COLLECTION: A DAWN EMERGES

1.

LIFE AND SELF-KNOWLEDGE

2.

LIFE AND SEX

3.

LIFE AND ADULTHOOD

4.

LIFE AND UTOPIA

5.

LIFE AND ALIENATION

6.

LIFE AND SYMBOLIZATION

7.

LIFE AND MYSTICISM

8.

LIFE AND TESTAMENT

MARIA AUXILIADORA DE SOUZA BRASIL

LIFE AND MYSTICISM

Editorial Coordinator

Sílvia Raquel Amorim Braga

Revision

Márcia Teixeira de Freitas

Translation

Jefferson Wolfe Conboy (In memoriam)
Soledade Fonseca da Mota

Collection: A Light on the Path, 7

Belo Horizonte | 2017

Collection: A Light on the Path, 7

Brasil, Maria Auxiliadora de Souza

Life and Mysticism / Maria Auxiliadora de Souza Brasil. Translation by Jefferson Wolf Conboy; Soledade Fonseca da Mota. Belo Horizonte: Fundação Souza Brasil , 2017. (A Light on the Path, 7).

ISBN 978-85-60974-08-5 (printed version)

1. Psicoterapia. 2. Psicologia. 3. Psiquiatria. I. Conboy, Jefferson Wolfe. II Mota, Soledade Fonseca da. III. Título

Cover:
Simone Rodrigues Alves
Electronic editing:
Frederico F. Albuquerque Leal

Published in 2017 by Fundação Souza Brasil
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30.112-000 - Belo Horizonte - MG - Brasil
Telefone:(31) 3225 7181
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PREFACE

In response to innumerable requests, I have decided to present a series of writings in a language more accessible to a wider audience. Such writings seek to convey the concepts of self-knowledge, sex, adulthood, utopia, alienation, symbolization and mysticism, culminating in my testament as an educator.

Self-knowledge is the essential condition for programming what will allow the human being to obtain ecstasy, the natural goal of human existence. Self-knowledge, impossible from birth to the age of six, occurs, from six to twelve years of age, only at the practical- utilitarian level, from twelve to eighteen, at the partial-abstract level, initially of pugnacity, and later in search of one’s own consensus, and at the total abstract level, after eighteen years of age, cumulatively at the communitary, humanistic, and cosmic levels, when the individual begins to live eternity in temporality.

Sex is an effective means to obtain ecstasy, the natural goal of human existence. Partial sex is sex limited by the developmental level of the individuals who live it; it is merely genital sex, and the conflicts that emerge between the sexual partners result from the limitations of perception of each individual about sexuality. Total sex that is psycho-genital, and the conflicts that threaten the relations between the sexual partners result from limitations of perception of the infantile or adolescent partner, demanding, from the adult partner, a firm and yet gentle attitude, in defending his interest to ensure an integrated sexual relation.

Adulthood is the ideal moment to obtain ecstasy, the natural goal of human existence. Partial adulthood is an organic and also psychic adulthood only at the communitary and humanistic levels; the conflicts that arise between individuals result from the limitations of perception of each individual of himself, in particular, and of the other individuals in general. Total adulthood is the adulthood that besides being organic and psychic is also spiritual; the full adult directs his spirituality to the cosmic well-being, seeking to live eternity in temporality at its highest level.

Utopia is the attempt of imagination to fulfill the emptiness left by ignorance. The religious utopias have been hindering the spiritual evolution of the peoples; the philosophical utopias have been aggravating this hindrance with the absence of logic of thought; the sciences have been rejecting, more successfully, the incursions of the utopias in the areas of observation and experimentation. Healthy utopia points towards a future of faith and hope in the victory of goodness, peace and universal harmony.

Mental alienation is the process of distancing the individual from the reality to which he belongs; it is natural in the immature individual, cultural in the ignorant individual and pathological in mental illness, constituting the biggest impediment to obtaining ecstasy, the natural goal of human existence. Partial mental alienation is merely concrete in childhood, and also abstract, though of limited abstraction, in pre- adolescence and in adolescence. Total mental alienation is, besides animal, in the different regressive stages, also vegetal.

Symbolization is the process of approximation of the individual to the reality to which he belongs and it is the best instrument to obtain ecstasy, the natural goal of human existence. Partial symbolization is merely concrete symbolization in childhood, and also abstract, though of limited abstraction, in preadolescence and in adolescence. Total symbolization is symbolization that besides being communitary and humanistic is also cosmic; total, integrated symbolization is not possible before somato-psychic maturity.

Mysticism is the definitive means to obtain ecstasy, the natural goal of human existence. Partial mysticism is merely organic in the case of the mystical living, and also psychic in the case of the mystical experience. Total mysticism is the mysticism that, besides being organic and psychic, is also spiritual, the mystical ecstasy; there is, in the sexual act, an effective path to reach it, though not necessary. The mystical living, experience and ecstasy can be learned. The ecstatic life is the anticipation, through human love, of the Definitive Love, of the Creator!

My testament, legacy, donation, summarizes the course of my thoughts and of my practice as an educator, which have always had as a goal to contribute to the happiness of each individual, in particular, and of humanity, as a whole. I have engaged myself with the description of the setting where the history of humanity takes place, with the plot that unfolds in it and with the characters that act in it. I have approached the question of the developmental obstruction of humanity, by considering the problem of ignorance, and the solution for its eradication through the technique I have called “analytical-phenomenological-existential” which determines the path to be followed by educators to overcome the impediments to the development of individuals in the passage from ignorance to wisdom.

In this manner, I have tried to clarify the importance of self- knowledge, of understanding the sexual function, of achieving adulthood, of understanding the difference between pathological utopia and healthy utopia, of perceiving the harms caused by mental alienation, of decoding symbolization and of cultivating the mystical life so that each individual reaches the greatest development he is capable of. To this end, I have described how the technique I have created and proclaim functions, with the aim of achieving humanity’s goal, which is the rational creation of man himself.

Maria Auxiliadora de Souza Brasil

PRESENTATION

Millenary wisdom has it that a light is not lit to be placed under the table. It must be placed where it illuminates everyone. This is the spirit of “A light on the path”, a collection that gathers eight books of Professor Maria Auxiliadora de Souza Brasil, Ph.D.. Written in a language accessible to a wider audience, it brings to the reader the opportunity to become informed about the developmental scheme of the human being and of the human group (Life and Self-knowledge), to know his sexuality in order to live it in an integrated way (Life and Sex), to understand adulthood as a privileged moment in the development of the human being (Life and Adulthood), to distinguish the healthy utopias from those that are a result of distorted reasoning (Life and Utopia), to learn that alienation hinders the happiness of the human being (Life and Alienation), to decode the meetings between what one thinks of reality at each phase of his life and what reality is in itself (Life and Symbolization), to reconnect oneself with the mystery of the world to live the spiritual peace (Mystical Life) and, finally, to share the legacy of the author as an educator (Life and Testament).

Maria Auxiliadora de Souza Brasil is Brazilian, a Ph.D., Full Professor of the Department of Psychology, in the area of Psychology of Personality, at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. She is the author of a trilogy consisting of a contribution to the revision of the theologies (The Newest Testament), a philosophy about the philosophies (The Metatheory of Philosophical Knowledge) and a synthesis of the knowledge of the sciences on the human being and the human group(On Analytical-phenomenological-existential Psychotherapy). The trilogy, also published by the Souza Brasil Foundation, is organized in a collection of six bilingual volumes, Portuguese-English, gathered under the suggestive title “A Dawn Emerges”.

The Analytical-phenomenological-existential Technique, created, practiced and taught by the author for over half a century, as a psychotherapist, professor and researcher, offers a safe path for educators to help individuals and groups in their development. It maintains that the educator, an adult human being par excellence, must be an example of the psychological health he is capable of promoting. It is not by accident that the author has coined the neologism “adultez” (adulthood) – until then absent from the Portuguese language.

