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Electric Aircraft Dynamics
Electric Aircraft Dynamics
A Systems Engineering Approach

Ranjan Vepa
First edition published 2020
by CRC Press
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and by CRC Press

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Vepa, Ranjan, author.

Title: Electric aircraft dynamics : a systems engineering approach / Ranjan
Vepa.
Description: First edition. | Boca Raton, FL : CRC Press, 2020. | Includes
bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2020009505 (print) |
LCCN 2020009506 (ebook) | ISBN
9780367194246 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429202315 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Electric airplanes--Design and construction. |
Airplanes--Motors. | Airplanes--Electric equipment.
Classification: LCC TL683.3 .V47 2020 (print) | LCC TL683.3 (ebook) | DDC
629.134/35--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020009505
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020009506

ISBN: 978-0-367-19424-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-429-20231-5 (ebk)

Typeset in Times
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

Instructors, to access downloadable PowerPoint Lecture Slides please visit www.routledgetextbooks.com/

textbooks/instructor_downloads/.
To my father, Narasimha Row, and mother, Annapurna
Contents
Preface...................................................................................................................... xv
Acronyms................................................................................................................xvii

Chapter 1 Introduction........................................................................................... 1
1.1 Introduction to Electric Aircraft................................................1
1.2 The Systems Engineering Method.............................................1
1.3 Hybrid and All-Electric Aircraft: Examples..............................3
1.4 Battery Power.............................................................................4
1.5 Range and Endurance of Electric Aircraft................................. 4
1.6 Propulsion Motors...................................................................... 5
1.7 Propellers, Aeroacoustics and Low Noise Design...................... 6
1.8 Electric Propulsion Issues..........................................................6
1.9 Key Technology Limitations......................................................7
1.10 Future Work................................................................................ 7
Chapter Summary.................................................................................. 8
References............................................................................................. 8

Chapter 2 Electric Motors.................................................................................... 11

2.1 Introduction to DC Motors....................................................... 11
2.1.1 DC Motor Principles................................................... 11
2.1.2 DC Motor Characteristics........................................... 13
2.1.3 Classification of DC Motors........................................ 14
2.1.4 Dynamic Modeling of DC Motors.............................. 14
2.1.5 Control of DC Motors................................................. 16
2.2 Introduction to AC Motors....................................................... 18
2.2.1 Synchronous Motors................................................... 18
2.2.2 Three-Phase Motors.................................................... 19
2.2.3 Loading and Back-EMF in Synchronous Motors.......20
2.2.4 Characteristics of AC Motors......................................20
2.2.5 Induction Motors......................................................... 21
2.2.6 Squirrel-Cage Rotor.................................................... 21
2.2.7 Controlling AC Motors............................................... 22
2.3 Reluctance Motors: Reluctance Principle.................................24
2.3.1 Types of Construction.................................................24
2.3.2 Reluctance Torque.......................................................25
2.3.3 Switched Reluctance Motor........................................26
2.3.4 Operation of a Switched Reluctance Motor................26
2.4 Brushless DC Motors...............................................................26
2.4.1 Brushless or Electronic Commutation........................ 27

vii
viii Contents

2.4.2 Dynamic Modeling..................................................... 27

2.4.3 Switching and Commutation....................................... 27
Chapter Summary................................................................................28
References...........................................................................................28

Chapter 3 Batteries............................................................................................... 29
3.1 Introduction to Batteries........................................................... 29
3.1.1 Battery Structure and Specifications........................... 30
3.1.2 Rechargeable Batteries................................................ 31
3.1.3 Charge, Capacity and Discharge Features.................. 32
3.1.4 Temperature Effects and Capacity Fading.................. 32
3.2 Battery Dynamic Modeling: Physical, Empirical, Circuit
and Hybrid Models................................................................... 33
3.2.1 Battery SOC Estimation.............................................. 35
3.3 Types and Characteristics of Batteries..................................... 37
3.3.1 Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) Batteries....................................40
3.3.2 Gel Polymer Electrolytes............................................. 42
3.3.3 Lithium–Sulfur (Li–S) Batteries................................. 42
3.3.4 Metal-Air and Li-Air Batteries................................... 43
3.4 Applications..............................................................................46
3.4.1 Batteries for Electric Aircraft.....................................46
Chapter Summary................................................................................46
References...........................................................................................46

Chapter 4 Permanent Magnet Motors and Halbach Arrays................................. 49

4.1 Motors for All-Electric Propulsion........................................... 49
4.2 High Torque Permanent Magnet Motors.................................. 49
4.2.1 Rare Earth Elements................................................... 49
4.2.2 Neodymium Magnets and Samarium–Cobalt
Magnets....................................................................... 49
4.3 Magnetic and Electromagnetic Effects.................................... 49
4.3.1 Magnetic Materials on a Microscopic Scale............... 49
4.3.2 Diamagnetism............................................................. 50
4.3.3 Paramagnetism............................................................ 50
4.3.4 Remnant Magnetic Moment........................................ 51
4.3.5 Ferromagnetism........................................................... 51
4.3.6 Curie Temperature...................................................... 51
4.3.7 Magneto-Striction....................................................... 52
4.3.8 Ferrimagnetism........................................................... 52
4.3.9 The Maximum Energy Product................................... 52
4.3.10 Coercivity.................................................................... 52
4.3.11 High Temperature Coercivity...................................... 53
4.3.12 Curie Temperature of NdFeB...................................... 53
4.3.13 Intrinsic Coercivity..................................................... 53
Contents ix

4.3.14 Intrinsic and Normal Coercivity Compared............... 53

4.3.15 Permanent Magnets with Reduced Rare Earth
Elements...................................................................... 53
4.4 Halbach Array Motors.............................................................. 54
4.4.1 Complex Halbach Arrays............................................ 55
4.4.2 Ring Type Structures................................................... 57
4.5 Modeling the Magnetic Field Due to a Halbach Array............ 57
Chapter Summary................................................................................ 59
References...........................................................................................60

Chapter 5 Introduction to Boundary Layer Theory and Drag Reduction............ 61

5.1 Principles of Airfoil and Airframe Design.............................. 61
5.2 Flow Over an Aerofoil.............................................................. 61
5.3 Aerodynamic Drag................................................................... 62
5.4 Boundary Layer Flow...............................................................66
5.4.1 The Navier–Stokes (NS) Equations............................ 67
5.4.2 Viscous Energy Dissipation........................................ 69
5.4.3 Non-Dimensionalizing and Linearizing the
NS Equations............................................................... 70
5.4.4 Analysis in the Boundary Layers................................ 71
5.4.5 Boundary Layer Equations.......................................... 74
5.4.6 Vorticity and Stress in a Boundary Layer................... 75
5.4.7 Two-Dimensional Boundary Layer Equations............ 76
5.4.8 The Blasius Solution.................................................... 77
5.4.9 The Displacement, Momentum and Energy
Thicknesses.................................................................80
5.5 Computation of Boundary Layer Velocity Profiles.................. 82
5.5.1 The von Karman Method: The Integral
Momentum Equation................................................... 82
5.5.2 Wall Shear Stress, Momentum Thickness,
Displacement Thickness and Boundary Layer
Thickness for the Blasius Solution.............................. 86
5.5.3 The Methods of Pohlhausen and Holstein and
Bohlen......................................................................... 88
5.5.4 Refined Velocity Profiles within the Boundary
Layer............................................................................ 91
5.5.5 Laminar Boundary Layers: Integral Methods
Using Two Equations...................................................97
5.5.6 Effect of Suction, Blowing or Porosity........................99
5.5.7 Reduction of the Equations....................................... 100
5.5.8 Special Cases............................................................. 102
5.5.9 Thwaites Correlation Technique............................... 102
5.6 Transition and Separation....................................................... 104
5.6.1 Walz–Thwaites’ Criterion for Transition/Separation.......106
5.6.2 The Transitional Boundary Layer............................. 108
x Contents

