The Unity of Mystical Traditions: The Transformation of Consciousness in Tibet an and German Mysticism.

THE UNITY OF MYSTICAL TRADITIONS: THE TRANSFORMATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN TIBET AN AND GERMAN MYSTICISM. By Randall Studstill. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2005. Pp. xii + 304. Cloth, $127.00.

This book is a revised doctoral dissertation (PhD [2002] in Religious Studies from The Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA) published in the Brill series of Studies in the History of Religions. In all the major religions of the world, certain individuals are identified as mystics. Their encounters with ultimate reality (God, Vis.n.u, the Tao, etc.) are called mystical experiences. Thus mysticism includes the experiences, traditions, rituals, etc. that comprise the various religious paths these mystic pursue to gain their non-ordinary experience.

Chapter One is actually the introduction. It introduces a mystical pluralist theory of mysticism in hopes of breaking the contemporary impasse in the philosophical study of mysticism. Two competing theoretical approaches offer contrasting explanations. Essentialism holds that there is an unchanging core experience across cultures, while constructivism or contextualism claims that a mystical phenomenon is the product of its historical, cultural, and religious context. Mystical pluralism is an essentialist approach whose thesis is that mystical traditions cause common transformative processes in the consciousness of mystics which gives them a more sensitized knowledge or awareness of the Real, the One, etc.

Studsfill adopts a systems theory approach to the study of the transformative processes of the mind because it is capable of bridging the gap between competing worldviews by making spiritually intelligible the doctrines and practices of mystical traditions in the context of modern scientific discourse. His core thesis (in line with contemporary cognitive neuroscience) is that all mystical paths serve to decondition the structures of ordinary consciousness. Mystical pluralism goes further and explores the ways in which mystical doctrines and practices cause transformation, and what this transformation involves.

Chapter Two offers an extensive critique of constructivism which denies pure or unmediated experiences. The focus of this critique is Steven T. Katz, a leading proponent. According to this approach, there is no universal mystical experience. Each is conditioned by the mystic's culture and religious tradition. The critique is thorough and honest. While admitting that the conditioned and contextual aspects of constructivism are a corrective to essentialists, in the long run constructivism is a monolithic hypothesis which allows for no exceptions. Hence, even one piece of anomalous data suffices to disprove it.

Chapter Three presents a systems approach to the study of consciousness, the methodology that Studstill will apply to two specific traditions. Though the model typically used to study consciousness is psychological and/or epistemological, a systems approach has been increasingly recommended and used to interpret psychological phenomena such as visual pattern recognition, personality theory, attention, perception, neurophysiology, and belief systems among many others. The mind is the entire system of mental, emotional, and behavioral variables that constructs and defends a slate of consciousness.

Chapter Four uses the systems approach to analyze the doctrine and practice in the Dzogchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, and Chapter Five applies the same model to analyzing the doctrine and practice of the medieval German mysticism of Meisler Eckhart, Henry Suso, and John Tauler (13th-14th centuries). In both cases, Studstill argues that the mind is a system of factors and processes that constructs a dualistic state of consciousness at both perceptual and evaluative levels. The doctrine and practice of both mystical traditions assault that dualistic state in order that the person can experience the Real as unconditioned Unity. All forms of duality separate one from the Real, from experiencing the Unity. Chapter Six draws clear and convincing conclusions from the study explaining how mystical pluralism and the systems theory demonstrate the unity of mystical traditions.

While readers of Biblical Theology Bulletin interested primarily in the Bible are not likely to be interested or to persevere in reading this successful, tightly reasoned but very technical book, Studstill makes two indirect contributions to biblical studies. First, he confirms the value of systems theory (and two sub-fields: cybernetics and dynamical systems theory) as a theoretical hermeneutical framework. In biblical studies, this model is used to great effect by K.C. Hanson and Douglas E. Oakman in Palestine in the Time of Jesus (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998). Second, he adds yet another model that supplements and confirms the insights of those from psychological anthropology and cognitive neuroscience in analyzing the direct and unmediated experiences of God recounted in the Bible (see John J. Pilch, Visions and Healing in the Acts of the Apostles: How the Early Believers Experienced God [Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2004]).

John J. Pilch

Georgetown University

Washington, DC 20057