‘Mystical experience is the heart and soul of mystical activism. It is the key to transforming self and world, and the power we each possess to change humanity’s course in this apocalyptic time.’

Mysticism, in its deepest sense, refers to the direct, first-hand experience of the divine, the sacred.

And in Mystical Activism: Transforming a world in crisis (Changemakers Books, UK £11.99 / $18.95, February 2020), John C Robinson, a clinical psychologist, interfaith minister and self-professed mystic, invites his readers to transform their personality, life, work, spirituality, religion, even the world itself, and become ‘a divine human in a divine world — a mystical activist in a time of apocalyptic, cultural, political and climate disruption’.

Mystical activism is a stirring and inspired concept (and a great title for a book, may I say!) which places post-materialist thinking in the dynamic context of campaigning for change — John Robinson, writing with passion and clarity, raises the banners valiantly, placing the need for a shift in human consciousness on a radical footing both necessary and achievable, given the will. At the outset he says mystical awakening represents ‘one of the most important experiences in human life, bringing profound religious understanding, forming or confirming our deepest values, and changing our very nature as human beings’.

Activism in general refers to efforts to promote social, political or environmental progress to remedy the suffering of humans and other life forms. Robinson, the author of eight previous books, says that, in sacred activism, religious commitments, spiritual beliefs and mystical experiences deepen and drive our work in the service of humanity and life on Earth. If social movements blend with spirituality and religion, then psychological, social, political and sacred dimensions can fuse to transform the materialist world and evolve a new civilisation.

Big mystical experiences, known, among other things, as enlightenment, satori, cosmic consciousness and the peak experience, can transform one’s life with their power and profundity. Little mystical experiences happen in states of awe and reverence evoked by great natural beauty, powerful rituals or profound or sublime moments in life.

In my opening sentence I defined the term mysticism ‘in its deepest sense’ because ‘mysticism’ and ‘mystical’ are used frequently in a dismissive way, perhaps to describe someone as a ‘dreamer’ who is somewhat illogical, or one who has confused religious beliefs or thought associated with the occult and mysterious agencies. But the mystic in religious history has been someone dedicated to contemplation and self-surrender in order to gain unity with the Deity or the absolute, with all things.

Yet a mystical or transcendent experience is not necessarily a consequence of this, nor is a mystical experience conditional on being a mystic. Such experiences can happen to anyone at any time when thoughts of unity, ‘oneness’ or ‘God’ had never entered their head.

Peak experience

Early on, Robinson refers to the American existential psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908–70) whose name appears so often nowadays in books concerned with the question and nature of consciousness. Maslow invented the term ‘peak experience’ and, in his studies, found that almost everyone could give personal examples of it, although he believed people could not induce it.

Here, Robinson follows the English existential philosopher Colin Wilson (1931–2013), who has been described as a mystic himself, in understanding the intense focusing of sensory perception as a ‘key’ to mystical consciousness. Wilson, who was acquainted personally with Maslow, made a lifelong study of peak experiences and became sure they could be induced.

Mystical consciousness enables transformation into God, says Robinson, ‘God’ representing the divine in everything, including ourselves. Robinson does address the difficulty that many people have, including myself admittedly, with use of the word ‘God’: that it has too much ‘negative baggage’.

But finding a better word which everyone can agree on is difficult, Robinson says, when the real challenge is to face one’s own ‘personal wounding’ related to the word so as to achieve spiritual growth. Personal wounding apart, I still find the word ‘God’ limiting and anachronistic, but I bear with Robinson’s use of it in reviewing his book.

So how do we become mystical activists? Robinson offers a valuable workbook that maps the way to awakening one’s mystical consciousness with cogent examples, experiential exercises and daily practices designed to bring it into one’s life and work. It amounts to delving deep into our inner lives to locate that divinity.

For the inner life is where we talk to, and debate with, ourselves. It is the abode of our memories, dreams and creative drives, our thoughts and feelings and, at a deeper but more elusive level, our ‘heart’, ‘spirit’ and the will. It is conscious to a lesser or greater degree depending on the type of individual, and affected by the unconscious mind as well as events in the outside world.