5.7 Turbulent Boundary Layers.................................................... 109

5.7.1 Predicting the Turbulent Boundary Layer................. 111
5.7.2 The Entrainment Equation Due to Head................... 111
5.7.3 Drela’s Method for a Turbulent Boundary Layer...... 113
5.8 Strategy for Aircraft Drag Reduction..................................... 114
Chapter Summary.............................................................................. 115
References......................................................................................... 115

Chapter 6 Electric Aircraft Propeller Design.................................................... 117

6.1 Introduction............................................................................ 117
6.2 Aerofoil Sections: Lift and Drag............................................ 118
6.3 Momentum Theory................................................................. 120
6.4 Actuator Disk.......................................................................... 121
6.5 Blade Element Theory............................................................ 123
6.6 Dynamics and Modeling of the Inflow................................... 126
6.7 Integrating the Thrust and Torque.......................................... 127
6.8 Blade Element Momentum Theory........................................ 128
6.8.1 Application to Ducted Propellers.............................. 137
6.9 Lifting Line Theory................................................................ 140
6.10 Blade Circulation Distribution: Potential Flow-Based
Solutions................................................................................. 148
6.11 Standard Propeller Features and Design Considerations....... 151
6.12 Propellers for Distributed Propulsion..................................... 152
Chapter Summary.............................................................................. 153
References......................................................................................... 153

Chapter 7 High Temperature Superconducting Motors..................................... 155

7.1 High Temperature Superconductors (HTS)............................ 155
7.1.1 The Meissner State and the Meissner Effect............. 156
7.1.2 Features of Superconducting Materials..................... 156
7.2 HTS Motors............................................................................ 157
7.2.1 HTS DC Motors........................................................ 159
7.2.2 HTS Synchronous and Induction Motors.................. 160
7.2.3 Cryostats for HTS Motors......................................... 161
7.2.4 Control of 3-Phase HTS PMSM................................ 162
7.3 Homopolar Motors................................................................. 163
7.3.1 Superconducting Homopolar Motors........................ 165
7.4 Design of HTS Motors for Aircraft Propulsion..................... 165
Chapter Summary.............................................................................. 165
References......................................................................................... 166

Chapter 8 Aeroacoustics and Low Noise Design............................................... 169

8.1 Aeroacoustic Analogies.......................................................... 169
8.1.1 Sound Pressure Level................................................ 173
Contents xi

8.2 Integral Methods of Lighthill, Ffowcs Williams and

Hawkings, and Kirchhoff....................................................... 173
8.3 Monopoles, Dipoles and Quadrupoles................................... 177
8.3.1 Tonal Characterization of Aeroacoustically
Generated Noise........................................................ 179
8.4 Application to Propellers and Motors.................................... 180
8.4.1 Sources of Airfoil and Propeller Noise..................... 181
8.4.2 Hamilton-Standard Procedure for Estimating the
Noise Due to Propeller Aerodynamic Loading......... 184
8.5 Theoretical Modeling of the Noise Fields.............................. 186
8.5.1 Theoretical Modeling of the Propeller Noise Fields.....186
8.5.2 Farassat’s Formulation of the FW–H Equation......... 190
8.5.3 Formulation of the Far-Field Noise Based on
a Rotating Source...................................................... 191
8.5.4 Lilley’s Analogy and Its Application to Ducts.......... 195
Chapter Summary.............................................................................. 203
References......................................................................................... 203

Chapter 9 Principles and Applications of Plasma Actuators.............................207

9.1 Flow Control and Plasma Actuation.......................................207
9.2 Passive Methods of Flow Control...........................................208
9.2.1 Riblets........................................................................209
9.2.2 Dimples..................................................................... 210
9.2.3 Fences........................................................................ 210
9.2.4 Vortex Generators (VGs) and Micro-VGs................. 210
9.2.5 Vortilons.................................................................... 211
9.2.6 Winglets.................................................................... 212
9.2.7 Cavities...................................................................... 213
9.2.8 Gurney Flaps............................................................. 213
9.3 Passive Methods Coupled with Plasma Actuation................. 214
9.4 Reduction of Skin-Friction Drag by Feedback....................... 215
9.4.1 Feedback Control of Transition................................. 216
9.4.2 Modeling the Flow Due to DBD Plasma Actuators.......219
9.4.3 Decomposition of Simulated Flow Features.............224
9.4.4 Application of Wavelet Decomposition and
De-Noising................................................................ 225
9.4.5 A Review of Wavelet Decomposition Based on
the Wavelet Transform.............................................. 226
9.4.6 Application to the Regulation of Laminar Flow
over an Airfoil........................................................... 229
9.5 Control Laws for Active Flow Control................................... 234
9.5.1 Integral Equations for the Boundary Layer.............. 236
9.5.2 The Inverse Boundary Layer Method: Uniform
Solutions.................................................................... 238
9.5.3 Uniform and Prescribed Shape Factor...................... 239
xii Contents

9.5.4 The Vorticity–Velocity Formulation with Control

Flow Inputs................................................................ 241
9.5.5 Active Control of Velocity Profiles........................... 243
9.5.6 Hybrid Active Laminar Flow Control with
Plasma Actuation.......................................................244
9.5.7 Application of the Control Laws to a Typical
Airfoil........................................................................ 245
Chapter Summary.............................................................................. 253
References......................................................................................... 254

Chapter 10 Photovoltaic Cells.............................................................................. 259

10.1 History of the Photoelectric Effect......................................... 259
10.2 Semiconductors: Silicon Photo Diodes.................................. 259
10.3 Photoconductive Cells............................................................ 261
10.4 The Photovoltaic Effect.......................................................... 262
10.4.1 The Photovoltaic Cell: The Solar Cell...................... 263
10.4.2 Solar Cell Characteristics.......................................... 265
10.4.3 Modeling the Power Output of a Solar Cell..............266
10.4.4 Maximum Power Point Tracking.............................. 268
10.4.5 The Shockley–Queisser Limit................................... 269
10.5 Multi-Junction Silicon PV Cells............................................. 270
10.5.1 Modeling the Power Output of Multi-Junction
Cells........................................................................... 271
Chapter Summary.............................................................................. 273
References......................................................................................... 273

Chapter 11 Semiconductors and Power Electronics............................................ 275

11.1 Semiconductors and Transistors............................................. 275
11.1.1 Semiconductors and Semiconductor Diodes............. 275
11.1.2 Transistors................................................................. 276
11.2 Power Electronic Devices....................................................... 277
11.2.1 Power Diodes: A Three-Layered Semiconductor
Device........................................................................280
11.2.2 Thyristors and Silicon Controlled Rectifier (SCR)...... 281
11.2.3 Controlled Devices: GTO and GTR.......................... 286
11.2.4 The MOSFET............................................................ 286
11.2.5 The IGBT.................................................................. 287
11.2.6 Applications............................................................... 288
Chapter Summary.............................................................................. 291
References......................................................................................... 291
Contents xiii

Chapter 12 Flight Control and Autonomous Operations..................................... 293

12.1 Introduction to Flight Control................................................ 293
12.1.1 Range and Endurance of an Electric Aircraft........... 293
12.1.2 Equivalent Air Speed, Gliding Speed and
Minimum Power to Climb........................................ 296
12.2 Flight Path Optimization........................................................ 299
12.2.1 The Optimal Control Method....................................302
12.2.2 Cruise Optimization: Optimal Control
Formulation...............................................................302
12.2.3 Optimization Procedure: Optimum Cruise
Velocity, Optimum Trajectory Synthesis..................304
12.2.4 Modeling with the Peukert Effect.............................307
12.3 Integrated Flight and Propulsion Control...............................309
12.3.1 Model-Based Design of Control Laws for
Distributed Propulsion-Based Flight Control........... 311
12.4 Flight Management for Autonomous Operation.................... 312
12.4.1 Autonomous Control Systems................................... 313
12.4.2 Route Planning.......................................................... 314
12.4.3 Mission Planning for Autonomous Operations......... 314
12.4.4 Systems and Control for Autonomy.......................... 315
12.5 Flight Path Planning............................................................... 315
12.5.1 Path Planning in Three Dimensions Using
a Particle Model........................................................ 315
12.5.2 Path Planning in the Horizontal Plane...................... 318
12.5.3 Path-Following Control............................................. 320
Chapter Summary.............................................................................. 320
References......................................................................................... 321

