The Liberation of Mysticism

Mysticism aims to deconstruct the classical metaphysical contrasts (the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal, the sensual and the purely spiritual, and so on) and bring realism to an end, with an effect that is as if God and the self have been melted together.

The result is usually described as a dissolving of the soul, with an extraordinary effect of religious liberation and happiness, a kind of intellectual orgasm described by some as “union with God” or the “spiritual marriage” but which others describe as “atheism” and wish to see punished.

Mysticism Dismantles Doctrines of God 

Mystical figures such as Spinoza among the Jews, al-Hallaj among the Muslims, and Meister Eckhart among the Christians, have accordingly been punished by their co-religionists. Punished because mysticism gives the game away – it dismantles God for God’s sake.

The mystics, those few who truly wish to attain religious happiness, will continue to discover that the way to it is by dismantling, dissolving away the realistic doctrines of both God and the self, so that the two can be melted together. Admittedly the spiritual marriage is a deadly heresy, but it is also eternal happiness.

Union Through Dissolution 

In the end everything we most deeply longed for coincides with, and turns out to be the same as, everything we most feared. All the great distinctions and oppositions out of which we built our ideas of God, the world, and the self are undone. The dissolution of God, and our attainment of perfect union with God, are one and the same thing.

After God: The Future Of Religion
Don Cupitt

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