Why are Christians So Afraid of Mysticism? | A Christian Witch's Perspective
- Sara Raztresen
- Oct 23
- 18 min read
You'd think Christians would want to approach God, not run from Him.
"...I believe that the pursuit of special revelation through mystical encounters, as if it should constitute a regular facet of the Christian experience, is not only unbiblical but also dangerous."
So says Wanjiru Ng’ang’a, a Kenyan Christian who chronicles her experience in the faith on her blog, In Truth She Delights. This blog bears an interesting perspective: one in which mysticism is not a facet of Christian life, but instead one that can easily lead people off the beaten path of Scripture, and where people's personal preferences can become Gospel. Very much a warning to the "itching ears," this post, as our friend Wanjiru here is specifically coming from a Pentecostal/Charismatic perspective, which is a denomination known for all matters of experiences: speaking in tongues, faith healings in the church, and other such strange experiences. Her post is a warning to her fellows not to replace the Gospel message with their own personal experiences—and as a Christian Witch, I can say that there absolutely is some merit to this position.
After all, nobody should be made to feel like there's something "wrong" with them for not having these strange and ecstatic experiences, as Wanjiru says she felt growing up. Nobody should be out here replacing the core of the Gospel with their own ideas, either: ideas that make them feel better about themselves (and perhaps their own complacency) in the grand scheme of society. However, what good points this post makes doesn't absolve it of some fatal flaws in its reasoning: ones that bind people's understanding of Scripture, limit their scope of God, and deaden their senses to the Holy Spirit for fear of getting things wrong.
Such is a common feature of Christians who warn people away from mysticism. It's not that they do this on purpose, or that they're on some nefarious plot to mess with Christians' connection with God: in fact, it's the opposite. It's that they often want to protect people from what they see as an opportunity to be "led astray," which is noble in itself. But it relies on a profound misunderstanding of mysticism, a fear and skittishness that faith should erase rather than exacerbate, and a sore lack of knowledge of Christian tradition (mystic or otherwise).
But to say mysticism is unbiblical, like Wanjiru did? When in fact, without mysticism—without direct encounters with God, without God speaking directly to people in the first place—the Scriptures that make up the Bible wouldn't even exist? That's outrageous. In fact, that's not just plain absurd: it's outright toxic to the faith people hold. If mysticism was so bad, then why was St. Paul, writer of so many epistles of the New Testament, speaking in a way that suggested his knowledge of and application of merkhaba mysticism of Judaism? Why was He getting visions and experiences of Christ on the road? If mysticism is so dangerous, why was Joseph getting dreams from God in Genesis, and why was Moses getting direct revelation in Exodus? How did prophets, who heard God speak directly to them, even get the inspiration to speak? How did the entire Book of Revelation come into being, if mysticism and the ecstatic experiences and visions that come with them are so dangerous?
People decry mysticism without realizing that by doing so, they likewise decry every way in which God ever spoke to people in those days before the Bible actually existed in the first place.
What is Mysticism in a Christian Context?
When it comes to this so very spooky word, mysticism, what it means is simple to break down: it's a philosophy of the hidden, the secret things, which all religions contain to some degree. And in fact, the specifically Christian iteration of mysticism is what my and my friend Mimi's upcoming book, Discerning Christian Witchcraft, is all about: it's a spiritual development journey that has to do with that secret inner life, that inner connection with God and that further spiritual development. In essence, as Bernard McGinn points out in The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism, it's a process in which the Christian prepares themselves and becomes ready for a transformative experience of God rather than a simple study of God through theology and reading the Bible.
And it's always been a part of Christianity. For folks who know anything about Catholicism, and know what a rosary is and how to use it, they'll know that it's essentially "the Gospel in beads," as I've seen it described, because the entire point is meditation and contemplations of what the church calls the mysteries of faith: the luminous mysteries (all the miracles Jesus did in life), the sorrowful mysteries (the passion of Christ and His death), the joyful mysteries (Christ's birth and early childhood) and the glorious mysteries (the resurrection and the miracles Jesus did after His resurrection). These are called mysteries because they're things that happen, well... mysteriously. "God works in mysterious ways"; haven't we all heard that? Mystery is inherent in the religion, because things happen that defy logic, reason, and what we can observe scientifically. There is great wonder and awe in the mystery of miracle and divine power.