Retainer of the copyrights of the works of Professor Maria Auxiliadora de Souza Brasil, Ph.D., the Souza Brasil Foundation was created by a group of professionals trained by the author in the Analytical-phenomenological-existential Psychotherapy. Among its goals, the Foundation intends to convey the humanistic ideas of the author, with the aim of increasing the knowledge about mental health, and consequently, promoting the personal and professional fulfillment of each human being. Previously limited to practicing psychotherapy, the founders envisioned the possibility of taking this knowledge to the world. Distributed to all member countries of the United Nations, the present collection illuminates the path of all of those engaged in creating conditions for each person to feel fulfilled and happy.

The publishing of the present collection thus fulfills the purpose of taking, to a wider audience, true information about self-knowledge, sex, adulthood, utopia, alienation, symbolization, mysticism and the testament of the author as an educator. It contributes, thus, so that the ignorance about the human being and his culture, a source of misunderstandings and failures in public policy and unnecessary suffering in the life of many individuals, gives place to true knowledge, a light that iluminates the path of all of us, pilgrims, whose destiny is ecstasy, maximum happiness.

Fundação Souza Brasil

1 MYSTICISM AND LIFE

The Analytical-phenomenological-existential Psycotherapeutic Theory, a hermeneutical exegesis of the analysand-analyst datum at the ontic-anthropological level, which is founded on an esoteric vision of the being-in-the-world, a repetition of the ancestral myth of the eternal return to the origins, recognizes, in mystical experience, the definitive means to obtain ecstasy, the natural goal of human existence, and in the sexual function, an effective means, at the reach of everyone, to obtain the same purpose. Experience is an action peculiar to the integrated human being: if explicit, it clearly points towards the operations to be carried out; if implicit, it does not offer such clear pointing; if it is a function of a function, it enters into the natural order of the seven vital functions. Mysticism is contemplation that reaches ecstasy and mysteriously unites the human being to the Divinity. Mystical experience is the crowning of the seven vital functions at their highest level of integration; these functions encompass simultaneous and interdependent operations, indispensable to the conservation of life itself, that is, the ones that have as a result the renewal of the interior environment of the being.

With the objective of clarifying the pseudo-discrepancy between mystical experience resulting from purely material work and its meaning as spiritual work, which is pre-historical and pre-existential in its essence, we have tried to unify the data of the treatment carried out by religions, philosophies, and sciences on the theme mysticism in general, and on the theme human mysticism in particular, which necessarily includes the themes sex, in general, and human sexuality, in particular. From the religions we have apprehended the existing symmetry between individual spirit and the world of objects, that is, the integration of essence and existence, and the role of mystical experience as an integrator of the organism that is a participant of the Organism, and the sexual function as a means of facilitating this participation. From the philosophies we have deduced the universality of spirit, that is, the integration of knowledge and of ethical knowledge, feeling giving validity to mystical experience and to the sexual function. From the sciences we have induced the universality of matter, that is, the integration of knowledge about the micro and the macro-universe, knowledge of the general law of harmonization giving meaning to mystical experience and to the sexual function. From the examination of the human being and of the human group developing we have apprehended: anguish, phobia, obsession, and hysteria limiting the mystical phenomenon, in childhood, to the level of mystical living; pugnacity and the search for self consensus conditioning it in adolescence to the level of the partial mystical experience; cooperation with the community, with humanity and with the totality enabling, in adulthood, the integrated, the total mystical experience.

With the same objective, we have tried to unify the data of the treatment carried on the theme specifically by the interior, esoteric vision. From the esoteric vision we have apprehended that mystical experience, crowning of the seven vital functions at their highest level of integration, is a mystical phenomenon, resulting from a specific structure and dynamics, and it may occur at three distinct dimensions. From the study of the theme structure of the mystical phenomenon we have concluded that, at its simplest expression, it is vibrational, and directly affected by the levels of consciousness, sensory, rational-analytic, intuitive-synthetic, and mystical-unitary, which are, in turn, affected by the levels of emotion, shock-emotion and anticipation-emotion fear, anger, and love. From the study of its dynamics we have concluded that the mystical phenomenon, in its first step, surpasses and transmutes reason, which can classify it, but cannot feel it, and that afterwards, there is a movement in two moments, the atrophy of the inferior I and its reconstitution at a superior level of consciousness. The three dimensions in which the mystical phenomenon may occur are the path of heaven, the path of earth, and the path of the human being, each one of them presenting their own structure and dynamics, all of them aiming at mystical experience at its highest level, the ecstatic communion with the Creator.

With the same objective, we have tried to unify the data on the treatment of the theme carried out in all of its aspects, theological, philosophical, scientific, and esoteric, arriving thus at the concept of what is the dynamics of the integrated mystical experience. From the examination of the dynamics of the integrated mystical experience we have induced mystical experience as work, as a result of the incest taboo, arriving at the conclusion that work generates need of communication, therefore the types of mystical communication, which are, the instrumental one, mystical living, and the consummatory one, inferior, partial mystical experience, and the superior, integrated mystical experience, generating, respectively, the ways of using one’s fellow creatures, either as mere object, or merely to have company, or, in an integrated way, to share existing. We consider all mystical effort of the individual impregnated by one’s interest in reaching ecstasy, orgasm, and relaxation and reproduction being second class interests. There may be limitations due to anatomic-physiological and/or psycho-social dysfunctions.

In summary, the Analytical-phenomenological-existential Psycotherapeutic Theor y, a hermeneutical exegesis of the analysand-analyst datum at the ontic-anthropological level, which is founded on an esoteric vision of the being in the world, a repetition of the ancestral myth of the eternal return to the origins, recognizes in mystical experience, the definitive means to obtain ecstasy, the natural goal of human existence. With the objective of clarifying the pseudo-discrepancy between mystical experience resulting from purely material work and its meaning as spiritual work, we have tried to unify: firstly, all the data provided by religions, philosophies and sciences; secondly, the specific data provided by the esoteric vision; thirdly, all the data provided by the two groups previously mentioned. We consider mystical experience the ideal condition, the path which will enable the human being to live eternity in temporality, ecstasy, communion with the Creator.

2 MYSTICISM AND PSYCHE

Mystical experience is the definitive means to obtain ecstasy, the natural goal of human existence, and the sexual function is an effective alternative to obtain the same end. Ecstasy is the rapture of spirit from its condition of incarnated spirit to the greater condition of communion with the universal whole. Knowledge of the dynamics of mystical experience permits the human being the appropriate use of contemplation, the one that leads to ecstasy. Lack of knowledge of this dynamics has led the human being to a series of misunderstandings which constitute the most serious source of human themes, from the most primary fanaticism to the most sophisticated products of insanity, as well as the lack of knowledge of the dynamics of human sexuality has led the human being from the most burlesque comedy to the most dramatic tragedy. Once the goal of the human being is to obtain ecstasy, which the path of sexuality, although at the reach of everyone, presents a series of hindrances in order to become effective between two people, and that the path of mysticism is the definitive means for this end, it is indispensable to research its dynamics, so that people can live eternity in temporality, starting from the most intimateness of one’s individual being. Human thought has always given inappropriate treatment to the theme mystical experience and to the theme sexuality.

2.1 In theology

Theology, the systematic reflection on the Absolute while related to our being, seeks the integration of essence and existence, of absolute infinite and finite, of eternity and temporality. The usual hypothesis, present in all theologies, is that a oneness principle, usually denominated God, transformed itself into organism, remaining oneness, that is, it differentiated itself in its intimateness into diverse elements, coordinated in hierarchies and functions that reinforce this unity, preserving the same scheme in all smaller individuations, therefore the assertion that every human being is made in the image and resemblance of God, who is one’s origin and destiny. However, the theologies have been silent about the key to the mystery of existence, offering the human being only the dilemma of the origin and destiny of the universe, and consequently, of one’s origin and destiny in this universe. The saying “transmute, find the vibration, and the vibration of love” has become lost in the meanderings of history.

Pristine theology, at once hermetic, caldaic and orphic, searching for similarities among several theological beliefs, shows that the ancients (5th century B.C.) had a kind of knowledge that has been influencing humanity in a parallel way to disseminated theologies, and that this knowledge can be found in theosophy, knowledge of God that comes directly from God, mystical theology par excellence. Nevertheless, the theme mystical experience and the theme sexual function are not clearly treated, and the orgiastic and mystical poles have remained distant from one another, generating opposite influences, given that, without knowledge, the superior does not order the inferior, and therefore there is no polar biorhythm, necessary for the transmutation of energy, through contemplation and/ or sex, in function of communion with the mystery of the world. What can be observed in natural affirmative theology are these two poles, theology, on the one hand, and mysticism and sex, on the other, the latter ones becoming confused with one another, at times in orgiastic rituals to celebrate fecundity through unrestrained ecstatic fulfillment, and at other times in expiatory rituals of containment of provoked ecstasy, in order to receive the spontaneous ecstasy that comes from the possible visit of the Creator.

