A Quote by Thomas Szasz
Mysticism joins and unites; reason divides and separates. People crave belonging more than understanding. Hence the prominent role of mysticism, and the limited role of reason in human affairs.
Related Quotes
Religion is nothing but institutionalized mysticism. The catch is, mysticism does not lend itself to institutionalization. The moment we attempt to organize mysticism, we destroy its essence. Religion, then, is mysticism in which the mystical has been killed. Or, at least diminished.
The Middle Ages were an era of mysticism, ruled by blind faith and blind obedience to the dogma that faith is superior to reason. The Renaissance was specifically the rebirth of reason, the liberation of man's mind, the triumph of rationality over mysticism - a faltering, incomplete, but impassioned triumph that led to the birth of science, of individualism, of freedom.
In all human affairs, the wisest course is to be passionate about the role of reason and reasonable about the role of passion.
Catholicism is not ritualism; it may in the future be fighting some sort of superstitious and idolatrous exaggeration of ritual. Catholicism is not asceticism; it has again and again in the past repressed fanatical and cruel exaggerations of asceticism. Catholicism is not mere mysticism; it is even now defending human reason against the mere mysticism of the Pragmatists.
Mysticism has often been misunderstood as the attempt to escape this simple, phenomenal world to a more pure existence in heaven beyond. This is not mysticism, but Gnosticism. Biblical mysticism is the attempt to exit 'this world' to an alternative reality that pervades the old order. Its goal is to jettison the mind-set that says 'greed is good,' selfishness is normal,' and 'killing is necessary.' Mysticism in biblical terms is not escapism, as so many have caricatured it, but a fight for ethics and social change.
Of course, mysticism is very hard to isolate because, given the kind of consciousness that I was sort of instructed in as religious consciousness; that borders on mysticism so closely that it's hard to know whether you qualify or not, or whether mysticism is artificially isolated when it is treated as a separate thing from experience. Obviously, mysticism can be a form of madness, but then consciousness can be a form of madness.
I would like to do a role that has something to do with mysticism or even a supernatural one.
Pseudo-mysticism seeks to evade reality; authentic mysticism wants to live it.
Mysticism, poor mysticism! When it is oversimplified and underestimated, it comes down from its original sphere and stands beside religion.
Mysticism, poor mysticism! When it is underestimated and oversimplified, it comes down from its original sphere and stands beside religion.
Mysticism and the supernatural are embedded in the show - it's called 'Da Vinci's Demons' for a reason, and it's not just metaphorical.
Major Trends [is] the canonical modern work on the nature and history of Jewish mysticism. For a sophisticated understanding, not only of the dynamics of Jewish mysticism, but of the exquisite complexities of Jewish history and tradition, Major Trends is a major port of entry through which one must pass.
I think this fear of insanity is comparable to the fear people once had of falling off the edge of the world. Or the fear of heretics...What's happening is that each year our old flat earth of conventional reason becomes less and less adequate to handle the experiences we have and this is creating wide-spread feelings of topsy-turviness. As a result we're getting more and more people in irrational areas of thought...occultism, mysticism, drug changes and the like...because they feel an inadequacy in classical reason to handle what they know are real experiences.
What I don't like today is, to put it coarsely, the phony Hasidism, the phony mysticism. Many students say, "Teach me mysticism." It's a joke.
In my tradition, one must wait until one has learned a lot of Bible and Talmud and the Prophets to handle mysticism. This isn't instant coffee. There is no instant mysticism.
The Foreign Affairs Committee is first in line to call for the U.K. to take a more active and independent role in world affairs, and to have the resources to do so. But a large part of that role involves working with allies and leveraging the range of our assets in co-ordination.
Related Authors
Abraham Maslow Quotes
American
Psychologist
Carl Jung Quotes
Swiss
Psychologist
Daniel Kahneman Quotes
Israeli
Psychologist
Edward de Bono Quotes
English
Psychologist
Erich Fromm Quotes
American
Psychologist
James Hillman Quotes
American
Psychologist
M. Scott Peck Quotes
American
Psychologist
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Quotes
Hungarian
Psychologist
Nathaniel Branden Quotes
American
Psychologist
Ram Dass Quotes
American
Psychologist
Rollo May Quotes
American
Psychologist
Sigmund Freud Quotes
Austrian
Psychologist
Tara Brach Quotes
American
Psychologist
Viktor E. Frankl Quotes
Austrian
Psychologist
Wayne Dyer Quotes
American
Psychologist