There is considerable despair in the air these days. And for obvious reasons that do not need renaming here.
T.S. Eliot offered the mystics as medicine for despair when he said, “the mystics—or else despair.” Why did he say that? What is he telling us? Clearly he believed that the mystics bring hope. What I mean by that is the mystic in all of us brings hope and medicine that combats temptations to despair. Why is that?
First, because the mystic in us is the lover, and love brings both joy and hope. The mystic goes to the edge and does not faint, the mystic faces the terror of Joy (the Via Positiva) and of Darkness (the Via Negativa) and does not flinch. He/she “launches out into the deep,” as John of the Cross puts it.
This is part of the spiritual warrior archetype. As Sufi teacher Hafiz put it, the mystic does not “hightail it out of town” when God comes along and “turns us upside down to shake all the nonsense out.” In other words, when the dark night strikes.
Furthermore, the lover or mystic pays attention to passion and the fire it ignites, the fire inside to live fully and courageously.
One example is John of the Cross, the 16th century Carmelite who was working with Teresa of Avila to reform their Order. He was thrown into prison by his brother Carmelites, and was beaten daily and almost starved to death. He had the integrity to not deny his principles.
He made a courageous decision to escape in the middle of the night and, thanks to it being a dark night, succeeded and wrote about his experience in his poem on the Dark Night. He tells us,
There in the lucky dark,
none to observe me, darkness far and wide;
no sign for me to mark,
no other light,
no guide except for my heart—the fire, the fire inside!*
Thus the lover or mystic in us is also the spark that lights the fire that ignites the warrior in us, the prophet, the one who interferes, the one who fights for justice which is the structural foundation for love.
What Meister Eckhart calls the “divine spark” inside all of us catches fire, and becomes a conflagration that makes us strong lovers and strong warriors.
Rumi, another Sufi mystic, reminds us that “the fire of the heart is not easily lit.” But when “one spark flew and burned the house of his heart,” his whole life changed and he encountered the “Heart of Pure Consciousness” or Divinity, “the ruler of all hearts.”
T.S. Eliot was right: The mystics do challenge despair.
To be continued.
*The Poems of St. John of the Cross, translated by John Frederick Nims, pp. 19-21.
See Matthew Fox, Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Times, pp. 193-199.
And Fox, Trump and The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ.
And Fox, “Spiritual Warriors” in Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. 77-104.
And Fox, “Spiritual Warriorhood,” in Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faith Traditions, pp. 404-422.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click HERE.
Banner Image: Racks of lighted votive candles. Photo by Thomas Bormans on Unsplash.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you feel a coming alive of the mystic-warrior in you at this perilous time for democracy and for the survival of Mother Earth? Are you finding allies and community to steer your fire of love (and anger) to save what you cherish?
Recommended Reading
Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Time
While Matthew Fox recognizes that Meister Eckhart has influenced thinkers throughout history, he also wants to introduce Eckhart to today’s activists addressing contemporary crises. Toward that end, Fox creates dialogues between Eckhart and Carl Jung, Thich Nhat Hanh, Rabbi Heschel, Black Elk, Karl Marx, Rumi, Adrienne Rich, Dorothee Soelle, David Korten, Anita Roddick, Lily Yeh, M.C. Richards, and many others.
“Matthew Fox is perhaps the greatest writer on Meister Eckhart that has ever existed. (He) has successfully bridged a gap between Eckhart as a shamanistic personality and Eckhart as a post-modern mentor to the Inter-faith movement, to reveal just how cosmic Eckhart really is, and how remarkably relevant to today’s religious crisis! ” — Steven Herrmann, Author of Spiritual Democracy: The Wisdom of Early American Visionaries for the Journey Forward
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths
Matthew Fox calls on all the world traditions for their wisdom and their inspiration in a work that is far more than a list of theological position papers but a new way to pray—to meditate in a global spiritual context on the wisdom all our traditions share. Fox chooses 18 themes that are foundational to any spirituality and demonstrates how all the world spiritual traditions offer wisdom about each.“Reading One River, Many Wells is like entering the rich silence of a masterfully directed retreat. As you read this text, you reflect, you pray, you embrace Divinity. Truly no words can fully express my respect and awe for this magnificent contribution to contemporary spirituality.” –Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
8 thoughts on “T.S. Eliot on the Mystics as Medicine For Despair”
Excerpt – ” … justice which is the structural foundation for love.”
