Anthropologic perspective formulated by Greek psychopractices can be wel drawn from existential myth that is proper to Greek culture, the myth of the river. Actual y the target of these psychopractices comes in form of more integrated self-positioning as an observer at the “bank” of the river of time. Th e ability to preserve one’s mind without being involved into emotions that are invoked by the being in fact comes as the essence of the afore-mentioned rationalization of emotions. In this way Greek practices once again come as verifi cation of the generated thesis about the role of existential myth in esoteric practices. Basing upon this we may see that the saying of S. Khoruzhij that “In scope of outlined understanding we see spiritual practice as a methodical y lined… process of successive, stage-by-stage progressing, ascend to some certain endeavoured state — the goal, the “telos” of this practice” [308] comes as unreasonable extension of existential mythology proper to Hesychasm (the image of the Mountain, or the “staircase” in authentic terminology) onto other types of practices.
5.6. PSYCHPRACTICES IN CHRISTIANITY
Early Christianity borrowed many elements from philosophic systems of Ancient Greece. Th e fact that is even more interesting is that the majority of these elements were borrowed from those very systems PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS. Andrey G. Safronov 171
we have previously defi ned as esoteric ones. For instance, Christianity took Platonist idealistic worldview and the dogma onsuperiorityof spiritual notions over the material ones. From Aristotelianism they took the idea of God as a primary element and the goal of the world, and from Stoicism — the belief that material world is permeated by the spirit, as well as proclamation of superiority of God, equality between people and the necessity to introduce some certain ethic norms. Christianity adopted the Cynics’ idea of indiff erence and contempt for mundane, worldly goods. Even Skepticism aff ected Christianity in terms of diminishing the value of feelings, in its negating feasibility of world cognition by means of ratio that is by logic continued in Christian doctrine that says that Revelation and divine affl ation are the only sources of truth cognition.
In comparison with esoteric practices of India or China we know much less about practices of such kind used in Christianity, probably due to the fact that offi cial Christian clergy did not have much enthusiasm about them. Nevertheless esoteric psychopractices in Christianity did exist, the most well-known of them being Hesychasm and Spiritual exercises of Ignatius of Loyola.
Hesychasm (from Greek he’sychia — inner silence) is mystic practice of Orthodoxy that is said to have originated from John the disciple.
Followers of Hesychasm experienced the percept of God true existence
[38; 91; 113; 180; 184; 192]. For this purpose they used specifi c combinations of breathing and special body positions with uttering the prayer yet not with their lips but by means of “spiritual heart” so that it could sound mutely inside one’s chest revealing within individual the love of Jesus to the whole world. Hesychasts were also practicing “eradiating with Tabor Light” — entering into the fl ood of pure light and the grace of Holy Spirit. In late XIX-th — early XX-th centuries the settlements of Orthodox Hesychasts could be found in many regions of Russia and in Caucasus.
Th e terms used in Hesychasm practiced by Gregory Palamas apprentices –Cal istus and Ignatius Xanthopoulos — come remarkably illustrative here since they al have exact equivalents in other traditional esoteric and initiative doctrines.
In “Directions to Hesychats” they draw a line of synonyms that name the process of initiation: the rational way, the praiseful action and true 172 Andrey G. Safronov. PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS
contemplation; the most expatiative prayer; the watchfulness of mind; mindful acting; the aff air of the next century; angel living; heavenly vita; divine bearing; the land of alive beings; mysterious contemplation; the utmost spiritual repast; the paradise created by God; the heavens; the heavenly kingdom; the kingdom of God; the mirk that comes over the light; confessional living in Christ; seeing the God; the most natural deifi cation.
Th e psychopractices of Hesychasm can be divided into four groups
[290].
1. “Prayer without ceasing”, i.e. continuous recital of the prayer
“Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!”
“Th e active mindful and hearty prayer is like this: take a seat that is no higher than one span, draw your mind from your head into the heart of yours and keep it there, and from there beseech in the mindful and hearty way: “Oh Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!”. By this hold your breath carefully so that you your breath shall not come impudent since this may distract your thoughts. Should you see there are thoughts emerging, give no heed to them even if they are simple and kind, not only carnal-minded and evil. Bringing your mind to your heart and calling to Lord Jesus in a frequent and patient way you shall soon overwhelm such thoughts and eliminate them, striking them invisibly by the name of Lord”.
