Mystical transformation

The first phase concerns outward objects, the sensory world. This is drained of importance and emotional centrality for the individual. There is a reordering of behaviour and of thought processes, they are reoriented to the primary objects of the religious world. In mediaeval times, the totality of sacraments and scripture of the Church served as an object for this transition. This is religious consciousness, when the physical, sensory world is derealized and a virtual world erected along religious dimensions which becomes a new reality permeating everyday life.

The next phase is a derealization of religious objects in their outward form, even of religious myths and history. They are internalized into the structure and rhythms of inner spiritual life. For the Christian, for example, the Trinity loses its significance as the theological scheme of the macrocosm; of more importance is the trinitarian organization of the soul. In Judaism, the predominance of the "tent tabernacle" is displaced by the "inner tent" which is the dwelling place of divinity in man. So the virtual religious kingdom, established in the first phase, is transposed into the wider, inner, spiritual domain.

In the final phase there is a relinquishment of even the religious dimensions which have been transported into the interior. External aids are now hindrances and all spiritual practices are given up. This is the way of annihilation. All remnants of the personal self, all images which have assisted the movement to the interior, all forms and names of the Godhead are renounced. There is a radical interiority but no detectable content. Embracing this is the mystic union, coming home to the One, a foretaste of eternity.

In this interiorization, all explicitly Christian forms, for example, are dissolved in the final emptying.