Dialectic theology, seeking to serve the word of God, elects the truth because it is already valid, revealed knowledge, guided by the light of faith, pointing at times to polytheistic fetishist mythical explanations, cosmological and/or anthropomorphic, and at other times to anthropological monotheistic explanations. The most successful attempt, that of Judaism, presents the Adamic myth, which strongly associates, in the themes of disobedience, sexual practice as the basic reason for banishing man from Paradise, where he lived in permanent ecstatic communion with the Creator; as a consequence, it establishes sex as taboo and work as punishment. Islamism and spiritualism use the same set of theme, with slight variations regarding the clarification of the dynamics of mystical experience and sexual practice. Nevertheless, the theme mysticism and the theme sexuality have a new treatment, with a more explicit polarity: mystical experience is a divine bestowal, even when carried out through very rigorous discipline, according to a specific program, based on the suppression of all senses, and sexual practice is an evil, except when it is carried out according to specific cannons at the service of procreation and the dissemination of the word of God.

Radical theology, without God, either because it asserts that God does not exist, or because it reports that God has culturally died for lack of people who believe in Him, seeking to strike a mortal blow in a predetermined system of values, enables the transmutation of all values, starting from de-divination, de-Christianization and the consequent secularization of the world, which is a result of the fact that the human being allows oneself to judge about the existence or inexistence of God. Rupture with the tradition of the Scriptures, because it considers it sterile, because hermetic, leads theology without God to attempt to express a real situation without palliatives, which demands courage of being. When it denies tradition, theology without God returns to the ancestral myth of eternal return to the origins in its purity, it seeks to reestablish a community of faith, with the aim of a universal fraternity. Nevertheless, the mystical themes and the sex themes present, once again, the duality reported in pristine theology, with the specific poles of unrestrained ecstatic fulfillment or of contention of this fulfillment in order to deserve ecstasy.

Systematic theology, seeking to interpret religious forms as cultural forms, becomes the meeting point of pristine theology, of dialectic theology and of radical theology, showing that, in absolute union, in absolute separation or in absolute denial, the human being always revolves around the idea of God, an inalienable symbol of His existence. It presents itself as the theology of situation, which refers to the current historical moment and to the human situation as such. It highlights the content of religious faith as it is immediately lived by the individual, becoming existential in the sense that every religious experience is, in the final instance, existential, at the same time that it is philosophical and systematic (scientific), and it considers that only statements that deal with their object while themes of being and non-being are theological. Nevertheless, it does not clearly deal with the theme of the dynamics of mystical experience and it is silent about sexuality as a path at the reach of everyone to experience re-connection with the Creator.

2.2 In philosophy

Philosophy, love for knowledge, seeks knowledge of the human being, of his existence, nature and attributes, as well as of his relation with the world. It teaches that the human being, the phenomenon human being, who appeared on the face of the earth for the first time at a time unknown, and in an also unknown way, has been freeing himself very slowly from ecological limitations, thanks to the accumulation of knowledge about the world, about things, about the beings, in general, and about himself, in particular. In order to survive, the human being had to turn his attention, first of all, to the space around himself, to which he had to adapt and from which he had to take out his sustenance. To the notion of space he added the notion of time, given the relative regularity of the needs of his organism, including the mystical and sexual ones, and the also relative constancy of external phenomena, of nature, and of his habitat.

There have been two usual hypothesis regarding the development of human thought: one, that each generation has been representative of a certain developmental phase; the other, that development occurs in a disorderly way over time, and it may even happen that more advanced acquisitions precede others of lesser expression. A problem of greater scope is that of the approach to knowledge, on the one hand, through intuition, and on the other, through reason: intuitionists and rationalists have existed at all times and places, as well as there have been conciliators, the neutral ones; thesis, antithesis and synthesis usually present themselves simultaneously in space and time. However, as with theologies, philosophies have been silent about the key to the mystery of existence, offering the human being only the history of the current-real in the range of what was lived. The saying “transmute the energy” continued to be an innocuous advice, since the dynamics of this transmutation remained ignored, and the saying “be plentiful and multiply” has become the nightmare of humanity.

Philosophy of reason and philosophy of intuition, the two poles between which the endeavors of human thought have usually swayed in terms of knowledge, may be summarized as: existence surpasses science which only reaches that which is material; the world exists, independently of being well or poorly known; the human being “is”, independently of knowing that he “is being”, phenomena surpass, by far, the human capacity to become aware of them. Consequently, the problem of the irrational character of the world emerges, and several systems ardently turn to the principles of altruism, fraternity and love, blaming scientism as the basic factor responsible for cultural catastrophe, which bears in its essence, as a fad, unrestrained orgiastic living of the ecstasy obtained at any price, through the means of religious syncretism, drugs, and sex, thus perverting the moral meaning of mystical experience as a path to healthy ecstasy.

Also in terms of ethical knowledge, in particular, the endeavors of human thought have not escaped the same symptomatic polarity: reason and intuition. Those who wished through reason, to establish what is and what is not morally valid, have concluded that it is necessary to establish limits for individual freedom, claiming that the human being must aspire to what is best for the greatest number of people. However, when trying to systematize what is valuable, they have only been able to do so in the material sense: that of return to the simplicity of the things of nature; communion of goods of production, of consumer goods and of the products of labor; of the economy of thought and of biological vitality. Consequently, the problem of the need of feeling to give existential validity to the materially valuable emerges, mainly in regards to sexual issues, given that, without feeling, mystical experience, crowning of the vital functions, can never occur.

From scientific phenomenology, the synthetic reflection which aims at understanding and describing the world starting from the unified data of several experimental sciences, one may expect the balance of the systems, an intermediary system that remains open to progress of thought in its two fundamental aspects, rational and intuitive. The past of humanity, thus considered, constitutes the permanent source of valid information for a better lived present and a better planned future. If happiness is the purpose of every culture, it is necessary to plan the appropriate processing in the transmission of knowledge and values, including and mainly, of the knowledge and values that refer to mystical experience, the natural path to ecstasy, which mysteriously unites the human being and the Creator, and the knowledge and values that refer to sexuality, the path at the reach of everyone to obtain the same objective, so that each individual and each group reach, with the minimum expenditure of energy, the maximum happiness of which one is capable.

2.3 In science

Science, exact knowledge, also seeks knowledge of the human being, of his existence, nature, and attributes, as well as of his relation with the world. It teaches that the human being is “bios” (empirical science), “psyche” (interpersonal eidetic science) and “socius” (multi-personal eidetic science), and that the human being expresses himself, at each moment of his life, as a result of the level of integration of his components of temperament (bio-chemical) and of character (ethical-social), in function of motifs (variables that engender, maintain, and guide conduct), that can be submitted to control, a kind of control that is susceptible to organizing itself to the highest level of abstraction, in function of the elaboration of affect, which depends on the level of perception regarding ethical and religious problems, as a result of the functioning of morality. The saying “transmute, find the vibration, and the vibration of love”, made explicit in the saying “transmute the energy”, has found in science the formula for its viability, in respect to the integrated mystical dynamics and sexual dynamics, who discipline the saying “ be plentiful and multiply”, a nightmare that philosophy has not been able to solve.

Science teaches that the individual becomes a person in function of the transformation of one’s instinctive, impulsive, unconscious, living, into rational, intelligent, conscious living. Life, a continuous alternation of decomposition and recomposition of protoplasm, sustains instinct, a property of it that exteriorizes itself when life is in danger. Affect, intellectual elaboration of instinct, transforms it into desire or repugnance, and it is at the basis of impulse, a dynamic process that makes the organism tend towards an end, which is that of suppressing a state of tension subjacent to an excitation. Impulses manifest themselves in self-preservation and in sexual functions (reproduction, orgasm). When the impulsive system suffers interference, there is conflict; when the level of conflict reaches the limits of tolerance of the organism, the impulsive act erupts, self-destructively or hetero-destructively. Often the eruption of impulse is necessary to determine conditions of survival.

