A Study Of Neoplatonism And Mysticism
For many years, I have been interested in mysticism, philosophy of religion, Platonism, and Buddhism. Thus, I was excited to find this 2017 book by Arthur Versluis, "Platonic Mysticism: Contemplative Science, Philosophy, Literature, and Art", which explores these matters and more. Versluis is Professor and Chair in the Department of Religious Studies, Michigan State University. He has written extensively about mysticism, but this book was my first exposure to his work.
Plato's works are fundamental to western thought and are susceptible to many interpretations. Although other scholars read Plato differently, Versluis legitimately reads Plato through the Neoplatonism of Plotinus and his successors. An important goal of Versluis' book is to show that Platonic mysticism as elaborated in Plato, Plotinus, Dionysus the Aeropagite, Meister Eckhart, Nicholas of Cusa, and others is fundamental to western thought and to the development of Christian mysticism. With increasing knowledge of Buddhism and other Eastern religions, western mysticism in the 20th century came to include Buddhist teachings which in many but not all respects were consistent with the Neoplatonic tradition.
Versluis argues that Platonic mysticism deserves to be understood and practiced in its own right. He is critical of the modern academy for largely marginalizing Platonism, Plotinus, and mysticism and failing to view them as a way to understanding, seeing them instead through psychology, particular cultures, and history. Versluis describes mysticism and Platonism as "the nature and development of man's spiritual consciousness" (quoting Evelyn Underhill). Vesluis explains that Platonic mysticism constitutes
"the reflective awareness of our own transcendent nature, or to put it another way of the nature of transcendent reality from which, in this tradition, it is said we are indivisible. As such, mysticism has offshoots and subsets that can better be understood with reference to it, but mysticism essentially is contemplative ascent and illumination, whatever cultural context it exists within. (p, 8)
In a passionately-written, erudite work, Versluis offers a history and a defense of Platonic mysticism. He begins with a chapter tracing its development through Plato, Plotinus, and Dionysius the Areopagite through the great medieval Christian mystics, He traces the thread through more modern mystics, including the Cambridge Platonists, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and contemporaries such as Willigis Jager. There is much to learn and to absorb in his discussion.
Versluis discusses studies of mysticism beginning with William James' famous book "The Varieties of Religious Experience" and argues that scholarly work gradually detached mysticism from its universal, philosophical roots, as developed in Plotinus, and began to view it through largely in psychological terms. He discusses further the increasing dismissal of mystical thought and experience in the academy with the continued rise of a scientific, materialistic outlook. In a pivotal chapter titled "The Externalist Fallacy" Versluis argues that mystical thought and experience deserve to be studied in their own terms and that contemporary analysis has no legitimate reason for dismissing mystical thought and cutting it off.
In the three final chapters of the book, Versluis offers many insights into the nature of Platonic mysticism. In "On Literature and Mysticism" he explores how mystical insight, which is beyond language, may be explored and suggested through language in the works of Plato and Plotinus, and in various writers and poets, such as William Blake and Rilke. He discusses well and at length the late work of the literary critic Northrup Frye who once said: "for a long time I've been preoccupied by the theme of the reality of the spiritual world, including its substantial reality." (Versluis at 96).
In a chapter titled "Transcendence", Versluis explains further the nature of Platonic Mysticism and of Buddhist mysticism and argues that science, historicism, or analytic studies have shown no reason to reject them as a guide to the fundamental nature of reality. In "Contemplative Art, Contemplative Science" Vesluis shows how art, similarly to literature may point to transcendence in the work, for example, of the Hudson River School of American Painting. He urges serious and renewed attention to given to Platonic mysticism, both through the arts and through what he sees as studies of contemplative experience, or contemplative science.
I share many of Versluis' passions and thoughts, which in my case come from an early interest in Plato and a more recent but still lengthy interest in Buddhism and in Meister Eckhart together with an interest in Jewish mysticism. I learned a great deal from him. His book addresses the criticism of mysticism through science and psychology, but it does not discuss other broad issues that need to be addressed, including the nature of individuation and the problem of evil. Versluis properly points out the inconsistency between the approach of Platonic mysticism and the confessional, creedal approach of Western theistic religions, an inconsistency which probably cannot be bridged. Still he has kind things to say about most religious and their search. Although he does not discuss it at length, I was disappointed with Vesluis' brief comments about Judaism which seem to me unduly dismissive and stereotyped. He writes that the inconsistency between theistic religions and Platonic mysticism is particularly acute "in a tradition of worshipping a tribal god that emphasizes one's own people as the elect or chosen and others as lesser or lost". (p. 60-61) I found these strictures unfair on their face to Judaism and found as well that they ignored the long tradition of Jewish mysticism, including Jewish mysticism influenced by Neoplatonism. Thus, even though I learned much from the book and share a great deal with it, I felt the strong need to disengage myself from this work.
Robin Friedman
