Theories and Methods in the Study of Religion
The Mystical Within
An Embodied Experience The term ‘religion’ has come to mean a wide variety of things over the years. It has ranged from “a statement of faith” (Gill, 968) to an element constructed to justify a human need for purpose in life. In the most distinguished writers of philosophy, religion, anthropology and psychology, the interpretations of religion and it forces within society, vary as much as their individual specialization fields. Thinkers have always had something to say about the experiences believers encounter when they immerse themselves in their deep-rooted belief systems. They reiterate, agree with, reject, and even propagate the theses brought forth by both past thinkers and their own contemporaries. In the writings of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Rudolf Otto, William James, Richard King, and Alan Cole, the view of how individuals and groups make religion an experience they embody through their actions both individually and as a result of the mystical aspects within the religion, is discussed expansively. These thoughts have led to deeply analytical observations of religious followers who allow themselves to have a more intimate embodied experience within their beliefs. In the writings of Friedrich Schleiermacher and William James, both philosophers, important observations referring to the mystical essence of religion were established. These thinkers were revolutionizing the way people thought about the religious experience in their own eras. They scrutinized the concept of mystical experiences that religious followers believe they have embodied. Schleiermacher, who wrote in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, pioneered the notion of an individual mystical experience as what a religion wants to happen. His life as a writer took place during the Romantic Movement, which accounts for his highly sensual view of being, as opposed to an intellectualist view more commonly portrayed in the medieval period. He writes: In order to take possession of its own domain, religion renounces herewith all claims to whatever belongs to those others and gives back everything that has been forced upon it. It does not wish to determine and explain the universe according to its nature as does metaphysics; it does not desire to continue the universe’s development and perfect it by the power of freedom and the divine free choice of a human being as does morals. Religion’s essence is neither thinking nor acting, but intuition and feeling. (Schleiermacher 1996: 22)

This notion of religion as embodied experience contrasts to religion as being a cognitive mental process. Its basis is in “intuition and feeling” and not forcible and controllable actions like thinking. Schleiermacher does not take experience for granted but rather makes it a significant part of religious life. In his writings, he expresses to his contemporaries that religion and feelings are to be assimilated and that within these categories, gratification and refinement of the senses is most important. James writes a century after Schleiermacher however, in his writings he elaborates the latter’s ideologies. In “The Varieties of Religious Experience,” James writes: Mystical truth exists for the individual who has the transport, but for no one else…This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed. (James 1982: 405, 419)

Similar to Schleiermacher, James shows that within mysticism, the embodied experience a person can undergo is not a result of a deeply thought out process but rather, of an out of body feeling wherein a person can truly sense becoming connected to a higher level within his or herself. He further elaborates these notions when he discusses religion as not just a bunch of ideas we debate, but as an idea we can use to have a better life. His book describes religion as any feeling, act, and experience that a person has in solitude as long as it is related to what they consider divine. He has moved from the idea Schleiermacher portrayed wherein a subjective emotional self has a religious experience that is as intuitive as religion itself to a more progressive notion that there is a need to celebrate the individual as the acting person who is more active but still subjective and individual. Despite one author expanding and elaborating the views of the other, both believe that in essence, religion is an experience that is had by an individual who feels a connection to a higher level through their emotional and intuitive characteristics. In the writings of Rudolf Otto, a theologian in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, one can see that his writing regards religions as more developed, not just in the sense that they exemplify advanced moral ideas, but also that they are associated with the belief of God and the afterlife. By including the notion of God and the afterlife, Otto is straying for the basic mysticism concepts that are portrayed by Schleiermacher and James. In mysticism we have in ‘beyond’ again the strongest stressing and over-stressing of those non-rational elements which are already inherent in all religion. Mysticism continues to its extreme point this contrasting of the numinous object, as the ‘wholly other,’ with ordinary experience…mysticism concludes by contrasting it with Being itself and all that ‘is’, and finally actually calls it ‘that which is nothing’. By this ‘nothing’ is not only meant that of which nothing can be predicated, but that which is absolutely and intrinsically other than and opposite of everything that is and can be thought. (Otto 1958: 29)

Otto describes mysticism as a notion that does not really complete the true meaning of an embodied experience that believers feel. He says that there is a disconnect between mysticism and the numinous or the ‘holy’ that prevent full engagement in the devotional feeling. As a Christian himself, he talks about reason itself inescapably and automatically producing the ideas of God, freedom, and immortality. Like Schleiermacher, Otto wants to put forward a religiousness that is totally different from the rational, moral, and aesthetic characteristics religion currently holds. The focus of these characteristics is the ‘holy,’ which is fearsome, mysterious, and fascinating. This is where their ideas part and Otto brings it back to God being the center of Christian theology. Bringing a modern perspective to mysticism in the late 20th century was Richard King, currently a professor of Religious Studies at Vanderbilt University, who wrote Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India, and The Mystic East. In this book, King delves into a study of the term mysticism and how it has developed through the years. In the first chapter of the book, he goes over the meanings of what is ‘the mystical’ from the medieval times through modern day, a process that leads him to analyze and take apart the works of Schleiermacher and James as well as to draw upon some of the ideas in Otto’s writings. It is worth bearing in mind…that the ‘discourse on the mystical’ in the contemporary world is by no means homogenous. The stereotype of the irrational, dogmatic, and private mystic has been questioned…since the term ‘mystic’ came into common parlance. This reflects the point made in the introduction to this work, namely that the definition of ‘the mystical’ remains the cognitive site of a struggle for authority and power. Thus, one will always find resistance to the dominant paradigm with representations of mystics as rational, open-minded and socially oriented figures. (King 1999: 28)