In the dynamics of the individual, two types of production may be distinguished: automatisms, alr eady constituted adaptations, and yields (attention, acquisition, intelligence), productions in which intention and the will intervene. The psychological tension determines the mental field where production occurs. Intelligence permits learning to control motivation and the organization of this control. Controlling motivation implies controlling the motives of the organism in its original manifestations (pure) and in its modified manifestations (conditioned). Organizing the control of motivation implies in organizing the control of such motives in function of the degree of consciousness that the individual has of one’s existing. Thought can thus give an appropriate treatment to the theme mysticism and plan mystical experience according to the philosophy the person has instituted for one’s living and which includes, necessarily, ecstasy as a natural goal and sexuality as the path at the reach of everyone to obtain it.

There are degrees of consciousness: spontaneous conscious living, pre-object and precarious object, is living before the reflective dissociation between subject and object, leading the individual to consider one’s fellow creature as a prolongation of oneself; reflective conscious living is the consciousness of what happens in spontaneous conscious living, leading the individual to perceive that there are limits between one’s being and the being of one’s fellow creature; conscious living of the absolute is rethinking reflective conscious living, leading the individual to notice that the limits between one’s being and the being of one’s fellow creature, when appropriately granted, may lead to co-participation in mystical experience, including through sexuality, through the transmutation of sexual energy into universal, cosmic energy.

Total science of the human being, knowledge of his structure and dynamics (which includes his somatic, psychic and social aspects), depends on successive synthesis of approaches to each formal object. The science of the “soma”, having concluded that the human being is a superior animal and that the biological contains the necessary conditions for psychic life, has sought to unveil the mysteries of the human body based on the concept of integration of all its vital functions, mystical experience playing a crowning role in them all at their highest level, and it may avail of sexuality for this end. The science of the “psyche”, having concluded that physicalism and mentalism are courses of the same source, has sought to research the psyche through both channels, with the objective of understanding the phenomenon human being, whose origin and destination, knowingly mystical, are interconnected with sexuality. The science of the “socius”, having concluded that there is no human nature without social environment and that science of the total human being is the product of generations and generations of scholars, has sought to know the human group, a factor and transmitter of culture, and it has pointed mysticism as a cultural product and as a factor of approximation between its members, broadly availing itself of sexuality for this end.

2.4 In the development of the human being

The human being, in his life journey, from the encounter of the spermatozoon with the ovum until the transformation of the body into dust, seeks to be happy. A long time had passed before there was any knowledge of these particles, ovum and spermatozoon, but the dramatic occurrences of losing the embryo and the fetus, and later on, surgeries of the womb permitted knowledge of the intrauterine phenomenon. In any case, the birth of each child always offered itself, in the eyes of those who followed the delivery, as the result of the growing intumescence, for months and months, of the womb of the woman, and the advent of each newborn could always be witnessed by all those who knew that it was not there before. Several observations, transmitted from generation to generation, were necessary in order to carry out the cause and effect connection between the contact of the male and female and the occurrence of pregnancy and delivery, and the history of birth records shows how communities reacted and have been reacting in the sense of placing responsibility on the father for raising and guiding his children.

Every child, when he is born, begins a life full of needs and their consequent appeals, which only end after the defenseless body, dead, has been consigned to its dissolution in a place where it does not disturb the community. The care that a child needs is offered to the child, with greater or lesser willingness, according to the material and emotional resources available to those who are impelled to assist the child, either out of a sense of duty and/or for pleasure. The pressures that individuals place upon one another are always in terms of placing responsibility on one another for the tasks necessary for the survival of each one and of all. These pressures occur through the most varied manipulations. The manipulations of individuals of one another, in order to guarantee individual and collective survival, vary from the coarsest impositions through force to the most subtle persuasions. Reactions to such manifestations occur according to a developmental schema common to individuals.

The developmental scheme of the individual may be summarized as follows: there is the living field where events occur, and the way the individual perceives this field at the moment the event occurs determines one’s conduct. The quality of the perception of the individual depends on the quality of one’s emotion and of one’s intelligence. The quality of one’s conduct depends on the working quality of one’s restraining apparatus to impulsive response. The individual acts in function of motives and one’s main motive is to live; through living one tries to satisfy all one’s needs. The barriers one finds when trying to satisfy one’s needs make the individual inhibit impulsive conduct, imagine alternative conduct and put them into practice. Regarding mysticism, the child lives moments of beatific peace when one’s organic and psychosocial needs are satisfied, occasions in which the child usually sleeps; from six to twelve years of age, at these occasions, the child already tends towards meditation, although of a purely practical-utilitarian nature; from twelve to fifteen years of age, the mystical tendency basically disappears, and the mythical-belligerent nature of the adolescent occupies the scene, and it returns, later on, until eighteen years of age, already progressively under the aspects of contemplation and ecstasy, usually mixed with sexuality, mainly under the aspect of contention; from eighteen years of age on, the human being starts on one’s progressive journey towards integrated mysticism, availing oneself, or not, of sexuality, also integrated, whether in its use, or in its contention.

In the transformation of the individual into a person perturbations may occur, which have direct repercussion into one’s mystical capacity. These perturbations can be of two kinds: inadaptations, when the individual does not move beyond a certain developmental stage; dysadaptations, when the individual loses a stage one had already achieved. Maladjustments, neuroses, psychoses, innate or acquired retardation and lesions, psychopathies can manifest themselves. The maladjustments are circumstantial, due to physical health problems and/ or excessive pressure from the environment. Neuroses are psychogenic disorders in which the symptoms are the symbolic expression of a psychic conflict whose roots are to be found in the history of the individual’s childhood. Psychoses are primary perturbations in the relationship between vital energy and reality. Retardation and lesions, innate or acquired, have, each one, their specific clinical history. Psychopathies result from a pathological immunity to the educational efforts of the environment. With the exception of psychopathies, which usually lead the individual to mythical-orgiastic living, any of the conditions mentioned above may enable some type of mystical living, which due to their pathogenic origin, if not appropriately treated in time, may incite temporary or permanent insanity, also commonly leading to mythical-orgiastic living.

Therefore, the human being is born, grows, and dies. His journey, from the cradle to the grave, is unique, singular, and solitary. His genitors and community find themselves impelled to assist him out of a sense of duty and/ or for pleasure. Human beings manipulate one another aiming at their own survival, which depends on the survival of others. Manipulations occur according to a developmental scheme common to the majority of individuals, and there may be perturbations in this scheme. History and tradition offer means for humanization, the transformation of the individual into a person. The person organizes one’s living seeking such means in theology, philosophy, and science, in order to transform one’s spontaneous conscious living, primarily placed on the belief of the reality of the exterior world, into transcendental conscious living, which gives meaning to everyday life instead of letting oneself be taken by the current of everyday happenings of the exterior world, therefore being able to integrate one’s total living through the ecstasy obtained through mystical experience, which leads to union with the Creator, to the meeting of eternity and temporality, including through the path of sexuality.

2.5 In the development of the human group

The human group, in its life journey, from the first encounter of its members until its dissolution, also seeks to be happy. What characterizes the group is the connection between its members, which occurs in function of common interests, obeying specific principles and laws. The members of a human group may be human beings or other smaller human groups, which, in this case, lose their original characteristic of small groups in order to acquire the current characteristic of members of a larger group. Humanity is the great group of which all others are members and to whose principles and laws they must subordinate. Groups may be: simple aggregations of members; groups that arise from similarities of several components (common properties or family similarities); groups that result from the functions carried out by them; groups that arise from all the causes mentioned, at the same time. Human groups are communities, they have history; they are physical entities, made up of organisms that have sexuality and mental processes, agents of reproduction and of cultural products, of which the maximum exponent is mystical experience.

