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Quotes About Mysticism

Behind the Arab influence, it is now agreed by historians of mysticism, was an Indian tradition known as Tantra – the yoga of touch, which includes the yoga of sex and inspired the famous erotic temples that every American tourist photographs to astonish his friends. It is within Tantrism that we must seek the transformation by which this sexual mysticism evolved from naive fertility magic (a rite to make the crops grow) and became a form of consciousness expansion.
~ Robert Anton Wilson
According to Alfred Korzybski, any "idea" or mental state is a brain circuit which the brain itself can contemplate, thereby having an idea about the idea, or a mental state about the mental state, etc. There is no theoretical or real limit to the higher-ordering process; it is the "Infinity Within" of which mystics speak.
~ Robert Anton Wilson
Most shamans, and many mystics, have been through similar negative-to-positive neurosomatic sensitization. Christian Scientists call it "chemicalization. " St. John of the Cross called it, poetically, the Dark Night of the Soul. Cabalists call it "crossing the Abyss.
~ Robert Anton Wilson
When mystics etc. talk about ordinary consciousness as sleep, dream, illusion, etc., are they talking about something very esoteric that only other mystics can understand? Or are they talking about the extent to which normal consciousness (mechanical consciousness in my sense) relates to fictitious predicates attached to groups and ignores (does not perceive) person1, person2, etc.?
~ Robert Anton Wilson
Bohm has avoided speculating about this parallel between his math and ancient Oriental mysticism, but others have not. Dr. Capra in The Tao of Physics uses a Bohmian non-local model of quantum theory as the true model (ignoring the physicists who prefer EWG or Copenhagenism) and then points out, quite correctly, that (if we accept this as the only true quantum model) quantum theory says the same things Taoism has always said.
~ Robert Anton Wilson
It's very simple: what are we gaining—excuse me if I'm repeating myself—what are we gaining by a pragmatism that robs our life of poetry, dreams, mysticism—are these all lies? What is truth? Can you tell me that? We can only struggle along by using symbols, and we change them as we alter our views. By the way, let's not neglect our drinks.
~ Knut Hamsun
My religion is nature. That's what arouses those feelings of wonder and mysticism and gratitude in me.
~ Oliver Sacks
Worshiping the Devil is no more insane than worshiping God...It is precisely at the moment when positivism is at its high-water mark that mysticism stirs into life and the follies of occultism begin.
~ Joris-Karl Huysmans
That which we cannot speak of is the one thing about whom and to whom we must never stop speaking.
~ Peter Rollins
Concerning that which cannot be talked about, we should not say anything.
~ Ludwig Wittgenstein
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Kabbalah is its long-hidden connection to the Bible.   Kabbalah says the Bible is a complete code. That's right. It's a cryptogram.
~ Yehuda Berg
The philosophy that prepares a revolution and the sentiment that underpins the philosophy have, in every case the two pillars of nihilism and mysticism.
~ Yukio Mishima
Whenever politicians start talking in mystical terms, beware.
~ Yuval Noah Harari
Falling in love gives a more realistic view of life by placing us in contact with our true self. We fall accidentally and temporarily into a state of expanded awareness that is exalted by the great mystic poets, who connect intense human love with divine love. The beloved Persian poet Rumi exults: Oh God, I have discovered love! How marvelous, how good, how beautiful it is! … I offer my salutation To the spirit of passion that aroused and excited this whole universe And all it contains.
~ Deepak Chopra
Los grandes visionarios de las tradiciones místicas sugieren que lo que experimentamos todos los días es una realidad proyectada, en la que los acontecimientos y las cosas sólo están separadas en el tiempo y el espacio, de manera aparente. En el reino más profundo, todos somos miembros del mismo cuerpo y cuando una parte del cuerpo se mueve, todas las demás son afectadas al instante.
~ Deepak Chopra
The essence of the Redemption depends upon learning Kabbalah
~ Vilna Gaon
The Way of the Sufis cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.
~ Idries Shah, The Sufis
The Alexandrian Mystics' emphasis on silent prayer gave their teachings interior depth missing from Western theology today.
~ Amos Smith
The Catholic Church is a weird church. Much mysticism is sown broadspread from its ritual mysteries till it extends into the very lives of its constituents and parishoners.
~ Jack Kerouac
Compared with members of other nations of Western civilization, the ordinary American is a rationalistic being, and there are close relations between his moralism and his rationalism. Even romanticism, transcendentalism, and mysticism tend to be, in the American culture, rational, pragmatic and optimistic.
~ Gunnar Myrdal
Tarot is just stories on cards.
~ Erin Morgenstern
In fact the Kabbalah rests upon the exoteric Judeo-Christian tradition. It consists of metaphysics and philosophy, from which can be drawn a mystical way, which is applied and regulated through personal asceticism.
~ Robert Ambelain
But what;s happening is that each year our old flat earth of conventional reason becomes less and less adequate to handle the experiences we have and this is creating widespread feelings of topsy turviness. As a result we're getting more and more people in irrational areas of thought-- occultism, mysticism, drug changes and the like-- because they feel the inadequacy of classical reason to handle what they know are real experiences.
~ Robert Pirsig
But what's happening is that each year our old flat earth of conventional reason becomes less and less adequate to handle the experiences we have and this is creating widespread feelings of topsy turviness. As a result we're getting more and more people in irrational areas of thought-- occultism, mysticism, drug changes and the like-- because they feel the inadequacy of classical reason to handle what they know are real experiences.
~ Robert Pirsig