A review of Robert J. Faas and Arthur Versluis,
Conversations in Apocalyptic Times (Grailstone Press, 2021).
Even
for those well-versed in Western intellectual history, to discover the
scholarship of Arthur Versluis is to discover a hidden world. His great
trilogy (Theosophia, Wisdom’s Children and Wisdom’s Book), appearing at
the turn of the millennium, uncovered a neglected galaxy of Christian
esoteric thought, one that could in no way be dismissed as “Gnostic”
(whatever might be meant by that sloppily flung term), let alone as
heretical. Versluis revealed that a term like “theosophy,” co-opted by
Madame Blavatsky's Theosophical Society originally in opposition to Christianity,
was in fact a far earlier experiential form of Christian spirituality
that resurfaced at the dawn of modernity partly in order to defy it. Simply
put, Versluis uncovered the very terrain that people leave Christianity
to find within the Christian tradition itself. His scholarship is
accessible, careful, extensive and original. Many who have worked
through his books, or even a portion of them, will likely find
themselves realizing that their education has been lamentably
incomplete.
But just as importantly, Versluis comments at nearly
every turn that what he has discovered, these experimental depths of
Christian mysticism in the face of modernity, is as much a personal
quest as it is an intellectual project. His readers will therefore be
faced with a desire for more practical guidance, for a more
free-wheeling, casual discussion about how to apply this forgotten, but
still very much Christian, tradition to one’s own life. It is this
precise need that the present book adequately addresses, offering a
casually written and accessible series of conversations between friends.
Versluis’ conversation partner is a respected psychologist, Robert J.
Faas, who brings his clinical experience and highly informed speculative
insight into play as well. The combination is perfect for meeting the
book’s stated aim: a guide for spiritual seekers in apocalyptic (that
is, revelatory) times.
Faas and Versluis here show, with charity
and clarity, how certain levels of approach are in themselves incapable
of extracting us from our increasingly toxic twenty-first century
predicament. Still, they do so while honoring the truths each of these
“levels” (for lack of a better term) contain. To attempt to summarize
the book, I will outline what I discerned to be these respective levels.
Of course, some might fear that even to mention “levels” of approach
would be to betray an elitist Gnostic approach to spirituality; but this
is not the case. Faas and Versluis are too respectful of each level,
and too insistent on the unique dimensions of Christianity, for that
facile critique to validly apply. With that said, here are the levels I
discerned:
1) First off there is the materialist approach to
reality, which can include the academic mode. One can investigate
spiritual and religious traditions (or anything really) from this
purview, possibly declaring such traditions to be false, or (for the
more restrained academics) observing and describing the religious quest
with as much neutrality as possible. But while this book assumes a great
degree of competence in this area, it is deliberately not academic. And
while both thinkers give due weight to the material plane—to sexuality
and ecology, for example—without too quickly venturing to the spiritual,
both thinkers argue that our civilizational prospects without spiritual
renewal are dire, especially due to purgative forces coming from the
Right, but just as much so – both thinkers are keen to point out —from
the silencing zeal of the political Left.
2) Then there is the
more adventurous psychological approach. Think, for example, of a
Jungian mode that recasts entire religious traditions in the interior
key. Both thinkers are deeply appreciative of Jung for the doors he has
opened, but both are far too versed in the history of mysticism to be
deluded (as are too many Jungians) into thinking that Jung’s take on the
alchemical and mystical traditions is always to be trusted, let alone
considered as their source. Indeed, Versluis’ entire career has done so
much to expose the (often unabashedly Christian) sources that Jung drew
upon, liberating readers to go to them directly, unfiltered through a
Jungian lens. A psychologist like Faas, it seems to me, therefore finds
himself in the great tradition of Christian interpreters of Jung
(Sanford, Bryant, Ulanov) who are appreciative but not beholden to the
great Swiss psychoanalyst.
3) Next we might describe the
traditionally religious approach that resists psychologizing, and
asserts that standard doctrinal boundaries can avoid the difficulties of
the materialist or psychological approaches. Faas and Versluis both
understand this. Still, they know that in and of itself merely cognitive
religion can also become a dead end. Both thinkers appear to be (in my
reading at least) genuinely Christian mystics, ones who are perfectly
straightforward about – for example – the resurrection of Christ; but
they also urge their readers to experience this reality as well,
liturgically and internally, and recommend unexpected ways of doing so.
The Eastern Orthodox tradition therefore is especially pronounced.
4)
Next we could summon the perennialists: Those who think that all
religions can be freely sampled and distilled to a common denominator
without committing to any one of them. Faas and Versluis see the
insights of the perennial philosophy, and show deep knowledge,
appreciation and respect for the great traditions. While they can affirm
this approach to an extent, at the same time they claim that
Christianity offers something unique, especially when understood as
fulfilling the Mystery Traditions that came before it. As Faas puts it
in one remarkable passage:
What did Christ bring into the underworld
that was different than what the earlier Mysteries had been able to do?
It’s really quite a central question because something changed in the
very nature of the underworld. Christ’s descent was not like an Orpheus
or otherwise who have descended and then in a sense came back – Christ
overcame…. It wasn’t just a pivot to the underworld, it was an
overcoming and a change of its nature forever.
The problem, however,
comes when in fulfilling and transcending the Mystery Tradition,
Christianity leaves Mystery entirely behind. Faas and Versluis show us
how to regain it.
In short, having absorbed the lessons of each
of these preceding levels (which I have unimaginatively labeled one through four above) Faas and Versluis transcend them. While “transcend and
include” has become something of a cliché, or even an unearned boast in
adventurous spiritual circles, one senses that these two friends have
earned the right to the phrase. Each of these conversation partners are
themselves conversant in the Christian mystical tradition (not to
mention Buddhist, Hindu and Sufi traditions), with a special love for how the
Christian mystical tradition was modernized with Jacob Böhme.
While a
more academic, descriptive approach to this great German mystic (and his
followers) is available in Versluis’ many books, this publication is more
immediate and practical, harboring no illusions about our tenuous
moment. Finally, both thinkers are fully cognizant of the mystery of unearned grace, but they
know that a process is necessary as well, one that so many current
churches have forsaken (but which endures, for example, in the Spiritual
Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola). Faas and Versluis, however, commend
instead the Grail tradition, not to mention Christian alchemy (and the
two are closer than one might think). Indeed, the true alchemist –
according to Faas – is Christ himself.
This is a highly
recommended conversation that everyone, no matter which of the
aforementioned levels they gravitate toward, would do well to hear.