Each group, when it emerges, starts a global-totalizing experience based on the principle of survival, and it lasts as long as it is felt as necessary to carry out this end. The pressure of its members, over one another, are in the sense of keeping its cohesion and guaranteeing the fulfillment of its end. The manipulations of the group members in order to guarantee collective survival, necessary for individual survival, occur at several levels, from the coarsest impositions of force to the most subtle persuasions. Reactions to such manifestations, as in individuals, occur according to a developmental scheme common to groups. Starting from this principle we can describe such development based on cause and effect connections, which permit the passage from the syncretic view of phenomena to the analytic and synthetic view of them, in their basic sexual and cultural aspects, a passage that leads to knowledge of the role of mysticism and sex in the unicity of the universe.

The developmental scheme of the group may be summarized as follows: there is the group living field, where group events occur, and the way the group perceives this field at the moment the event occurs determines its conduct. The quality of the perception of the group depends on the emotion and intelligence that are active at the moment. The quality of the group’s conduct depends on the working quality of its restraining apparatus to impulsive response. The group acts in function of motives, and its main motive is to exist; existing, it seeks to satisfy all its needs. The barriers it finds make it inhibit impulsive conduct, program alternative conduct and put them into practice. All this dynamics is the result of the adjustment of the moments of each individual that make up the group, working in terms of the strength of the dominant majority, which may be a numerical minority.

In the transformation of groupality into syntality, as well as in the transformation of individuality into personality, there may be perturbations, which influence, directly or indirectly, on the sexual and cultural aspects of group events. These perturbations may also be of two kinds: inadaptations and dysadaptations. There is the sum of the intricacies of physiogenic and psychogenic factors that occur in each one of its members, with all the resulting consequences in group conduct. Since its dynamics consists of the interaction of the adjustments that result from the moments of each one of its members, the development of the group is dependent on the way the dominant force handles the obstructions in the group machinery, the reason why the assistance of the group to each one of its members must be permanently provided. One may speak of maladjusted group acting at the level of neuroses, of psychoses, of retardation and of psychopathies. With the exception of psychopathies, any of the conditions mentioned above may enable mystical kinds of living which, due to their pathogenic origin, if not appropriately treated in time, may incite temporary or permanent group insanity, with truly catastrophic consequences.

There fore, the human group emerges, develops and dissolves. Other groups of the greater community find themselves impelled to assist it out of a sense of duty to survive, since its existence and acting may be useful or harmful to other groups, directly affecting the balance of the community as a whole. Human groups manipulate one another aiming at their own survival, which depends on the survival of other groups. These manipulations occur according to a developmental scheme common to most groups, and there may be perturbations of this scheme. History and tradition offer the means for the humanization of the group, the transformation from groupality into syntality. The group organizes its existing seeking such subsidies in theology, in philosophy and in science, in order to transform its spontaneous group conscious living, primarily placed as as belief in the reality of the exterior world, into transcendental group conscious living, which gives meaning to everyday group life instead of letting itself be taken by the current of everyday happenings of the exterior world, therefore being able to guide each one of its members towards integrated mystical experience, inclusively through the path of sexuality, in order to guarantee integrated group living.

3 MYSTICISM AND NOUS

Mystical experience, as the definitive way it is to obtain ecstasy, the natural goal of human existence, is dependent on the structure and dynamics of spirit, protagonist of the event, whether in the solitary mystical experience, or whether in the shared mystical experience. From the examination of the structure of spirit it is observed: in the beginning, its undifferentiated emergence; its posterior potential differentiation, under somatic-psychic determination, presenting specific components, function and development; its final integration. From the examination of the dynamics of spirit it is observed: mystical living typical of the undifferentiated phase, having as background inferior irrationality, when there is only the intelligence of the directing dynamic potency of the universe; the partial mystical experience, having as background rationality, when what prevails is human intelligence in its sensory-motor, symbolic representative, logical-operatory, and hypothetical-deductive aspects; the total mystical experience, having as background superior irrationality, when what prevails is metaphysical intuition. Spirit threads, therefore, two distinct paths, that of heaven and that of earth, and it is the responsibility of the human being to search for a bridge between them, a middle path, which will permit the human being to live eternity in temporality.

3.1 In the path of heaven

The path of heaven is the order of spirit on which the matter that contains it does not weigh because it is free of all that is sensitive: it is the non being, the lack of attachment, non resistance, the profound, the interior, supreme tranquility, emptiness, nothingness, essence, in sum, the eternal. The path of essence is the path of mysticism, the emptying of the intuitive-empirical (whether sensitive, or psychological), of the intuitive-rational (whether deductive, or inductive), and of the hypothetical, that is, the plunge into the abysm of total freedom. The path is not the goal, and even the path of heaven is a phase of the childhood of spirit, since, at any time, the matter that surrounds it may pervert it, condition it to circumstances that make it stop, retrocede or deviate to the path of earth or to the path of the human being. The path of heaven only becomes the Perfect Path when the trail disappears in the here and now of the perfect moment, when temporality becomes eternity, when life becomes invisible because mystical, unspeakable. The goal is the Oneness, the origin of everything that is, and the path of heaven is the nearest path to it, becoming the greatest aspiration of the human being, who is micro in the mystery of the macro, an incarnated spirit in the creature yearning for the return to the Creator.

Once the path of heaven is the order of spirit on which the matter that contains it does not weigh because it is free of all that is sensitive, it is necessary to conceptualize what spirit is. Spirit, nous, is reality that transcends the vital and the organic; it is immaterial and endowed with reason, and it has in the material principle a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one; but it is only pure spirit when there is not any dependence on what is material, neither intrinsic, nor extrinsic, whereby human spirit cannot be pure spirit while it is human being. Spirit may conciliate itself with nature absorbing the tension that results from it. Spirit is the truth of everything: at the beginning it appears as partial truth that needs to complete itself, as object and subject of consciousness of itself; next, it develops itself, availing itself of objects, in them, through them, and against them; finally, it recognizes itself as truth that is so only because it absorbed the mistake, negativity, and partiality. Spirit reaches the stage that is appropriate to it when it starts the return from nature to itself, in the domination of consciousness of itself, which happens in three stages: that of subjective spirit, initially fused with nature, emerging, afterwards, as practical conscious subject, moral, and as theoretical conscious subject, cognoscente; that of objective spirit, studying the ways it attaches itself onto morality and knowledge; that of absolute spirit, studying existential self-development.

Spiritual life is an autonomous reality, simultaneously intelligent and active. Noology, theory of spirit, has a distinct method and language from that of natural sciences, and which cannot be reduced to them. Spirit is the essence of the human being; it is the set of superior acts centered in the dynamic unity of personality, which has in reason and in emotion some of its moments, or forms. The spiritual act par excellence is the intuition of essences. The following are characteristics of spirit: freedom, which distinguishes it from what is psycho-physic; objectivity, which permits it to transcend the natural environment and recognize its reality and truth; consciousness of itself, through which it reaches self-position. Although it is the superior part of the being, spirit is, also and at the same time, its most fragile part, since its influence is only felt when natural impulses are at its service, accept its directing. It is it, spirit, the part of the being through which values penetrate, the area of contact of the human with the ideal. The idea is the abstract aspect of the living and concrete reality of spirit. The spiritual being is simultaneously a specific and historical way of being. History may be explained by the conjunction of real factors, impulsive factors and spiritual determinations. The being and nature are dialectic paths for the self-fulfillment of spirit.

Spirit on which the matter that contains it does not weigh because it is free of all that is sensitive, threads the path of heaven, existential self-development, it lives the mystical phenomenon in its natural ascent. The mystical phenomenon is animated by a powerful and profound dynamism, made of maturation, and it is the greatest aspiration of spirit, since it leads to ecstasy. Mystical phenomenal development is a universal truth, an objective reality situated beyond the relative, in the absolute. The essence of the mystical phenomenon always consists in the development of spirit, which begins with flashes of transcendental transparencies and ends by plunging into the mystical state, lived in the harmony of cosmic love. At this level of development, the method of intuition presents its full efficiency, since the mystical phenomenon, which is the superior phase of development of spirit, is the meeting of greater intuition, global, with axiomatic smaller intuition, which is explained by the fact that the being, the more it develops, thanks to differentiation, the more it penetrates the subjective, of which the axiom is the initial contact, spontaneous revelation of God. This is the method of unification, which can only manifest itself when the development of consciousness reaches the mystical phase, which may occur naturally, or be the result of arduous development through the human material path of reason, which severed the vision of the unitary thread of the absolute.

