Mystical experiences do happen and only the purblind materialist, who will not trouble to investigate, dares deny their occurrence. But when each mystic tells of seeing only that God or that Saviour or that Guide whom he already worships or honours, the thoughtful scientific enquirer naturally and rightly becomes suspicious. The Christian sees Saint Teresa or Jesus or pictures of the orthodox heaven which were taught him in youth and childhood. The Hindu sees the Rama or Shiva with whom he is already familiar. The situation in mystical circles is today, and always has been, an anarchical one. What else can be expected where men are free to mistake private opinion for divine guidance, human ambition for sacred mandate? But even in loftier levels, where vision is authentic and intuition is a fact, the intellectual unity in such circles is a precarious one. How can we imagine a common denominator of outlook between such diversified mystics as Plotinus and Swedenborg? What unity of belief can there be between Eckhart, the German prophet, and Joseph Smith, the Mormon seer? This raises a question which has to be settled and which the advanced mystic must face if he is going to be honest with himself and others.
Philosophy's answer will not be palatable to most mystics, but the inconsistency of such experiences cannot otherwise be explained. It declares that the actuality of a mystical revelation may be accepted without by any means accepting all its content. It explains that if the heart yearns intensely for the Overself but, whether through environmental suggestion or historical tradition, associates this in belief with a particular mental image, there will be an unconscious projection of the image into mystical experiences, should they eventually occur. The Overself uses the man's own imaginative faculty as a medium of its communication to him. It helps him by couching its message in an idiom which is familiar to, and easily understandable by, him. Thus he first puts a picture of God or a Saint in his mind and then these experiences follow after intense concentration upon it. But it is really his own mind which works all these wonders and which gives the impression of an external power, whether of God or of man, acting upon him. His interpretation has been unconsciously laid over the delight and grandeur of the inner experience itself and presented to the world as if it were an inherent and integral part of that experience.
Paul's previous familiarity with the name and notions of Jesus account for his identification with Christ of the vision which appeared to him on the road to Damascus. Had he been unaware of Jesus' existence, had he known only of Krishna's existence, for example, he would have attributed this mystic experience not to the first but to the second source. This does not in the least derogate from the genuine character of Paul's vision nor the truly spiritual authenticity of his conversion. His experience would have been equally exalted, equally divine whatever attribution he gave it, because it was a veritable visitation, sudden and unexpected, by the Overself.
Thus what is already familiar to the mystic, such as images out of his own past or out of the conventional traditions or religious dogmas in which he has previously been instructed, adds itself to the initial inspiration. But it often adds itself so largely as to assume an importance beyond its right. He himself is unfortunately in no position to distinguish the original from what has been added to it, for the frontier between them has been obliterated by the force, heat, and immediacy of his experience. The mystic who has striven is entitled to his reward and gets it through such experiences, but so long as he is unable to separate what is essential in them--the sublime tranquillity and serene immateriality that abide in their inmost being--from what is accidental--the presupposed mental figures and pictures he sees, the inward message he hears, and the intuitive thoughts that arise--so long will he be blind to the fact that the latter is veridical only for himself, being hatched in his own mind, and not for others.
-- Notebooks Category 16: The Sensitives > Chapter 15 : Illuminations > # 77
