WHAT IS MYSTICISM AND WHAT ARE/IS A MYSTIC?

well, many are mystified by mysticism

Well if you're confused enough you automatically become one and since we can't live in a vaccum you start explaining things to yourself for which there is no explanation. Every question mark is followed by an answer. Some people are very good at this. Their called philosophers to whom reality is no object. Take Plato for example!

I suppose you could call mysticism "having a direct experience of god. But then what is god?" Since no two people have the same definition of god, this explanation is pretty much useless.

Alan Watts called the mystical or religious experience "cosmic consciousness." All these are the same terms for the timeless state of mind that is transcendent of the ego or self identity. The problem is that no effort or intellectual act can cause this state of mind. And effort only strengthens the ego.

There is some sort of "abandonment" that causes the state. I mean that we constantly reinforce our ego identity through the way we think, and there has to be some kind of break in that constant pattern. Virtually everything in our society reinforces that pattern of ego identity from our childhoods, and our churches to our universities.

There is most likely a strong taboo against glimpsing our true nature that makes it almost impossible for most people to transcend the ego illusion. Alan Watts wrote a book on this subject and entitled it, "The Book: on the taboo against seeing your true nature."

Many, if not most, people had mystical experiences taking hallucinogins like LSD, peyote, etc., and the taboo explains the harsh laws against these drugs, not the danger of using them.

Dictionary definitions of Mysticism:

1. Immediate consciousness of the transcendent or ultimate reality or God.
2. The experience of such communion as described by mystics.
3. A belief in the existence of realities beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehension that are central to being and directly accessible by subjective experience.
4. Vague, groundless speculation.

Isn't definition #4 a bit ironic?
I too am attracted by mysticism, yet:

How does one discern, without a doubt, whether the master is working with the first 3 definitions, or the 4th?

This definition #4 seems to counterweight (invalidate?) the first 3 definitions. Someone, please offer a convincing rebuttal to this thought?

I suppose the first three are the way the mystic describes himself, while the fourth is the way the observer and uninitiated describes the mystic.

Psychic Connection
Joanne Dorel : Read this book ,"Heaven and Earth " by James Van Praagh and I feel sure that he will be able to answer all your questions.

Joe Harris