In its structure, the mystical phenomenon is a psychological phenomenon of biological development, inserted in universal phenomenology; it is a rare culmination, not very visible and difficult to be conceived by those who find themselves at the levels of current normality. At its simplest expression we find its vibratory structure, whose kind of vibration places it directly in consonance with universal, cosmic vibration, through the process of love, passing, respectively, from vibration to resonance, to tuning, to affinity and, finally, to unification. Ascent is therefore a phenomenon of development, of harmonization and unification. The vibratory principle in which the mystical phenomenon is based points towards the ways of liberation, which consist in reconstructing it in a movement that is of ever greater delight, life and love, a chain of attractions whose goal is the mystical ecstasy, direct communion with the Creator, which is a result of faith, a state of grace that sees and knows through ways that are ignored by reason. Ascent is an ever tighter embracement which consolidates the conquests of spirit and unifies expansion towards the interiority of each one, where God is to be found; but it does not mean the suppression of exterior reality, since, at the center of everything that is, God is to be found.

In its dynamics, the mystical phenomenon, being a psychological phenomenon of biological development, inserted in universal phenomenology, although it is a rare culmination, not very visible and difficult to conceive by normal beings, has always existed, at all times and places, as can be seen in innumerable historical reports. Understanding, the method of noology, theory of spirit, makes of ascent a method, and asserts the existence of a mystical methodology, a method of trans-humanization, to arrive at God. The mystical phenomenon, in its first step, surpasses and transmutes reason, which can classify it, but cannot feel it; it is ingression into the super-sensory and into the super-rational, a dimension that the common measures of reason are not able to assess, since there vision becomes pure, simple, unitary. Afterwards, there is a movement in two moments, atrophy of the inferior I and its reconstitution at a superior level of consciousness, which are followed, respectively, by dilacerating suffering of renunciation, and by a beatific plunge into the ocean of harmony of the divinity. Once the first mystical experience is lived, spirit cannot forget it and starts to devote all its existence to the search of repeating it and keeping it.

3.2 In the path of earth

The path of earth is the order of spirit submitted to the matter that contains it, keeping it a prisoner of all that is sensitive: it is the being, attachment, resistance, the superficial, exterior, total lack of tranquility, fullness, everything, appearance, in sum, temporality. The path of appearance is the path of empirical intuition, in its sensitive and psychological ways, of rational intuition, in its deductive and inductive ways, of inventive intuition, in its multiple meanderings of imagination, and it makes impossible the path of mysticism, that is, it holds on to the habit of creating fundamentals. The path is not the goal, the reason why the childish spirit can, at any time, transcend the prison of matter and, according to the circumstances, start to thread the path of heaven or the path of the human being. The path of earth is imperfect because it is a path that can be followed, and followed with the unconsciousness of matter in all its forms, mineral, vegetable and animal, which originate and denounce desire. If the goal is the Oneness, the origin of everything that is, and if desire is its greatest impediment, the path of earth is the furthest path from it, becoming the greatest nightmare of the human being, who is a creature that constantly yearns to return to the Creator.

Once the path of earth is the order of spirit submitted to the matter that contains it, keeping it a prisoner of all that is sensitive, it is necessary to conceptualize what matter is. Matter is a kind of matrix of physical reality, and not physical reality itself; it is substance and it is substratum, that which is subjacent to every change; it is extensive, divisible, impenetrable and susceptible to all kinds of forms; it is the permanent cause of all our sensations; it necessarily exists and it is endowed with life. Matter is able to conciliate each of its parts, the micro, with its total, the macro. Matter is the truth of reality: at the beginning it appears as partial truth that needs to be directed, as a subject-object without consciousness of itself; next, it is transformed into material elements, of which the basic ones are air, water, earth and fire; finally, it emerges as matter of a specific reality, as for example, the human being. Matter reaches the stage that is appropriate to it when it starts to be receptive to some kind of determination, and it constantly changes form, without its own order and measure: the visible, in counter position to the intelligible; the purely sensitive and the purely multiple, in counter position to that which has order, intelligibility and unity. Spirit, reaching the stage that is appropriate to it, determines the form of matter, for its service, according to the stage it is in its process of dominating consciousness of itself.

Material life is a kind of dependent reality, simultaneously passive and active. Physics, the theory of matter, has a method and language common to that of the other natural sciences, which can be reduced to one another. Matter is the substance of the human being; it is the set of elements that form the human being and that are not spiritual, to which they do not at all oppose themselves, and with them they meet in the universal substance that exists at the bottom of all things. The material act par excellence is the fulfillment of sensations. The following are characteristics of matter: dependence, which distinguishes it from what is spiritual; subjectivity, which keeps it immersed in the natural environment and hinders it from knowing the reality of which it is the truth; unconsciousness of itself, the reason why it does not have self-position. Although it is the inferior part of the being, it is also and at the same time, its strongest part, since its receptivity to some kind of determination, its acceptance of directing, is what permits spirit to have its influence felt. It is it, matter, the part of the being that is immune to moral values, the area of contact of the human with the real. The thing is the concrete aspect of abstract and living reality of spirit. The material being is a generic way of being, the first matter, and specific, human being, at the same time, available to spirit for its fulfillment.

Spirit submitted to the matter that contains it, keeping it prisoner of all that is sensitive, threads the path of earth, suffers from the chains of desire, which obstruct its existential development and hinders the natural ascent of the mystical phenomenon. Because mystical phenomenon is animated by a powerful and profound dynamism, made up of maturation, its material substratum, the body, represents an element of first grandeur in the general framework of its occurrence. Although mystical phenomenal development occurs in a sphere beyond the relative, in the absolute, its material substratum places it dependent on the relativity of the concrete. Thus, the essence of the mystical phenomenon, which always consists in the development of spirit, is dependent on, in order to become effective, the harmonization of the organism with nature. At this level of development, the organism must be in balance, a balance that results from the conjunction of its nature with the nourishment it receives, and that it takes from the four basic elements, air, water, earth, and fire, and their products. Privation from appropriate nourishment hinders maturation of the organism; privation is a non-being in itself, non-substance, therefore, the first evil, and it makes it necessary that matter, a non-being by accident, substance, comes to fill it up.

In its structure, the mystical phenomenon, being a psychological phenomenon of biological development, is dependent on the structure of the organism in that which relates to the development of levels of consciousness, which occur in the bosom of the developmental phenomenon. Coming back from an incursion in the unconceivable, the level of mystical phenomenon, to the current rational dimension, we find consciousness emerging from level to level, from sensory consciousness to rational-analytical, intuitive-synthetic, mystical-unitary and, again, plunging into the level of that which is ignored by reason. The level of sensory consciousness is its physical rising, mechanical, which ignores questioning. The level of rational-analytical consciousness represents a first attempt of ascension, which produces questioning, observation, science. The level of intuitive-synthetic consciousness is a rare developmental zone, in which there is the vibratory tuning that permits comprehension. The level of mystical-unitary consciousness is the one in which, besides comprehension, communication is converted into communion, the simple initial resonance becomes now full love. Such ascension, however, does not mean the suppression of exterior reality, whether that of the organism of the human being, the micro, or whether that of the macro, the total universe.

In its dynamics, the mystical phenomenon, which is a psychological phenomenon of biological development, is dependent on the organism in regards to the dynamics of the levels of development of consciousness. The level of sensory consciousness, which ignores questioning, is that of automatic living, prior to reason, which firstly, occurs only under the auspices of the intelligence of the directing dynamic potency of the universe, in order to, afterwards, rely on, cumulatively, the capacity to balance external and internal actions. The level of rational-analytical consciousness already relies on reason, on intelligence that balances internal operations initially under the aspect of observation of concrete reality and, afterwards, under the abstract aspect of explanation about the observed. The level of intuitive-synthetic consciousness relies on intelligence at the abstract level regarding the aspect of understanding, resulting from the contemplation of phenomena through introspection, in the intimateness of the being, where truth can be found. The level of mystical-unitary consciousness relies on intelligence at the abstract level in its maximum degree, of self-suppression, in order for the tuning with the superior areas of development to occur. Such ascension, however, demands the organism not to be in privation of the satisfaction of its basic needs.

