This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, fully Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein
The mystical is not how the world is, but that it is.
Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe
‘One’ semantically represents the One God, the mystical One and Monism. However, in its detailed examination of the term ‘One,’ Hassidic philosophy finds that this term lacks a certain resilience and is not as watertight as the formulators of Hassidic thought would like. In their attempt to describe a higher and more consummate Oneness that they feel is the particular nature of the unio-mystica and also of Redemption. Moreover, as the idea of the ‘One God’ is the basis for ‘Monotheism,’ it is understandably a term, that although from a mystical perspective is interpreted as being beyond division, the mystical tradition feels that the idea has been misused and/or misunderstood as a description of the ‘One God of the world’ as opposed to the Monistic and mystical realisation of the Oneness of all Existence. Therefore, the term ‘Only’ is generally used in an attempt to describe the type of Oneness that expresses the mystical reality of there ‘Only’ being God.
God | Mystical | Nature | Oneness | Philosophy | Reality | Resilience | Thought | Tradition | God | Thought |
Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe
This mystical and messianic Oneness, as I hope I have explained, ends the traditional subject/object distinction, and in so doing ends many if not all of the commandments we associate with traditional Judaism. Judaism’s eschatological fulfilment lies in its ultimate abnegation, since once it has done its task it has no use.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
Laws are maintained in credit, not because they are essentially just, but because they are laws. It is the mystical foundation of their authority; they have none other.
Mystical |
Nikolai Berdyaev, fully Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev, also spelled Nichlas Berdiaev
All the tensions and contradictions in life are, and ought to be, reflected in one’s philosophy, and one should not attempt to compose them for the sake of neat philosophical construction. Philosophy cannot ever be divorced from the totality of man’s spiritual experience, from his struggles, his insights, his ecstasies, his religious faith and mystical vision.
Faith | Life | Life | Mystical | Philosophy |
Patti Smith, fully Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith
The artist seeks contact with his intuitive sense of the gods, but in order to create his work, he cannot stay in this seductive and incorporeal realm. He must return to the material world in order to do his work. It's the artist's responsibility to balance mystical communication and the labor of creation.
Balance | Labor | Mystical | Order | Responsibility | Sense | World |
The average man seldom pays enough attention to his slight mystical experiences to profit or learn from them. Yet his need for them is evidenced by his incessant seeking for the thrills, sensations, uplifts, and so on, which he organizes for himself in so many ways--the religious way being only one of them. In fact, the failure of religion--in the West, at any rate--to teach true mysticism, and its overlaying of the deeply mystic nature of its teachings with a pseudo-rationalism and an unsound historicity may be the root cause for driving people to seek for things greater than they feel their individual selves to be in the many sensation-giving activities in the world today.
Attention | Cause | Enough | Failure | Individual | Man | Mystical | Nature | Need | People | Teach | World | Failure | Learn |
Arguments for preservation based on the beauty of wilderness are sometimes treated as if they were of little weight because they are merely aesthetic. That is a mistake. We go to great lengths to preserve the artistic treasures of earlier human civilizations. It is difficult to imagine any economic gain that we would be prepared to accept as adequate compensation for, for instance, the destruction of the paintings in the Louvre. How should we compare the aesthetic value of wilderness with that of the paintings in the Louvre? Here, perhaps, judgment does become inescapably subjective; so I shall report my own experiences. I have looked at the paintings in the Louvre, and in many of the other great galleries of Europe and the United States. I think I have a reasonable sense of appreciation of the fine arts; yet I have not had, in any museum, experiences that have filled my aesthetic senses in the way that they are filled when I walk in a natural setting and pause to survey the view from a rocky peak overlooking a forested valley, or by a stream tumbling over moss-covered boulders set amongst tall tree-ferns, growing in the shade of the forest canopy, I do not think I am alone in this; for many people, wilderness is the source of the greatest feelings of aesthetic appreciation, rising to an almost mystical intensity.