“If quantity results in quality, then frequent and almost incessant calling for the name of Jesus Christ — though initially absent-minded —
may result in attention and warmth of the heart; inasmuch the human nature is able to acquire the said mood by means of frequent usage and habit. In order to learn how to do things well one should do this thing much more often — this is what one of spiritual writers said; and saint Hesychius says that frequent action gives birth to skills and turns into the nature (sect.7). Th is — as seen from observations of experienced men — may happen also to inner prayer in the following way: the one endeavoring to achieve the inner prayer determines himself to frequent, almost incessant calling for the name of Lord, i.e. recite the prayer to Jesus: Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner; sometimes in a shorter way, i.e. Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, like Saint Gregory of Sinai teaches”.
“Candid Narratives of a Pilgrim to his Spiritual Father” PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS. Andrey G. Safronov 173
2. “Drawing” one’s mind into the heart
“Be seated in some special place in privacy, close the door, incline your head down to your chest and thus stay there with you consideration inside of your own (in the heart and not in the mind), bringing back there your mind and your sensual eyes and holding in some way the breath of yours. Having your mind there do your best eff ort to fi nd it where the heart is, so that by having found it, there would your mind completely stay. At the beginning there will be some darkness and sever-ity but further on should you continue this attention aff air night and day without cease you shall attain continual delight. Th e mind shall become active in this and shall fi nd the place where heart is, and then it shall immediately see the things there inside that it had never seen or known about. From that moment onwards whatever thought arises and comes from any side, before it enters the inside and shall be thought or imagined, the mind shall at once drive it away from there and eliminate by name of Jesus, i.e. Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me; from this very moment the mind shall conceive its wrath to demons, it shall be driving them away and defeating them. Th e rest of things that commonly follow after this works you shall with help of God learn on your own from self-experience, fi xing the consideration and keeping Jesus, i.e. the prayer of His: Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me”.
“Candid Narratives of a Pilgrim to his Spiritual Father” [180]
3. Contemplation of light phenomena (photisms) as of uncreated Tabor Light (them being divine energies according to St. Gregory Palamas).
“For it is in light that the light is seen, and that which sees operates in a similar light, since this faculty has no other way in which to work. Having separated itself from all other beings, it becomes itself all light and is assimilated to what it sees, or rather, it is united to it without mingling, being itself light and seeing light through light.
If it sees itself, it sees light; if it beholds the object of its vision, that too is light; and if it looks at the means by which it sees, again it is light” [184].
Th e monk Barlaam is known to have criticized the Hesychasts of the Mount Athos on the basis of their declaration in which they state that they see (emphasized by A.S.) the uncreated light. Due to the dis-174 Andrey G. Safronov. PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS
cussion that broke out and replies given by Palamas the role of the Tabor Light in Hesychasts’ practices became known.
In his “Life of Symeon” Nicetas Stethatos draws several very precise descriptions that refer to this experience:
“One night when he was on prayer and his cleansed mind has merged with the initial Mind he saw the light coming from above that suddenly broke down on him from the height of heaven with its brightness, the light so pure and immense, so clear and so irradiating that everything around became so luminous as if in the daytime. Th is light was shining upon him, and it seemed to him that the whole house together with the cell he was in disappeared and turned to nothing in the twinkling of an eye, and he appeared as if taken up into the air and forgot completely about his body”.
And another case:
“As if the morning dawn-light has shone from above <…>; it was intensifying gradually, illuminating and irradiating the air around, and he felt that together with his body he was moving away from worldly things.
Since the light continued to shine more intensively and there above him it was turning into some kind of a sun in the midday blaze, and he saw that himself he was in the center of the light, and he was full of delight, and he had the tears of placability that was overwhelming the whole of his body. He saw the light to come to its fl esh in an unusual way and it was gradually fusing into all limbs of his <…>. And then he saw that this light had overwhelmed the whole of his body, his heart and his inside and turned him into the fi re and light; and just in the way it had earlier happened to the house, now it happened with him that the light made him lose his sense of form, location, solidity, the outline of his body” [403, pg.94-95, quoted as per Mircae Eliade’s “Th e experience of Mystic Light”].