3.3 In the path of the human being

The path of the human being is the order of spirit whose matter that contains it is worked in the sense of freeing it from the sensitive at each moment; it is the non-being being, attachment that is unattached, resistance that is non-resistant, the superficial that is profound, the exterior that is made interior, lack of tranquility that is tranquil, fullness that is empty, everything that is nothing, appearance-essence, in sum, temporality in the eternal. The bridge between appearance and essence is only possible through metaphysical intuition, which transcends empirical intuition, as well as rational and inventive intuition, and enables the path of mysticism, that is, abandonment of fundamentals. The path is not the goal, the reason why the infant spirit can, at any time, according to the circumstances, go back to thread the path of earth or start to thread the path of heaven. The path of the human being is an attempt to suppress desire and the pain it causes, therefore, an attempt of reason to avoid the mental perturbations caused by emotion, and an attempt of knowledge to discipline desire. If the goal is Oneness, origin of everything that is, and if desire is its greatest impediment, and the path of heaven is the nearest path to it, the path of the human being presents itself as the path of redemption, the way at one’s reach to attempt to return to the Creator.

Once the path of the human being is the order of spirit whose matter that contains it is worked in the sense of freeing it from the sensitive at each moment, it is necessary to conceptualize what human being is. Human being is the substratum, at once spiritual and material, where there is the meeting, for the first time in an apparent way, of material and spiritual elements of the universal substance that exists at the bottom of all things. The human being is able to conciliate spirit with matter, absorbing the tension that comes from each part of its material organism. The human being, while spirit, is the truth of everything, and, while matter, is the truth of reality: at the beginning it contains the partial truth of spirit and the partial truth of matter, both more as potency than as act; next, it starts to serve the development of spirit, availing itself of material objects, starting from one’s own body; finally, it emerges as truth of reality of the incarnated spirit capable of absorbing error, negativity and partiality. The human being reaches the stage that is appropriate to him when receptiveness of matter enables spirit to start the return from nature to itself, in dominating self-consciousness , at the beginning spontaneous consciousness, then reflective, and finally consciousness of the absolute.

Human life is a kind of spiritually autonomous and materially dependent reality, simultaneously intelligent and active-passive. Anthropology, theory of the human being, avails itself of understanding, the method and language of the theory of spirit, of explanation, illegitimate speculation about final causes, and of description, the method and language of the theory of matter. The human being is the meeting of spirit, his essence, with matter, his substance; it is the set of spiritual and material elements that form him, the first giving direction to the latter through the dynamic unity of personality. The human act par excellence is spiritual act of intuition of essences, resulting from depuration of the material act, which is the fulfillment of sensations. The following are characteristics of the human being: free will to place oneself at the service of spirit or of matter; the objectivity-subjectivity bipolarity, which permits one to emerge from natural environment and recognize its reality and truth; consciousness of oneself and of one’s position as incarnated spirit. It is him, the human being, the intermediate part of the being, the one that is responsible for conciliating spirit, the superior and weaker part, with matter, the inferior and stronger part. It is him the part of the being that permits the penetration of values, the area of contact between the ideal and the real. The human being is a specific way of being of matter at the service of self-fulfillment of spirit.

Spirit, whose matter that contains it is worked in the sense of freeing it from the sensitive at each moment, threads the path of the human being, it suffers the existential struggle of redemption of desire in order to be able to attain the mystical phenomenon in its natural ascension. Because mystical phenomenon is animated by a powerful and profound dynamism, made up of maturation, its mental substratum, the psyche, represents an element of second grandeur in the general framework of its occurrence. Although mystical phenomenal development occurs in a sphere beyond the relative, in the absolute, its mental substratum places it dependent on the way the psyche, the abstract, works the organism, the concrete. Thus, the essence of mystical phenomenon, which always consists in the development of spirit, is dependent on, in order to become effective, how the psyche promotes harmonization of organism with social environment. At this level of development, the psyche must be in balance, a balance that results from integrated satisfaction of its organic and psycho-social needs. Privation from appropriate satisfaction of its needs, on the whole, hinders maturation of the psyche; organic privation, non-substance, is the first evil, and psychic privation, non-harmonization of needs, is the second one.

In its structure, the mystical phenomenon, being a psychological phenomenon of biological development, is dependent on the structure of the psyche in what it relates to the development of levels of emotion, which also occur in the bosom of the developmental phenomenon. Coming back from an incursion in the unconceivable, the level of mystical phenomenon, to the current emotional dimension, we find emotion, as we find consciousness, emerging from level to level, from shock-emotion to anticipation-emotion fear, anger and love. The level of shock-emotion and the levels of anticipation-emotion fear, anger and false-love encompass the primeval emotion, not directed. The level of true-love anticipation-emotion encompasses the levels: that of love in its partiality, a first attempt to ascension, which produces questioning the usefulness and validity of this feeling; that of love in its totality, a walk of its ascension through the ways of love to the community and to humanity, until cosmic love, the last one not very common, full love, of communion with the mystery of the world. Such ascension of consciousness does not also mean the suppression of exterior reality in any of its aspects, from the micro to the macro.

In its dynamics, the mystical phenomenon, which is a psychological phenomenon of biological development, is dependent on the psyche in regards to the dynamics of the levels of development of emotion. The levels of shock-emotion and anticipation-emotion of fear, anger and false-love, which are of primeval emotion, only rely on fragmented perception, only in space and without memory in the case of shock, and also in time and duration, therefore already with memory, in anticipation. The level of true-love anticipation-emotion encompasses: at the level of love in its partiality, a rude perception that opposites, in their questioning of right and wrong and of good and evil, must serve the same end; at the level of love in its totality, the perception of the unity of structure, of mechanism and of movement of everything that is; at the level of full love, the perception of the cosmic direction of love’s movement towards its maximum goal, ecstatic communion with the universal whole, so that tuning with superior zones of development is able to occur. Such ascension, however, as in the case of the ascension of consciousness, also demands the organism not to be in privation of the satisfaction of its needs.

Thus the path of the human being, of the psyche, is the middle path, the copula between the path of heaven, of the nous, masculine, luminous, expansion, essence, yang, and the path of earth, of the soma, feminine, gloomy, concentration, function, yin. In its structure, such copula occurs when the human being, finding oneself in the median point of a limited number of functional circles, as a reference point that causes and is caused by what happens, encompassing the living fields, in which perception, emotion, intelligence, consciousness, morality, sexuality, and religiosity occur, is ready for the journey towards one’s goal, to obtain ecstasy. In its dynamics, such copula allows the human being to put oneself on the way, permanently reviewing the remains of one’s living at the time of no questioning, sensory, and at the time of observation and explanation, rational-analytic, and constantly seeking to strengthen understanding, which is intuitive-synthetic, in order to be always open for the mystical-unitary experience, the one that will permit tuning with superior zones of development, which will enable one to live, ever more, eternity in temporality.

4 INTEGRATED MYSTICISM

Mystical experience, the definitive way it is to obtain ecstasy, the natural goal of human existence, may be partial or total, integrated. Partial mystical experience requires, for its efficacy, that the individual knows the structure and dynamics of one’s soma and psyche, in order to have the solitary mystical experience, and also the structure and dynamics of the soma and psyche of one’s fellow creature, in order to have the shared mystical experience. Total mystical experience requires, for its efficacy, that the individual also knows the structure and dynamics of one’s spirit, for the solitary mystical experience, and also the structure and dynamics of the spirit of one’s fellow creature, in order to have the shared mystical experience. Knowledge of the structure and dynamics of one’s soma and psyche and of the soma and psyche of one’s fellow creature encompasses knowledge of the components, function and development specific of each individual, male and female. Knowledge of the structure and dynamics of spirit of the individual and of spirit of one’s fellow creature encompasses knowledge of the components, function and development specific of each spirit. Partial mysticism is an artificial figure and total mysticism is a natural figure in the life process of the human being.

