Exoteric, Esoteric, Mystic

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?