Christian mysticism was called contemplation, simply looking at God, until the sixth century
Before anyone spoke of Christian mysticism, believers used a plainer word: contemplatio in Latin, theoria in Greek, meaning to gaze at or be aware of the divine. The word mystic itself comes from a Greek verb for shutting the eyes or mouth, once used for initiates sworn to secrecy in pagan mystery cults.
Practice ranges widely, from slow prayerful reading of scripture, known as Lectio Divina, to states described as theosis, a spiritual union with God, and ecstatic visions. Traditional accounts describe three stages: purification, contemplation proper, and the vision of God. Contemplation holds a central place in Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy and has drawn fresh interest in Western churches. In early Christianity, mystikos carried three intertwined senses: hidden or allegorical meanings in scripture, the mystery of Christ present in the Eucharist, and direct, experiential knowledge of God.
Scholars disagree about how to define the subject. Bernard McGinn prefers to speak of God's presence rather than union, because not every mystic described merging with God, and of consciousness rather than experience, because the point is a new way of knowing and loving, not a sensation of an outside object. For him the only real test of a mystic is transformation, in the mystic and in the people touched. The idea of religious experience owes much to William James's 1902 book The Varieties of Religious Experience and, earlier, to Friedrich Schleiermacher, who grounded religion in a feeling of the infinite as a defence against scientific critique. Critics such as Richard King argue that treating mysticism as private inner calm cuts it off from questions of social justice.
Culture shapes visions too. The historian Caroline Bynum has shown that late medieval miracles surrounding the Eucharist also served to prove a mystic's orthodoxy against heresies such as the Cathar belief that the material world was evil.
The roots run through both Jewish and Greek thought. Ideas such as Shekhinah, God's presence in daily life, and the hiddenness of God fed Christian notions of mystery, while ascetic poverty became part of monasticism. From the Greek side, Plato's contemplation of eternal Forms and Plotinus, who taught that everything flows from contemplation, supplied a Neoplatonic framework that reached Christian writers through figures such as Origen and Augustine of Hippo.
Source: Christian mysticism
