Natural Mystic
Part 1
In an age where it’s hard to find a sense of simple cultural harmony, what else is there to turn to but to something imminently and perfectly natural? If we were willing to get a little bolder: Science, math, and technology take their power from their being derived from very precise studies of nature. Even our science is part of this greater mystical art of nature that we are ever exploring and creating.
This art is perhaps the only art that there really is: Natural Mystical Art.
I will define mystic as clearly as I can, because anything worth saying is definitely worth that little bit of extra effort. And since I consider this to be the most important idea of all, I will be fair enough to involve a dictionary.
Mystic.
a person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond the intellect.
Definitions from Oxford Languages on Google Search
The only main difference I would make with this standard definition is that this type of mystical practice doesn’t need to connect you to the Absolute. We can apprehend certain things with the intellect, but there are many other things that we do not apprehend in this way. Scientific methods as we know them, can never prove anything to be true, but a theory can be disproven, or proven to be not true. Even there, in the case of a negative proof, such certainties are very beholden to a very particular set of circumstances and so most things may be regarded as real to a degree.
Something like: Werewolves exist and come out at the full moon. Last full moon I saw a human practically turn into an animal and do some primal and violent things. They infected someone else with their strange feverish behavior and passed it on: and they remember little about it after.
Sound familiar? Your average drunken, slutty night could be summed up in such a fashion.
What distinguishes such a natural mystical perspective from all versions of mysticism in the past is also what makes it so old fashioned: it takes them all together and does the work of finally throwing away old ideas and habits in the wastebin of intellectual history where they belong. But this is something that could be called quite plainly perennial wisdom. Perennial wisdom is of a kind that is strengthened by the work of diligent and thoughtful science. Art is just the sort of thing that inspires us to continue this journey and draws our attention to things we may miss in our science or intellect. Art in this mystical fashion inspires science to be more imaginative and sets a higher bar for its work. Art can so very easily distract us. That is why it is important that there are more serious artists out there of all kinds. We call some of them scientists in our culture. Einstein was vocal about how much imagination it takes to do mathematics and physics. His stance makes it clear that though it is much easier to daydream to no end, it requires a lot more imagination to imagine reality as it is, rather than as we wish it to be. Even so, to be mystic in the sense that I mean, is to know that we do not ever have a map that can be proven to be the exclusively correct model of reality.
The battle that I pick in this case is with the idea of absolute knowledge: if times are either desperate, or entirely superfluous–that is when absolute knowledge comes to play the foil again. Absolute knowledge seems so sexy and so glamorous that most seekers of wisdom seek it exclusively. Others fall prey to its offer ultimately because absolute knowledge is the cheapest date around. Need eternal love?: go to the absolute for more information.
Need a quick reaction? One word: Absolutely!
Maybe you are wondering: What does this form of Mysticism connect you with, though?
Divinity.
Divinity is a concept that is usually regarded as equal to God. If you only believe in one God then you will usually think of God as the ruler of all creation, or as the divinely intelligent designer of the universe. This equates divinity with one God alone.
In this version of mysticism no conception of God is required, only a conception of divinity. Divinity in this sense is also from the Mystery Traditions or Mystery Schools. It is likely that almost every culture has one. Divinity is everything that there is, ever will be or has been. Divine union in this sense is to at least understand how everything is the same on some level, and also to have an idea of how things compare on that level. What is just as important is being able to have a language and a philosophy which enables this to become a practical and mystical working model for your life and for others
If we want a method for keeping this sense of true mystery alive in our daily lives: this is what natural mysticism is all about. It is about facing realities that go deep down into the heart of it all. It is knowing any moment could put you face to face with a real life mystery.
This is where video games, technology and movies are poor substitutes of the real thing: they are all potentially enablers of our most regrettable folly. What is most regrettable here is that we make a simple error in practical judgement. We feed ourselves products of experience where our imaginations want much less. Our imaginations want a real quarry. But without a form which holds the imagination up to a divine mirror we would never have an anchor for our most promising and ultimate goals. Without a conception of harmony on a divine scale there is very little with which to make sense of any of our experiences. I only know this in what way I can because I took the mystical idea of harmony very seriously. Where others went on pondering other things and working on specific problems, I tried to learn something real about a divine problem.
Where other paths to divinity may give you poetry, platitudes and hackneyed distortions of reality: following the Divine reality of harmony will give you a stricter and more powerful science, a more meaningful mathematics, and an art that is truly useful for developing cultural harmony.
What I am saying is: don't take my word for it, discover this mystery for yourself! It is truly in everything.
DIVINE HARMONY.
The view that I am describing comes from a definition of divinity as a natural and cosmic form of Harmony.
NATURAL MYSTICAL HARMONY
: the simultaneous expression of cyclical patterns of matter and energy.
On this level everything you perceive at any one moment is regarded as 'simultaneously expressed.' This concerns things that repeat time and again like the day length of Earth, which comes from its constantly spinning at roughly the same rate or in the same pattern over and again. A cyclical pattern is something which happens again and again in some way.
This definition is as close as I have gotten to a clear formal conception of what both mystical harmony and its divine nature are.
At that level it defines what we are able to do and perceive. If we can see it or perceive it: then it has a greater weight of reality the more it sticks around in the same fashion. In this way, harmony defines one thing very well—what lasts.
Very similar to the mythical necklace of Harmonia which was said to confer long life: harmony's power is defined by this science and wisdom of divine and lasting things.