Index....................................................................................................................... 323
Preface
This book grew out of my interest in electric aircraft, which in turn was spurred
by a concern for the rapidly deteriorating environment worldwide and the extreme
impact this was having on weather conditions around the globe. Dealing with such a
broad subject was a daunting task, and over the years I found that there were many
different facets to the subject. However, after careful considerations of my interests,
particularly in aiding the design of new aircraft for commercial airlines, I decided
that I should adopt a systems engineering approach. I also felt that there was a need
for greater emphasis on the expected developments which would facilitate an all-
electric commercial flight. These interests and my personal perceptions on the need
for new developments in electrical energy storage, high performance electric motors
and new and optimized propeller designs for propelling the aircraft and reduction in
the overall aerodynamic drag of the aircraft, as well as the noise pollution it could
generate, led to the conception of this book. The book is conveniently organized into
12 chapters.
Several traditional areas of aeronautics, like aerodynamic design, structural
design and aeroelastic analysis, as well as several others, have not been covered in
the book. It does not mean, however, that these areas are any less important. There
are several interesting and valuable books that have recently been published in these
areas. Yet, it is essential that there are significant breakthroughs in certain areas, if
electric aircraft are to be developed for large-scale civilian transportation. It is for
this reason the book focuses on areas where fundamental breakthroughs are essen-
tial. It is expected that with these fundamental breakthroughs and with tools such as
multi-disciplinary design optimization, a new generation of electric aircraft can be
designed and built for future mass transportation of civilian passengers.
I thank my colleagues in the School of Engineering and Materials Science, at
Queen Mary University of London and Prof. V. V. Toropov, in particular, for his sup-
port in this endeavor. I also express my special thanks to Jonathan Plant and Kyra
Lindholm of CRC Press for their support in this endeavor.
I thank my family for their support, love, understanding and patience.

Ranjan Vepa
London, UK

xv
Acronyms
AC Alternating current
BCS Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer
BEM Blade element momentum
BJT Bipolar junction transistor
BPF Blade passing frequency
CG Center of gravity
CWT Continuous wavelet transform
DBD Dielectric-barrier discharge
DC Direct current
DEP Distributed electric propulsion
DLR Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt
DOD Depth of discharge
DTC Direct torque control
DWT Discrete wavelet transform
EMF Electromotive force
FET Field effect transistor
FFT Fast Fourier transform
FIR Finite impulse response
FOC Field oriented control
FW–H Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings
GPE Gel polymer electrolytes
HTS High-temperature superconductors
IBM International Business Machines
IGBT Insulated gate bipolar transistor
JFET Junction field effect transistor
kV kilo Volt
kW kilo Watt
LREE Light rare earth elements
MD McDonnell Douglas
MEMS Microelectromechanical systems
MOSFET Metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor
MPP Maximum power point
MPPT Maximum power point tracking
MTOW Maximum take-off weight
NACA National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics
NS Navier–Stokes
OC Open circuit
PAN Polyacrylonitrile
PEM Proton exchange membrane
PEO Polyethylene oxide
PIV Particle image velocimetry
PMMA Polymethyl methacrylate

xvii
xviii Acronyms

PRM Probabilistic road map

PV Photovoltaic
PVdF Polyvinylidene fluoride
PWM Pulse width modulation
PZT Lead (Pb) zirconate titanate
RRT Rapidly exploring random tree
SCEPTOR Scalable Convergent Electric Propulsion Technology Operations
Research
SCR Silicon controlled rectifier
SLAM Simultaneous localization and mapping
SOC State of charge
STFT Short-time Fourier transform
TP-BVP Two-point boundary value problem
TSP Traveling salesman problem
UAV Unmanned aerial vehicle
VG Vortex generator
VSI Voltage source inverter
WKB Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin
YBCO Yttrium barium copper oxide
 1 Introduction

1.1 INTRODUCTION TO ELECTRIC AIRCRAFT

Ever-increasing energy demands and rising fuel prices have motivated aircraft indus-
tries to develop alternative power sources for future aircraft. In the aviation sec-
tor, the requirements of flight reliability, low noise-emission levels, reduction in the
dependence on fossil fuels, requirements of lower costs and lower weight, and longer
life cycles, increase the complexity of the overall system and lead manufacturers
to introduce major breakthroughs and innovations. Hybrid electric propulsion and
all-electric propulsion for future aircraft are currently popular fields in the aircraft
industry and are forming the basis for future commercial aircraft designs. Hybrid
electric propulsion systems are composed of a networked set of gas turbines and
batteries, while in all-electric propulsion systems, batteries are the only source of
propulsive power on aircraft. Current battery technologies pose the most serious
limitations to the development of all-electric and more-electric aircraft. However,
rapid strides are being made in the evolution of battery technology and, for this
reason, most aircraft industries are planning to introduce either more-electric or all-
electric powered aircraft within the next two decades. Electric aircraft will pose
new problems related to general aircraft architecture, geometry and shape, battery,
motor, and propulsion system design, aerodynamics, drag reduction and boundary
layer control, aircraft performance, stability and control, the design of flight control-
lers, optimum structural design, and a host of other issues. In this book, we hope to
bring together a number of current aspects of electric aircraft that are being exten-
sively researched within the aerospace community.
The main goal of this book is to bring together the theoretical and design issues
relevant to the field of electric aircraft and present the key topics on the most press-
ing problems that designers are facing in making electric aircraft more popular and
commercially viable. It is also intended to identify the current state-of-the-art and
new developments in the research on all-electric propulsion, hybrid electric propul-
sion and more-electric propulsion, as well as on the impact of the associated systems
on all aspects of electric aircraft design.

1.2 THE SYSTEMS ENGINEERING METHOD

A “system” is an interacting combination of elements, viewed in relation to a func-
tion. A typical example of a system is an aircraft and, in our context, an electric
aircraft. The elements or subsystems that make up the electric aircraft are the pro-
pulsion subsystem, the power storage system, the power supply systems, the power
converters, the propeller, the lifting bodies and wings and the control surfaces which
constitute the major elements that must be synergistically combined to produce an
electric aircraft. Another example is the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) which
again is composed of a host of subsystems which when assembled together perform

1
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The essentials
of mysticism
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: The essentials of mysticism

And other essays

Author: Evelyn Underhill

Release date: August 7, 2024 [eBook #74203]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: E. P. Dutton & Co, 1920

Credits: Susan E, David King, and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This file
was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESSENTIALS

OF MYSTICISM ***
 The Essentials of Mysticism

THE ESSENTIALS of MYSTICISM

AND OTHER ESSAYS
BY
EVELYN UNDERHILL
1920
New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO.