The major existential questions to do with our inner lives and (mystical) consciousness — who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? What’s most important in life? — have been explored by thinkers for millennia, and all of us can gain from exploring our inner worlds. Well-trodden paths for such explorations include various forms of contemplation, meditation and psychotherapy.

People talk about living life to the full — but what about living the inner life to the full, and relating it directly to concerns for our troubled world? Basically, this is the vital question that Mystical Activism poses and seeks to answer. As the Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) famously said: ‘Who looks outside, dreams, who looks inside, awakes.’

Left-brain dominance

Robinson believes that it is the beliefs, illusions and obsessions arising from left-brain dominance that are leading to the collapse of civilisation and that the antidote lies in tapping into the right-brain’s natural mystical consciousness; our survival rests on our understanding of this, before it’s too late.

The theory of functional laterality, or ‘split-brain’, was pioneered by the physiologist Roger Sperry in the 1960s. It indicated a tendency for some neural functions or cognitive processes to be specialised in one side of the brain or the other.

For example, it has been discovered that grammar and vocabulary are localised to the left while understanding the emotional content of language is a function of the right. It has been said that the right brain is the abode of the artist and the left, of the scientist.

Down the years, some interpretations of the science about lateralization have been simplistic, seeing the functional differences between hemispheres as more absolute than they actually are. However, the two contrasting modes of cognisance apply to human behaviour whether they are located in different parts of the brain or not.

Robinson equates the soul with the mystical consciousness of the right brain, a portal to ‘reach through the veil to the other side and welcome our ancestors, spirit guides, angels and other spirit beings who long to help us make the soulful changes’.

As Colin Wilson asked, how would civilisation have turned out if our ancestors had followed the right-brain path as obsessively as we have pursued the left: ‘We have invented atomic power, computers and space travel. What would they have developed over the same period?’ (Alien Dawn, 1998).

Sadly, as time passed, our right-brain mystical consciousness was demoted; thought and speech seemed far more exciting to the ego, says Robinson, and language replaced mystical perception, and we stopped ‘seeing Creation’.

However, Robinson does not intend that mystical activism should dismiss the conceptual world of science, medicine and technology, for thought, too, is a divine gift and these disciplines are also integral to our survival. Rather, mystical transformation rebalances the hemispheres so that right-brain inspiration guides left-brain thought and egos get out of the way of scientific progress.

Awakened consciousness

Crises awaken mystical consciousness, Robinson claims. They cause an intense awareness that returns us to the immediate sensory present, ‘the urgency of the present and the timeless awakened consciousness of divinity’, and he gives the examples of traffic accidents, climbers in free fall, battlefield heroism, and near-death experiences.

It’s true that transcendent experiences are often associated with times of personal turmoil, trouble, anguish or stress — with moments of desperation when it’s thought nothing short of a miracle can come to the rescue; certainly, tribulation can turn one more concertedly to the inner life where mystical activism surely originates.

Of special interest is Robinson’s optimistic concept of ‘New Ageing’ — quite radical in itself by today’s standards — and how he sees elders as transformational mystics. Now in his 70s, Robinson says he has come into a new consciousness with ageing; that he is living in a mystical consciousness and it is changing him. He quotes Jung who said that old age would not exist unless it had an evolutionary purpose.

‘Ageing is a disguise that hides an amazing and profound process of human spiritual evolution,’ Robinson maintains. ‘Ageing is not about decline, it’s about awakening! … Ageing is itself a mystical experience that naturally reveals the divine world…’

With unprecedented longevity and inspired awakening, elders can integrate a lifetime of wisdom into the experience of the divine human to serve the world anew: ‘Mystical activism is a perfect fit for enlightened elders, renewing our capacity for purpose, love and service.’

Mystical activism, of course, starts with the individual, and Robinson urges each of us to experience the transformed consciousness of the mystic and use its powers to transform the world.

In a note at the end of the book, he says he has been following a singular mystical vision for more than twenty years. All his work arises from the revelation coming from the direct experience of the world as divine in substance, form and consciousness: ‘It’s all God! Literally.’

Not the anthropomorphic God, he points out, but ‘a living divine and conscious universe of infinite beauty, love and flow that we can learn to experience directly and together. And it’s all based on mysticism — the first-hand experience of the sacred — which was humanity’s original religion.’