Nature Mysticism | Page 3

will nevertheless be made to
suggest the inner harmonies which link together all modes of existence.
A further limitation to be noted is that "nature" will be taken to cover
only such natural objects as remain in what is generally called their
"natural" condition--that is, which are independent of, and unaffected
by, human activities.
Let Goethe, in his Faust hymn, tell what is the heart and essence of
Nature Mysticism as here to be expounded and defended.
"Rears not the heaven its arch above? Doth not the firm-set earth
beneath us lie? And with the tender gaze of love Climb not the
everlasting stars on high? Do I not gaze upon thee, eye to eye? And all
the world of sight and sense and sound, Bears it not in upon thy heart
and brain, And mystically weave around Thy being influences that
never wane?"
CHAPTER II

NATURE, AND THE ABSOLUTE
As just stated, metaphysics and theology are to be avoided. But since
Mysticism is generally associated with belief in an Unconditioned
Absolute, and since such an Absolute is fatal to the claims of any
genuine Nature Mysticism, a preliminary flying incursion into the
perilous regions must be ventured.
Mysticism in its larger sense is admittedly difficult to define. It
connotes a vast group of special experiences and speculations which
deal with material supposed to be beyond the reach of sense and reason.
It carries us back to the strangely illusive "mysteries" of the Greeks, but
is more definitely used in connection with the most characteristic
subtleties of the wizard East, and with certain developments of the
Platonic philosophy. Extended exposition is not required. Suffice it to
state what may fairly be regarded as the three fundamental principles,
or doctrines, on which mystics of the orthodox schools generally
depend. These principles will be subjected to a free but friendly
criticism: considerable modifications will be suggested, and the way
thus prepared for the study of Nature Mysticism properly so-called.
The three principles alluded to are the following. First, the true mystic
is one possessed by a desire to have communion with the ultimately
Real. Second, the ultimately Real is to be regarded as a supersensuous,
super-rational, and unconditional Absolute-- the mystic One. Third, the
direct communion for which the mystic yearns--the unio
mystica--cannot be attained save by passive contemplation, resulting in
vision, insight, or ecstasy.
With a view to giving a definite and concrete turn to the critical
examination of these three fundamentals, let us take a passage from a
recently published booklet. The author tells how that on a certain sunny
afternoon he flung himself down on the bank of a brimming
mill-stream. The weir was smoothly flowing: the mill-wheel still. He
meditates on the scene and concludes thus: "Perhaps we are never so
receptive as when with folded hands we say simply, 'This is a great
mystery.' I watched and wondered until Jem called, and I had to leave
the rippling weir and the water's side, and the wheel with its untold

secret."
There are certain forms, or modes, of experience here presented which
are at least mystical in their tendency--the sense of a deeper reality than
that which can be grasped by conscious reason--a desire to penetrate a
secret that will not yield itself to articulate thought and which
nevertheless leaves a definite impress on the mind. There is also a
recognition of the passive attitude which the ordinary mystic doctrine
avers to be essential to vision. Will these features warrant our regarding
the experiences as genuinely mystical?
The answer to this question brings into bold relief a vital difference
between orthodox mystics and those here called nature-mystics, and
raises the issue on which the very existence of a valid Nature
Mysticism must depend. The stricter schools would unhesitatingly
refuse to accord to such experiences the right to rank with those which
result in true insight. Why? Because they obviously rest on sense
impressions. An English mystic, for example, states in a recent article
that Mysticism is always and necessarily extra-phenomenal, and that
the man who tries to elucidate the visible by means of the invisible is
no true mystic; still less, of course, the man who tries to elucidate the
invisible by means of the visible. The true mystic, he says, fixes his
eyes on eternity and the infinite; he loses himself when he becomes
entangled in the things of time, that is, in the phenomenal. Still more
explicit is the statement of a famous modern Yogi. "This world is a
delusive charm of the great magician called Maya. . . . Maya has
imagined infinite illusions called the different things in the universe. . . .
The minds which have not attained to the Highest, and are a prey to
natural beauties in the stage of Maya, will continually