LONDON & TORONTO

J. M. DENT & SONS Ltd.

All rights reserved

 CONTENTS

Preface . . . v
The Essentials of Mysticism . . . 1
The Mystic and the Corporate Life . . . 25
Mysticism and the Doctrine of Atonement . . . 44
The Mystic as Creative Artist . . . 64
The Education of the Spirit . . . 86
The Place of Will, Intellect, and Feeling in Prayer . . . 99
The Mysticism of Plotinus . . . 116
Three Mediæval Mystics . . . 141
I. “THE MIRROR OF SIMPLE SOULS” . . . 141
II. THE BLESSED ANGELA OF FOLIGNO . . . 160
III. JULIAN OF NORWICH . . . 183
Mysticism in Modern France . . . 199
I. SŒUR THÉRÈSE DE L’ENFANT-JÉSUS . . . 199
II. LUCIE-CHRISTINE . . . 215
III. CHARLES PÉGUY . . . 228
 PREFACE

The essays collected in this volume have been written during the
past eight years. They deal with various aspects of the subject of
mysticism: the first half-dozen with its general theory and practice,
and special points arising within it; the rest with its application as
seen in the lives and works of the mystics, from the pagan Plotinus
to the Christian contemplatives of our own day. Most of them have
already appeared elsewhere, though all have been revised and
several completely re-written for the purposes of this book. “The
Essentials of Mysticism” and “The Mystic as Creative Artist” were first
printed in The Quest; “The Mystic and the Corporate Life,”
“Mysticism and the Doctrine of Atonement,” and “The Place of Will,
Intellect, and Feeling in Prayer” in The Interpreter; “The Education
of the Spirit” in The Parents’ Review; “The Mysticism of Plotinus” in
The Quarterly Review; “The Mirror of Simple Souls” and “Sœur
Thérèse de l’Enfant-Jésus” (under the title of “A Modern Saint”) in
The Fortnightly Review; “The Blessed Angela of Foligno” in
Franciscan Essays; “Julian of Norwich” in The St. Martin’s Review;
and “Charles Péguy” in The Contemporary Review. All these are now
republished by kind permission of the editors concerned.
E. U.
August 1920.
 THE ESSENTIALS OF MYSTICISM

What are the true essentials of mysticism? When we have stripped

off those features which some mystics accept and some reject—all
that is merely due to tradition, temperament or unconscious
allegorism—what do we find as the necessary and abiding character
of all true mystical experience? This question is really worth asking.
For some time much attention has been given to the historical side
of mysticism, and some—much less—to its practice. But there has
been no clear understanding of the difference between its substance
and its accidents: between traditional forms and methods, and the
eternal experience which they have mediated. In mystical literature
words are frequently confused with things, and symbols with
realities; so that much of this literature seems to the reader to refer
to some self-consistent and exclusive dream-world, and not to the
achievement of universal truth. Thus the strong need for re-
statement which is being felt by institutional religion, the necessity
of re-translating its truths into symbolism which modern men can
understand and accept, applies with at least equal force to
mysticism. It has become important to disentangle the facts from
ancient formulæ used to express them. These formulæ have value,
because they are genuine attempts to express truth; but they are
not themselves that truth, and failure to recognize this distinction
has caused a good deal of misunderstanding. Thus, on its
philosophic and theological side, the mysticism of western Europe is
tightly entwined with the patristic and mediæval presentation of
Christianity; and this presentation, though full of noble poetry, is
now difficult if not impossible to adjust to our conceptions of the
Universe. Again, on its personal side mysticism is a department of
psychology. Now psychology is changing under our eyes; already we
see our mental life in a new perspective, tend to describe it under
new forms. Our ways of describing and interpreting spiritual
experience must change with the rest, if we are to keep in touch
with reality; though the experience itself be unchanged.
So we are forced to ask ourselves, what is the essential element in
spiritual experience? Which of the many states and revelations
described by the mystics are integral parts of it; and what do these
states and degrees come to, when we describe them in the current
phraseology and strip off the monastic robes in which they are
usually dressed? What elements are due to the suggestions of
tradition, to conscious or unconscious symbolism, to the
misinterpretation of emotion, to the invasion of cravings from the
lower centres, or the disguised fulfilment of an unconscious wish?
And when all these channels of illusion have been blocked, what is
left? This will be a difficult and often a painful enquiry. But it is an
enquiry which ought to be faced by all who believe in the validity of
man’s spiritual experience; in order that their faith may be
established on a firm basis, and disentangled from those unreal and
impermanent elements which are certainly destined to destruction,
and with which it is at present too often confused. I am sure that at
the present moment we serve best the highest interests of the soul
by subjecting the whole mass of material which is called “mysticism”
to an inexorable criticism. Only by inflicting the faithful wounds of a
friend can we save the science of the inner life from mutilation at the
hands of the psychologists.
We will begin, then, with the central fact of the mystic’s experience.
This central fact, it seems to me, is an overwhelming consciousness
of God and of his own soul: a consciousness which absorbs or
eclipses all other centres of interest. It is said that St. Francis of
Assisi, praying in the house of Bernard of Quintavalle, was heard to
say again and again: “My God! my God! what art Thou? and what
am I?” Though the words come from St. Augustine, they well
represent his mental attitude. This was the only question which he
thought worth asking; and it is the question which every mystic asks
at the beginning and sometimes answers at the end of his quest.
Hence we must put first among our essentials the clear conviction of
a living God as the primary interest of consciousness, and of a
personal self capable of communion with Him. Having said this,
however, we may allow that the widest latitude is possible in the
mystic’s conception of his Deity. At best this conception will be
symbolic; his experience, if genuine, will far transcend the symbols
he employs. “God,” says the author of The Cloud of Unknowing,
“may well be loved but not thought.” Credal forms, therefore, can
only be for the mystic a scaffold by which he ascends. We are even
bound, I think, to confess that the overt recognition of that which
orthodox Christians generally mean by a personal God is not
essential. On the contrary, where it takes a crudely anthropomorphic
form, the idea of personality may be a disadvantage; opening the
way for the intrusion of disguised emotions and desires. In the
highest experiences of the greatest mystics the personal category
appears to be transcended. “The light in the soul which is increate,”
says Eckhart, “is not satisfied with the three Persons, in so far as
each subsists in its difference ... but it is determined to know
whence this Being comes, to penetrate into the Simple Ground, into
the Silent Desert within which never any difference has lain.” The all-
inclusive One is beyond all partial apprehensions, though the true
values which those apprehensions represent are conserved in it.
However pantheistic the mystic may be on the one hand, however
absolutist on the other, his communion with God is always personal
in this sense: that it is communion with a living Reality, an object of
love, capable of response, which demands and receives from him a
total self-donation. This sense of a double movement, a self-giving
on the divine side answering to the self-giving on the human side, is
found in all great mysticism. It has, of course, lent itself to emotional
exaggeration, but in its pure form seems an integral part of man’s
apprehension of Reality. Even where it conflicts with the mystic’s
philosophy—as in Hinduism and Neoplatonism—it is still present. It is
curious to note, for instance, how Plotinus, after safeguarding his
Absolute One from every qualification, excluding it from all
categories, defining it only by the icy method of negation, suddenly
breaks away into the language of ardent feeling when he comes to
describe that ecstasy in which he touched the truth. Then he speaks
of “the veritable love, the sharp desire” which possessed him,
appealing to the experience of those fellow mystics who have
“caught fire, and found the splendour there.” These, he says, have
“felt burning within themselves the flame of love for what is there to
know—the passion of the lover resting on the bosom of his love.”
So we may say that the particular mental image which the mystic
forms of his objective, the traditional theology he accepts, is not
essential. Since it is never adequate, the degree of its inadequacy is
of secondary importance. Though some creeds have proved more
helpful to the mystic than others, he is found fully developed in
every great religion. We cannot honestly say that there is any wide
difference between the Brahman, Sūfi, or Christian mystic at their
best. They are far more like each other than they are like the
average believer in their several creeds. What is essential is the way
the mystic feels about his Deity, and about his own relation with it;
for this adoring and all-possessing consciousness of the rich and
complete divine life over against the self’s life, and of the possible
achievement of a level of being, a sublimation of the self, wherein
we are perfectly united with it, may fairly be written down as a
necessary element of all mystical life. This is the common factor
which unites those apparently incompatible views of the Universe
which have been claimed at one time or another as mystical. Their
mystical quality abides wholly in the temper of the self who adopts
them. He may be a transcendentalist; but if so, it is because his
intuition of the divine is so lofty that it cannot be expressed by
means of any intellectual concept, and he is bound to say with
Ruysbroeck, “He is neither This nor That.” He may be a unanimist;
but if he is, it is because he finds in other men—more, in the whole
web of life—that mysterious living essence which is a mode of God’s
existence, and which he loves, seeks and recognizes everywhere.
“How shall I find words for the beauty of my Beloved? For He is
merged in all beauty,” says Kabir, “His colour is in all the pictures of
the world, and it bewitches the body and the mind.” He may be—
often is—a sacramentalist; but if so, only because the symbol or the
sacrament help him to touch God. So St. Thomas:

“Adoro te devote, latens Deitas,

Quæ sub his figuris vere latitas.”

