Click to view e-book

Click to view e-book

“Mysticism is not a sect or a creed;
it is a conviction deriving its authority from
the natural instincts of the human heart.” Manly Hall

We live within a Christian culture and most Community members have some experience of the Christian tradition. However, many come here partly because they have struggled to make sense of their Christian upbringing, and are reacting against it. It may then be worthwhile considering our relationship to this religion in a little more detail.

First and foremost it is important to state that we are not in any way anti-Christian. Christian ministers have joined the resident membership of the Community from time to time. Every year we welcome many professed Christians to our courses, and even organised groups of Christian believers. Many of them view our work as embodying the essentials of Christianity. Whilst we do not of course confine our work to Christianity, we agree, for many of our members consider themselves to be Christian too.

Secondly, it would be possible to categorise most if not all of Eileen’s guidance as belonging to a Christian tradition. Although we are more than this, we are nonetheless in large measure a Christian mystic community. The fact that such mysticism is less well understood by some Christians than it might be is neither here nor there – the similarities between Eileen’s contribution to our lives and the teachings of for example Julian of Norwich or Hildegard of Bingen are evident.

Thirdly, it is worth re-iterating that the New Age is not a religion which is attempting to supplant Christianity, rather it is a context within which we can honour and respect our differences without having to give up the specific cultural and religious forms which are important to us. Such respect involves a recognition that the inability of some of Jesus’s later followers to put his message of toleration into practice can be no more blamed on the messenger or the message than can the shortcomings of any other religious (or political) group attempting to control orthodoxy.

Perhaps the fundamental point of conflict between ourselves and many Christians is in the interpretation of Jesus’s statement that “No-one goes to the Father but by me” (John 14:6). Many, perhaps most Christians interpret this as an injunction to follow the teachings of the Christian church. They may be right, although of course the church was not founded until after Jesus’s death. Our interpretation might be that no-one can approach the kingdom of heaven until they have learned to emulate Jesus’ compassion, wisdom and dedication to God, whatever the specific practice they choose to perform.

You may reject both of these explanations, and that will not be an issue for us. Community life is surprisingly free of theological debate, for what does matter to us is the consciousness with which an individual lives and works, not the specific belief system which inspires them.