Tool Box Mysticism (or, How To Create a Personalized, Results-Oriented Spiritual Practice)

I was a Christian for 30+ years.

I hold no ill-will towards people who still are Christians, see the possibility of deep spiritual experience with the faith, and am happy when I see the actual ethics that Jesus taught being lived out in public — but Christianity, as interpreted by the modern church just wasn’t for me anymore.

So what then? What harbor in the storm of the 21st century exist for a refugee from America’s chosen and traditional religion.

A lot, actually.

My first stop, as a wide-eyed apostate was atheism. I was never really enamored with it as a world view, but after so long, living at the heart of Christianity, I thought I’d see how the other half live.

It wasn’t for me. I know and respect a lot of atheists. If I watch a video of Christopher Hitchens debating a representative of the church, I always root for Hitchens (He was so charming, I usually even rooted for him when I still believed, though). At the end of the day, and maybe this was how deep my Christian roots ran, I still believe in an enchanted world. And I realize, a well-informed belief in science and rationality are capable of providing a good deal of awe and, ideally, should be able to occupy a person for the rest of their life with wonder and puzzlement. But, that’s different than enchantment. That’s different than the feeling you get, when a lack of scientific answers leaves you feeling like there must be something else — something immeasurable, something intentional, out there, beyond our senses. I know that will sound unintelligent and maybe even superstitious to some, and I’m okay with that. I am aggressively agnostic. I refuse to say I do know if I can’t know.

With atheism put in the throw-away pile, next to Christianity, my next stop was an attempt to marry the best aspects of the two. I borrowed a phrase from one of my heroes, Joseph Campbell. I read Campbell, somewhere (and for the life of me, I can’t find where. God, did I make it up?) refer to himself as a rational transcendentalist.

Rational referring to his belief in science and his unwillingness to completely distrust the evidence of his senses. Transcendentalist because life had taught him there was more to this world than what those senses showed him. That, to me felt like a good compromise. Trust your eyes and ears when they show you something, but recognize they’re not infallible.

Some days, I find myself still consciously choosing this path. Most days, I probably hew pretty close to it, consciously or not. Actively departing from it takes intention. I believe most religious people are rational transcendentalists, at heart. Whatever their worldview, it sits comfortably on the shelf next to a healthy dose of scientific thinking (or some version of it). But I no longer choose it as a self-descriptor. Probably because it so accurately describes so many believers of all faiths — so many of us believe in something larger than the material but lack the faculties to accept it on its own terms when we encounter it — that it stopped seeming like a meaningful description. It described a certain aspect of my thinking very well but didn’t really tell you anything about me. Does that make sense?

Moving on, I studied Buddhism, in a non-committal fashion, I think, sensing, despite my great respect for what I knew of it, it wasn’t really going to fit. There seems like, to me, an inherent pessimism in the idea that life is suffering. I also imagine the Buddhism easily available to most westerners is probably pretty different from a true Eastern practice. It necessarily has to go through changes from culture to culture.

I even dabbled in ceremonial magick for a time — studying the works of folks like Aleister Crowly and Israel Regardie. At the end of the day, I found the tradition to be too full of edge lords and drama queens. The community was a poor fit. Self-initiation and a solo-practice remained options, but at that point, I was starting to feel called to something else.

I noticed here, bouncing between traditions, I was motivated by a desire for some kind of structure — some kind of framework to give my life a sense of spiritual meaning but also, I was motivated by, what felt like, an unhealthy desire to label myself. I needed a sticker to put on the box — a description to put in my social media profiles?

Where did that come from? Why was I so on fire to categorize and catalog myself. I think there’s something dehumanizing and unhealthy about this need — certainly when we do it to others — when we insist on having a category to put everyone in, but certainly when we do it to ourselves as well.

Walt Whitman, famously said, “I contain multitudes.” He and his fellow early American transcendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson both wrote about the idea that it’s okay to contradict ourselves — even in public. Thinking one thing, at one time, does not obligate you to always think that. We have the divine right and ability to change our minds — even when it comes to religion, spirituality, and cosmology. We don’t need to be in a hurry to label ourselves.

Even as I say that I am writing this piece to tell you of a new label I’ve given myself. But this one is a label designed not to box me in but, instead, was created with an eye towards a multi-faceted way of being and believing.

I give you my new designation — Toolbox Mystic.

Mystic because I think it’s the best descriptor of someone pursuing a deep spiritual practice. To me, it alludes to someone dedicated to seeing a world beyond that revealed to us by our senses. A mystic is someone who believes there’s more to be experienced, in the world than the stuff we see, hear, smell, and feel.

Toolbox because I know it’s where you keep stuff that works — stuff that has a specific job or accomplishes a certain task. You have a toolbox because when a thing works — when it does the job you need it to do, you don’t throw it out — you keep it within reach for when you might need it again.

While I don’t read the Bible with the same eyes that I used to, I find a lot of the religious symbols in those particular scriptures to be rich and full of meaning, so they go in the box.

The idea of mindfulness from Buddhism — the idea that if we stay consciously engaged with what we’re doing instead of letting our unconscious run our body while our conscious mind jumps from topic to topic is, I think, one of the best lessons anyone could learn anywhere. So, it stays in the box.

Many of the rituals I learned to do in ceremonial magick give me a way of acting out and embodying physically, what I believe is also happening on a higher plane of existence. That keeps me mindful of the Hermetic principle, “as above, so below.” So that stays in the box.

I could go on, but I hope you get the point.

Pragmatic in nature? Yes. Pluralistic? For sure. Kind of mercenary? If you say so.

At this point in my life, I’m looking for a result-oriented spirituality more than I’m looking for dogma. Give me what works — not what someone else says I should do.

I’m not starting a cult or a church or anything, but I hope reading this might encourage other people to create their own practice; to create a mystical toolbox of their own — a toolbox filled with what works.

And a big throw-away pile of what doesn’t.