By Charles Kelly


Mysticism has roots that date back into the most ancient religions, and a lot of these still have some surviving sect or tradition. Many types of worship from these ancient systems are present in the mores, customs and traditions of any one country that has played host to them. In a sense, virtuous behavior is something that is founded on religious ritual and ceremony.

This is lost more often than not, although they have been driven deep into cultural subconscious and also in the peculiar habits of the people. Mystical studies will have a sectarian spirit, and is also partly about the search for connections to those ancient spirits of worship. Memories can be cut off, sometimes during conflict or migration that can erase records and memory.

The shamanistic cults practiced a widespread kind of worship based on the physical aspects of existence. They worshipped nature and animals, practiced what have been denounced by the church as bizarre or savage rituals. One of these was the reign of kings who have everything during his lifetime, but was killed in the fields when the first white hair appeared on his head.

The sacrifice ceremony of a king on agricultural land was for fertilizing it, so that it will be fruitful. His blood, once the most powerful of beings, can satisfy gods of earth and will inspire them to make the land bountiful. After problems in agriculture were solved, they were less needed and a new kind of mystical concern replaced it.

It was more about a philosophy than anything else, and this mystic view was born from movements like Judaism or earlier religions. Philosophical mysticism would also lead to the founding of the biggest religions that are now in existence. These were the systems that founded academies, scientific solutions and inspired art, cultural movements and created unique technologies.

Today, formal studies in mysticism are those that are academic in nature, the preserve of theologians and similar experts. The studies have been sanitized to fit the concept of higher consciousness that all axial religions espouse. The axial religions are those founded on a historical thousand year human turning point, like Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism and Islam.

The base practices or beliefs are seen as holdovers in the racial memory, and things like a rash of violence are seen as symptoms of these. However, there is no true connection to how ancient religions could cause these. The studies here therefore also aim to find how those practices and beliefs may be subconsciously present and active in present day cultures.

The church considers many things cardinal sins and will be connected to behavior in domestic settings or the wider compass of social action. For the studies, these are threads that can lead to understanding of darker sides of religions that had supposedly died a long time ago. Axial systems had the mission of eradicating them, but there have been survivors, running deep in hidden ancestries.

The most relevant study in mystical systems today is one that is based on contemplation and cleanliness. Vows for abstinence and penitence can also be relevant, but the studies themselves in the academic sense continue to shed light on dark corners of the human experience. And this always aims to achieve the highest sense of the divine for humanity.




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