Mystical writingthe attempt to articulate direct experience of communion with the divineis faced with the problem that such experience is ineffable, and linguistic strategies are therefore necessary to confront the paradox of expressing it. The two main strategies have been the use of imagery and the negative way. Imagessometimes accompanied by an admission of their inadequacyattempt to give at least an analogy for the experience. Much the commonest are images of light:
|
| | It is a great thing, an exceeding great thing, in the time of this exile, to be joined to God in the divine light by a mystical and denuded union. This takes place when a pure, humble and resigned soul, burning with ardent charity, is carried above itself by the grace of God, and through the brilliancy of the divine light shining on the mind, it loses all consideration and distinction of things and lays aside all, even the most excellent images; and all liquefied by love, and, as it were, reduced to nothing, it melts away into God. It is then united to God without any medium, and becomes one spirit with Him, and is iron changed into fire, without ceasing to be iron. It becomes one with God, yet not so as to be of the same substance and nature as God. Here the soul reposes, and ceases from its own action; and sweetly experiencing the operation of God, it abounds with ineffable peace and joy. 17
|
This is not offered as an actual experience of heaven, for no earthly creature, not even Louis de Blois, has been to heaven and returned to "the time of this exile" to tell of it. It is offered as the experience of prayer, which is the nearest we can come to communion with God. This excerpt from Louis's Spiritual Mirror is characteristic mystical writing, using not only the image of light but also that of metal heated in the fire to convey the idea that the soul admitted to divine communion both is and is not identical with the godhead. The idea is conveyed through images, but at the moment of most intense communion the soul "lays aside all, even the most excellent images": here Louis adumbrates the opposite method, the use of negatives, of denials that this unique experience is like anything earthly, which results in a series of paradoxes. Associated especially with St. John of the Cross, this strategy is most familiar to English readers through Eliot's Four Quartets: >
|
| | In order to possess what you do not possess You must go by the way of dispossession.
|
|