On Discernment with Regard to Prayer Experiences and "the Spiritual": Making Sure these are Truly Edifying

[[But in the spiritual life, we do not need temporal justification or documentation by or of others. Consider Jesus. He did not reference or cite what temple priests, scribes or experts on Judaic law said or wrote. He referenced God the Father and the Pentateuch (the Scrolls). Consider any of the prophets. They cite God. Moses relayed what God said and did not justify his words or His Words by any other means. All this makes me ponder the more, the writings of great and holy souls in Christendom, in the Church, who have passed on to us much wisdom and guidance for the spiritual life. They do not justify themselves or their words by any other persons than The Three Persons: God, His Son, and the Holy Spirit.]] This was posted by a woman claiming to be a Catholic hermit in an apparent response to one or two posts you had put up clarifying mistakes people make in approaching mystical experiences and eremitical life:  (On Justifying Oneself ). She claims that documentation is necessary in secular matters but not spiritual ones. She also seems to believe that providing the kinds of support you did is done in an attempt to elevate oneself. Could you please comment on this?

Well, assuming as you do that this post was actually directed at me and either my recent article on eremitical life citing the Camaldolese founders and reformers or the one on contemplative prayer citing Ruth Burrows, Thomas Merton, et al, I could begin by pointing out that I am neither a great nor a holy soul, but in this case I think that is beside the point. You see this comment refers to people trying to justify or even elevate themselves and what they write in the area of spirituality by the similar positions and words of others --- except of course, God alone. The post insists that neither Jesus nor the prophets quoted anyone except God the Father and the Pentateuch. While I contend that is not actually true it is also beside the point. After all Jesus spoke with a unique authority, "You have heard it said . . . but I say. : ." while the Prophets were charged with speaking the very Word of God into their present situation. We simply don't know what else they said, nor how they supported what they had to say. The Scriptures focus our attention and accent the Prophets' authority differently than this.

But what actually is this blogger's point? As far as I can tell, she seems to believe that in the spiritual life (unlike what is acceptable in any other sphere of human endeavor) we can say anything at all about prayer, mystical experiences, eremitical life, etc., and justify it with the assertion that its source and ground is (an experience of) God: "I experienced this, it is of God because I say it is of God; nothing more needs be said. Believe me!" Do I really need to point out how specious and often destructive such a position actually is and has been in human religious history?

In any case to say that the great Saints and spiritual writers in the history of the Church do not support what they write or say by references to other great Saints, scholars, or experts is simply untrue. It would be easy to cite a paragraph or a dozen and more where the Saint or religious scholar in question cites others to support or clarify his/her position. John of the Cross, for instance cited both Latin and Greek Fathers to support and further illuminate his own positions throughout his work. It was hardly an attempt at personal justification nor was it done to elevate himself. Instead it was part of a broader conversation with the whole Church and is paradigmatic of the importance of such an undertaking. (More about this in a bit.)

Still (and meanwhile), even the assertion that great saints don't cite others is somewhat beside the point. What is more pertinent is the fact that the assertion that one does not need to cite others in support of personal spiritual experiences is nonsense and dangerous nonsense at that. In the area of religious experience it is actually more important than in most any other area of human endeavor I can think of to support what one says with the experimental findings of others in prayer. Beyond this it is critically important to justify what one says theologically and by the fruits of one's life --- not least because the sinful human heart knows many gods and the human imagination and intellect have shown time and time again their propensity to mistake the merely subjective and illusory stuff of the "false self" for objective reality and the stuff of the "true self" (which, to the extent it exists, really does know and reflect God). In other words, in the realm of religious experience human history is fraught with the mistaken, the mentally ill, the deluded, the merely sinful, the dishonest and hypocrites, as well as opportunists and flimflam artists of every kind and shade. Even when the person is acting in completely good faith we may be dealing with a bit of errant neurochemistry or neuroelectrical activity, psychological projection, or simple misinterpretation more than we are dealing with an experience of God. Does this blogger really not know this?

