What is the position of the religions of your world on mysticism?
What is the position of the religions of your world on mysticism?
There are Christians and Muslims who denounce mysticism as being dangerous while there have also been Christian and Muslim mystics. Transformatsiya is a fictional religion created from the influence of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and was formed through mysticism and contact with the spiritual being Tanisha who revealed previous religious teachings to the early followers. Part of the religious teachings include how to safely understand the influence of the spirit world.
Under the religious Zakon Law, mysticism and occult rituals are restricted to sanctioned mystics because ignorant exploration of the spirit world is incredibly dangerous and is likely to lead to demonic possession or influence.
Unsanctioned mysticism is punished by mandatory intervention from social workers of the PKVD, court order to see a psychiatrist who is a sanctioned mystic, or in extreme cases confinement to a mental hospital where they would receive spiritual guidance.
All the prophets up to Tanisha (who is a spirit) are considered mystics who received divine revelations from God or his messengers through the spirit world.
I'm going to flip the question on its head and ask something else, how closely does the religion of your world describe how your world works? Most religions were developed on the dual idea of trying to explain how everything worked and how to justify the desired political order.
A lot of mysticism is generally fought against by organized religion since it allows for multiple sources of divinity, which is something that a singular organization may want to fight. You may also have people fighting against mysticism as out of date folk knowledge.
It sounds like the world you're describing is that the religion accurately reflects the world, with mystics acting as scientists and engineers operating beyond the law. It would be akin to some random person in modern society working with radioactive or disease research.
That's a good question. I haven't fully worked out all the details of how the religion started, but Transformatsiya has its origins around 47,000 or 48,000. The latter might be more feasible since it gives around 700 years of development before the revolution.
I'm going to go though a bit of the lore to get to the part about how the religion works.
Tanisha Reznova is a spiritual being that was created in the Shadow Realm in 2004 from the collective consciousness of the Americans. She initially hated America because she experienced unimaginable suffering when she was created. The Shadow Realm is the name of the supernatural or spirit world. Even within the Shadow Realm, there's no strong evidence that the God of Abraham exists, but Tanisha came to the conclusion that He does and worked to convert people to Christianity and Islam. She has never been sure which is correct. Tanisha is part of Reflection archetype of Americans, which is things that are hidden or repressed about oneself.
Around 48,000, a lot of people in the technocratic Union of Slavic Socialist Republics on a dyson shell begin to "hatch" themselves from the endless depression of the lifestyle given to them by the tsarist overlords. They have untouchable depression they later call "spiritual dysphoria" that goes away after they turn to religion. In the beginning it starts out as a spirituality. After Tanisha discovers them, she begins revealing stories to them through dreams and altered states of consciousness. Tanisha gives direction and form to their religion and reveals stories about Judaism, Christianity and Islam and also tells stories about ancient "Merika" as the early Transformniks.
Transformatsiya takes shape over time and eventually the general concepts of the religion are:
- There is one all powerful God who is, eternal, omnipresent, distinct and separate from creation, and all knowing. There is nothing else like him
- Worship of one god alone without equals or partners
- God has an intended path for people to live that will bring them happiness and fulfillment in this life and the next
- Those who are separated from God will experience unrelenting spiritual dysphoria in this life and the next
- Association with God, followed by social isolation or socially sabotaging behavior are the most severe sins
While living under the tsar, all religion was suppressed and there was no knowledge of any religions prior to the development of spirituality among the early radicals and later after the revelations by Tanisha. When the early Transformniks explore the galaxy and find evidence of Abrahamic religions, it affirms their belief.
Their attitude toward religion is they believe it because it "works" at curing their spiritual dysphoria and creating the foundation of a society. They believe that even if their religion is wrong, it still "works" and has benefit in believing it. Many people also have spiritual experiences where they truly believe it.
Part of the teachings of Tanisha include strongly cautioning them against wasting away gazing into the spirit world. It's a similar idea to the concept of "terminally online." People need to stay grounded to reality. She describes "terminally occult" mystics as "getting high huffing jinn farts." Tanisha has to organize similar interventions as the time when Joe Rogan said that the DMT jesters had to sit down one of his friends and tell him to stop showing up all the time. (We live in a weird timeline.)
As part of their mystical beliefs, agnostic prayer is much more evil and severe and punishable under Zakon Law then prayer to idols because agnostic tend to pray to "any deity listening" which means they're likely to pray to an evil demon or false god.
Spirituality and mysticism are encouraged as long as they help bring people to the "correct" realizations about God.
Psychology is also considered a spiritual field. Medicalization of psychology is often rejected by Transformniks as capitalist and they reject capitalism because many believers consider it inevitably lead to association with God. Consumerism takes greater importance then God.
Look at the number of faiths in the world today. Look at the number of sub-groups under each of those faiths - Sunni, Shia, Sufi and Salafi Muslims. The three branches of Buddhism. The almost innumerable smaller faiths that exist in the shadows of the handful of massive ones. Consider how the implementation and legal rights of those faiths exist between various governments, sometimes even in the same region.
Now advance all that a couple hundred years in the future.
Add several dozen star systems and thousands of space stations, many of which could modestly-sized region on their own. Now think about how many faiths and interpretations there likely are out there.
That is the answer. It's nigh-impossible to count the views on it. Legally speaking, the UNHA's view is more that both mysticism and non-mysticism are permitted, so long as it doesn't prove harmful to onesself or another person. (The definition of "harmful" is, of course, subject to near constant legal interpretation.)
Well, as lapsed Catholic who still likes Catholic aesthetics, organization and some elements of its philosophy, I introduced into my world religion which is basically antitheistic version of the Catholicism. Clerics are doing may things priests and monks were doing in real-life - teaching children (useful things), fighting superstitions (every one, not only competition), officiating ceremonies, curing diseases, keeping libraries and records. But thius religion utterly and absolutely abhors any spirituality - and if there is evidencen of existence of the spiritual world, the worse, because spirit is enemy of true (material) life. Concept is that there is no higher being than human, so worshipping anything not human - gods, angels, demons, nature, fate, whatever - is heresy. There is no god figure, there are "saints" which are not mystics or ascetics, but scientists, explorers, statesmen etc - they are considered role models, but praying to them (or anyone/anything) is superstition aka heresy.