4. Psycho-somatic methods (breath-holding, specifi c postures, concentration upon certain parts of body).
We shal further on draw some descriptions of Hesychasm psychopractices that were made by Pseudosymeon and St. Nicephorus the Hesychast:
“Be seated in some special place in privacy, close the door, incline your head down to your chest and thus stay there with you consider-PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS. Andrey G. Safronov 175
ation inside of your own (in the heart and not in the mind), bringing back there your mind and your sensual eyes and holding in some way the breath of yours. Having your mind there do your best eff ort to fi nd it where the heart is, so that by having found it, there would your mind completely stay. At the beginning there will be some darkness and sever-ity but further on should you continue this attention aff air night and day without cease you shall attain a continual delight. Th e mind shall become active in this and shall fi nd the place where heart is, and then it shall immediately see the things there inside that it had never seen or known about. From that moment onwards whatever thought arises and comes from any side, before it enters the inside and shall be thought or imagined, the mind shall at once drive it away from there and eliminate by name of Jesus, i.e. Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me; from this very moment the mind shall conceive its wrath to demons, it shall be driving them away and defeating them. Th e rest of things that commonly follow after this works you shall with help of God learn on your own from self-experience, fi xing the consideration and keeping Jesus, i.e. the prayer of His: Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me”.
“Candid Narratives of a Pilgrim to his Spiritual Father”[180]
“It is known to you that the breathing of ours that we breathe with is the process of the air taking in and bringing out. Th e organ that makes it is the lungs that facilitate the heartwork, and by channelizing the air they pour it over onto the heart. In this way breathing comes as a natural path to one’s heart. Th us, getting your mind together within, bring it into the way of breath by which the air reaches the heart, and together with this air that is taken in make it come to the heart and stay there.
Oh brother, teach it to stay there for a while, since at the beginning it will be very lonely there in this inner imprisonment and in squeeze; yet when it gets accustomed it will on the contrary dislike to come outside for it feels joylessly and gloomy there…
When you shall in this way enter the place where heart is, just like I have shown to you, give your thanksgiving to God and in praising his goodness keep doing this in all times and it shall teach you the things you shall never learn in any other ways. By this you should know that when the mind of yours stays fi rmly in the heart it should not stay there in silence and ease yet continuously say the prayer of “Lord Jesus Christ, 176 Andrey G. Safronov. PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS
son of God, have mercy on me!” and never cease. Since this, keeping the mind away from dreaming, works”.
“On Watchfulness and Heart Keeping”
In Hesychasm an important role is given to human body. Hesychasm insisted upon feasibility and even imperative necessity of fl esh transformation not only in perspective of future overal Resurrection but also in terms of here and now in actual and certain practice of monkish alchemic transformation, i.e. in the process of initiation and spiritual realization. In terms of this doctrine they broke out a discussion about whether they should restrain themselves by the dualism: the spirit is good — the fl esh is execratory, the upper world is pure — the netherworld is dirty, or they should — without denying the afore-set — strive to overcome this: “the body is deifi ed together with soul” [184, ph. 99].
Th is was the very subject of polemics between St. Gregory Palamas and his opponents (fi rst of al , Barlaam). Let us notice that the essence of this discussion (that also touched upon number of other subjects, for instance the issue of the Tabor Light origin) goes beyond the scope of theologism and comes as refl ection of Orthodox church reaction upon the practices that — like any practices of esoteric kind — were beyond Orthodox and even Christian context, this being very wel understood by Palamas opponents.
Cultural and anthropologic signifi cance of Hesychasm in both Greek and Russian culture has been thoroughly studied by S. Khoruzhij in his works [307; 312]. Th e conclusions that he has formulated about role of Hesychasm come in considerable alignment with culturology ideas of the present work, just like his idea of spiritual ascend in scope of spiritual practice il ustrates the here formulated principle of realization in esoteric psychopractice of existential myth proper to certain culture (in this case — that of the Mountain).
Ignatius of Loyola spiritual exercises. In 1534 in Paris Ignatius of Loyola,catholic, founded the Jesuits order “Society of Jesus” whose members used to practice Spiritual Exercisesas a basic mystic practice. Th e essence of exercises can be easily understood by the complete title of this work: “Spiritual exercises to conquer oneself and regulate one’s life without determining oneself throughany tendency that is disordered”.
PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS. Andrey G. Safronov 177
Spiritual exercises were a system of wel -developed psychopractices that were based not upon spontaneous ecstasies yet on consequential performance of exercises that ensured taking the individual through necessary sets of states, including those mystic and ecstatic.
For as strolling, walking and running are bodily exercises, so every way of preparing and disposing the soul to rid itself of all the disordered tendencies, and, after it is rid, to seek and fi nd the Divine Will as to the management of one’s life for the salvation of the soul, is called a Spiritual Exercise.
Let us pay attention to the last sentence of the quotation drawn, for it il ustrates anthropologic perspective of Spiritual exercises that differs signifi cantly from that of Hesychasm. Catholic Church did not use the idea of one’s “ascending” to God, yet they used to treat practice as a feasibility of one’s “cleansing”, “deliverance from tendencies that are disordered” that make this practice kindred to the already mentioned Greek psychopractices and il ustrates the principle of “coming out of the River”.
