returned to Christ as perfect God, the unoriginate Light shone on me. This wondrous Light, even in the measure vouchsafed to me from on High, eclipsed all else, just as the rising sun eclipses the brightest star."

Fr Damascene then comments on this passage: 

“We do not practice watchfulness so that we can become silent and peaceful. Rather, we become silent so that we can know the unpleasant truth about ourselves, and so that we "hear" the Tao/Logos speaking directly to our inward being. He does not speak in an audible voice; His voice makes no noise even in the mind... Scripture calls His voice still and small. We cannot hear it unless we tune in to it by separating from all the static noise in our heads.” 

After these words, Fr. Damascene then goes on to describe the Orthodox teaching regarding the Jesus Prayer.  

In the Orthodox tradition of the Jesus Prayer, the practice of the Prayer cannot be separated from the Orthodox sacramental and ascetical life.  Since the non-Christian meditation practices, such as are followed by Buddhists, Hindus, and many non-Orthodox Christians (in the tradition of Thomas Keating, Thomas Merton, John Main, etc.) are primarily psycho-somatic techniques that lead to the experience of one’s created nature, these techniques can easily be practiced by different people regardless of their religion, and all who practice these techniques come to a similar experience.  In the Orthodox Church, however, man’s salvation, theosis, and his entire spiritual development begins with the reception of the Holy Spirit through baptism and chrismation in the Orthodox Church.  By entering and remaining in the Orthodox Church, man begins to receive and be deified by the Uncreated Energies of God as he grows in humility, virtue, and repentance while regularly receiving deifying grace through the sacraments of the Orthodox Church.  

Confession, repentance, humility, and self-control provide the fertile ground for the seeds of the Jesus Prayer to grow and bear fruit; while providing also the protective leaves that shield and preserve the fruit from the disease and scorching heat of pride and delusion.  For a tree to bear fruit, however, it is not enough to have good soil and leaves for protection, but sunlight is needed also for growth and vitality.  In the same way, along with confession, repentance, humility, and self-control, man needs the divine rays of uncreated grace from the sacraments of the Orthodox Church.    

[...]

 There have been many Eastern Catholics who have tried to make progress in the Jesus Prayer, but who eventually realized that they could not make much progress until they joined the Orthodox Church.  I have commented already on the fact that in the Orthodox Church man's spiritual development and theosis begins with baptism and chrismation in the Orthodox Church.  As I'm sure you know, the Orthodox Church does not consider baptisms or other sacraments performed outside of the Orthodox Church as true and grace-filled sacraments.  The Uncreated Energies of God operate through the sacraments of the Church, but when when a priest or bishop goes into schism and is broken off completely from the body of Christ, the sacraments performed cease to be effective and grace-filled.  This reality explains how so many abuses occurred in Roman Catholicism once they became separated from the Church, just as it explains the chaos of Protestantism and the absence in both of these groups of saints who are of the same spiritual stature and worldview (phronema) as the saints of the first centuries.  [...]

Regarding those who have converted to Orthodoxy from Eastern Rite Catholicism, and your assertion that some Orthodox have converted to Eastern Rite Catholicism, I am thinking particularly of people like Hieromonk Gabriel (Bunge) and Hieromonk Placide (Deseilles) who were patristic scholars and lived for decades as monastics on the Eastern Rite under the Pope before coming to the conclusion that they were on a dead end that could only be resolved by entering the Orthodox Church.  Do you have such people, who lived for decades as Orthodox monks and were renowned as patristic scholars, who came to the conclusion that they were in a dead end in Orthodoxy and so fled to the Pope? 

On the subject of judging the progress of others, my only point is that I have heard several accounts of those who sought to practice the Jesus Prayer in a serious way in Eastern Catholicism who found this attempt to be futile and so converted to Orthodoxy.  Fr. Theophanes of Kapsokalyvia, as one example, said after his conversion that he really wasn’t able to understand the Jesus Prayer properly until his conversion to Orthodoxy.  Other long-time Roman or Eastern Catholics have spoken of the great grace they received after entering the Orthodox Church.    

Within the Orthodox Church, we have many contemporary examples of hesychasts who labored day and night praying the Jesus Prayer and whose lives exemplified the same spiritual qualities as the Desert Fathers of old.  I have not heard of any contemporary hesychasts of Eastern Rite Catholicism whose lives were of the same spiritual character as our contemporary Orthodox saints and elders.  I have never seen a book on the Jesus Prayer by a contemporary hesychast of Eastern Rite Catholicism.  I assume that if an Eastern Rite Catholic wanted to seriously learn to pray the Jesus Prayer, he would find little support within Eastern Rite Catholicism and would need to turn to the books and counsels of living and reposed Orthodox saints and elders who do not consider Eastern Rite Catholicism as part of the Church and have no communion with Eastern Rite Catholics.  Of course, if I am wrong about any of this, please feel free to challenge me on these points.

Before I was Orthodox, the Benedictines trying to recover practices of “contemplative prayer” were always quick to point out that such a tradition died in Roman Catholicism after the Schism (though they would blame scholasticism rather than the Schism), but that a similar (to them) tradition of the Jesus Prayer remained a living tradition in the Orthodox Church from apostolic times until today.  For those who wish to truly learn this way of prayer, it is necessary to be part of this living tradition.

Written by the user "jah777" @    http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php?topic=18458.45