August 21, 2025
Practical hints and tips for fasting. Tip #1: Clarify and maintain your motivation. Tip #2: Decide on the length of the fast. Tip #3: Decide on your electrolytes strategy. Tip #4: Plan how you’ll use your time. Tip #5: Plan your environment. Tip #6: Plan how you’ll prepare for the fast. Tip #7: Plan how you’ll break your fast Tip. #8: Think about how you'll eat after the fast. Tip #9: Browse the internet for answers to FAQ. Tip #10: Read up on fasting. Jason Fung and Jimmy Moore. The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting. Canada: Victory Belt Publishing, 2016. Andreas Michalsen. The Fasting Fix: Eat Smarter, Fast Better, Live Longer. Translated by Laura Wagner. Originally published in German as Mit Ernährung Heilen. New York: Penguin Viking, 2020.
A talk on the dark side of mysticism. Over the last few years, I’ve become aware that mysticism has a dark side to it. The exemplar of these dangers is Miguel de Molinos, a popular teacher of prayer in seventeenth-century Rome. He was an ordained priest and held a doctorate, yet dozens of his statements were condemned as heretical, and he was a notorious womanizer. A few years after Molinos’ death, Christian Gottfried Franckenstein (Histoire des intrigues galantes de la reine Christine de Suède) said of him:
Ses mœurs étoient aussi corrompues que sa foy, il abusoit les plus belles femmes & filles auprés desquelles il avoit accéz, leur persuadant que la paillardise n’étoit pas un peché quand on le faisoit sans scandale.
His morals were as corrupt as his faith: he abused the most beautiful women and girls to whom he had access, persuading them that debauchery wasn’t a sin when one did it without scandal.
He documented his teachings in The Spiritual Guide. Miguel de Molinos regarded the prayer of quiet (i.e. prayer that has been prolonged to the extent that there are no longer any words) as the only form of prayer that was worthwhile. He went on to say that internal quiet should be your normal condition in everyday life:
Turn to quiet yourself whenever you become disturbed, for all the divine Lord wants from you is that you repose in your soul and make a rich throne of peace there.
The phrase “all the divine Lord wants from you” indicates his hierarchy of values. Your internal peace is to take priority over all other considerations.
This is confirmed by other passages. When William James (Varieties of Religious Experience) described Miguel de Molinos as a “spiritual genius,” he cited the statement: “When thou fallest into a fault, in what matter soever it be, do not trouble nor afflict thy self for it.” In other words, William James is underlining Molinos’ assertion that the best way to deal with feelings of guilt or remorse is to dismiss them.
Prioritizing your inner peace over ethical considerations was already known to be problematic in the fourth century. John Cassian (Conferences 4.7) describes a peaceful but amoral condition he calls the pax perniciosa or “dangerous peace.” He says that a conflict between flesh and spirit is actually healthy:
Hanc pugnam utiliter nostris quoque membris insertam, etiam in Apostolo ita legimus (ad Gal. V). Caro enim concupiscit adversus spiritum, spiritus autem adversus carnem. Haec autem invicem adversantur sibi, ut non quaecumque vultis, illa faciatis. . . . Et est quodammodo utilis haec pugna dispensatione Dei nobis inserta, et ad meliorem nos statum provocans atque compellens, qua sublata proculdubio pax econtrario perniciosa succedet.
In the English translation of Edgar Gibson:
This conflict too, we read in the Apostle, has for our good been placed in our members (Galatians 5:17). “For the flesh lusteth against the spirit: and the spirit against the flesh. But these two are opposed to each other so that ye should not do what ye would.” . . . And this conflict, implanted in us by the arrangement of the Creator, is in a way useful to us, and calls and urges us on to a higher state: and if it ceased, most surely there would ensue on the other hand a peace that is fraught with danger.
Now that we’ve seen the conflict between Miguel de Molinos’ teachings and Christian values, we must address the larger question as to whether mysticism really belongs in the Christian tradition at all.
Some time ago, I came across a statement by Karl Barth that Christian mysticism conveys “a different spirit than the Spirit of Christ.” (I wish I could find a source for that quotation, but I can't.) I have to say that I agree with Barth. The whole flavor of Christian mysticism is different from the flavor of the New Testament.
Once I looked into this question, I discovered even more problems with mysticism.
The claims of mysticism are deceptive. You’re told that you’ll realize Oneness, you’ll realize the nature of Ultimate Reality, you’ll realize nonduality, you’ll attain union with God, and so on. But there’s a much more down-to-earth explanation for mystical experiences. You’re not really attaining union with God or realizing Ultimate Reality. All you’re really doing is regressing into early layers of your own mind.
Chapter 1 of Freud’s essay Civilization and Its Discontents (original German title Das Unbehagen in der Kultur) explains how this works. Freud’s friend Romain Rolland routinely experienced a sense of timelessness and limitlessness he called the “oceanic feeling.” All that feeling really is, says Freud, is very early consciousness, which you can characterize as a sort of undifferentiated narcissistic bliss. All subsequent development — the sense of self, the acquisition of language, the development of abstract thought, and so on — takes place on top of this primitive layer.
It’s possible to reconnect with the original oceanic feeling. Freud compares developmental psychology with the way the city of Rome was built up in layers. Rome started out as a small square settlement called Roma Quadrata. Even today, after centuries of building and rebuilding, you can still see traces of Roma Quadrata here and there. Freud compares human development with these centuries of urban development. And another friend of Freud’s, familiar with Eastern practices, confirmed that all yogic exercises really do is to bring about regression to the earliest layers of the mind.
