Saint Francis of Assisi’s mystical experiences arose in the context of the thirteenth-century fascination with stigmata, the appearance of wounds on the body resembling those suffered by Christ on the cross. While fasting, Saint Francis had a vision of an angel with the stigmata on its hands and feet, and saw similar patterns of blood surfacing at the skin of his own hands and feet. This extraordinary vision led him to an experience of mystical awe, in which he felt himself to be merging with Jesus on the cross. (One wonders, though, about the malaria circulating in Italy at the time, one symptom of which was blood surfacing at the skin.) Mystical awe is shaped by concepts of the self, society, and body at the time.
Advances in science and technology feed into the cultural evolution of mystical awe. Today many people think of their soul in terms of patterns of energy, fields, entanglement, and vibrations, concepts given to us by Einstein and quantum physics. Perhaps our soul is a “quantum self,” a pattern of vibrating energy that emanates out of the cells that are our bodies, energy that originated in the big bang and that lives on after we die. Economic ideas about free markets, choice, and hedonic pleasure in relation to mystical awe can be heard at the pulpit on Sundays in certain forms of Christianity, mindfulness movements, and profit-oriented psychedelic retreats. Mystical awe is always composting in the decaying of what we know and the growth of what is new.
Intelligent Design
Extraordinary experiences, and the ways we distill them, can give rise to new spiritual beliefs and practices. Out of mystical awe grow representations, images, symbols, music, and stories about the Divine.
Yuria Celidwen knows this firsthand. Of indigenous Nahua background, Yuria grew up in Chiapas, Mexico, raised by her father, one of Mexico’s celebrated poets, and her mother, a professor of clinical psychology. When Yuria was eight, her mother was killed by a teenage driver, leaving her family in deep grief. Her grandmother Celina took her out into the lush forests of Chiapas, some of the most biodiverse in the world, where jaguars roam and enjoy sacred standing. Her grandmother opened Yuria to mystical awe, she tells me, to the songs of “growth” and “breath” in the forest.
In her teens and twenties, Yuria fell into an arty scene in Mexico City, of music, late nights, wild gatherings, and drugs. One evening she nearly died. Studies of near-death experiences find that they follow the patterns of mystical awe, of decay, distilling, and growth. Carefully read Yuria’s story of awe, her recollection of what happened, and notice the references to vastness and mystery (“pitch black”; “sky opens”). And the chills (“Lightning fires up my body”). And threat (“Swarms of fiery ants”). And the dissolving self (“I become water”). Here is the beginning of her story.
I blacked out . . .
The earth breaks—pitch black—under my feet.
The sky opens—pristine clear—above my head.
My body is shaken by massive involuntary movements.
Lightning fires up my body.
Swarms of fiery ants, millipedes, worms, tiny roaches . . .
critters of the underground crawling over me.
Light dances behind my eyelids.
It flows . . . never static.
My body also loses form.
I become water.
My limbs have been absorbed into the ground.
I cannot feel my body.
A high-pitched, piercing sound fills my ears.
Water evaporates.
Thirst draws the moisture from my tongue.
I feel cold, burningly, laceratingly cold.
Yuria would regain consciousness but could not move her legs. Her friends could not make out the sounds she was uttering, and hurriedly took her to the hospital. There she would lose consciousness again, and float to a realm of different laws of space, time, and causality.
My eyes dissolve in smoke.
I am falling into thick, dense fog.
I am becoming space . . .
At my arrival to the ER, my body is unresponsive.
It’s a mirage of an understaffed health center in a developing country.
No one seems to notice that I am aware.
An eye above my body opens.
It sees nurses, doctors, and the ghosts.
It also sees my parents—far away—and a few relatives and friends.
None of whom knows I am here.
No one can hear.
A few life memories come too,
shortcuts projected in the innermost screen of light.
The nurses strip me of my clothes.
They trade them for a surgical bracelet with no name.
I almost hear their thoughts before they speak.
“No,” they say, “no vitals. She’s gone.”
But I am not!
I am here . . .
am I here?
Everything seems to fade.
Also fades the grip, the anger, the grief.
Instead, only a soothing moonlight peace.
Floating . . .
Melting into twilight . . .
In the liminalities of space
dwells the spirit bare . . .
I had yearned for this feeling so long,
and now it’s finally here.
Lucidity
Pre-dawn skies
Luminous, resplendent, bright
. . . love . . .
At the end of this extraordinary experience, Yuria is visited by her grandmother:
She places a seed below my tongue.