Prayer is our experimental means to knowledge of God and just as in other forms of human knowing which depend on the duplication of experimental results and the careful elaboration of the implications of the findings, so too do prayer experiences require something similar though, of course, not identical. (Since prayer is the activity of a transcendent and sovereign God within us, not something we alone achieve, duplication of the conditions and experience is not possible.) We have criteria for discerning the genuineness of a prayer experience (or series of experiences) and we turn to theologians and experts in prayer to explore the ramifications and implications of our conclusions. Could this have been of God? In what way is this so and in what way not (because both aspects are always present in such an experience!)? What allows me to say so? Who has known God in similar ways and what does this mean? And of course, what are the fruits of this experience? Does it result in greater life and truth, compassion and love, or does it not? These are a few of the questions personal experiences in prayer, despite the subjective certitude associated with them, necessarily call for in order that they may be edifying not only to the individual but to the entire faith community.

Again (and here we return to the reason St John of the Cross's citations of others are so important and a model for us) we are looking at a reason prayer, though profoundly and unquestionably personal, is also an essentially ecclesial reality and not merely a private one. Genuine discernment requires the wisdom of a praying community --- which, on the most immediate or individual level is what working with a spiritual director is about. Our individual prayer experiences must become the source of real wisdom and this requires reflection and conversation. Remember the citation I gave from Ruth Burrows: [[When all is said and done, the long line of saints and spiritual writers who insist on "experience", who speak of sanctity in terms of ever deepening "experience", who maintain that to have none is to be spiritually dead, are absolutely right provided we understand "experience" in the proper sense, not as a transient emotional impact but as living wisdom, living involvement. . . .So often, however, what the less instructed seek is mere emotion. They are not concerned with the slow demanding generosity of genuine experience.]] GMP, "A Look at Experiences," p 55, emphasis added.

For this to happen testing (sometimes called testing of the spirits) must also occur and this happens within the community of faith, not least including the communion of saints. As far as I can see, to be responsible for what one experiences in prayer requires one to submit her own conclusions to the "corroboration" (so to speak) --- or, perhaps better put, to the reverent attention and consideration of other faithful, especially those experienced in the ways of prayer. One does this so that one's own experience may become a source of genuine wisdom in a way which builds up the whole community. One does so in order that others may truly benefit from God's interaction with humanity in Christ as mediated in one's own prayer. This is precisely the way we believe and truly honor our very personal prayer experiences. Merely privatistic experiences, especially when they are eccentric or mainly rooted in the false self are not only not edifying, they are disedifying or downright destructive both of the individual and of the believing community as well.

Merton, TS Elliot, The Apophatic Way and My Own Contemplative Life

Dear Sister, I like the posts you have put up with the picture of the monk and the quotes from Merton and T.S. Elliot. I hope you continue these. Is Merton a favorite writer and spiritual teacher for you? I ask because some people have written that he went kind of awry or was "off" in his later years and was discredited as a Catholic monk. I don't mean you shouldn't read him but I wondered why you liked him and if you thought that was true.]]

Hi there. Thanks for your comments on the posts. I do plan to continue these. Not only do I love the picture -- which for me sums up so much of the eremitical life -- but I think these posts provide a way of giving a small but significant taste of various authors on the contemplative journey from time to time. When I first thought of combining the picture with a single quote I was thinking that visually and otherwise it would present as a kind of contemplative moment within the blog itself; I thought that might be really attractive to folks who come here. I haven't decided how often I want to put these up -- not TOO frequently of course --- and I think I also need to title them similarly so they stand out as a regular feature of the blog, but those logistical matters aside, yes I will continue to put them up.

