

E-text prepared by Ruth Hart ruthhart@twilightoracle.com



Transcriber's note:

   In the original book, the Table of Contents was located after
   the Preface, but I have placed it at the beginning of the text
   for this online version.





PRACTICAL MYSTICISM

by

EVELYN UNDERHILL

Author of "Mysticism," "The Mystic Way," "Immanence: A Book of Verses."







"If the doors of perception were cleansed,
everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
For man has closed himself up,
till he sees all things through the narrow chinks of his cavern."
WILLIAM BLAKE



New York
E.P. Dutton & Company
681 Fifth Avenue
Copyright 1915 by
E.P. Dutton & Company



TO THE UNSEEN FUTURE



CONTENTS

         Preface                            vii
   I.    What is Mysticism                    1
   II.    The World of Reality               13
   III.   The Preparation of the Mystic      21
   IV.    Meditation and Recollection        56
   V.     Self-Adjustment                    29
   VI.    Love and Will                      74
   VII.   The First Form of Contemplation    87
   VIII.  The Second Form of Contemplation  105
   XI.    The Third Form of Contemplation   126
   X.     The Mystical Life                 148



PREFACE

This little book, written during the last months of peace, goes to
press in the first weeks of the great war. Many will feel that in
such a time of conflict and horror, when only the most ignorant,
disloyal, or apathetic can hope for quietness of mind, a book
which deals with that which is called the "contemplative" attitude
to existence is wholly out of place. So obvious, indeed, is this
point of view, that I had at first thought of postponing its
publication. On the one hand, it seems as though the dreams of a
spiritual renaissance, which promised so fairly but a little time
ago, had perished in the sudden explosion of brute force. On the
other hand, the thoughts of the English race are now turned, and
rightly, towards the most concrete forms of action--struggle and
endurance, practical sacrifices, difficult and long-continued
effort--rather than towards the passive attitude of self-surrender
which is all that the practice of mysticism seems, at first sight, to
demand. Moreover, that deep conviction of the dependence of all
human worth upon eternal values, the immanence of the Divine
Spirit within the human soul, which lies at the root of a mystical
concept of life, is hard indeed to reconcile with much of the
human history now being poured red-hot from the cauldron of
war. For all these reasons, we are likely during the present crisis
to witness a revolt from those superficially mystical notions
which threatened to become too popular during the immediate
past.

Yet, the title deliberately chosen for this book--that of "Practical"
Mysticism--means nothing if the attitude and the discipline which
it recommends be adapted to fair weather alone: if the principles
for which it stands break down when subjected to the pressure of
events, and cannot be reconciled with the sterner duties of the
national life. To accept this position is to reduce mysticism to the
status of a spiritual plaything. On the contrary, if the experiences
on which it is based have indeed the transcendent value for
humanity which the mystics claim for them--if they reveal to us a
world of higher truth and greater reality than the world of
concrete happenings in which we seem to be immersed--then that
value is increased rather than lessened when confronted by the
overwhelming disharmonies and sufferings of the present time. It
is significant that many of these experiences are reported to us
from periods of war and distress: that the stronger the forces of
destruction appeared, the more intense grew the spiritual vision
which opposed them. We learn from these records that the
mystical consciousness has the power of lifting those who
possess it to a plane of reality which no struggle, no cruelty, can
disturb: of conferring a certitude which no catastrophe can wreck.
Yet it does not wrap its initiates in a selfish and otherworldly
calm, isolate them from the pain and effort of the common life.
Rather, it gives them renewed vitality; administering to the
human spirit not--as some suppose--a soothing draught, but the
most powerful of stimulants. Stayed upon eternal realities, that
spirit will be far better able to endure and profit by the stern
discipline which the race is now called to undergo, than those
who are wholly at the mercy of events; better able to discern the
real from the illusory issues, and to pronounce judgment on the
new problems, new difficulties, new fields of activity now
disclosed. Perhaps it is worth while to remind ourselves that the
two women who have left the deepest mark upon the military
history of France and England--Joan of Arc and Florence
Nightingale--both acted under mystical compulsion. So, too, did
one of the noblest of modern soldiers, General Gordon. Their
national value was directly connected with their deep spiritual