The moment the mystic suspects that any of these things are
obstacles instead of means, he rejects them; to the scandal of those
who habitually confuse the image with the reality.
Thus we get the temperamental symbolist, quietist, nature-mystic,
or transcendentalist. We get Plotinus rapt to the “bare pure One”; St.
Augustine’s impassioned communion with Perfect Beauty; Eckhart
declaring his achievement of the “wilderness of God”; Jacopone da
Todi prostrate in adoration before the “Love that gives all things
form”; Ruysbroeck describing his achievement of “that wayless abyss
of fathomless beatitude where the Trinity of divine persons possess
their nature in the essential Unity;” Jacob Boehme gazing into the
fire-world and there finding the living heart of the Universe; Kabir
listening to the rhythmic music of Reality, and seeing the worlds told
like beads within the Being of God. And at the opposite pole we find
Mechthild of Madgeburg’s amorous conversations with her “heavenly
Bridegroom,” the many mystical experiences connected with the
Eucharist, the Sūfi’s enraptured description of God as the “Matchless
Chalice and the Sovereign Wine,” the narrow intensity and emotional
raptures of contemplatives of the type of Richard Rolle. We cannot
refuse the title of mystic to any of these; because in every case their
aim is union between God and the soul. This is the one essential of
mysticism, and there are as many ways from one term to the other
as there are variations in the spirit of man. But, on the other hand,
when anybody speaking of mysticism proposes an object that is less
than God—increase of knowledge, of health, of happiness, occultism,
intercourse with spirits, supernormal experience in general—then we
may begin to suspect that we are off the track.
Now we come to the next group of essentials: the necessary acts
and dispositions of the mystic himself, the development which takes
place in him—the psychological facts, that is to say, which are
represented by the so-called “mystic way.” The mystic way is best
understood as a process of sublimation, which carries the
correspondences of the self with the Universe up to higher levels
than those on which our normal consciousness works. Just as the
normal consciousness stands over against the unconscious, which,
with its buried impulses and its primitive and infantile cravings,
represents a cruder reaction of the organism to the external world;
so does the developed mystical life stand over against normal
consciousness, with its preoccupations and its web of illusions
encouraging the animal will-to-dominate and animal will-to-live.
Normal consciousness sorts out some elements from the mass of
experiences beating at our doors and constructs from them a certain
order; but this order lacks any deep meaning or true cohesion,
because normal consciousness is incapable of apprehending the
underlying reality from which these scattered experiences proceed.
The claim of the mystical consciousness is to a closer reading of
truth; to an apprehension of the divine unifying principle behind
appearance. “The One,” says Plotinus, “is present everywhere and
absent only from those unable to perceive it”; and when we do
perceive it we “have another life ... attaining the aim of our
existence, and our rest.” To know this at first hand—not to guess,
believe or accept, but to be certain—is the highest achievement of
human consciousness, and the ultimate object of mysticism. How is
it done?
There are two ways of attacking this problem which may conceivably
help us. The first consists in a comparison of the declarations of
different mystics, and a sorting out of those elements which they
have in common: a careful watch being kept, of course, for the
results of conscious or unconscious imitation, of tradition and of
theological preconceptions. In this way we get some first-hand
evidence of factors which are at any rate usually present, and may
possibly be essential. The second line of enquiry consists in a re-
translation into psychological terms of these mystical declarations;
when many will reveal the relation in which they stand to the psychic
life of man.
Reviewing the first-hand declarations of the mystics, we inevitably
notice one prominent feature: the frequency with which they break
up their experience into three phases. Sometimes they regard these
objectively, and speak of three worlds or three aspects of God of
which they become successively aware. Sometimes they regard
them subjectively, and speak of three stages of growth through
which they pass, such as those of Beginner, Proficient, and Perfect;
or of phases of spiritual progress in which we first meditate upon
reality, then contemplate reality, and at last are united with reality.
But among the most widely separated mystics of the East and West
this threefold experience can nearly always be traced. There are, of
course, obvious dangers in attaching absolute value to number-
schemes of this kind. Numbers have an uncanny power over the
human mind; once let a symbolic character be attributed to them,
and the temptation to make them fit the facts at all costs becomes
overwhelming. We all know that the number “three” has a long
religious history, and are therefore inclined to look with suspicion on
its claim to interpret the mystic life. At the same time there are other
significant numbers—such as “seven” and “ten”—which have never
gained equal currency as the bases of mystical formulæ. We may
agree that the mediæval mystics found the threefold division of
spiritual experience in Neoplatonism; but we must also agree that a
formula of this kind is not likely to survive for nearly 2000 years
unless it agrees with the facts. Those who use it with the greatest
conviction are not theorists. They are the practical mystics, who are
intent on making maps of the regions into which they have
penetrated.
Moreover, this is no mere question of handing on one single
tradition. The mystics describe their movement from appearance to
reality in many different ways, and use many incompatible religious
symbols. The one constant factor is the discrimination of three
phases of consciousness, no more, no less, in which we can
recognize certain common characteristics. “There are,” says Philo,
“three kinds of life: life as it concerns God, life as it concerns the
creature, and a third intermediate life, a mixture of the former two.”
Consistently with this, Plotinus speaks of three descending phases or
principles of Divine Reality: the Godhead, or absolute and
unconditioned One; its manifestation as Nous, the Divine Mind or
Spirit which inspires the “intelligible” and eternal world; and Psyche,
the Life or Soul of the physical Universe. Man, normally in
correspondence with this physical world of succession and change,
may by spiritual intuition achieve first consciousness of the eternal
world of spiritual values, in which indeed the apex of his soul already
dwells; and in brief moments of ecstatic vision may rise above this to
communion with its source, the Absolute One. There you have the
mystic’s vision of the Universe, and the mystic’s way of purification,
enlightenment and ecstasy, bringing new and deeper knowledge of
reality as the self’s interest, urged by its loving desire of the
Ultimate, is shifted from sense to soul, from soul to spirit. There is
here no harsh dualism, no turning from a bad material world to a
good spiritual world. We are invited to one gradual undivided
process of sublimation, penetrating ever more deeply into the reality
of the Universe, to find at last “that One who is present everywhere
and absent only from those who do not perceive Him.” What we
behold, that we are: citizens, according to our own will and desire,
of the surface world of the senses, the deeper world of life, or the
ultimate world of Spiritual reality.
An almost identical doctrine appears in the Upanishads. At the heart
of reality is Brahma, “other than the known, and above the
unknown.” His manifestation is Ananda, that spiritual world which is
the true object of æsthetic passion and religious contemplation.
From its life and consciousness are born, in it they have their being,
