Two kinds of Mystical Experience: Ecstasy and Emphasis

Let all that you do be done in love. (1 Corinthians 16:14)

There are at least two kinds of mystical experience of God: Ecstasy and Emphasis. Ecstasy is to take you out of yourself. The Greek word "ekstasis" literally means to stand ("stasis") outside ("ek") of oneself. Ecstasy is to experience self-transcendence, and often to have some kind of visionary experience that is utterly unlike everyday life. Perhaps a luminous Divine Darkness that envelops us, or a Divine Light which is infinitely brighter than our normal sight, or a vivid sense of the Personal Presence of God. In Ecstasy we experience rapturous personal union with God in Love on a separate plane of Reality than the normal and mundane plane of existence we are accustomed to. And that transcendent experience is often interpreted through symbols we know and understand, such as the "seeing" or "feeling" or "hearing" the personal presence of Jesus, or even his Mother Mary. 

The other kind of mystical experience of God is Emphasis. In this we experience our mundane everyday world of people and places and things WITHIN the infinite Love of God. We see God’s Light and Life and Love shining from within everything we experience, but it is not a Light that is seen with physical eyes. Rather, it is more like seeing a new color beyond the normal spectrum of colors we have grown up seeing. As an example: Think of sitting in a room that is completely dark, with only the minimum amount of light to make out the edges of objects. Then think about how the whole room takes on new depth and quality when the light is raised to a dim level where you are just able to see everything in the room, but it is still a drab and dreary monotone devoid of color. Then imagine we bring the light up to full brightness, and you are able to see all the vibrant colors and depths and textures of the room. At each level of Light, our qualitative experience of the room changes. 

Now imagine there is an even deeper form of Light, that allows you to see an entirely new depth and texture to the objects in the room. And this new “Light” and new “Color” deepens your experience even more than all the other changes in light mentioned so far. This is what it means to see all things IN God’s Love, and to do all things WITHIN that Love. This is the mystical experience of "Emphasis", when God gives us eyes to see it, and ears to hear it. This comes as we attune ourselves to Divine Love over months and weeks and years through prayer and meditation and contemplation. I will go even further and say that the essential element here is not that we seek to get our ideas right about God, but rather that we attune our hearts and minds and wills to the character of God which is Love. 

I actually believe that God gives this deep experience of Emphasis to all who seek to attune themselves deeply to Love, even if they do not consciously know or believe in a personal God. There are many ways of knowing, and some forms of knowing are deeper and even divergent from what we may think we believe. While Ecstasy may be tied to having a certain mental framework which centers on God— and I actually have doubts this is the case— I have no doubt that the mystical experience of Emphasis is available to all who truly seek to harmonize their inner selves and outer lives with the Eternal Love which is unconditional, unrestricted, and unbounded. 

May we all be given the Divine Vision of Emphasis, and see all things WITHIN Divine Love, so that all we do may be done IN Love. Amen.