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Matthew Fox Workshop

Scripture scholar John Domininc Crossan says that for Paul "you cannot be a Christian without being a mystic." Are we all mystics? How are we doing? Carl Jung says it is to the mystics that we owe what is best in humanity and that "only the mystics bring what is creative to religion itself." We will explore some of the deepest and most active mystic/prophets of the Western tradition including but not limited to Black Elk and Meister Eckhart and Hildegard of Bingen,Dorothee Soelle, Thomas Berry and more. We will do exercises to bring forth our own mystic as well.

A mystic is a poet of the soul journey who illuminates our heart-centered path of transformation. The mystic has touched the One, the Divine, the Great Spirit. Mysticism is, in essence, a common language and a common experience east and west, north and south. It is the experience of "oneing" (a phrase from Julian of Norwich), of deep union and communion with the sacredness of nature and of all beings.

In this afternoon immersion into the teachings of the mystics, we will explore some of the deep, challenging, and delightful teachings of the Western mystics about personal and societal transformation. We will focus in particular on Western mystics because they have been so sorely ignored even by Western religion. As Ted Roszak put it, "The Enlightenment held mystics up for ridicule as the worst offense against science and reason." It is time to heed the mystics again and to search out their powers of wisdom and transformationand above all to awaken the mystic that is each one of us.

We will delve into the teachings of mystics and we will also learn practices that awaken the mystic in ourselves, including chanting, circle dancing, Cosmic Christ practices and more.