Abnormal Ideas and Nervous Super -Excitability. 4 1 



we must guard against'^confounding mysticism with the beliefs 

 and duties of orthodox rehgion. Ignorant sceptics are prone 

 to confound them for the purpose of casting a slur on all 

 rehgious behefs. The common character of the chief aspects 

 of mysticism is an immense longing for happiness, coupled with 

 a profound contempt for sensuous things. Regarding the joys 

 of this world, as ever changing and inseparable from pain, the 

 mystic seeks to realise at once the joys of an eternal bliss, while 

 the aim of some is to attain to a mysteiious union with or 

 absorption into some divine essence. Their acts of devotion 

 take the form of so-called meritorious or expiatory sacrifices. 

 Others ignore the reward of works, and yield to a certain 

 elevation of the spirit, supposed to be the outcome of a direct 

 spiritual manifestation. Though arising from the same religious 

 source the pathological results are, as may be expected, different, 

 and take the form of catalepsy, hallucination, monomania of 

 pride, etc., according to the characteristics of the individual. 

 A few illustrations may be of service here. The teaching of the 

 founder of mystical pantheism (Vedanta) is that the sage, 

 recognising that God resides in all creatures, forgets all 

 ideas of duality, perceives the all - powerful Being, aban- 

 dons belief in works, good or bad, becomes perfect and 

 obtains the entire absorption. Another disciple of this 

 teaching maintains that, with absorption into the Great Spirit, 

 other distinctions disappear. The sun of this spiritual know- 

 ledge in the heart dispels darkness, penetrates everything, 

 embraces everything, illumines everything. This obliviousness 

 to externals, and absorption into the Divine, is taught in a 

 thousand different ways by Hindoo Pantheism as the theory of 

 supreme happmess. And this theory was incorporated into the 

 teaching of Christianity by the early Fathers. One maintains 

 that the soul, released from the influence of corporeal images, 

 is, by love, transported beyond intelligence and thought, that it 

 rises beyond itself, is absorbed into the Divinity, and that God 

 becomes supreme peace and joy ; that it is, in fact, changed into 

 God as iron placed in the fire takes the form of the fire, and is 



