To-day, therefore, the religious problem is dominated by the question whether religion, the religious mentality, be in fact necessarily mystical, and whether they may not exist in default of mysticism, though the theologians and many philosophers have ever insisted upon the need for the mystical factor. For our purposes it suffices to moot the question, and in our study of the various philosophies of religion to determine in each case the content of mysticism, its degree and its quality.
It is noteworthy that many of the opponents of mysticism condemn as mystical the mere dwelling in contemplation upon internal psychical processes and experiences (mental self-analysis). Many materialists, naturalists, realists, and positivists, detest such feelings and moods, detest all psychical processes of the kind. Yet many of these opponents of mysticism (the naturalists, for instance) are themselves mystics.
Attention must be drawn to another point. Mysticism is not, as mystics contend, a source of profounder and loftier insight. Mystics are wholly subordinated to the knowledge of their time and environment; the Christian mystic differs from the Buddhist mystic, and so on. As psychologists, the mystics are noteworthy only in so far as they comprehend the intimate relationships of men one to another and to the outer world. To this extent mystics may render service to ethics and religion.
There exist various kinds of mysticism, for the mystical mood varies in accordance with the object of mystical contemplation and with the nature of the mystical subject. It varies according as the object is God; God as Christ (man, the love of Jesus, the love of Mary, and so on); pantheistic God (conceived now materialistically, now again spiritualistically); theistic God; or, again, man, animals, and other objects (these, in association with the Godhead, constituting the so-called devotionalia). It varies also as the subject varies in conformity with variations in the degree and quality of culture and philosophy; in accordance with differences of time and place; and in accordance with peculiarities of individual or of national character. It varies according as the mystical thinker inclines to be intellectual or sentimental; to be clear or obscure in his scientific outlook; to be abstract or concrete in his mode of thought; to be dilettantist, poetic (thinking in pictures) ; according as he is inclined to theorise (gnostic or theosophic); or, finally, according as he is characterised by an