This idea that you’re attaining some sort of metaphysical oneness is therefore, according to this psychological view, a complete misconception.
That’s not to say that spiritual disciplines are useless. Periods of solitude can be refreshing. Regularly sitting still with your eyes closed has been proven to alleviate anxiety. Controlled regression can have psychotherapeutic value. And of course the Christian life could not exist at all without some kind of self-awareness: you must have at least some level of self-awareness to repent of your past sins.
My point is simply to ask for honesty about the mechanism and outcome of mystical practices. Many of the practices that seem foreign to the New Testament actually are foreign to the New Testament.
A couple of centuries after the New Testament, Plotinus created a system of philosophy we call Neoplatonism. (That wasn’t his name for it; that’s our name for it.) In Neoplatonism, there is no Creator and creation. Instead, Plotinus starts from what he calls the One. This One produces the apparent multiplicity of things by a process called emanation. The highest purpose of life, says Plotinus, is to contemplate the One until you find your way back to the One.
Unfortunately some third- and fourth-century Christians were unwittingly influenced by Neoplatonism. They adopted Plotinus’ ideas but dressed them up in Christian vocabulary. Instead of union with the One, they aimed for union with God. According to them, the highest Christian ideal is to withdraw your attention from visible reality and to contemplate “God” alone until you find your way back to “union with God.” (I use quotes because that’s their way of putting of it, not mine.) For Meister Eckhart, finding your way back to the One is expressed as finding your way back to the “ground of your being.” The Christian mystical tradition is just Neoplatonism in disguise.
A repeated maneuver is the dubious habit of equating God with your own consciousness — which is certainly not what the Bible means by God. So while the Christian mystical tradition may look like Christianity, it certainly isn’t Biblical Christianity. It’s a foreign philosophy pretending to be Christianity.
Neoplatonism also provides a basis for occultism. It’s interesting that mysticism comes from a Greek word meaning something hidden, while occultism comes from a Latin word meaning something hidden. The mystic and the occultist are swimming in the same ocean.
Jesse Finley Hurley’s Sorcery claims that occultism can be explained quasi-scientifically by combining modern psychology with Neoplatonism. In Hurley’s explanation, orders from the conscious mind are delivered via the unconsciousness mind out to the universal mind. He cites phenomena such as telepathy and hypnosis in support of his theory of a universal mind.
I’ve observed that people who think life’s goal is to reach regressive, introverted states tend to become less and less functional in their external lives. I am a great admirer of Bernadette Roberts, but I have to admit that her external life does not look good. Her career failed, her marriage failed, and her finances failed. If you completely withdraw your attention and interest from your surroundings, that’s what happens. Life requires that we give care and attention to external reality. Extreme introversion impairs our ability to do this.
There are many traps into which the unwary can fall. Bernadette Roberts (Essays on the Christian Contemplative Journey) notes that people halfway along the path often get fixated on identifying with an archetype of the collective unconscious: guru, sage, guide, healer, and so on. There they remain stuck. Heinz Kohut (in John E. Gedo and George H. Pollock, eds., Freud: The Fusion of Science and Humanism) observes that those who believe themelves to have become their ego ideal can no longer feel guilt.
Identification with an archetype or with the ego ideal leads to the persona of the cult leader. An individual whose awareness extends deep into the mind develops a charismatic presence and draws others to themselves. Miguel de Molinos certainly attracted and influenced large numbers of followers. When you combine supreme self-confidence with an inability to feel guilt, you have the malignant narcissist.
The fact that people addicted to dwelling in regressive states cannot earn a living in the normal way makes it all the more tempting for them to gather supposed “students” around themselves and launch a “guru business.” One wonders how many people really benefit from attending these schools from which students rarely graduate. The most likely outcome is years of indolence with little to show for it. The only exception is the rare instance where a buyer turns around and becomes a seller.
A surprising number of cult leaders have augmented their natural charisma by deliberately studying hypnotic techniques. These include little-known techniques such as “fascination,” which is done with the eyes only, and does not require the verbal suggestion or peer pressure familiar from the repertoire of the stage hypnotist.
Whether or not the hypnosis is deliberate, there are plenty of reports of gurus using hypnotic or occultic powers — there does not appear to be a firm division between the two — to draw in followers. Swami Śivānanda Rādhā (Sylvia Hellman) first saw her guru, Swami Śivānanda, in a vision during meditation. Guru Viking (YouTube interview, “Gurus, Hypnosis, & Toxic Devotion”) reports that the 16th Karmapa many times appeared to prospective followers in dreams. He comments that such exotic experiences easily convince followers that they have found “the truth.”
I’m not necessarily condemning mysticism or mystics as a whole. I simply want to point out some pitfalls and dangers which, once seen, cannot be ignored.
Still, it’s remarkable how frequently mystics do fall into one or more of these traps.
I sometimes wonder whether this is what Jesus is talking about in the parable of the empty house (Matthew 12:43–45; Luke 11:24–26). If you turn yourself into an empty house, you risk ending up with worse demons than the ones you started with.
A talk on experiences of Christian mysticism. The author describes his near-death experience, followed many years’ later by a transformation he calls being “born again into eternal life.”
McLeod Lake and Fort St James. The story of Simon Fraser and the earliest British trading posts west of the Rockies.
Carmelite Monastery of Our Lady and Saint Therese. The monastery is located at 27601 Highway 1, Carmel, CA 93923. Its chapel provides the setting for the opening scene of Bernadette Roberts’ The Experience of No-Self.
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Install Shadowsocks-Rust server on Linux. How to use snap to install Shadowsocks-Rust on a server and configure it with Shadowsocks 2022 encryption.