Exercises are arranged into four Weeks in correspondence with four parts that the exercises are divided into.
Th e fi rst part is the reasoning about sins that is dissolved in contemplation; the second one is the life of our Lord Jesus Christ up to the day of the Palm Sunday; the third part is the suff ering of Christ the Savior, and the forth part is Resurrection and Ascension, with addition of three modes of prayer performance. Yet it is not obvious that each week shal contain seven or eight days. Some exercises from the fi rst Week may come slower in attaining what they are meant for, that is, contrition of the heart, penance and crying over one’s sins; some are also more painstaking than others; some [adepts] are more subjected to anxiety or attacks from various spirits, and thus sometimes it is necessary for them to reduce the Week, while sometimes they should increase [it]. Th e same is to be done in consideration of the fol owing Weeks forattaining their result in compliance with the contents off ered.
Stil al exercises are to be fi nished within the term of approximately thirty days.
Th e basis of Spiritual exercises was made of a wel -developed methodology set in form of specifi c Christian psychology. For instance, they 178 Andrey G. Safronov. PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS
fi gure out several components of human psyche (sensual, volitive, that of rational mind) and raise the question about the types of desires and thoughts:
“I presuppose that there are three kinds of thoughts in me: that is, one my own, which springs from my mere liberty and will; and two others, which come from without, one from the good spirit, and the other from the bad”.
Th ey also touch upon the question that comes signifi cant for any kind of psychopractice — that of the types of personality and specifi c reaction upon such practices by people of diff erent types. For instance in the excerpt drawn below one may easily distinguish between specifi c anomalies that are proper to hysteroid and rigid types of personalities:
“Th e enemy looks much if a soul is gross or delicate, and if it is delicate, he tries to make it more delicate in the extreme, to disturb and embarrass it more. For instance, if he sees that a soul does not consent to either mortal sin or venial or any appearance of deliberate sin, then the enemy, when he cannot make it fall into a thing that appears sin, aims at making it make out sin where there is not sin, as in a word or very small thought.
If the soul is gross, the enemy tries to make it more gross; for instance, if before it made no account of venial sins, he will try to have it make little account of mortal sins, and if before it made some account, he will try to have it now make much less or none”.
Recommendations for each of the types are also given:
“Th e soul which desires to benefi t itself in the spiritual life, ought always to proceed the contrary way to what the enemy proceeds; that is to say, if the enemy wants to make the soul gross, let it aim at making itself delicate. Likewise, if the enemy tries to draw it out to extreme fi neness, let the soul try to establish itself in the mean, in order to quiet itself in everything” .
We may say that Spiritual exercises came as a system of rather extensional character that included practical y the whole existing set of practices, from meditative and analytical to breathworks and those of psychosomatic action. Th e last ones can be il ustrated by the fol owing quotation:
PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS. Andrey G. Safronov 179
“Th e Th ird Method of Prayer is that with each breath in or out, one has to pray mentally, saying one word of the Our Father, or of another prayer which is being recited: so that only one word be said between one breath and another, and while the time from one breath to another lasts, let attention be given chiefl y to the meaning of such word, or to the person to whom he recites it, or to his own baseness, or to the diff erence from such great height to his own so great lowness. And in the same form and rule he will proceed on the other words of the Our Father; and the other prayers, that is to say, the Hail Mary, the Soul of Christ, the Creed, and the Hail, Holy Queen, he will make as he is accustomed”.
“Spiritual Exercises” [144]
Despite the fact that there are some similar methods, “Spiritual Exercises” diff er much from Hesychasm in terms of the existential mythologem used. Th e world of spiritual exercises comes much closer to the Greek mythologem of the River, the essence of the practice being that resistance against its surgy waters that are personifi ed by “the Enemy” (see the three quotations above).
Other references to Christian psychopractices. We may assume that but for the afore-mentioned there were other psychopractices that existed in Christian tradition. Among those most interesting are ecstatic psychopractices that are based upon cultivation inside oneself the state of exultant love to God and other intensive emotional experiences. For instance in Western countries they give much respect to revelations of Saint Gertrude the Great, the XIII-th centurynun of the Benedictine order. “Suff ering from heartache she was trying to ease her suff ering in the name of the God by holding some fragrant substances in her mouth. She had a feeling that God in his mercy bent down to her for he Himself was taking calming from that smel . Having inhaled the aroma, He stood up and said to the Saints looking pleased: “Look at the new gift that My lady has given to Me!”
