Spiritual Knowing—Then and Now
Part One: Spiritual Gifts as Windows of Wisdom
What is the goal of the Whole Body Mystical Awakening practices that Integral Christian Network advocate? Is it just to have mystical experiences? Or feel peace and bliss? The reason to do Whole Body Mystical Awakening is far bigger than just these things. Any reading of the Bible and the foundational writings of many spiritual traditions will find a stream of mystical experiences providing unique knowing, guidance, encouragement, and transformative transcendence. As Paul describes in detail, these mystical experiences often happened with one another in the early gatherings of Christians. They have continued down through history in the writings of the mystics.
These mystical experiences seem to take the three primary forms of (1) personal presences or guides (including God and Jesus), (2) gifts, and (3) transcendence or union with God. We’ve written several articles about guides recently, which you can read here. Next week we will explore transcendence. This week, let’s look at spiritual gifts from the standpoint of their function back then in the Bible and how they are emerging in today’s understanding.
Spiritual Gifts Then
A form of spiritual knowing referred to at least seven times in the New Testament is what are called “gifts of the spirit.” “Gifts” in the New Testament are named and sometimes described in great detail (1 Cor. 7:7; 12:6-10, 27-31; 14:1-15; 1 Peter 4:11; 1Tim. 4:14; 2 Tim. 1:6; Eph. 4:11; Rom. 12:6-8). A “gift of the spirit” is considered to be a skill or ability given to Christians by God’s spirit (spiritually awakened consciousness) to build up, inspire, and support the friends of Jesus gathered together in what was called the church.
Many contemporary forms of Christianity functionally treat these gifts as just the natural abilities or certain things people are good at, like the gift of hospitality means that we want you to cook for the whole church! In fact, these gifts of the spirit are truly given by God, received in awakened consciousness (Spirit). They are spiritual windows that give us access to a different kind of knowing and being than is normally available to us.
Some of these are wisdom, messages of knowledge, heart-sourced prayer and song that by-passes the mind, encouragement, healing, faith, guidance, compassion, and discernment. The gift the Apostle Paul said everyone should want, and believed everyone could exercise, is speaking forth words of strengthening, encouragement, and comfort (1 Cor 14: 1, 5).
For instance, Jesus exhibited the gift of knowledge in knowing the thoughts of the religious leaders (Mat. 9:4) and of Nathanael (John 1:48). Jesus was a master practitioner of gifts of healing as were his friends in whom he awakened this ability in themselves. (Matt. 10:1). The practice of these awakened abilities is also known as mysticism.
The Encyclopedia Britannia states, “Mysticism in the history of Christianity should not be understood merely in terms of special ecstatic experiences but as part of a religious process lived out within the Christian community. From this perspective, mysticism played a vital part in the early church. Early Christianity was a religion of the spirit that expressed itself in the heightening and enlargement of human consciousness.”
Spiritual Gifts Now
These are all gifts which are still available to us from or “in the spirit.” I believe this can today be understood as our waking up in higher consciousness. I explain this in great detail in my book Is Your God Big Enough? Close Enough? You Enough? Jesus and the Three Faces of God.
In other words, as we tune in to higher or awakened consciousness, we can become aware of these channels of healing, help, and guidance that are available to us in various combinations, which are unique to each one of us. None of us experience all these gifts but rather the few which are especially suitable for us to function in.
Windows to this field of spiritual knowing have been opened by mystics down through the centuries. Inspired by Jesus’ teaching and example, men and women withdrew to the deserts of Sketes where, either as solitary individuals or communities, they lived lives of austere simplicity oriented towards contemplative prayer together. These communities formed the basis for what later would become known as Christian monasticism, where the goal was for the monastics to be in mystical union with God.
The High Middle Ages saw a flourishing of communal mystical practice in the newer monastic orders. While the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century downplayed mysticism, the Quakers emerged in the 17th century as highly mystical communities where meetings were filled with shaking and speaking forth of words thought to be from God. A branch of the Quakers in their early days was known as the “Shaking Quakers.” They became notorious because of their trembling while indulging in inspirational speaking. They manifested trance states, visions and prophetic utterances.
