Why Mystical Studies Are Still Important Today

By Charles Kelly


Mystics can trace their roots to the most ancient of religions, many of which can have a surviving tradition, sect or denomination. A lot of methods for worship come also come from these and may be found in traditions, customs or cultural mores in a country who had them. In one sense, the virtues in these are founded on the rituals or ceremonies that they used.

It is mostly lost today, but it has become so much a part of cultures that the consciousness of a people merely practices them as natural. Mystical studies are partly sectarian impetus, and partly the search for those lost connections to the ancient sense of the divine. Human memories are short, and conflict can have erased the connections from tribal memory.

The shamanistic cults practiced a widespread kind of worship based on the physical aspects of existence. They worshipped nature and animals, practiced what have been denounced by the church as bizarre or savage rituals. One of these was the reign of kings who have everything during his lifetime, but was killed in the fields when the first white hair appeared on his head.

The sacrifice ceremony of a king on agricultural land was for fertilizing it, so that it will be fruitful. His blood, once the most powerful of beings, can satisfy gods of earth and will inspire them to make the land bountiful. After problems in agriculture were solved, they were less needed and a new kind of mystical concern replaced it.

It was more about a philosophy than anything else, and this mystic view was born from movements like Judaism or earlier religions. Philosophical mysticism would also lead to the founding of the biggest religions that are now in existence. These were the systems that founded academies, scientific solutions and inspired art, cultural movements and created unique technologies.

Today, formal studies in mysticism are those that are academic in nature, the preserve of theologians and similar experts. The studies have been sanitized to fit the concept of higher consciousness that all axial religions espouse. The axial religions are those founded on a historical thousand year human turning point, like Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism and Islam.

Practices considered base are often seen as throwback behavior embedded in racial memory, and these can include herd violence. But then, there is really no proved connection to the religions accused of being their cause. These studies will be those whose aim is to look for those elements of these practices that operate or are active deep in modern cultures.

The most cardinal of sins for the church, often connected to domestic practice or social mores that are weird but accepted. In these studies these could be the threads that lead to the darker history of former things which supposedly died natural deaths. Axial religions supposedly eradicated these but that is improbable when human ancestry is infected by them.

The most relevant study in mystical systems today is one that is based on contemplation and cleanliness. Vows for abstinence and penitence can also be relevant, but the studies themselves in the academic sense continue to shed light on dark corners of the human experience. And this always aims to achieve the highest sense of the divine for humanity.




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