We are, for lack of a better phrase, physical creatures living in the material world. As such, there is a degree of rationality and pragmatism that we can apply to our current situation.

Our history of development has been defined by the technological advances we have made, and while some of those advances have resulted in less than positive events, for the most part civilization has been advanced by science. This website exists and you can access and read it because of the human capacity to learn, innovate and invent.

These developments would not have been possible if science had not replaced superstition or if rational and critical thought had not superseded folk magic. Making this claim does not mean that I worship at the altar of science, far from it, but simply acknowledges that there is a process through which practical (material) discoveries are made. In general, the public misunderstanding of science (and therefore mistrust of it) has to do with the inability of scientists (as a whole) to engage with the general public and the fact that it is easy to point that technology is something that has allowed humans to be increasingly cruel to each other.

Bombs and guns don’t kill people: it’s the people who use them and build them for their own reasons who kill. Humanity has always found ways to conflict with others simply because they come from another place, speak a different language, have different belief systems, or just look different. We have become very good at justifying the use of science and technology to build our armies and arsenals that can be used against other armies and arsenals. The arms trade is based on conflict and we as people often take pleasure in doing so.

Science and technology have added to the understanding of how we work; our bodies; our minds. So we may not have all the answers (science never claims to have them, unlike some New Age thinkers), but we are moving through a process based on the framework of the scientific method. It is this method that allows us to focus on specific issues; generate specific hypotheses and test them.

As Bertrand Russell noted:

“It is not what the scientist believes that distinguishes him, but how and why he believes it. His beliefs are tentative, not dogmatic; they are based on evidence, not authority or intuition.”

This is the RATIONAL path. It is the path that accepts the need to question and challenge; to find evidence and assess the quality of the evidence; to pass from the known to the unknown.

In the rhetoric of conspiracy theorists and New Age thinkers and fundamentalists, we often find the statement that, for example, “evolution is just a theory, it’s not proven, and it’s not a fact!”

Such a statement underpins the lack of scientific literacy that exists in such groups who have an obvious agenda to find a reason to dismiss scientific criticism of their pet ideas and ‘facts’.

Now, at least I lose half my readers here, we have to accept that as human beings there is a ‘sense’ of something more than practical pragmatism. Even the most skeptical of individuals could not deny the subtle senses and feelings of mind and body that define other aspects of the human experience. Sure, they can tell you which chemicals are doing what to which brain cells to produce the experience of, say, love, but that still doesn’t detract from human behaviors that inspire feelings.

So, accepting that we, as biochemical organisms, respond to our environment (a rational view) there is a sense in which ‘there is more’. This is where mysticism and metaphysics take over.

Here we are speaking the language of symbols and metaphors; words that perhaps do not attempt to ‘define’ reality, but rather to ‘explore’ it. In many cases, we as a race of people have allowed religious dogma and practices to fill this void, because the void is. It is the empty space that we can find when we consider deeper questions of ‘purpose’, ‘value’ and ‘point’. It’s the emptiness we experience when we can’t explain why terrible things happen to good people, to loved ones. Religion as a political structure feeds on the fear and uncertainty that loss and grief create. Some awesome, awe-filled natural disaster that seemingly serves no purpose leaves us feeling ‘out of control’, ‘for no reason’. Of course, if it becomes an integral part of some plan, perhaps a ‘creators plan’, then we can reconcile fear and place ‘hope’ and ‘belief’ in some unseen story of which we are merely a part.

The problem here, however, is that this path of ‘blind faith’ and ‘fatalism’ is not the true path of the mystic. In many ways, the mystic asks as many questions as the scientist, but they are different and certainly have a different vocabulary.

Some ‘mystical people’ are satisfied with ‘earthly’ descriptions of a ‘spiritual realm’ that is a mirror of the ‘here and now’ only more ‘perfect’. They accept the reality of ‘Summerland’, ‘angels’, demons’, ‘entities’, etc. They may well be right. But I can’t help but think that it’s too easy to put human labels on mystical experiences (metaphorical and symbolic) and miss the point.

How we as people integrate what we know and learn about objective reality, our rational experience of the world, with our inner sense and need to explore and explain, is what Rational Mysticism is all about. The recognition that we can ask questions and interrogate what we learn about the mechanisms behind the universe while still having a personal connection to it.

The mystical journey is about discovering the ways in which we can question experience, versus how we define ourselves by those very experiences. Belief and spiritual dogma create people much more closed and tolerant than the rigor of honest rational (scientific) approaches. Of course, devotees of some spiritual disciplines, alternative practices, and proponents of conspiracy theories won’t see it that way.

So, in terms of Rational Mysticism, we are talking about accepting two parallel, and perhaps overlapping, perspectives on the world. Being able to have a ‘foot’ in both camps, so to speak, is not about sitting on the fence (as some have said), but more about a desire to learn, to explore to frame personal and ‘transpersonal’ experience. .

Transpersonal Psychology is really about the spiritual, the ‘other self’, and tries to understand it as part of a whole rather than a discrete and separate ‘thing’. Topics considered in transpersonal psychology include spiritual self-development, the self beyond the ego, mystical and trance experiences, altered states, and other hidden (occult) life experiences. These are precisely the issues that concern us within the Transforming Minds – Mind Alignment program.

How do we unite these sometimes contradictory ideas of ‘I’ and the ‘cosmos’?

How do we align behaviors with values?

How do we explore the meanings of personal symbolism within the context of our culture, our humanity, and what might be considered ‘the collective unconscious’?

How does the understanding of specific mystical traditions and esoteric teachings in the hearing and now relate to us?

How can we explore our own potential for growth and development?

These are the questions that concern us here; This is the journey we are beginning now!