‘Good cheer, ye pious! As our god is saved,
So shall we, too, be saved in our distress.’
“The rescue of the god from death is the guarantee of a like rescue for the adherents of his cult. In the mysteries of Attis, Isis, and Mithra, the fact that the worshippers partook of the god’s life by the mystical participation in his death, was visualized by such rites, which employed symbols showing the death of the initiate, his descent into Hades, and his return. Hence, this ceremony was called the ‘re-birth to a career of new salvation,’ a ‘holy birthday.’ In one Mithra liturgy, the newly initiated pray: ‘Lord, reborn, I depart; in that I am lifted up, I die; born by that birth which produces life, I will be saved in death, and go the way which thou hast established, according to thy law and the sacrament which thou hast created.’”
In all those mysteries the central note is the salvation of the worshipper from the “perils of the soul.”
In some cases the terrorized individual is driven to the mystic state. He falls into a sort of trance. The world of fears becomes veiled from him, and recedes in a mist, and even completely disappears from his view. He finds repose in his god. This is the positive stage of mental exaltation, of ecstasy; it figures as “the union” of the worshipper with his god or goddess. It is this oblivion in the depths of the hypnoidal and the hypnotic states, it is this relapse into the regions of the subconscious that brings about relief from all fears of life. The bliss felt in these dim regions of mental life refreshes and invigorates the wearied soul. The coming in contact with new vast stores of subconscious reserve energy may once more vitalize and supply with new energy the fear stricken personality. This is the inspiration of those who have experienced the mystical power of “conversion.”
In a later chapter I take up the subject of subconscious reserve energy advanced by James and myself, independently. Meanwhile, we may say that the phenomena of prayer, conversion, and especially of mysticism belong fundamentally to the manifestations of self-preservation and the fear instinct on the one side and to subconscious reserve energy on the other.
Of course, we must add the fact that certain historical and social conditions are apt to give rise to phenomena of mysticism, the conditions of social unrest being especially favorable. When social life begins to decay, when the protection of society is weakened, and the individual is set loose, and left to stand alone, something that especially terrorizes the social brute, then nothing is left to the individual bereft of his social stays and social stimulants, but to turn inward and upward, that is to turn mystic. In his states of desolation and fear-obsession the individual is inclined to turn to the stimulating, narcotizing influence of the deity which puts the soul in a state of transcendental bliss, thus hiding the terrorized soul in a misty and mystic cloud, so that he no longer sees the terrors and horrors of life.
Such mystic states are found in periods of social and moral decay. Instance the decaying Roman empire, the Hellenistic period, the Middle Ages, and in fact, any period in which security, safety, and social stability are on the ebb, while fears and perils are on the increase. Mysticism, Salvation of the soul, under all their guises, are interrelated with the primordial fear instinct which dominates the hunted beast and the terror-stricken neurotic patient.
If we turn to philosophical and metaphysical speculations, we find, on examination from a pragmatic point of view, that their essential differences revolve on the security and safety of the world scheme. From Plato and Aristotle to Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, down to Schopenhauer, Hegel, and our American thinkers Royce and James, as well as from the Bible to Brahmanism and Buddhism, we find the same valuation of world safety, based on the vital impulse of self-preservation and its fundamental fear instinct. The Salvation of the World and the Individual is the fundamental keynote of theological metaphysics and metaphysical religion.
Professor Royce, the representative of transcendental, monistic idealism in America, thus summarizes his philosophical and religious attitude: “It is God’s true and eternal triumph that speaks to us ‘In this world ye shall have tribulations. But fear not; I have overcome the world.’” This reminds one of the ancient Assyrian cuneiform oracles addressed to the Assyrian kings: “To Esarhaddon, king of countries, Fear not! I am Ishtar of Arbela. Thine enemies I will cut off, fear not!” “Fear not, Esarhaddon, I, Bel, am speaking with thee. The beams of thy heart I will support.” “Fear not, you are saved by Faith. Fear thy Lord only, He is your Rock and Salvation,” says the Bible. “Fear not!” teaches the Buddhist, “Nirvana, the Absolute, is your refuge.”