Elements of analogous character can be found in works of St. Teresa of Avila which views were characterized by W. James in the fol owing way: “Her ideas of religion boiled down to — if we may say so —
continuous loving fl irtation between the admirer and her Deity”. Th e same states were experienced by the beatifi c: “Beatifi c Angela stays in sweet languor, ful of guilt, for the Cross of Christ seems a marital bed 180 Andrey G. Safronov. PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS
to her…” [73]. She was “looking ardently, rapturously at the Cross of Christ, at the wounds of His and some limbs of His body…” We may come across descriptions of visions experienced by Christian mystics in which they saw Our Lady who was “feeding them with her breasts”. Of course such descriptions may make the blood of a common Christian cold; a competent clerk wil try to interpret them in metaphoric way, but any mystic or psychologist shal easily recognize actual practices that have famous paral els in other, less de-erotized traditions like, for instance, shamanism and Tantrism.
Sometimes in Christian literature one may come across data that makes one assume that Christian practices were familiar with principles of psychosomatic correspondences. For instance Sergiy Kholodkov, the priest, in his article “Does it make any diff erence in what way you believe?” writes: “An Orthodox prayer indwel s in the upper part of the heart, no lower … In Eastern countries they have learned by means of prayers and ascetic experience that attachment of prayer to any other part of organism always comes as a result of some demon-possessed state. Catholic erotomania is probably related to forced excitement and heating up the lower part of the heart”. Here we may add the words of St. Ignatius Bryanchaninov: “Th e one who tries to heat up and put into motion lower part of the heart thus brings into action the power of lust which due to it being close to genitals brings these organs into action.
What a strange phenomenon! Looks like the hermit is busy praying and the exercise evokes craving that is meantto be eliminated by this very exercise” [29].
In Christianity along with ecstatic psychopractices there also existed methods of visualization and spiritual communication similar to those described above. For instance St. Francis of Assisi writes: “At the time of my prayer there came two big lights that emerged in front of me: the one in which I recognized the Creator and the other that I saw was me”.
Th e already mentioned Ignatius of Loyola in his “Spiritual Exercises” draws a brief essence of the praying-and-meditative practice: “Imagin-ing Christ our Lord present and placed on the Cross, let me make a Colloquy” [144].
We may also declare that Christianity disposed of analytical techniques that were analogous to the Buddhist vipassana, for instance the PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM ARCHAIC TO OUR DAYS. Andrey G. Safronov 181
practice of concentration on some particular idea. Such practice is illustrated by the saying of Isaac the Syrian: “Th e true men of God always think of themselves that they are not God-worthy” [270].
5.7. PSYCHOPRACTICES IN ISLAM. SUFISM
Th e Sufi (“sufi ” translated from Arabian means “elevated”) tradition has emerged in scope of Islam but like the majority of esoteric systems it does not limit itself within it [110; 276; 362]. Sufi s believe Sufi sm to have appeared and to have been practiced yet before Islam emerged.
Stil both golden age and development of Sufi sm are considered in connection with Islamic world, with the times of al-Ghazali who is famous in western world because of his poetry.
Th e goal of Sufi sm is to achieve the state of direct merger between man and God, experience God by means of love. For instance, the Sufi poet Rumi (1207 — 1273) takes love for the only power that is able to overcome stereotypical perception, ambiguous vision, discursive mechanism of thinking.
“Take a cup of excitement, for you feel no shame. Understanding comes with love to the man who speaks. Coldness eclipses intellect”.
Rumi
For him love is nothing but amplifying ability of integral perception of the fact that the world contains nothing but the spirit (that is loving and being loved simultaneously).
Th ou didst contrive this «I» and this «we» only so that Th ou might-est play the game of worship with Th yself,
So that all «Is» and «Th ous» should become one Soul, immersed at last in the one Beloved.
Rumi
Let us note that perception of God as the Beloved is characteristic of many other religious traditions: Christianity, Krishnaism, Bhakti-Yoga.
Like other adepts of these systems, Sufi s thought that after individual has passed some distance on his way to love God starts to manifest himself, providing help and attracting the “viator” to his Presence. Th e individual comes to living in latihan (“lets himself go” and ceases “fi ghting”), permits himself to be of every kind, to be “accepted”, “attracted”.
182 Andrey G. Safronov. PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICES IN MYSTIC TRADITIONS: FROM