As for Thomas Merton, yes, he is a favorite writer and spiritual teacher (or mentor) for me though until very recently it had been some time since I had actually read him. I was saying to a friend earlier today that I have just recently come back to Merton and am beginning to reread him with new eyes. I first picked up his stuff in the late 1960's or early 1970's. Later, in the 1980's I read some of his work on eremitical life. Along with Merton's own stuff I am looking again at the work of William Shannon. The latter's revision of The Dark Path (his new book is called Thomas Merton's Paradise Journey) is really exciting because in it I am reading again about something I once felt called to and with which I resonated to some limited degree, but now recognize as profoundly descriptive of my own spiritual journey and contemplative experience. You see, Merton's approach to contemplation and my own are the same (which is hardly surprising!); we both were called to the "apophatic" (a-poh-FAT-ic) tradition or way --- the way of darkness and denial. (It comes from the Greek word apophasis (uh-POF-uh-sis) which means negation or denial, ("God is not. . ."). It's opposite is the kataphatic or affirmative way (kataphasis [keh-TAF-uh-sis] means affirmation); it is a way of doing theology which proceeds by way of analogy and makes affirmations about God both in terms of similarity ("God is like. . .") and even greater dissimilarity ("but God is even more unlike . . ."). It does not, by definition, penetrate to the deepest essence or heart of God)

Apophatic Tradition in Contemplation

Apophatic contemplation, which is a way built on "experiencing" God directly, thrives on paradox and I have been turned on by paradox and especially by the paradoxes of Christianity from the moment my first major professor explained the difference between the way Greek thought tends to proceed and the way Biblical thought works. (The first moves from thesis to antithesis and then comes to rest in a synthesis which often is a kind of golden mean. Biblical thought, on the other hand, is at home with paradox --- a kind of both/and approach to thought and reality which often says things like "Dive into the emptiness and there you will find real fullness," "In losing yourself you will find yourself,"  "God's mercy IS his justice", and so forth.) For the contemplative knows that even though many of us are driven to write many words about prayer, spirituality, or theology, none of them even comes close to describing God or the experience (or non-experience!) of prayer. At the same time we know that the tensions of paradox come closest to conveying the truth about God and God's dealings with us --- though many would call them senseless babblings. Thus God is a light we only perceive as darkness or a darkness which illuminates, an emptiness which is fullness, the nothing which is all, so that faith and prayer involve a vulnerable leap (which we both must make and actually cannot make ourselves!) into a void in which we find (or rather are found by) total security. You get the idea I think.

Ruth Burrows (Sister Rachel), the Carmelite nun and specialist in Teresa of Avila whom I have also cited recently and like very much is a contemplative in the apophatic way and this is one of the reasons she so rejects the sense experience so many mistakenly associate with an experience of God in so-called "mystical states". Meister Eckhart, also a proponent of the apophatic way, agrees with Ruth Burrows in this and writes in typical paradoxical form: "Seek God so as never to find him". Both agree with Merton that when, through some experience in prayer, one "seems to have found God," they have NOT found God -- or that "once one seems to have grasped God, God has eluded one". As William Shannon (writing in a way which echoes what I have said here any number of times) explains, "God is not an object or a thing alongside of other objects and things: God is the All whom we can discover only in the experience of not discovering." The Apostle Paul described the same experience when he spoke of "coming to know/grasp God, or rather, being known/grasped by God." Paul Tillich's theology, which I focused on in both my senior year of college and later in doctoral work reminds me very much of this because he defines faith as, "the state of being grasped by an unconditional concern" and is emphatic that God is not A being, but instead the ground of being and meaning out of which all that is exists (ex-istere, out of - to stand up).

Of course the really big name in the apophatic way is John of the Cross (The Ascent of Mount Carmel, The Living Flame of Love, ). Meanwhile, T.S. Elliot may also have been "schooled" in the apophatic tradition because in true apophatic style he speaks of coming again to the place where he began and knowing that place for the first time. In Little Gidding V Elliot piles paradox upon paradox but he begins with the following one: [[We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.]] This really is the experience of contemplative prayer, the experience of seeking and exploring that which in some sense we know and desire profoundly as our source and starting place only to come to "know the place for the first time." Merton comes at it from the other way around and says it this way, [[[Contemplation] strikes us at once as utterly new and strangely familiar. . .Although we had an entirely different notion of what it would be like, it turns out to be just what we seem to have known all along that it ought to be. . .We enter a region which we had never even suspected, and yet, it is this new world which seems familiar and obvious.]] Seeds of Contemplation pp 144-145