Quaker meetings today are held in a circle in silence where the participants seek a sense of connection. This might be a connection with those around them, with their deepest selves, or perhaps with God. As they feel this sense of encounter grow stronger, they may begin to see the world and their relationships in a new way. Anyone may speak as they feel led.
Pentecostals and Charismatics are open in various ways to the idea of mystical consciousness when they gather, but often get tripped up in over-emphasizing tribal markers, warrior-like applications, and end-times obsessions.
However, for the most part today, Catholics, Protestants, and Eastern Orthodox, regardless of rituals that may be held as mystical, there is little training or encouragement to actually open to mystical states of consciousness. In addition, the upfront professionals do all the speaking and leading, leaving he congregation to sing, read printed statements, and mostly sit in silence.
Energy Fields of Knowing
In today’s understanding of gifts, it appears that we are surrounded by the energy field of the spirit or higher consciousness. When we wake up to that field of spiritual knowing we can access the encouragement, help, and guidance it contains. This can come through the specific messengers as personal presences or guides, and through “gift” windows that are available to us with our particular make up and situation.
These energy fields that surround us appear to contain nearly everything we need to know spiritually in order to live our lives fully and creatively in loving ourselves and others. Researchers today may be looking at something like these fields through the lens of today’s science and quantum understanding.
These “spiritual gift” fields may be related to what Rupert Sheldrake calls morphogenic fields. Jessica Bolker describes morphogenetic fields as dynamic entities with their own localized development processes, which are central to the emerging field of evolutionary developmental biology.
Ervin László is a Hungarian philosopher of science, systems theorist, integral theorist, and advocate of the theory of quantum consciousness. He may be referring to something like this field of spiritual knowing when he posits a field of information as the substance of the cosmos. He calls this the “Akashic field” or A-field. He posits that the “quantum vacuum” is the fundamental energy and information-carrying field that informs not just the current universe, but all universes past and present.
Scientists have been gathering a growing well of evidence that our universe may be connected via a vast array of large-scale "structures" that seem to reach out across the cosmos, to synchronize the movements of galaxies that are separated by vast distances. A study recently published in The Astrophysical Journal found hundreds of galaxies rotating in sync with the motions of galaxies that happened to be tens of millions of light years away. László believes that such an information field can explain why our universe appears to be fine-tuned so as to form galaxies and conscious lifeforms; and why evolution is an informed, not random, process.
Laszlo states that information is entirely basic in the universe. He believes the universe doesn’t consist of matter and space, it consists of energy and information. In its various forms, energy is the “hardware” of the universe. The software is information.
If, as I understand it, the word “spirit” in the Old and New Testament is what we today call consciousness, then this is a contemporary description of the mystical windows of knowing that happened often and regularly to the followers of Jesus and the early church. The reported accounts with Jesus and his friends were primarily visionary, while the descriptions of “gifts of the spirit” by the Apostle Paul today can be seen as accessing information fields for a diverse variety of spiritual knowings.
Practicing Spiritual Gifts Today
Letting the windows of knowing open to these gifts of the spirit together seemed to be the main function of the early church gatherings as described in Acts, I Corinthians, and New Testament letters. They can be today, too. In the WeSpace group I am a part of, one woman has a continual stream of impressions which she speaks forth. They are unusually healing and encouraging for us and the many people she connects with in daily life. A man has sensations in his body that lead to intuiting what is happening in others they may not be aware of. Another woman at times ends our meeting by singing a spontaneously created melody in her prayer language with her beautiful voice which moves us to deep reverie. I often see colors, guides, and images when I gaze at the other members. Another person has encouraging messages for others and generously gives financially to many causes. We are all active in social, healing, and spiritual causes outside the group.
The result of getting in touch with the spiritual information field is that we not only see the need of the world in a clearer way, we see how we can specifically make a difference. That is a grand invitation to a life of purpose and meaning.
Our WeSpace groups are vital spaces of spiritual knowing and the direct practice of developing our spiritual gifts. If you would like, you are welcome to join one to practice yourself!