Post 7 – The Challenges of Evolutionary Mysticism: Beyond Nihilism

The Revival of Christian Mysticism

Christian mysticism is experiencing a remarkable revival, expanding beyond monastic traditions and finding resonance among lay practitioners. This resurgence has been championed by figures like Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating, Richard Rohr, Cynthia Bourgeault, and others who have reinvigorated ancient practices such as contemplative prayer and meditation. These disciplines invite practitioners to transcend the empirical self and engage directly with the divine—variously understood as the Ground of Being, God, or the transcendental self—fostering profound spiritual connections that often surpass traditional religious boundaries.

This new wave of mysticism draws not only from monastic roots but also from contemporary intellectual and scientific thought. Influential figures such as Ken Wilber, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and Carl Jung have introduced developmental, evolutionary, and psychological models into spiritual discourse. These frameworks bridge ancient wisdom with modern sensibilities, offering tools to understand spiritual experiences in an age where traditional religious narratives frequently fail to resonate.

However, while these intellectual currents have helped integrate spirituality into contemporary contexts, they have also introduced significant challenges. Chief among these is their reliance on an evolutionary perspective that frames spiritual development as a linear progression through time. This view aligns with materialistic philosophies that emphasize temporality and change, yet it obscures the timeless and unchanging nature of Being. A deeper examination of how these frameworks conceptualize time reveals critical contradictions.

Rethinking Time in Spiritual Development

Central to modern mystical frameworks is the idea that spiritual growth unfolds over time, progressing through defined stages of development. While this perspective appeals to the rational mind, it implies that enlightenment, salvation, or spiritual fulfillment are distant goals, achievable only in the future. This fosters restless striving, as practitioners pursue an ideal perpetually out of reach. Spiritual leaders, often elevated as gurus or masters, may inadvertently reinforce this illusion by offering techniques and methods promising progress without fully revealing the eternal nature of Being as ever-present.

Cynthia Bourgeault has been a prominent voice challenging this narrative. Drawing on the work of Swiss philosopher Jean Gebser, she highlights contradictions in how time is understood within these frameworks. Gebser introduced the concept of diaphaneity—the transparency of time—arguing that time is not linear or sequential but integral and transparent. In his view, all structures of consciousness—archaic, magic, mythical, mental, and integral—coexist simultaneously. Integral consciousness enables individuals to perceive this co-presence, dissolving the misconception of sequential spiritual development.

Gebser’s insights challenge the assumption that spiritual progress requires moving through distinct stages over time. Instead, they reveal that all aspects of consciousness and Being coexist eternally. While Ken Wilber’s integral theory borrows heavily from Gebser’s framework, it emphasizes evolution and progression, leaving Gebser’s deeper notion of time underexplored. Gebser’s philosophy, however, dismantles the foundation of developmental spiritual paradigms by affirming the timeless nature of Being.

Philosopher Emanuele Severino extends this critique further, rejecting the very notion of becoming. Severino contends that time is not a process through which entities emerge from and return to nothingness. Instead, time is the eternal manifestation of Being, where all entities coexist in their essence without change or contingency. For Severino, the concept of becoming—central to both materialistic and evolutionary thought—is inherently nihilistic, as it presupposes that entities arise from and return to nothingness, a logical impossibility. His ontology affirms the eternal presence of all that exists, challenging the foundational assumptions of modern mysticism.

The Nihilistic Trap of Evolutionary Mysticism

The evolutionary perspective underlying much of modern mysticism carries an implicit nihilism, emphasizing transformation, becoming, and contingency. If spiritual fulfillment is framed as the product of a temporal process, it remains perpetually absent until that process concludes. This perspective casts a shadow over the present, implying that the truth, enlightenment, or salvation practitioners seek is always out of reach—a contradiction that fosters endless striving and dissatisfaction.

This framework aligns with a materialistic worldview that reduces existence to physical processes of transformation and dismisses the transcendental. Materialism, with its focus on temporality and change, parallels the evolutionary perspective but perpetuates the nihilistic notion that entities arise from and return to nothingness.

Figures like Teilhard de Chardin and Ken Wilber sought to counter materialism and preserve transcendence by integrating spirituality into evolutionary models. Teilhard envisioned spiritual progress as part of a cosmic evolution toward greater unity and transcendence, synthesizing Christian theology with Darwinian evolution. Similarly, Wilber’s integral theory mapped human and historical development as an ascending trajectory toward enlightenment. Both thinkers offered compelling alternatives to reductive materialism, preserving the transcendental dimension of human experience.

However, by framing spiritual development as a process of transformation, these frameworks perpetuated the nihilism they sought to overcome. Just as early Christianity absorbed Greek philosophical elements, importing nihilism into its theology and concept of creation ex nihilo, modern mysticism inherits a similar problem through its embrace of evolutionary time.

Severino’s Ontology: A Path Beyond Nihilism

Severino’s ontology offers a way beyond this impasse. By rejecting transformation, Severino affirms the eternal and immutable presence of Being. From this perspective, there are no causal relations; spiritual practices like meditation and contemplative prayer do not lead to realization but coexist as simultaneous expressions of timeless Being. This view dissolves the illusion of progress, revealing the inherent completeness and sufficiency of existence in every moment as it unfolds its timeless, integral totality.

To overcome nihilism, both Christianity and modern mysticism must relinquish their reliance on evolutionary time. Redemption, enlightenment, and spiritual fulfillment are not distant goals but eternal realities, already present within the structure of Being. Recognizing this allows us to transcend the contradictions of transformation and contingency, recovering a spirituality grounded in the eternal and authentic essence of Being.