can think, say, or do, may (in virtue of that historical
incarnation) be justly called the indwelling Christ. This is all
that the Christian mystic needs.
Sect. 10. SPECIMENS OF MODERN MYSTICISM
I conclude this introductory essay with a few extracts from recent
American books on the psychology of religion. It is interesting to
find some of the strangest experiences of the cloister reproduced
under the very different conditions of modern American life. The
quotations will serve to show how far Tauler and the "Theologia
Germanica" are from being out of date.
"The thing which impressed me most" (says a correspondent of
Professor William James)[33] "was learning the fact that we must be
in absolutely constant relation or mental touch with that essence of
life which permeates all and which we call God. This is almost
unrecognisable unless we live into it ourselves actually--that is,
by a constant turning to the very innermost, deepest consciousness
of our real selves or of God in us, for illumination from within,
just as we turn to the sun for light, warmth, and invigoration
without. When you do this consciously, realising that to turn inward
to the light within you is to live in the presence of God or of your
Divine self, you soon discover the unreality of the objects to which
you have hitherto been turning and which have engrossed you
without."
The next quotation comes from a small book by one of the "New
Thought" or "Mind Cure" school in America. The enormous sale of the
volume testifies to the popularity of the teaching which it
contains.[34]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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