It has taken me some time to find the confidence to seriously consider myself a mystic. I have grown in this life from humble Salford beginnings, and humble Salfordians don’t become mystics. But my willingness now to see myself in this way comes from an idea that we are all mystics, all cosmic adventurers. It can’t be, I have decided, that I would have to meet the criteria of previous, recognised and reverred mystics in order to qualify as one myself. An awareness of the history of mysticism and its most influential figures is not required; we all swim in the same sea of creation. And that is all that is required. The unwritten book of my life, of anybody’s life, is ample. We each of us have all of the direct experience one could need to know and understand our living connection with all we encounter. And the way each of us forms and informs our experience of, and passage through, the sea of creation is our mystical practise. We are expert. We are masters. Our confidence in our mastery is so well earned that we are willing to take ourselves into extreme states of forgetting and self denial, to use such states as tools of our craft, the purpose…to shift consciousness, ultimately to live in love. So the plainest person with the plainest life, who shows the least awareness of their own mystical power, is still a great mystic performing their masterpiece with consummate skill. We can do no less.

​

​

​

THE ISSUE OF MYSTICAL CREDIBILITY

​

​

While individual unproven scientific theories may struggle to gain credibility the wider field of science in general has credibility by the silo load. A scientist comes up with a theory, then designs experiments to test it, and once the theory is shown to stand on its own two feet applications are found that can make use of the scientific understandings gained. Again and again practical use is made of the uncovered principles … we flick a switch and light fills the room, we get in a car and drive across town. The world of science needn’t worry too much about it’s own credibility when it produces such an enticing array of gadgets for our gratification. There is a consistency in the language of science and the results it repeatedly produces that makes it easy to have faith in.
 

By comparison a mystic looking for credibility among the uninitiated has got their work cut out for them, for if there is anything that can be said to be consistent in this field it is in the inconsistency: the endlessly individualised forms of expression, use of language and suggested modes of application offered by the mystically inclined. What consistency there is seems to be buried beneath the lines of symbolism, while what remains on the surface for the distanced observer is a panorama of idiosyncrasy and seemingly arbitrary rituals, practices, anecdotes, that bear little relationship to each other at best and appear to be mutually exclusive at worst.
 

To the distanced observer (and often the not so distanced) the world of mysticism may seem to be populated in the majority by cretinous cranks who demonstrate so beautifully the truth in Derren Brown’s observation that humans attach meaning to the recognition of patterns where it isn’t warranted: we see what we are looking for and manage to not see what we don’t wish to find.
 

This can be a source of frustration, to put it mildly, for those mystical explorers who would quite like to not be thought of as gullible, wish-fulfilment addicts.
 

Here’s the rub: where the scientist tends to see the world and “reality” as an objective thing, the mystic deals with the subjective experience of the soul. Accordingly the most celebrated and easy to acknowledge results of scientific thinking tend to be found in the realm of the physical sciences … technology, chemistry, engineering, etc. The mystical mind recognises the subjective nature of each individual’s reality. The work of a mystic does not tend to produce objective results, and any interested party who requires a significant degree of objectivity will struggle to find credibility in the proponents of mysticism…
 

Where a mystic will be able to observe clearly when a scientist sends a man into outer space, a scientist will see very little when a mystic sends a woman into inner space.
 

There are very few scientific geniuses on the planet. There are very few geniuses in any field – it’s kind of inherent in the definition of the word genius. And the work of a scientific genius doesn’t tend to make much sense to the layperson. In the meantime, there tends to be a much larger number of science enthusiasts who are eager to talk with excited confidence about what it is they are enthusiastic about, and the accuracy of their understanding, not to mention their ability to communicate it to others, can often be disproportionate to the authority with which they speak.
 

And so it goes with mysticism too.
 

Only, where the result of the work of a scientific genius may be a very visible rocket flying into space or a bomb blowing up 66,000 people within seconds and with a high degree of visibility, the masterstroke of the genius mystic is invisible to the objective eye and the population of a city continues to breathe. And while this genius mystic goes about their work, largely or wholly unseen by the outside world, a much larger number of mystical enthusiasts chatter excitedly about their enthusiasm and come across as gullible cretins to the scientific establishment and indeed each other.
 

“So,” a hypothetical, scientifically minded debater might say to me, “it seems rather convenient that what you are talking about is invisible, subjective and can’t be proved. That’s very convenient for you indeed, is it not?”
 

Well, no, not really.
 

It’s more an understanding that I must accept and come to terms with, like when I realised I was going to go bald before I was twenty-five.
 

And, as any mystic worth his salt understands, my going bald before I was twenty-five is packed with as much meaning for me as I care to discover. And yes, Mr. Brown, that meaning is entirely subjective and entirely self created. It is also entirely real.
 

My reality, the subjective reality that I alone experience, is “more real” than objective reality. Objective reality is the myth. Scientists are still searching for it, arguing about its existence, coming up with theories about what it might look like. Objective reality is as elusive and unprovable to them as my subjective reality is self evident to me. I don’t need to go in search of my subjective reality, it isn’t a mythical land I have heard rumours about and that I must go on a quest of hardship to discover. I have been intimately acquainted with my subjective reality since as long as I can remember. It is the only thing I have any knowledge of whatsoever.
It is the only thing I have any knowledge of whatsoever.
 

And I don’t make that statement lightly.
 

And this is where the balance between the credibility of the scientist and the credibility of the mystic flips around, because the same is true for everybody, even scientists, and on some level or other we all know it.
 

The scientist may say that “the subjective isn’t to be trusted because it is constantly changing as it is interpreted and reinterpreted by ones consciousness, whereas scientific understanding (once it is eventually completed) will remain constant and therefore reliable and therefore something that can be trusted. Subjective experience changes as consciousness changes, whereas scientific understanding isn’t subject to consciousness … er …”
 

“Well, I mean, the term “understanding” does seem to imply the involvement of some form of consciousness, I suppose, but … er …”
 

Yes, that’s right, the objective reality that the scientist is seeking can only be observed and experienced through the subjective reality of the scientist in question. It’s kind of their Achilles heal. They may try to reduce the significance of this, but the scientist who attempts to do that will never arrive at their unified answer because its significance is irreducible. And it might take a scientific genius to recognise and admit that.
 

There is a place where the scientific genius and the genius mystic meet and recognise each other and celebrate each others work.