Suffering predisposes the mind to devoutness; and most young girls, prompted by instinctive tenderness, lean towards mysticism, th...e obscurer side of religion.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The quality of imagination is to flow, and not to freeze. The poet did not stop at the color or the form, but read their meaning, ...neither may he rest in this meaning, but he makes the same objects exponents of his new thought. Here is the difference betwixt the poet and the mystic, that the last nails a symbol to one sense, which was a true sense for a moment, but soon become old and false. For all symbols are fluxional; all language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as ferries and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, for homestead. Mysticism consists in the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for an universal one.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The differences between the two men were pronounced. Galileo was an urbane gentleman who loved wine (which he described as "light ...held together by moisture"), women (he had three children by his mistress, Marina Gamba), and song (he was an accomplished musician). Kepler sneezed when he drank wine, had little luck with women, and heard his music in the stars. The deep organ-tones of religiosity and mysticism that resounded through Kepler's work struck Galileo as anachronistic and more than a bit embarrassing. Kepler suspected as much and pled with Galileo to please "not hold against me my rambling and my free way of speaking about nature." Galileo never answered his letter.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Primitive peoples tried to annul death by portraying the human body--we do it by finding substitutes for the human body. Technolog...y instead of mysticism!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In the dominant Western religious system, the love of God is essentially the same as the belief in God, in God's existence, God's ...justice, God's love. The love of God is essentially a thought experience. In the Eastern religions and in mysticism, the love of God is an intense feeling experience of oneness, inseparably linked with the expression of this love in every act of living.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As a mode of perception that often becomes a style of life, paranoia weaves around the vulnerable self or group an air-tight metap...hysic and world view. Paranoia is an antireligious mysticism based on the feeling or perception that the world in general, and others in particular, are against me or us. Reality is perceived as hostile. By contrast, the religious mystic experiences the ground of being as basically friendly to the deepest needs of the self. That which is unknown, strange, or beyond our comprehension is with and for rather than against us.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mysticism and exaggeration go together. A mystic must not fear ridicule if he is to push all the way to the limits of humility or ...the limits of delight.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »