Second in a Series

The documentary film “Into Great Silence” (also see column on Page 20) has elicited so many and varied responses that I find myself returning to a question that has long fascinated me. It’s about the difference, if any, between a profound artistic experience and a mystical experience.

Years ago, I would have quickly and confidently given an answer to questions about the difference between an artistic experience and a mystical experience but, in the last 10 years or so, the relationship and perhaps identity of the two experiences has become less clear to me. At the same time, the question has assumed a new importance in my thinking.

A few years ago, along with an actress friend, I attended a memorial for a famous director of plays. I knew the deceased slightly but was greatly impressed by his work.

At the memorial about 10 different artists spoke – actors, writers, producers and others. Their praise for the deceased was unanimous and, at times, beautiful and quite touching. Among the various virtues that were attributed to the dead director was his sense of mystery and his great sensitivity and awareness of the importance of theatre and the depth of meaning that theatre can present to audiences. Listening to the encomiums, I had the impression that I was listening to people speak about someone whom they not only loved but who for them may have been some type of “secular saint.”

By the end of the memorial something had struck me very strongly. Though it was a memorial and everyone was mourning the death of this artist and friend, not one speaker ever used the word “God” or alluded to any type of personal immortality. The absence of references to God and to life beyond the grave at a memorial seemed very strange to me. I sensed that many, if not all the artists at the service, had substituted in their lives art for religion. My suspicion was that none of the artists identified seriously with any traditional religion.

I mentioned to my actress friend my impression that the artists had substituted art for religion and without a second’s hesitation she expressed her agreement. I could sense that I was not telling her anything she did not know already.

An interesting and important question that needs serious thought is why traditional religion holds no attraction for these intelligent and very intellectual, talented, and sensitive people. In this particular column, I am more interested in reflecting on what it is in art that holds such a strong attraction for these people. I think it is that a deep artistic experience points to and touches on the same reality that a mystical experience points to and touches on: the mystery of God.

In trying to state the differences between an artistic experience and a mystical experience, I will try to be clear but, even as I try, I suspect that clarity may not be possible.

Two similarities between a profound artistic experience and a mystical experience are that each is supra-conceptual and neither can be articulated verbally. Each is supra-conceptual, that is beyond ideas or concepts. So no idea can express a profound artistic experience. This means that the experience is beyond the power of words to express.

The same is true of a mystical experience, which is an experience of the Divine. The mystic cannot use any idea to express what he or she has experienced. The mystic might write a poem or do a dance or speak in tongues but there is no way that the mystic can adequately explain or express what has happened to him or her.

The way that I distinguish the two experiences is that, in an artistic or aesthetic experience, a person is primarily experiencing the work of art. In a mystical experience, a person is primarily experiencing God.

The artistic experience might lead a person beyond the work of art to a deeper experience, even to a mystical experience but if that were to happen I would no longer think that what the person is having is an artistic experience. In such a situation a person might be going beyond art to a direct experience of God.

Of course in any individual’s life only God knows exactly what is happening. There are people who claim to have had mystical experiences and perhaps they haven’t. I suspect that in the lives of people who are artists, or who are very receptive to masterpieces, works of art may be an indirect way for them to experience the Divine and even eventually experience God mystically.

I certainly believe that great art, great paintings, sculpture, music, plays, literature, film, poems and other works can be a marvelous aid in our journey toward God.

This is a scene from “Into Great Silence,” a documentary by filmmaker Philip Groning about monks at a Carthusian monastery in the French Alps, referred to in Father Lauder’s column.