Nikolay Lossky and the Case for Mystical Intuition (Ukázka, strana 99)

whether it be to the Kingdom of God or to the lower realm of evil, must differ in some respects from the common type.319

Lossky thus indicates the very fine line in perceiving and defining psychic ‘normality’. People who encounter transcendent reality in the form of visions that have the same mechanism as hallucinations are often hyper-sensitive to such realities. Although Solovyov was aware that his neurological illness made him more sensitive to other worlds and more susceptible to hallucinations, he never doubted the genuine nature of his mystical visions.320 Psychic instability and the authenticity of visions are not, therefore, in any way contradictory; in fact, greater sensitivity may predispose one to a deeper encounter with transcendent reality.

Lossky’s conviction of the authenticity of the visions of mystics who clearly suffered from neuroses or the symptoms of mental illness provided an answer to the Freudian school, which dismissed mystical experience as collective neurosis and reduced it to a regressive illness.321 Although authentic visual and auditory mystical visions may bear similarities to hallucinations and neuroses, in Lossky’s line of thought these natural human qualities—psychic hyper-sensitivity or illness—can be used by a transcendent personal God for his self-communication in supernatural ecstatic experience. Despite the disturbed psychic states of some of the saints, Lossky found it possible to analyse a person’s progressive spiritual development through the deification of their nature.

Even if mystics of genius do suffer from psychoses and neuroses, at the highest stage of their development they utilise them for purposes of what they call “apostolic” conduct.322

But encounters with supernatural phenomena such as mystical visions and voices can of course be misinterpreted, so correct discernment of such experiences is paramount. The danger of self-delusion or of being tempted into a mistaken interpretation by the evil one can lead to a regressive spiritual pathology. Lossky is aware of this and warns of the need for rational, intellectual reflection following any irrational experience.

319 Ibid., 204/26.

320 Ibid., 205/27.

321 Josef Sudbrack, Náboženská zkušenost a lidská duše (Kostelní Vydří: Karmelitánské nakladatelství, 2002), 14–18.

322 Lossky, Mystical Intuition, 195/17.

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Many persons whose consciousness is in contact with “other worlds” are unable to distinguish between the two planes of reality; they cannot make sense of their experiences or express them in a rational form.323

As an example of “confused mysticism,” Lossky mentions the Swedish thinker Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), whose works were all the rage in the First Republic and who continues to be published and studied in the Czech Republic and elsewhere even today.324 Swedenborg was educated in numerous scientific disciplines—mathematics, mechanics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, anatomy, physiology and psychology—and claimed to be in constant contact with the spiritual world, with beings from heaven and hell and all the realms between, and in constant dialogue with angels and other beings. Lossky attributed a degree of objectivity to Swedenborg’s visions: “Thoughts remarkable for their depth and significance were sometimes revealed to Swedenborg under the guise of concrete living events.”325 This comment concerned Swedenborg’s vision in which an angel shows him a throne where a devil is seated. Swedenborg wondered why the mercy of God allowed devils to remain in hell, so the angel lifts the devil into heaven, where it suffers convulsions and terrible pain. Swedenborg prays to God that the angel might release the devil, and when it falls headlong back into hell, Swedenborg came to understand that a person’s presence in heaven or hell is decided primarily by that person’s inner state—neither human beings nor the devil can be saved against their will. Lossky nonetheless considered some of Swedenborg’s other fantasies about travelling to other planets and holding conversations with extra-terrestrials to be examples of “confused mysticism,” irrational self-delusion, and the mistaken interpretation of authentic mystical experience.326 For Lossky, hyper-irrationality has potentially dangerous spiritual consequences. He warns against intentionally inducing a passive state 323 Ibid., 205/27.

324 The Swedenborg Foundation in West Chester, Pennsylvania, has recently re-published New Century editions of many of Swedenborg’s best-known works. Titles include Heaven and Hell; Sacred Scripture/White Horse; New Jerusalem; Divine Love and Wisdom; Divine Providence (all translated by George F. Dole); and Love in Marriage—The Sensible Joy in Married Love and the Foolish Pleasure in Illicit Love (translated by David F. Gladish). For more details, see https://swedenborg.com/bookstore/swedenborgs-writings. See also John Spalding, Introduction to Swedenborg’s Religious Thought (New York: Swedenborg Publishing Association, 1956).

325 Lossky, Mystical Intuition, 203/25.

326 Ibid, 206/28.

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during visions as this can result in pride, overconfidence, and unknowingly falling under the influence of the evil one.

The passive character of visions contains an element of danger. Visions may be caused in some cases by other lower substantival agents of our own body, in others, by entities of other worlds, good and evil, and sometimes by God Himself. If there is the least taint of evil in a man’s soul, if, for example, he regards himself in however small a degree as God’s elect and a special instrument of the Holy Spirit, he is almost certain to fall into delusion and to have false visions proceeding from the evil powers.327

Lossky firmly denounced spiritualist séances, the use of mediums and experiments with automatic writing as these can lead to serious mental disturbance: At best we have here an increased activity of the lower agents in charge of our nervous centres (this is the reason why spiritualistic communications are generally so dull and colourless); at the worst, entities belonging to the realm of evil make use of our body. In either case we are in danger of developing a double personality, hysteria etc.328

Lossky was also critical of Quietism, a spiritual movement which sprang up in the seventeenth century, largely in Western Europe, and was strongly influenced by the pessimistic view of human nature which reappeared with the arrival of Luther and the Reformation. All ascetic endeavour was eschewed by Quietists, who relied exclusively on the activity of God329 and sought to supress their own efforts in order to achieve complete passivity of the soul so that God may be free to act in them. The Catholic church condemned such passivity of will in the spiritual life;330 the Orthodox Lossky also stressed the need to engage the will during any transformation of human nature by divine energies.

Other Russians reflected on this question of the activity and passivity of the will in ascetic-mystic life: Solovyov entered a lively discussion on the matter with Tolstoy, as did Lossky. In Absolute Good, drawing on

327 328 329 330

Ibid.

Ibid., 207/29.

Tullo Goffi and Pietro Zovatto, La Spiritualità del Settecento (Bologna: Dehoniane, 1990), 47–63.

Constanzo Brovetto, Luigi Mezzadri, Fulvio Ferrario and Paolo Ricca, La spiritualità cristiana nell’età moderna (Rome: Borla, 1987), 177–193.

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