Aesthetic | Appreciation | Beauty | Compensation | Feelings | Judgment | Little | Mystical | Sense | Appreciation | Beauty | Think | Value |
Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin
In that case its influence is nil or baneful. Take Christian morality: what other teaching could have had more hold on minds than that spoken in the name of a crucified God, and could have acted with all its mystical force, all its poetry of martyrdom, its grandeur in forgiving executioners? And yet the institution was more powerful than the religion: soon Christianity — a revolt against imperial Rome — was conquered by that same Rome; it accepted its maxims, customs, and language. The Christian church accepted the Roman law as its own, and as such — allied to the State — it became in history the most furious enemy of all semi-communist institutions, to which Christianity appealed at Its origin.
Church | Enemy | History | Influence | Law | Mystical | Poetry |
Ram Dass, aka Baba Ram Dass, born Richard Alpert
In mystical traditions, it is one's own readiness that makes experiences exoteric or esoteric. The secret isn't that you're not being told. The secret is that you're not able to hear.
Mystical |
Randolph Bourne, fully Randolph Silliman Bourne
The State represents all the autocratic, arbitrary, coercive, belligerent forces within a social group, it is a sort of complexus of everything most distasteful to the modern free creative spirit, the feeling for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. War is the health of the State. Only when the State is at war does the modern society function with that unity of sentiment, simple uncritical patriotic devotion, cooperation of services, which have always been the ideal of the State lover...A nation's patriotic history is solely the history of its wars, that is, of the State in its health and glorious functioning. So in responding to the appeal of the flag, we are responding to the appeal of the State, to the symbol of the herd organized as an offensive and defensive body, conscious of its prowess and its mystical herd-strength...
Cooperation | Health | History | Mystical | Prowess | Society | Unity | War | Society |
Richard Bach, fully Richard David Bach
Everything is exactly as it is for a reason. The crumb on your table is no mystical reminder of this morning's cookie, it is there because you have chosen not to remove it. No exceptions.
Mystical |
God created one human being, who was male and female. That means ultimately all of us are interconnected. That there is one God means we are all connected. Individual well-being depends on the greater well-being of everyone. There is no separation. This is a call for inclusion. Jews see it as including the weaker, the marginal, the orphans, the stranger. We were slaves in Egypt. Our task is not to replicate Egyptian power. We are free so we can operate differently, and not replicate slavery. Judaism is a complex, ongoing civilization, in which there is more than one view. Judaism is a religion of interpretation. We believe interpretation is part of the unfolding of creation and Divine creativity. Our interpretive tradition draws a connection between spirituality and social justice.
God | History | Literature | Meditation | Men | Mindfulness | Mystical | Mysticism | Work | World | Worship | God | Old | Think |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
If the soul sometimes prays it does so with such lack of strength and sweetness that it thinks that God neither hears it nor pays heed to it. Indeed, this is no time for the soul to speak with God – it should rather put its mouth in the dust, and endure its purgation with patience… It has such distractions and times of such profound forgetfulness of the memory that frequent periods pass by without its knowing what it has been doing or thinking. This unknowing and forgetfulness are caused by the interior recollection wherein this contemplation absorbs the soul.
Contemplation | Knowledge | Mystical | Property | Soul | Contemplation |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
This dark, loving knowledge, which is faith, serves as a means for the divine union in this life as does the light of glory for the clear vision of God in the next. A person should not store up as treasures these visions, nor have the desire to cling to them. Our journey toward God must proceed through the negation of all. One should remain in emptiness and darkness regarding all creatures. He should base his love and joy on what he neither sees nor feels – that is, upon God who is incomprehensible and transcendent.
Affliction | Contemplation | Darkness | God | Light | Love | Mystical | Order | Perfection | Soul | Wisdom | God | Contemplation |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
From time to time the soul sees this flame and this enkindling grow so greatly within it that it desires God with yearning of love. This love is not as a rule felt at first, but only the dryness and emptiness. The soul then experiences a habitual care and solicitude with respect to God. This Divine love begins to be enkindled in the spirit. The soul enters the night of spirit in order to journey to God in pure faith, which is the means whereby the soul is united to God.
Contemplation | Knowledge | Meaning | Means | Mystical | Wisdom | Contemplation | Intellect |