As I've foreshadowed a bit, the first few things I'll be writing are more or less framework for what comes later. This is my way of getting some of this out of my head to somewhere where other people can look at it, give me feedback, tell me how they see it and so on.
I have a simple, little model that helps me clarify what we do in spiritual practice and as a church and why we do what we do. This didn't originate with me, I've seen Jason Miller use the same model, Traleg Kyagbon Rinpoche uses it too in "Mind at Ease". I think Richard Smoley uses it in "Inner Christianity".
It's a three-part model that can act as a way to categorise spiritual practises, but it can also describe three different kinds of emphasis that a whole system or an entire church might make overall.
Exoteric, Esoteric and Mystic – these three terms get used in a few different ways. I try to only use them in one way:
Exoteric work involves visible, outward things – rules for moral behaviour, physical gatherings for church services, verbal prayer and song, rules and norms for prayer forms, dress, concerns for the historicity of an account in scripture, social work and charity, stuff like that. This is "core business" for most churches.
Esoteric work involves inward, intangible things – sensations of energy, perceptions of the Divine Presence, visualisations, astral temples, visions, working with angels or other spirits, inward voices, dream work. Anything that involves concerns with the content of the inner world - any content. One could make a reasonable argument that most modern psychology is, by this definition, esoteric work. This is "core business" for most magickal orders, many churches avoid this stuff like the plague.
Mystic work involves what's going on when one lets go of things altogether – Bythos, The Dark Night of the Soul, the dazzling dark, formless emptiness, "God's first language is silence", Ain Soph Aur. This is "core business" for contemplatives and mystics, many churches also (oddly enough) avoid this stuff like the plague too.
Most spiritual organisations include a focus on all three emphases, but usually one is emphasised a great deal more than the other two. If the organisation is recognisable, it must have an exoteric component. If there's any acknowledgement of inward phenomena with any content, it has an esoteric component. If it's considered possible that there are ways of being empty of inward or outward content, it has a mystic component.
I think all three emphases are integral to a natural, healthy spirituality. I'll use each of these terms from time to time.
Do you see the distinctions I'm making in your own experience? Do you think your practice has a balanced blend of all three emphases?
This is a good conversation starter. In short, I do not see the value of making the distinctions because historically it has led down one path or another in extremis. In my own practice and experience, the qualities and actions that you place under the three headings are inseperable; e.g., the Sacraments are "exoteric" in that they are celebrated physically, but at their core they are esoteric, which in turn should fuel external actions. Thus putting the "efficax" in "Signum efficax gratiae." The effective sign of grace. It also puts the "res" in "res sacramentum." The thing itself is both exoteric and esoteric simultaneously, just as we are spirit and matter at the same time.
ReplyDeleteIf the single, definitive command of the Master is to love, then all actions coming from the internalization/ understanding/living of that command - and from the Sacraments - are the quantitative images/values/proofs of the entire experience. How do we show our love of the Divine? By loving each other. It seems to go round and round.
Thank you for a thought-provoking post.
I agree with all of these categories, but I'd like to add one: the mundane.
ReplyDeleteThis also is a spiritual path, odd as it sounds. The joy of craftmanship, the material details of day to day life. This is different than the exoteric realm. It's a form of spirituality that sometimes doesn't acknowledge the spirit. Ora et Labora.
It's the last component in the four fold elemental model. Mundane: Earth. Exoteric: Water. Esoteric: Air. Mystic: Fire.
This also is part of every church, every organization, even every mystic. Before enlightenment, cut wood, carry water. After enlightenment, cut wood, carry water.
Whether it is a burden or an aid to the spiritual quest depend on the one doing the work.
I see this, yeah.
ReplyDeleteI tend to think that esoteric and exoteric are more about private use and public consumption. That which is suitable for the initiated and that which is suitable for all. If I were going to play word games (and I love word games!) and make up words (and I love making up words!) I would label a third as endoteric, the actual internal experience. I think that I personally see the mystic as an awareness experience that is separate from praxis, whereas the three other elements are more rooted in praxis. All three elements (esoteric, exoteric, endoteric) can be mystic in nature because the awareness experience we have when we are open to the divine presence either occurs suddenly or persists continuously and it does so independent from actual practice. The praxis helps get us there but the actual experience has always struck me as independent because it sometimes comes from something trivial, and even the most intense ritual does not always impart awareness of the divine. That is where I tend to be at with this sort of thing.