to it they must return. Finally, there is the world-process as we know
it, which represents Ananda taking form. So too the mystic Kabir,
who represents an opposition to the Vedantic philosophy, says:
“From beyond the Infinite the Infinite comes, and from the Infinite
the finite extends.” And again: “Some contemplate the formless and
others meditate on form, but the wise man knows that Brahma is
beyond both.” Here we have the finite world of becoming, the
infinite world of being, and Brahma, the Unconditioned Absolute,
exceeding and including all. Yet, as Kabir distinctly declares again
and again, there are no fences between these aspects of the
Universe. When we come to the root of reality we find that
“Conditioned and Unconditioned are but one word”; the difference is
in our own degree of awareness.
Compare with this three of the great mediæval Catholic mystics: that
acute psychologist Richard of St. Victor, the ardent poet and
contemplative Jacopone da Todi, and the profound Ruysbroeck.
Richard of St. Victor says that there are three phases in the
contemplative consciousness. The first is called dilation of mind,
enlarging and deepening our vision of the world. The next is
elevation of mind, in which we behold the realities which are above
ourselves. The third is ecstasy, in which the mind is carried up to
contact with truth in its pure simplicity. This is really the universe of
Plotinus translated into subjective terms. So, too, Jacopone da Todi
says in the symbolism of his day that three heavens are open to
man. He must climb from one to the other; it is hard work, but love
and longing press him on. First, when the mind has achieved self-
conquest, the “starry heaven” of multiplicity is revealed to it. Its
darkness is lit by scattered lights; points of reality pierce the sky.
Next, it achieves the “crystalline heaven” of lucid contemplation,
where the soul is conformed to the rhythm of the divine life, and by
its loving intuition apprehends God under veils. Lastly, in ecstasy it
may be lifted to that ineffable state which he calls the “hidden
heaven,” where it enjoys a vision of imageless reality and “enters
into possession of all that is God.” Ruysbroeck says that he has
experienced three orders of reality: the natural world, theatre of our
moral struggle; the essential world, where God and Eternity are
indeed known, but by intermediaries; and the super-essential world,
where without intermediary, and beyond all separation, “above
reason and without reason,” the soul is united to “the glorious and
absolute One.”
Take, again, a totally different mystic, Jacob Boehme. He says that
he saw in the Divine Essence three principles or aspects. The first he
calls “the deepest Deity, without and beyond Nature,” and the next
its manifestation in the Eternal Light-world. The third is that outer
world in which we dwell according to the body, which is a
manifestation, image or similitude of the Eternal. “And we are thus,”
he says, “to understand reality as a threefold being, or three worlds
in one another.” We observe again the absence of water-tight
compartments. The whole of reality is present in every part of it;
and the power of correspondence with all these aspects of it is latent
in man. “If one sees a right man,” says Boehme again, “he may say,
I see here three worlds standing.”
We have now to distinguish the essential element in all this. How
does it correspond with psychological facts? Some mystics, like
Richard of St. Victor, have frankly exhibited its subjective side and so
helped us to translate the statements of their fellows. Thus
Dionysius the Areopagite says in a celebrated passage: “Threefold is
the way to God. The first is the way of purification, in which the
mind is inclined to learn true wisdom. The second is the way of
illumination, in which the mind by contemplation is kindled to the
burning of love. The third is the way of union, in which the mind by
understanding, reason and spirit is led up by God alone.” This
formula restates the Plotinian law; for the “contemplation” of
Dionysius is the “spiritual intuition” of Plotinus, which inducts man
into the intelligible world; his “union” is the Plotinian ecstatic vision
of the One. It profoundly impressed the later Christian mystics, and
has long been accepted as the classic description of spiritual growth,
because it has been found again and again to answer to experience.
It is therefore worth our while to examine it with some care.
First we notice how gentle, gradual and natural is the process of
sublimation that Dionysius demands of us. According to him, the
mystic life is a life centred on reality: the life that first seeks reality
without flinching, then loves and adores the reality perceived, and at
last, wholly surrendered to it, is “led by God alone.” First, the self is
“inclined to learn true wisdom.” It awakes to new needs, is cured of
its belief in sham values, and distinguishes between real and unreal
objects of desire. That craving for more life and more love which lies
at the very heart of our selfhood, here slips from the charmed circle
of the senses into a wider air. When this happens abruptly it is called
“conversion”; and may then have the character of a psychic
convulsion and be accompanied by various secondary psychological
phenomena. But often it comes without observation. Here the
essentials are a desire and a disillusionment sufficiently strong to
overcome our natural sloth, our primitive horror of change. “The first
beginning of all things is a craving,” says Boehme; “we are creatures
of will and desire.” The divine discontent, the hunger for reality, the
unwillingness to be satisfied with the purely animal or the purely
social level of consciousness, is the first essential stage in the
development of the mystical consciousness.
So the self is either suddenly or gradually inclined to “true wisdom”;
and this change of angle affects the whole character, not only or
indeed specially the intellectual outlook, but the ethical outlook too.
This is the meaning of “purgation.” False ways of feeling and
thinking, established complexes which have acquired for us an
almost sacred character, and governed though we knew it not all our
reactions to life—these must be broken up. That mental and moral
sloth which keeps us so comfortably wrapped in unrealities must go.
This phase in the mystic’s growth has been specially emphasized and
worked out by the Christian mystics, who have made considerable
additions to the philosophy and natural history of the soul. The
Christian sense of sin and conception of charity, the Christian notion
of humility as a finding of our true level, an exchanging of the unreal
standards of egoism for the disconcerting realities of life seen from
the angle of Eternity; the steadfast refusal to tolerate any claim to
spirituality which is not solidly based on moral values, or which is
divorced from the spirit of tenderness and love—all this has
immensely enriched the mysticism of the West, and filled up some of
the gaps left by Neoplatonism. It is characteristic of Christianity that,
addressing itself to all men—not, as Neoplatonism tended to do, to
the superior person—and offering to all men participation in Eternal
Life, it takes human nature as it is; and works from the bottom up,
instead of beginning at a level which only a few of the race attain.
Christianity perceived how deeply normal men are enslaved by the
unconscious; how great a moral struggle is needed for their
emancipation. Hence it concentrated on the first stage of purgation,
and gave it new meaning and depth. The monastic rule of poverty,
chastity and obedience—and we must remember that the original
aim of monasticism was to provide a setting in which the mystical
life could be lived—aims at the removal of those self-centred desires
and attachments which chain consciousness to a personal instead of
a universal life. He who no longer craves for personal possessions,
pleasures or powers, is very near to perfect liberty. His attention is
freed from its usual concentration on the self’s immediate interests,
and at once he sees the Universe in a new, more valid, because
disinterested light.

