One of the major themes in Disney's Frozen II is the journey into the unknown, which is a common element of the mystical journey into communion with the Divine.
Tag: dark night of the soul
Nihilism in the Light of Mystical Experience
Nihilism is a philosophy that says that life is meaningless. It says there is no objective meaning, intrinsic value, or purpose in life. What does mysticism and the mystical experience say about that?
A Mystical Commentary on “The Bells” in HBO’s Game of Thrones: The World is on Fire and Humanity is Dying!
Many people don't like the way that HBO's television drama Game of Thrones is turning out. Is there a deeper moral here?
Thoughts about "From Naïveté to Wisdom," the Pattern of the Spiritual Journey
I want to say a few thoughts about Richard Rohr's daily meditation today about "From Naïveté to Wisdom." Please click the link to read it. It's a beautiful simplified perspective of the faith journey: from order, to disorder, and then reorder.
1 Corinthians 15 BHT, Paul’s Earliest Witness of the Resurrection into Christ Consciousness, the “Gospel”
An addition to the BHT, containing the earliest account of the post-resurrection appearances of Christ in the New Testament, where Paul describes his witness of the resurrection and what it means to be resurrected into Christ consciousness. This seems to be an excellent summary of the Christian Gospel, or "good news," but it is something which I think we've generally misunderstood in Christianity for centuries. I feel that this is one of the most important translations of the BHT that I have been given the Grace to work out yet—yet not I. I was in tears by the end.
A Radical Reconstruction of the Mormon Narrative (and Christianity)
I will begin to offer a reconstruction of the Mormon narrative, which also applies in many ways to Christianity in general.
The Mysticism of Falling into a Black Hole
The unitive mystical experience can be compared to falling into a black hole. When compared this way, it doesn't sound like a nice experience. Likewise, for many mystics throughout history, their divine experiences weren't always a merry venture, sometimes encountering hellish realms along the way (see, for example, St. Teresa of Ávila, or St. John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul).
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “First Vision” Account
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) was a Russian novelist, writer, and philosopher. He often explored questions of psychology, philosophy, and religion. He wrote many acclaimed novels.
Margaret Barker on the Radical Original Understanding of Resurrection
The Methodist biblical scholar, Margaret Barker, wrote a book published in 1996 titled The Risen Lord in which she proposed that "the original understanding of resurrection may in fact be Jesus’ mystical experience at his baptism, when he was raised up and transformed into the divine Son."
Joannes Stobaeus’ “First Vision” Account
Joannes Stobaeus was a 5th-century AD compiler of Greek texts in Stobi, Macedonia. He likely read widely, and recorded many of the most interesting passages he came across from Greek authors, including poets and prose writers. The following seems to be a reference to the ancient Mysteries, religious rites, secret ceremonies and initiations, and what took place in them, perhaps a reference to the Eleusinian Mysteries