The False Spirituality of Mysticism
“Mysticism: The belief that direct knowledge of God can be attained through your subjective experiences of God or something godlike. Mysticism, then, is nothing more than worship of your emotions.”(1)
“Mysticism has found many ready listeners in American culture because American culture is a melting pot of trying to feel good. Humans have always made feeling good a high priority, but in our age we have made it an art form. Both Christians and non-Christians alike spend most of their waking day trying to feel good. When we feel bad (which happens a lot), we begin casting around the market for something new to consume in order to try and feel better. Once we find an answer, we remain as diligent in trying to make the feeling better last as long as possible. This is our way of life. It is our economy, our national pastime, and our greatest export. We believe, teach, and confess that the key to happiness is managing discomfort by increasing good feelings instead, and we are so successful at it that we’ve also come to assume God approaches religion the very same way. Why wouldn’t God want me to be happy? Why wouldn’t God want to meet my needs, take away my cares and worries, and lift me up? Why wouldn’t a truly good God want me to find Him by learning to feel the goodness of His presence? It only makes perfect, heartfelt sense.
“For this reason, all over America, every week, a vast number of the most well-meaning of us congregate in special houses that we have built for the sole purpose of trying to feel God together. By combining applied motivational speeches and creative musical arrangement with the latest and best gimmicks of technology, we listen to the promise that we can and will feel good by finding God (and find God by feeling good). We consume these carefully manufactured divine experiences like any other product, expecting them to be over on the hour so that we still have plenty of time to trot back to our lives of buying, selling, and trying to feel even more good in all the ways we possibly can. Fresh off the assembly line, we don’t mind applying whatever bits of personal skill development the preacher told us was this week’s key to directly enhancing our experience of God. None of us feel manipulated. We would be angry if you told us we were just consumers being sold a fast-food religion. ”Mysticism” is just a big word without any meaning to us. But every week we buy it anyway. We go to our churches in search of a better feeling, and when we find it, we believe we have found the real presence of God.”(2)
“Mysticism’s lie: You can find God in your heart.” [KEEP READING]