“Povertate è nulla avere

e nulla cosa poi volere
ed omne cosa possedere
en spirito de libertade.”

Yet this positive moral purity which Christians declared necessary to

the spiritual life was not centred on a lofty aloofness from human
failings, but on a self-giving and disinterested love, the complete
abolition of egoism. This alone, it declared, could get rid of that
inward disharmony—one aspect of the universal conflict between the
instinctive and the rational life—which Boehme called the “powerful
contrarium” warring with the soul.
Now this “perfect charity in life surrendered,” however attained, is an
essential character of the true mystic; without it, contemplation is an
impossibility or a sham. But when we come to the means by which it
is to be attained, we re-enter the region of controversy; for here we
are at once confronted by the problem of asceticism, and its
connection with mysticism—perhaps the largest and most difficult of
the questions now facing those who are concerned with the re-
statement of the laws of the spiritual life. Originally regarded as a
gymnastic of the soul, an education in those manly virtues of self-
denial and endurance without which the spiritual life is merely an
exquisite form of hedonism, asceticism was identified by Christian
thought with the idea of mortification; the killing out of all those
impulses which deflect the soul from the straight path to God. For
the true mystic, it is never more than a means to an end; and is
often thrown aside when that end is attained. Its necessity is
therefore a purely practical question. Fasting and watching may help
one to dominate unruly instincts, and so attain a sharper and purer
concentration on God; but make another so hungry and sleepy that
he can think of nothing else. Thus Jacopone da Todi said of his own
early austerities that they resulted chiefly in indigestion, insomnia
and colds in the head; whilst John Wesley found in fasting a positive
spiritual good. Some ascetic practices again are almost certainly
disguised indulgences of those very cravings which they are
supposed to kill, but in fact merely repress. Others—such as hair
shirts, chains, and so forth—depended for their meaning on a
mediæval view of the body and of the virtues of physical pain which
is practically extinct, and now seems to most of us utterly artificial.
No one will deny that austerity is better than luxury for the spiritual
life; but perfect detachment of the will and senses can be achieved
without resort to merely physical expedients by those living normally
in the world, and this is the essential thing.
The true asceticism is a gymnastic not of the body, but of the mind.
It involves training in the art of recollection; the concentration of
thought, will, and love upon the eternal realities which we commonly
ignore. The embryo contemplative, if his spiritual vision is indeed to
be enlarged, and his mind kindled, as Dionysius says, to “the
burning of love,” must acquire and keep a special state of inward
poise, an attitude of attention, which is best described as “the state
of prayer”; that same condition which George Fox called “keeping in
the Universal Spirit.” If we do not attend to reality, we are not likely
to perceive it. The readjustments which shall make this attention
natural and habitual are a phase in man’s inward conflict for the
redemption of consciousness from its lower and partial attachments.
This conflict is no dream. It means hard work; mental and moral
discipline of the sternest kind. The downward drag is incessant, and
can be combated only by those who are clearly aware of it, and are
willing to sacrifice lower interests and joys to the demands of the
spiritual life. In this sense mortification is an integral part of the
“purgative way.” Unless the self’s “inclination to true wisdom” is
strong enough to inspire these costing and heroic efforts, its spiritual
cravings do not deserve the name of mysticism.
These, then, seem essential factors in the readjustment which the
mystics call purgation. We go on to their next stage, the so-called
“way of illumination.” Here, says Dionysius, the mind is kindled by
contemplation to the burning of love. There is a mental and an
emotional enhancement, whereby the self apprehends the reality it
has sought; whether under the veils of religion, philosophy, or
nature-mysticism. Many mystics have made clear statements about
this phase in human transcendence. Thus the Upanishads invite us
to “know everything in the Universe as enveloped in God.” “When
the purified seeker,” says Plato, “comes to the end, he will suddenly
perceive a nature of wondrous beauty.... Beauty absolute, separate,
simple and everlasting.” His follower Plotinus says that by spiritual
intuition man, “wrought into harmony with the Supreme,” enters into
communion with Nous, the “intelligible world” of eternal realities—
that splendour yonder which is his home: and further that this light,
shining upon the soul, enlightens it, makes it a member of the
spiritual order, and so “transforms the furnace of this world into a
garden of flowers.” Ruysbroeck declares that this eternal world “is
not God, but it is the light in which we see Him.” Jacopone da Todi
says that the self, achieving the crystalline heaven, “feels itself to be
a part of all things,” because it has annihilated its separate will and is
conformed to the movement of the Divine Life. Kabir says: “The
middle region of the sky, wherein the Spirit dwelleth, is radiant with
the music of light.” Boehme calls it the “light-world proceeding from
the fire-world”; and says it is the origin of that outward world in
which we dwell. “This light,” he says, “shines through and through
all, but is only apprehended by that which unites itself thereto.” It
seems to me fairly clear that these, and many other descriptions I
cannot now quote, refer to an identical state of consciousness,
which might be called an experience of Eternity, but not of the
Eternal One. I say “an experience,” not merely a mental perception.
Contemplation, which is the traditional name for that concentrated
attention in which this phase of reality is revealed, is an activity of all
our powers: the heart, the will, the mind. Dionysius emphasizes the
ardent love which this revelation of reality calls forth, and which is
indeed a condition of our apprehension of it; for the cold gaze of the
metaphysician cannot attain it, unless he be a lover and a mystic
too. “By love He may be gotten and holden, by thought never,” says
the author of The Cloud of Unknowing. It is only through the mood
of humble and loving receptivity in which the artist perceives beauty,
that the human spirit can apprehend a reality which is greater than
itself. The many declarations about noughting, poverty and “holy
nothingness” refer to this. The meek and poor of spirit really are the
inheritors of Eternity.
So we may place the attitude of selfless adoration, the single-
hearted passion of the soul, among the essentials of the mystic in
the illuminated way. A very wide range of mystical experiences must
be attributed to this second stage in man’s spiritual growth. Some at
least of its secrets are known to all who are capable of æsthetic
passion; who, in the presence of beauty, know themselves to stand
upon the fringe of another plane of being, where the elements of
common life are given new colour and value, and its apparent
disharmonies are resolved. So, too, that deep sense of a divine
companionship which many ardent souls achieve in prayer is a true if
transitory experience of illumination. We shall probably be right in
assuming that the enormous majority of mystics never get beyond
this level of consciousness. Certainly a large number of religious
writers on mysticism attribute to its higher and more personal
manifestations the names of “divine union” and “unitive life”;
thereby adding to the difficulty of classifying spiritual states, and
showing themselves unaware of the great distinction which such full-
grown mystics as Plotinus, Jacopone da Todi or Ruysbroeck describe
as existing between this “middle heaven” and the ecstatic vision of
the One which alone really satisfies their thirst for truth. Thus
Jacopone at first uses the strongest unitive language to describe that
rapturous and emotional intercourse with Divine Love which
characterized his middle period; but when he at last achieves the
vision of the Absolute, he confesses that he was in error in
supposing that it was indeed the Truth Whom he thus saw and
worshipped under veils.

“Or, parme, fo fallanza,

non se’ quel che credea,
tenendo non avea
vertá senza errore.”

Thus Ruysbroeck attributes to the contemplative life, “the inward

and upward-going ways by which one may pass into the Presence of
God,” but distinguishes these from that super-essential life wherein
“we are swallowed up, beyond reason and above reason, in the deep
quiet of the Godhead which is never moved.”
All the personal raptures of devotional mysticism, all the nature-
mystic’s joyous consciousness of God in creation, Blake’s “world of
imagination and vision,” the “coloured land” of Æ., the Sūfi’s “tavern
on the way,” where he is refreshed by a draught of supersensual
wine, belong to the way of illumination. For the Christian mystic the
world into which it inducts him is, pre-eminently, the sphere of the
divine Logos-Christ, fount of creation and source of all beauty; the
hidden Steersman who guides and upholds the phenomenal world:

“Splendor che dona a tutto ’l mondo luce,

amor, Iesú, de li angeli belleza,
cielo e terra per te si conduce
e splende in tutte cose tua fattezza.”

Here the reality behind appearance is still mediated to the mystic

under symbols and forms. The variation of these symbols is great;
his adoring gaze now finds new life and significance in the
appearances of nature, the creations of music and of art, the
imagery of religion and philosophy, and reality speaks to him
through his own credal conceptions. But absolute value cannot be
attributed to any of these, even the most sacred: they change, yet
the experience remains. Thus an identical consciousness of close
communion with God is obtained by the non-sacramental Quaker in
his silence and by the sacramental Catholic in the Eucharist. The
Christian contemplative’s sense of personal intercourse with the
divine as manifest in the incarnate Christ is hard to distinguish from
that of the Hindu Vaishnavite, when we have allowed for the
different constituents of his apperceiving mass:

“Dark, dark the far Unknown and closed the way

To thought and speech; silent the Scriptures; yea,
No word the Vedas say.

“Not thus the Manifest. How fair! how near!

Gone is our thirst if only He appear—
He, to the heart so dear.”