King discusses the continually changing meaning of the ‘mystical’ in the context of philosophy and while contrasting it from the ‘rational.’ He talks about the relationship between one’s personal engagement with the divine and how this, via mysticism, helps a believer produce individuality. It is through time that the meaning of mysticism has developed however, there will never be a decidedly common meaning of it because there are always disagreements that are bound to come forth when defining ‘the mystical.’ Another modern writer on mysticism and the embodied experience is Alan Cole. Cole’s work is not just an overall analysis of the two terms but rather a highly researched work that focuses on the Chinese Mahayana Buddhist community. Cole’s work, Mothers and Sons in Chinese Buddhism is filled with the beliefs of Mahayana Buddhism and its far reach among the Chinese people. It is a religion based in the mystical. In his analysis Cole talks about the mother being the source of her sons being. Because she is a woman she automatically goes to hell at which point, if she has a good son, he will buy services from monks to get her out of hell but, having a good son only occurred if the mother was a good Buddhist. He contrasts different writings that have slightly different contextual material in them. When writing about the Blood Bowl Sutra, Cole says: Regardless of how filial a son or how quickly he gets the Buddhists to do all the necessary rituals, The Blood Bowl Sutra implies that these rites only correct a wrong. The mother is going to this bloody hell not matter what. The addition of the word ‘then’ after listing the three years of rituals that save her is a broad hint that she will reside in that hell for three years even under the best conditions. Thus every child is made to understand his or her coming into the world was a great gift from his mother – who, knowing what it would cost her in the next world, nevertheless decided to give birth to new life. (Cole 1998: 208)

Cole takes the reader on a journey through the mystical beliefs of the Mahayana Buddhist’s with respect to their women and sons. The relationship between mother and son is not one that had been typically explored in the past by other systems of belief. Usually it is a relationship between a father and son or a mother and daughter. Cole also discusses an event called the Ghost Festival that occurs on the seventh lunar month on the fifteenth day wherein the gates of hell open and souls are available for feeding and clothing (Cole 1998: 156). Another belief based in mysticism is that the bones of the male are white and thick while those of the female are black and frail. He writes: This section is crucial because it reveals that men and women leave different kinds of bones: men’s bones are white and heavy, while women’s are lightweight and black in color. Yet this appears to be mystical rather than literal, since Ananda cannot see it with his eyes and asks for clarification… (Cole 1998: 220)

In his conclusions, Cole reemphasizes the value of the family in the structure of Mahayana Buddhism. Chinese Buddhists made their beliefs their own by creating within itself values that were extremely important to their ways of life while always keeping to the ways of the Buddha. The progressively intense focus on their mother-son issues shows that Buddhists were quick to draw on the dynamics of the traditional family and manipulate them so as to insinuate Buddhist obligations into the succession of generations. (Cole 1998: 227)
The notion of mysticism is of great importance for the Mahayana Buddhists because it allows them to truly connect to their ancestry and show them the honor and respect that is unquestionably owed to them. The struggles of women within Buddhism and their endless battle to get out of the gates of hell is helped by the notion of the mystical wherein a son is able to assist his mother in the process of exiting the bloody inferno. It is difficult to dissociate mysticism from embodied experience. Without embodied experience mysticism cannot exist, however, the contrary is not true. An embodied experience can exist without the need for mysticism. Most popularly the notion of embodied experience is explored by William James and Aldous Huxley who, through the use of various substances, attempt to describe what it truly is to have an embodied experience. William James states: One reason why I disliked this kind of trance was that I could not describe it to myself. I cannot even now find the words to render it intelligible. It consisted in a gradual but swiftly progressive obliteration of space, time, sensation, and the multitudinous factors…we are please to call Self. (James 1982: 385)

William James experience was ultimately, literally not memorable. In contrast Huxley writes: I had expected to lie with my eyes shut looking at many visions…but I had not reckoned it…with idiosyncrasies of my mental make-up, the facts of my temperament, training, and habits (Huxley 1970: 15)

Contrary to James’ initial expectations, Huxley had anticipated experiencing an entirely different out of body moment but in the end both men wound up having deeply theoretical and analytical thought during their experiences. Their embodies experiences, not related at all to the mystical, were an exceptional moment wherein both realized that the experiences are truly what you make of them and what you want them to be. When it comes to analyzing mysticism and embodied experience it can seemingly be concluded that to be mystical means that an embodied experience will occur however, to have and embodied experience it is not necessary to be into the mystical. Through the readings of Schleiermacher, James, Otto, Huxley, Cole, and King we are able to delve into the world of the mystical and truly observe how it has progressed, take place within the individual, and embodies itself cross culturally. With the basic ideology that Emile Durkheim ‘preached’ these thinkers have continued to pile up the ideas until they have developed a seemingly logical explanation for the mystical and for an embodied experience. From the earliest writings of Schleiermacher through the contemporary King book, the notion of mysticism and embodied experience as a consistent force within people’s belief systems has grown and developed with the times. Each author observes the changes since the last one wrote and continues to expand and elaborate the ideas. Each concludes that ultimately the meanings and desires behind mysticism and embodied experience will continually change with the times because of the utter scope and magnitude that it has come to signify to so many who believe.

Works Cited
Cole, Alan. Mothers and Sons in Chinese Buddhism. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1998
Huxley, Aldous. The Doors of Perception. New York: Harper & Row, 1970
James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Modern Library, 1994: 379-429.
King, Richard. Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India, and ‘The Mystic East.’ London: Routledge, 1999
Otto, Rudolf. The Idea of the Holy, 2nd ed., trans. by John W. Harvey. New York: Oxford University Press, 1950
Schleiermacher, Friedrich. “Second Speech: On the Essence of Religion.” In On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers, 2nd ed., trans. By Richard Crouter, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996