Paganism and Mysticism

[The Hammer]

Does your Paganism say anything about the Mystical experience?

Is it a focus or goal of your practice?

Have you had a mystical experience within a Pagan framework?

Definition of Mysticism: is a spiritual belief stating that a connection can be obtained with God or the Spirits through thought and meditation.

Pagan Mysticism | Reading Religion

 

[Guitar's Cry]

I specifically seek mystical experiences through pagan practice. For instance, I practice a shapeshifting ritual where I (attempt to) focus my brain on my more bestial side, by roleplaying another animal. This is often at night in the woods or a field and lends itself well to experiencing a new awareness.

I often ritually stargaze, often drumming or using music to achieve a meditative state while losing myself in the stars.

During my full moon offerings, I recite a poem to the moon while gazing at it through the light of the candle, and I find this often triggers that inexplicable mystical feeling of the self being something else beyond the mundane.

 

[Rival]

'Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts' is a great book for this. It's very thick.

It is also thought that the Books of the Dead and other such 'funerary texts' are also mystical texts (and to anyone reading them I think it's very clear), and these are used to help the Pharaoh achieve God status in a kind of theophanic way, so in this way Pharaoh was called a God. The temples of Egypt were also profoundly mystical places, and crossing each threshold/door/gate was to be done ritually, with breaking seals and so on. The closer to the centre, the more divine it became. Only initiates were allowed in. Only Priests were allowed in the temples.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

My definition of mysticism is feeling the union with the Universe, stripping away the normal, everyday perspective to remember and feel we are ultimately pieces of the whole.