So, too, the Sūfi mystic who has learned to say: “I never saw
anything without seeing God therein;” Kabir exclaiming: “I have
stilled my restless mind, and my heart is radiant; for in Thatness I
have seen beyond Thatness, in company I have seen the Comrade
Himself;” the Neoplatonist rapt in contemplation of the intelligible
world “yonder”; Brother Lawrence doing his cooking in the presence
of God, reveal under analysis an identical type of consciousness.
This consciousness is the essential; the symbols under which the self
apprehends it are not.
Among these symbols we must reckon a large number of the
secondary phenomena of mysticism: divine visions and voices, and
other dramatizations of the self’s apprehensions and desires. The
best mystics have always recognized the doubtful nature of these so-
called divine revelations and favours, and have tried again and again
to set up tests for discerning those which really “come from God”—i.
e. mediate a valid spiritual experience. Personally, I think very few of
these phenomena are mystical in the true sense. Just as our normal
consciousness is more or less at the mercy of invasions from the
unconscious region, of impulses which we fail to trace to their true
origin; so too the mystical consciousness is perpetually open to
invasion from the lower centres. These invasions are not always
understood by the mystic. Obvious examples are the erotic raptures
of the Sūfi poets, and the emotional, even amorous relations in
which many Christian ascetics believe themselves to stand to Christ
or Our Lady. The Holy Ghost saying to Angela of Foligno, “I love you
better than any other woman in the vale of Spoleto”; the human
raptures of Mechthild of Magdeburg with her Bridegroom; St.
Bernard’s attitude to the Virgin; the passionate love-songs of
Jacopone da Todi; the mystical marriage of St. Catherine of Siena;
St. Teresa’s “wound of love”; these, and many similar episodes,
demand no supernatural explanation, and add nothing to our
knowledge of the work of the Spirit in man’s soul. So, too, the
infantile craving for a sheltering and protective love finds expression
over and over again in mystical literature, and satisfaction in the
states of consciousness which it has induced. The innate longing of
the self for more life, more love, an ever greater and fuller
experience, attains a complete realization in the lofty mystical state
called union with God. But failing this full achievement, the self is
capable of offering itself many disguised satisfactions; and among
these disguised satisfactions we must reckon at least the majority of
“divine favours” enjoyed by contemplatives of an emotional type.
Whatever the essence of mysticism may turn out to be, it is well to
recognize these lapses to lower levels as among the least fortunate
of its accidents.
We come to the third stage, the true goal of mystic experience; the
intuitive contact with that ultimate reality which theologians mean by
the Godhead and philosophers by the Absolute, a contact in which,
as Richard of St. Victor says “the soul gazes upon Truth without any
veils of creatures—not in a mirror darkly, but in its pure simplicity.”
The claim to this is the loftiest claim which can be made by human
consciousness. There is little we can say of it, because there is little
we know; save that the vision or experience is always the vision or
experience of a Unity which reconciles all opposites, and fulfils all
man’s highest intuitions of reality. “Be lost altogether in Brahma like
an arrow that has completely penetrated its target,” say the
Upanishads. This self-loss, says Dionysius the Areopagite, is the
Divine Initiation: wherein we “pass beyond the topmost altitudes of
the holy ascent, and leave behind all divine illumination and voices
and heavenly utterances; and plunge into the darkness where truly
dwells, as Scripture saith, that One Which is beyond all things.”
Some recent theologians have tried to separate the conceptions of
God and of the Absolute: but mystics never do this, though some of
the most clear-sighted, such as Meister Eckhart, have separated that
unconditioned Godhead known in ecstasy from the personal God
who is the object of devotional religion, and who represents a
humanization of reality. When the great mystic achieves the “still,
glorious, and absolute Oneness” which finally satisfies his thirst for
truth—the “point where all lines meet and show their meaning”—he
generally confesses how symbolic was the object of his earlier
devotion, how partial his supposed communion with the Divine. Thus
Jacopone da Todi—exact and orthodox Catholic though he was—
when he reached “the hidden heaven,” discovered and boldly
declared the approximate character of all his previous conceptions
of, and communion with God; the great extent to which subjective
elements had entered into his experience. In the great ode which
celebrates his ecstatic vision of Truth, when “ineffable love,
imageless goodness, measureless light” at last shone in his heart, he
says: “I thought I knew Thee, tasted Thee, saw Thee under image:
believing I held Thee in Thy completeness I was filled with delight
and unmeasured love. But now I see I was mistaken—Thou art not
as I thought and firmly held.” So Tauler says that compared with the
warm colour and multiplicity of devotional experience, the very
Godhead is a “rich nought,” a “bare pure ground”; and Ruysbroeck
that it is “an unwalled world,” “neither this nor that.” “This fruition of
God,” he says again, “is a still and glorious and essential Oneness
beyond the differentiation of the Persons, where there is neither an
outpouring nor an indrawing of God, but the Persons are still and
one in fruitful love, in calm and glorious unity.... There is God our
fruition and His own, in an eternal and fathomless bliss.”
“How, then, am I to love the Godhead?” says Eckhart. “Thou shalt
love Him as He is: not as a God, not as a Spirit, not as a Person, not
as an image, but as a sheer pure One. And in this One we are to
sink from nothing to nothing, so help us God.” “This consciousness
of the One,” says Plotinus, “comes not by knowledge, but by an
actual Presence superior to any knowing. To have it, the soul must
rise above knowledge, above all its wandering from its unity.” He
goes on to explain that all partial objects of love and contemplation,
even Beauty and Goodness themselves, are lower than this,
springing from the One as light from the sun. To see the disc, we
must put on smoked glasses, shut off the rays, and submit to the
“radiant darkness” which enters so frequently into mystical
descriptions of the Absolute.
It is an interesting question whether this consummation of the
mystic way need involve that suppression of the surface-
consciousness which is called ecstasy. The majority of mystics think
that it must; and probably it is almost inevitable that so great a
concentration and so lofty an intuition should for the time it lasts
drive all other forms of awareness from the field. Even simple
contemplation cannot be achieved without some deliberate stilling of
the senses, a deliberate focusing of our vagrant attention, and
abolishes self-consciousness while it lasts. This is the way that our
mental machinery works; but this should not make us regard trance-
states as any part of the essence of mysticism. The ecstatic
condition is no guarantee of mystic vision. It is frequently
pathological, and is often found along with other abnormal
conditions in emotional visionaries whose revelations have no
ultimate characteristics. It is, however, just as uncritical to assume
that ecstasy is necessarily a pathological symptom, as it is to assume
that it is necessarily a mystic state. We have a test which we can
apply to the ecstatic; and which separates the results of nervous
disorder from those of spiritual transcendence. “What fruit dost thou
bring back from this thy vision?” is the final question which Jacopone
da Todi addresses to the mystic’s soul. And the answer is: “An
ordered life in every state.” The true mystic in his ecstasy has seen,
however obscurely, the key of the Universe: “la forma universal di
questo nodo.” Hence he has a clue by which to live. Reality has
become real to him; and there are no others of whom we can fully
say that. So, ordered correspondence with each level of existence,
physical and spiritual, successive and eternal—a practical realization
of the proportions of life—is the guarantee of the genuine character
of that sublimation of consciousness which is called the mystic way;
and this distinguishes it from the fantasies of psychic illness or the
disguised self-indulgences of the dream-world. The real mystic is not
a selfish visionary. He grows in vigour as he draws nearer and nearer
the sources of true life, and his goal is only reached when he
participates in the creative energies of the Divine Nature. The
perfect man, says the Sūfi, must not only die into God in ecstasy
(fana), but abide in and with Him (baqa), manifesting His truth in
the world of time. He is called to a life more active, because more
contemplative, than that of other men: to fulfil the monastic ideal of
a balanced career of work and prayer. “Then only is our life a whole,”
says Ruysbroeck, “when contemplation and work dwell in us side by
side, and we are perfectly in both of them at once.”
Plotinus speaks in the same sense under another image in one of his
most celebrated passages: “We always move round the One, but we
do not always fix our gaze upon It. We are like a choir of singers
standing round the conductor, who do not always sing in time,
because their attention is diverted to some external object. When
they look at the conductor, they sing well and are really with him. So
we always move round the One. If we did not, we should dissolve
and cease to exist. But we do not always look towards the One.
When we do, we attain the end of our existence and our rest; and
we no longer sing out of tune, but form in truth a divine choir about
the One.” In this conception of man’s privilege and duty we have the
indestructible essence of mysticism.