4.1 Partial mysticism

Partial mysticism is an artificial figure. Artificial figure is the one that has as background only part of the living whole, whether that of the dynamic field of stimuli and response of reflex nature, which enables mystical living, whether also that of the fields of determination, of intention, and of imagination, which enable partial mystical experience when the field of elevation is absent. Thus, in order to have mystical living the individual needs to know one’s soma, and, in order to have partial mystical experience, one also needs to know one’s psyche, for the solitary mystical experience, and also the soma and psyche of one’s fellow creature, in order to have the shared mystical experience. Mystical experience, even the partial one, is determined by the developmental level of the individual that lives it. The individual, given favorable circumstances, develops from unconscious to conscious living, according to one’s potential, and according to a developmental scheme common to all normal human beings, there being, cumulatively, a typical dynamic at each phase, enabling a specific kind of mystical experience.

Thus, partial mysticism is a merely organic kind of mysticism, in case of mystical living, and also psychic, in case of mystical experience. The conflicts that emerge among individuals are a result of the limitations of perception of each one of them regarding spirituality, in particular, and of life, in general, and they are an impediment to mysticism. The individual who seeks the meeting only for the well being of the moment, completely disassociated from one’s total being, is alienated from one’s dignity as a human being. The one who seeks the meeting under an environment of fear and guilt is already attentive to the humanity of one’s being, but alienated from one’s greater good, freedom. This alienation from freedom remains in the phases that follow, when the individual meets another and is aggressive towards this other, or when the individual exploits this other, or when one argues with this other permanently, or when one tries to recruit the other to one’s point of view. As it can be noticed, before somato-psychic maturity, it is not possible to have the integrated mystical experience as a result of the work of the individual on one’s own spirituality.

4.2 Total mysticism

Total mysticism is a natural figure. Natural figure is the one that has as background the living whole, where there are present the dynamic field of stimuli and responses of reflex nature, of determination, of intention, of imagination and of elevation. If, even for partial mysticism, the individual needs to know one’s spirituality, for the solitary mystical experience, and also spirituality of the other for the shared mystical experience, in case of total mysticism this knowledge must be as complete as possible; one also needs, for the same reasons, of the greatest knowledge possible about one’s somato-psychic apparatus and about the somato-psychic apparatus of the other. Total mysticism also presents levels, according to the developmental level of the person who experiences it. The adult individual, given favorable circumstances, develops from reflective conscious living to conscious living of the absolute, according to one’s potential and according to a developmental scheme common to all normal human beings, there being, also cumulatively, a typical dynamic at each phase, enabling a specific kind of integration of spirituality.

Thus, total mysticism is a kind of mysticism that besides being organic and psychic, is also spiritual. The adult who lives as such, once this adult is a social being, needs to be permanently attentive to the limitations of perception of one’s infantile and adolescent fellow creatures, and maintain a firm posture, that is simultaneously, gentle, in the defense of one’s interest in maintaining integrated mysticism. The adult does not accept to accord with meetings that seek only the well being of momentary security, because this type of meeting represents for this adult a waste of energy. The young adult, when directing one’s spirituality towards marriage, procreation and the well-being of the community, is also, seeking to satisfy one’s basic instinct of self-conservation, which includes, necessarily, the conservation of the social. The adult proper, when directing one’s spirituality also to the well-being of humanity, is broadening one’s perception of oneself living in the world. The old adult, when directing one’s spirituality also to the cosmic well-being is seeking to live eternity in temporality, the mystical ecstasy that one’s development as incarnated spirit permits one to reach. The other mystical ecstasy, the one provided by the grace of the visit of the Creator, is another history…

5 LIFE AND MYSTICISM

The Analytical-phenomenological-existential Psycotherapeutic Theory, a hermeneutical exegesis of the analysand-analyst datum at the ontic-anthropological level which is founded on an esoteric vision of the being-in-the-world, a repetition of the ancestral myth of the eternal return to the origins, perceives, in mystical experience, the definitive means to obtain ecstasy, the natural goal of human existence. With the objective of clarifying the pseudo-discrepancy between mystical experience as resulting from purely material work and its meaning as spiritual work, we have tried to unify: firstly, all the data provided by religions, philosophies, and sciences; secondly, the specific data provided by the esoteric vision, interior; thirdly, all the data supplied by the two previously mentioned groups. We consider mystical experience the definitive condition, the effective living, a natural occurrence that will permit the human being to live eternity in temporality.

Our cosmovision of mysticism points towards the integration of the data of theology, philosophy, and science about the theme, which bestows on us the information that follows: the human being, organism participant of the Organism, has inside oneself all the truth, which one must bring to reason, with the courage of being, and seek reconnection with Him, which can come into effect, at the concrete-material level, through sex and homeostasis. The human being must know, and know ethically, in order to aspire for the best for the greatest number of people, which demands that one acts with feeling when seeking reconnection with the Whole through the material, concrete path. The human being must know the law of harmonization of one’s living in the Whole, with the Whole and for the Whole, in order to give meaning to mystical phenomenon. The spiritually adult human being is the one that has transformed one’s operating, mystical living, into total mystical experience, of integrated themes, that is, the one who does not live mysticism only through homeostasis, or only to escape from loneliness, but to live communion with the mystery of the world.

Our anthropovision of mysticism points towards the integration of the data of the esoteric vision, interior, about the theme, which bestows on us the information that follows: the human being, even before being born, is a mystical being, a mysticism that is in-uterus, undifferentiated, resulting from environmental homeostasis, and which can be repeated at any moment of one’s life as long as such environment occurs. Besides mystical living, resulting from natural homeostasis, there is mystical ascent, resulting from individual work which, departing from undifferentiation, when there is only the intelligence of the directing dynamic potency of the universe, passes through partial mystical experience, when what prevails is human intelligence in its sensory-motor, symbolic-representative, logical-formal and hypothetical-deductive aspects, and arrives at total mystical experience, when what prevails is metaphysical intuition, which opens the way for the return to initial undifferentiation, to ecstasy, the plunge into the bosom of the Creator. It is the responsibility of every human being to seek the middle path, the one that will permit the human being, at each moment, to overcome the first evil, privation, and solve the second evil, conflict, in order to live, ever more, eternity in temporality.

Our ergovision of mysticism points towards the practical integration of the data of our cosmovision and of our anthropovision about the theme, which bestows on us the information that follows: the human psyche avails itself of the soma, specially of sex, in order to enter into material-concrete communion with the universal whole through the union of the spirit, nous, of the individual with one’s own body, soma, in order to have the solitary mystical experience, of the spirit and the body of one’s fellow creature, for shared mystical experience. In order to avail oneself of one’s fellow creature, the individual needs to communicate with the other. Mystical ecstasy, vibrating spasm of energetic waves, with a feeling of immense pleasure, and which may be achieved through orgasm, reflex spasm of smooth muscles, may also occur, directly, through the path of mystical ascent, elevation of consciousness from level to level, from sensory consciousness, passing through rational-analytic consciousness, through intuitive-synthetic consciousness and through mystical-unitary consciousness, until plunging into the vertex of the absolute.

Mysticism, in light of the Analytical-phenomenological-existential Psycotherapeutic Theory, is thus, the most qualified instrument for the human being to reach ecstasy, the natural goal of one’s existing, and one may avail of sex for this end. The human being, a being of ecstasy that one is, lives, at the beginning of one’s history, the individual and group orgiastic, which is mysticism in its phase of initial undifferentiation, and which encompasses, besides the path of sex, other paths, which are consumption of chemical drugs and the production of mental drugs, such as artistic, scientific, philosophical, and theological works. The passage from the orgiastic phase, undifferentiated, to the rational, differentiated phase, is a second phase in the life of the individual, and it consists in the evolutionary journey proper, which includes, firstly, partial mystical experience, adolescent, in which obsessive and phobic remains, in this order, stay as background, and, secondly, total mystical experience, which broadens to communitary, humanistic and cosmic living, the last one allowing ecstasy, the definite plunge, again undifferentiated, in the communion with the mystery of the world.

Once mystical experience is the definitive means to obtain ecstasy, having in the sexual act an efficient, but not necessary, path of access, it is urged that each individual in particular, and humanity as a whole, besides seeking to live sex with freedom and responsibility, also seek to live mystical experience, which may be learned and, through its frequency, make habitual living eternity in temporality, ecstatic living, anticipation, through human love, of the Definitive Love, that of the Creator!