The natural mystic looks to the nature of Harmony that is both Cosmic and Divine for their principles of logic and reason, and for their inspiration and support. No power lasts but by this divine power of harmony.
In some ways this is a matter of definition. But the trick is finding a definition that works more than just in theory–it is much more interesting if it works as a model of the universe and of our experience of it. That this conception is by its nature a divine form, makes it different from almost every other idea that you are familiar with.
Divine Harmony & Cultural Cosmology
In very lay terms, cosmology is what we call making sense of our experience of the universe. The same Pythagoras of the Pythagorean Theorem of geometry was an early progenitor of the idea of Cosmos and cosmology. He is also one of the ancient progenitors of music theory and what I call musical cosmos theory. Historically speaking, understanding the state of profound harmony visible in the cycles of the sun, moon, earth, planets and stars was instrumental in the development of everything from hunting big game, to agriculture, to mathematics, geometry, music theory and practice, physics, medicine, and architecture.
But as you may guess from the list above, our understanding of harmony was also instrumental in constructing a culturally shared language, and especially of written languages in all their forms.
More recently, cave art in Europe and throughout the world was shown to be a proto-language which was more mnemonic in form (1), than the more highly developed written cuneiform script in Mesopotamian Cultures. Since these self same cycles and measuring them was important for keeping on track with the inevitable patterns of the celestial world and keeping your culture afloat, harmony is the form and language of all human and cultural behavior. We all have to at least intuitively understand patterns that happen over and again like clockwork. We all have to go with the flow at some level because we can't control everything no matter how hard we try.
If we are going to describe a divine concept of anything, then cosmology is a natural way of understanding such a concept. In some sense we can make a distinction between divinity and what we know of cosmology. The idea of the divine reality would be what is actually true of the physical world and the greater cosmos.
Compared to this, the cosmic reality is defined by what we have experienced or are familiar with regarding the greater divine reality, which is essentially unattainable in some sense.
However, what this is meant to be, is a very clear reason why having a basic idea of cosmology helps you to conceive of some form of divine harmony almost as a basic requirement of the idea.
A basic model of cosmology could be defined in a map of wider and wider circles of connection to the harmony of the cosmos, or, if you prefer, these are concentric circles which represent greater and greater spans of the cosmic landscape from you as the center.
Beyond the known cosmos is what could be described as the greater multiverse. This is currently something we have very little conception of, but it is useful as a way of possibly being open to more information and future development.
Basic Levels of Remove from You
PERSONAL
HOME
LOCAL ENVIRONMENT & COMMUNITY (by your home)
CULTURAL (or CITY, STATE, or NATIONAL level)
DEEP ECOLOGICAL - (WHOLE EARTH - GAIA)
SOLAR (Solar System)
GALACTIC
INTER-GALACTIC (or at the group of galaxies level)
COSMIC
MULTIVERSAL (beyond what we know of our cosmos)
In some ways this model is meant to be applicable to any lifeform at any level, though its doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to be a start.
In some sense this is one of the oldest ways Harmony was taught in many parts of the world and in many cultures. In the west we call it QaBaLaH, or ‘receiving’ Harmony from the Divine Source. In the east different lineages call it different things, but they are all cosmological maps, and also maps of harmony in its Divine form.
All of these forms of harmony are important and are interdependent in some ways. The cosmic balance is largely unaffected by our personal histories. But be sure that the state of cosmic harmony, and all the other lesser forms of it affect the personal level of harmony to a very high degree.
Cosmic harmony is defined by the cyclical or recurring nature of everything within it to a degree. But it is less immediately affected by less widespread and less massive changes in the cosmic landscape.
What I hope is clear is that we mainly think of harmony in terms of the harmony of our family life or our community. Our ideas of cultural harmony are often derived from whether or not there is widespread poverty or violence in the nation we live in. This comes from a conception of the entire Earth as a delineation of human territories. All the land on the map is human-owned except the real stinkers like Antarctica.
Exploring the nature of each aspect of this wider and wider net of coverage in the cosmos as we know it, helps to conceive of ways that we can obtain a wider perspective on matters of culture or concern. Exploring the physical structure and the cyclical patterns the occur from each order of remove, helps to fill in the details of how they differ and are the same.
In this case what is furthest away lends us a clearer idea of what we are than what we are accustomed to seeing. The seemingly perfect, flexible and perpetual ballet of the celestial clockworks still eludes us, and I am not sure we have ever gotten the point of what the Universal Clockwork actually is. We have used it to describe how our clocks are equal if not better than the celestial clockworks as a cultural and economic tool. Yet the celestial clockworks don’t need a windup or a battery: they work fine on their own without any external source of energy or a motor, and they may actually never run fast or slow in any meaningful way. What this suggests is that though we have supposed our clocks are the better of the celestial clockworks: this is very much not the case.
In our daily lives our personal sense of harmony is often the main focus when we are young and learning about the world. But still there are simple ways that the harmony of your neighborhood, the environment, and the harmony of many species of life living in the same area comes into account. But the deeper reality of the map is that all of these forms of harmony are interdependent.
To even begin to speak the language of divinity we have to have a much more diverse idea of the cosmos and of the types of harmony in it. If you want to understand it: you may have to create something special to make that happen, or do something you have never done. At the very least considering the lives of others and other species of life goes a long way in beginning this process.
All the same, for creating and understanding personal harmony in your life: focusing on divine or cosmic harmony, which is the clearest understanding of harmony I know of, is also a very good choice.
(1) BBC News. (2023, January 5). Londoner solves 20,000-year Ice Age drawings mystery. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-64162799