Thomas Merton, A Brief Evaluation:

All of which brings me back to Thomas Merton and your questions. (Really!!) You see, this is the nature of my own contemplative experience and for that reason I know Thomas Merton to have been the real deal. So much of what he writes resonates with me and my own experience in prayer, but also with the "greats" like John of the Cross, the author of the Cloud of Unknowing, many of the Greek Fathers, et al. But besides that, I think I largely owe him for my eremitical vocation. You see when I read canon 603 for the first time it was intriguing to me personally and suggested a way all the dimensions of my life could be rendered coherent (that is, made to hold together in meaningful whole). However, I also doubted such a vocation could be anything but selfish. (Contemplative life struck me that way; eremitical life was far worse --- it seemed a kind of epitome or summit of selfishness!) I then read Dom Jean LeClercq's Alone With God which intrigued me; I liked it very much though I had no idea the Camaldolese existed. Still, I had doubts about the value of the life. Then I read Merton's Contemplation in a World of Action. As I have written here before, it electrified me because it showed eremitical life as valid and more, as a significant gift of God to the Church and world. Later I read his "Notes on a Philosophy of Solitude" in Disputed Questions and that became a new favorite -- but by that time I was already a  hermit and had been for more than twenty years.

Some suggest he was not a true monk or that he had confessed upon walking into a library with shelves of his books that much of it was crap (I think he said B.S.). I have already written about those things in this blog and will link you to it here: Defending Thomas Merton . Bear in mind that for the apophatic contemplative words ALWAYS not only fall short of but also betray God. We are nonetheless compelled to write about God and prayer but with an awareness that when what we write is compared to the God who grasps us in prayer, the judgment must always be what it was for Thomas Merton, Thomas Aquinas and so many others: this is as straw, it is a load of refuse, BS, etc. Further our work is always also our very own and reflects not just our virtue, our knowledge, and our union with God but our limitations and even our sinfulness or estrangement from that same God and our truest selves. Thus when Merton looked upon the newly published Seeds of Contemplation, for instance, he remarked, "Every book I write is a mirror of my own character and conscience. I always open the final printed job with the faint hope of finding myself agreeable and I never do" He goes on to say both sincerely and perhaps with more than a little contemplative irony (or all-too-human hyperbole), "There is nothing to be proud of in this one either. : ."

Meanwhile, as someone associated with the Camaldolese as an oblate, I know that many Christian Contemplatives read, study, and regularly meet and discuss with contemplatives of other religious traditions. Some of my Camaldolese brothers and sisters in particular are specialists in other contemplative traditions and the New Camaldoli hermitage hosts inter-religious meetings of such contemplatives regularly though not frequently. We (contemplatives from various religious traditions) have a lot in common precisely because the God we meet transcends words and descriptions --- and also the limits of our own religious traditions. (Sometimes our own clinging to these limits represents what Mary Magdalene did with the Risen Christ and we need to remember that while we are to honor these traditions appropriately for all they truly reveal/mediate to us, they must not cause us to cling to a yet-unascended Jesus nor to limit the reach of the Holy Spirit.)

Though aware of all this (and paradoxically too, because of it) Merton never ceased to be a Christian and a Cistercian Monk.  Because his own life reflected the paradoxes and tensions of the contemplative who is drawn beyond more usual borders and boundaries I understand why what he wrote was uncomfortable for some of his confreres and others. Of course, I also know he was a flawed human being; his unacceptable behavior with the nurse he met during his stay in hospital was unjustifiable -- though he tried pretty hard (and pitifully) to do this in what I read of his last journal. Still, my own judgment on Merton is favorable. He was and remained a Catholic Christian, Trappist Monk, and true contemplative who was also a contemporary hermit and a fine writer. I am grateful to God for his life and more than a little sorry for his premature death because I would have liked to have known him.