Comment – not so. Love [and Truth] is the structural foundation of justice and a host of other Divine attributes of God.
Do we seek connectivity with the God within which brings not only fire of the Spirit but peace and joy? Or would we rather wear labels of warrior, justice-seeker and fighter, which are being thrust upon the faithful morning, noon and night? We need to decide the type of relationship that we will have with the Creator and Creation in the here and now. — BB.
Firstly, I agree with B.B. above whose comment about Justice, Truth and Love struck me similarly.
Secondly, my simple answer to the question is ‘No’. I have not been awakened by these present times and had I done so, then almost all the previous 50 years of my life would have been squandered. To perceive solely these present times as perilous is to have entirely missed the point. They are the consequence of all the preceding decades if not centuries of time in which humanity has lived outside the Laws of God. Perilous times are not new; they were alive and well when Shri Krishna came; when the Buddha came, and when Christ came. Surely the objectivity of life is to perceive God in all living moments: to realize the perfection and magnificence of Creation; and to perceive anything else is to do so at our peril. We are missing the whole point and purpose of Being. If anything, these present day times are merely being accelerated to help us awaken to the Magnificence of God in ways that we can be freed from the ignorance and pettiness of nationhood, individuality and separation of any kind. It is all Oneness; always has been, and always will be. To be alive is all. If anything, they are not perilous times but glorious. Let us all be Awakened!
Thank you for including T S Eliot in today’s meditation. I love his work, especially Four Quartets. He writes “at the stillpoint of the turning world, that is where the dance is… and there is only the dance”. My favorite passage is his final words in Little Gidding, the last of the quartets that begins with “we shall not cease from exploration” and ends with “ and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well when the tongues of flame are unfolded into the crowned knot of fire and the fire and the rose are one! Wow! That’s a prayer 🙏 of a true mystic. Keep dancing Matthew! 🙏💕
You might enjoy the Center for Action and Contemplation’s free podcast series with James Finley on Turning to the Mystics. The season before last was on Four Quartets. I find the whole series inspiring–as Matthew points out, many mystics went through terrible experiences, like John of the Cross and Julian of Norwich, and came through stronger. They speak to us today, and they give me hope and a sense of perspective. Yes, these are challenging times, but people have had to deal with challenging times all through history; what brings them-and us-through is a deep and abiding faith in our relationship with God or another Higher Power. This spiritual fuel then sends us out to bring love to the world. Cornel West says that justice is love in action. Let’s spend time with those who can support us in our sacred work, knowing that despots will do everything possible to quash any freedom of speech or attempts to protect human rights .
If God is love and we as humans can share in that love I suggest that another recent example of this is Alexis Navalny whose motive for challenging Putin and Co was his often expressed deep love of Russia and the Russian people. Even while in prison under very dire conditions he remained motivated by this love. And he didn’t lose his sense of humor.
The more that is revealed to you, the more you see and know what is coming out of others, and the greater the adjustment.
Yes! Yes! LOVE TRUTH PEACE JUSTICE HEALING STRENGTH TRANSFORMATION CREATIVITY BEAUTY JOY COMPASSION LOVING DIVERSE ONENESS… will prevail within our ETERNAL SOULS and among US in the Sacred Process of the ETERNAL PRESENT MOMENT….
“T.S. Eliot offered the mystics as medicine for despair when he said, “the mystics—or else despair.” Why did he say that?”
In fact, with due respect and unless I am mistaken, Eliot did not say that. Eliot wrote “The only hope, or else despair/Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre—/To be redeemed from fire by fire.” (Little Gidding IV).
Fair enough, the path of mysticism is one redemption from the fire of despair by burning the ego at the stake, but, unless the formula “the mystics—or else despair” comes from another source in Eliot’s work (which ?), the quote marks are not justified since the formula is a paraphrase.
Eliot adds: “Who then devised the torment? Love./Love is the unfamiliar Name/Behind the hands that wove/The intolerable shirt of flame/Which human power cannot remove./We only live, only suspire/Consumed by either fire or fire.”
Love, the unfamiliar name, the alpha and the omega…