I WANT TO BELIEVE

Mysticism, reason, and the fundamentalism of preference

Last week, I found myself at an afternoon mass at the beatific-and-brutalist Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. Long story.

Listening to the homily and flashing peace signs at my fellow congregants, I wondered: Could I do this? Could I become Catholic? Or Jewish? Or Buddhist? I’ve already “found religion” in one sense.

Does it matter that as a child my idea of “faith” relied on the gyrations of George Michael in torn jeans and mirrored aviators? Or that “religion” had something to do with R.E.M. losing theirs? Or that at our house, we didn’t practice Christianity, we practiced Christmas?

All I have to do is read the right esoteric books, not the “basic” ones like The Bible. And find the hippest sangha or shul in town. And brush up on my Latin or Sanskrit. Because I’m a purist. And decide which religion is best for my “personal brand” right now. It’s really a lot to think about. And therein lies the problem. 

One minute I’m quietly meditating on the words of the prophet Isaiah and the next my mind is out of the f*cking building. My pressing thoughts overwhelmed whatever spiritual experience I might’ve been having. My connection to a higher power dropped as quickly as it came online.

In microcosm, this experience echoes what 20th century Catholic writer and philosopher, G.K. Chesterton, called “the suicide of thought.”

(I’ve been reading classic apologetics. Zero contempt before investigation.)

And while Chesterton takes it all the way (“There is no validity in any human thought.”), there’s something else in his intellectual anti-intellectual treatise, Orthodoxy, that I grasped onto:

“Mysticism keeps men sane.”

And Chesterton isn’t alone on this one. Carl Jung, who had a bit of a thing for Catholicism himself, summed up the deep practice of it, thusly: 

“Man’s consciousness was created to the end that it may (1) recognize its descent from a higher unity; (2) pay due and careful regard to this source; (3) execute its commands intelligently and responsibly; and (4) thereby afford the psyche as a whole the optimum degree of life and development.”

Unlike Chesterton, Jung wasn’t trying to hurry anybody off to weekly mass. He was simply stating that the practice of Catholicism—with its rites and symbols—was delivering on primal human requirements.

And today’s science backs that up. Evolutionary psychologists posit that at one time spirituality provided something critical for our survival as a species. The fittest brains had the capacity to believe in some crazy supernatural sh*t. And evolution chose those brains to continue on. Lucky them.

Thousands of years later, the brain still wants fairies, sirens, burning bushes, and bodhisattvas. It wants the hero’s journey. But we’re giving it memes and infographics, toxic “takes,” and a 24-hour news cycle. It yearns for holy sites. The rupestrian churches of Matera. Uxmal. But we give it websites. I’m well aware of this. And yet I still find myself looking for something in my iPhone when I should be looking for God.

And, I’m not alone. 

The rapid introduction of convenience technologies has made things that were once personal, impersonal. Take dating. The makers of Tinder and Hinge are currently being sued for transforming those searching for intimacy, partnership, and eros, into “gamblers locked in a search for rewards that [the apps] make elusive on purpose.” 

The opposite of connection (eros, partnership, intimacy) being, of course, addiction. (The writer Johann Hari makes this argument in his watched-11-million-times-over TED talk).

As Jung writes in Man and His Symbols, “Modern man does not understand to what extent his 'rationalism' has placed him at the mercy of this subterranean psychic world. He freed himself from ‘superstition’ (at least he believes so) but in doing so he lost his spiritual values to an alarming degree. His moral and spiritual traditions have disintegrated and he is paying for this collapse with a disarray and dissociation that is rampant throughout the world.”

And we wonder why the global #mood is so f*cked right now?

With much of the world’s knowledge accessible via the phones nestled in our back pockets, we have become obsessed with knowing (logos). With its unreasonable attachment to reason, the (dis)information age has taken from us the equally critical human desire to be known (eros). 

Today, what we believe totally defines us. And yet, we don’t really believe in anything. 

Instead, we confuse preferences with beliefs. We believe a million banal things instead of one absurd thing, as if believing something that’s easy to believe has any inherent psychospiritual or biological value whatsoever. If the assertions of Chesterton, Jung, and contemporary neuroscience are true, then aligning yourself with a brand, joining a political party, or—perhaps most embarrassing of all—engaging in a fandom doesn’t cut it.

Maybe you’re a Jaquemus girlie or a member of the DSA or deep in the Sailor Moon fandom but chances are none of that is scratching that persistent, existential, mystical itch. 

And these faux beliefs are often deeply held with the self-seriousness of Charlton Heston delivering the ten commandments. At least that motherf*cker had the word of God. All I’ve got is the word of Drew.

As Jung writes, “What was once 'the spirit' is now identified with the intellect. It has deteriorated to fall within the limits of thought egocentric."

This self-centered “thinking problem” (well known to those recovering from a drinking problem) isn’t just confined to stale coffee stenched church basements anymore. It’s everywhere. The spiritual malady has spread. I’m not sure what normies were like in Depression-era America when our current understanding of “the alcoholic” was developed by a couple of guys in Akron, Ohio, but I’m certain more of them were involved in some kind of organized religion than my current cohort of tattooed heathens.

This decline in participation in organized religion—and the connection to community that that misses—is a clear marker of a growing culture of addiction.

And I 100% get the decline.

There are plenty of good reasons to reject organized religion in its current form. Corruption. Hypocrisy. Sexual abuse of children. Religious violence. Misogyny. Homophobia. Conversion camps. Shall I go on?

For those who have been traumatized by any of the above—and for those who can’t support these institutions in solidarity with them—the barriers to entry are beyond understandable.

But just because you can’t walk through the door, doesn’t mean you’re not starving for ritual, thirsting for symbols.

And a Silicon Valley sanctioned plant medicine journey or a $5,000 trip to Burning Man isn’t going to cut it. I know some fools who think it does. And trust me, whatever it is, they don’t got it. Their try-hard spiritual materialism oozes deep superficiality. They seem to be painfully searching for something a lot of practicing Jews find at Shabbat dinner every Friday night.

As Jung writes, “millions of people have lost faith in any kind of religion. While life runs smoothly without religion, the loss remains as good as unnoticed. But when suffering comes, it is another matter. That is when people begin to seek a way out and to reflect about the meaning of life and its bewildering and painful experiences.”

Nobody ever thought their way out of an existential crisis. Or a miscarriage. Or a parent dying of dementia. Thinking isn’t—and has never been—a cure for pain.

For me, in rare moments of grace, believing has been.

But whether I can make that belief “official” is another matter. I do much prefer the humility of belief to the hubris of atheism. And I’m down with Christ consciousness. But for some reason, I’d just rather it be served by Ram Dass than one of the 96% of American priests who haven’t been accused of sexual abuse. And I sure as sh*t ain’t putting these private lips on that very public communion cup. It’s just a leap (of faith) too far.

So, if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it my way. And there it is, “my way.” That epiphanic reminder that my ego—the source of all my suffering—is even bigger than the church. A 1.4-billion strong church that might be one of the only things out there with the mercy to make that ego just a little less powerful than an all-powerful God. A 2,000-year-old church that—despite its many well-documented sins—might still have just enough mysticism in it to keep even me sane.

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