For many of the more anti-mystic folks, though, this connection to these hidden things is therefore a scary thing, because you know what other word means "hidden" or "secret"?
Occult.
And when these kinds of Christians hear that word, they lose their ever-loving mind. Immediately, what comes to mind are all the spooky Hollywood tropes: the candles and black robes, the weird sigils carved in the floor, the big black books stuffed with all kinds of wacky incantations and spells... you know, the "devil magic" or whatever. Despite the fact that "occult" and "mystery" literally mean the same damn thing, or that in medieval Europe, the occult sciences were very specifically Jewish and Christian sciences that aimed to delve into and understand these mysteries of the divine, many Christians hear the word "occult" and jump. Hell, I even get told time and time again in my comments by my community that when they were in these more Evangelical denominations, they flinched at even the idea of simple liturgical ritual in Catholic or Episcopal services, despite the fact that ritual is a key fixture of the faith!
Still, at the end of the day, the entire point of mysticism is to go through the stages of development that take us away from the lies and illusions of the earthly world (which you'd think these Evangelicals who always crow about "worldly" things would want), and into proper union with God, so as to become His hands and feet in the world and carry out His will with gladness and singleness of heart, as so many prayers profess in liturgical services. That means going through a stage of awakening, where one becomes aware that God did not abandon us after the last book of the Bible and is still very much here, and then through purgation, where one has all their old attachments and ideas of God dissolved, and then illumination, where spiritual truths become more clear, and the point God is trying to make becomes unobscured by the layers of deceit humans try to weave into and around it, and then union, where we reach God and are fundamentally changed.
It is a hard walk. It is the walk of prophets and Saints, of holy men and women who, for whatever reason, are plucked from the world we live in and taken up to see and profess all manners of strange, difficult things. It isn't something everyone experiences the same way, nor is it something everyone experiences at all—and as such, I think it's safe to say that some folks get a bit of FOMO about it (and thus turn it into a bit of a sour grapes situation).
Where Anti-Mystic Christians Miss the Mark
One problem we see time and time again with all of those who would warn us away from mysticism in Christian life is the simple lack of knowledge of Christian tradition, and again, that "sour grapes" issue. I reference one of Aesop's fables there when I say sour grapes: it's a story in which a fox tries desperately to get some grapes, only to eventually give up and insist the grapes were never worth getting anyway—that they must be sour and therefore icky to eat. Our friend Wanjiru reminds me of that fable when she starts her blog talking about thinking something was wrong with her because she never experienced what she heard others talk about on T.V.:
Growing up in a Christian household, tuning in to Christian television was the norm. There was a specific program that stood out, featuring guests who claimed to have all kinds of supernatural experiences from God on a regular basis. These encounters ranged from glimpses of angels and visions of Jesus to claims of visiting heaven and even time travel.
I must admit that while the stories were fascinating, they still intimidated the socks off of me. I couldn’t help but wonder why I wasn’t having similar experiences as a young Christian. I thought there must be something wrong with me.
Now of course, some of the things she mentions are outlandish. Time travel? Really? Moreover, I feel for her, too, because as I said earlier: not everyone's experiences with God are the same. There's no reason for one to think that God loves them any less just because God doesn't give them crazy, ecstatic, supernatural experiences all the time. In fact, one might argue that not being designated for these things is a much sweeter and nicer life, because you're allowed to just vibe and do your best and not be dragged out of a totally happy-go-lucky life to be on the whacky nonsense you'll see in the hagiographies of so many Saints and the biographies of so many mystics.
However, Wanjiru... then outright claims that mysticism is pagan simply because it has a heavy focus on contemplation (i.e meditation) to quiet the mind and come into communion with God: she claims this is a Hindu practice, meditation, and that therefore we shouldn't be doing it because God warns us away from pagan practices in the Old Testament.
This was stunning to me. After all, other religions also focus on love and harmony with one another. Should we avoid that, too? And plenty of pagan religions of antiquity used frankincense. Should the Catholic churches not use that (despite it appearing in the Gospel narrative)? Keeping oneself ritually clean is important in several religions, Abrahamic or otherwise. Should we stop that as well?
Or is it perhaps that... every religion, by virtue of being a religion, will simply have some key overlapping traits?
Christianity has a long tradition of meditation and deep prayer; it's why the desert fathers were out there in that desert, and it's why the first Christian monasteries were built. And when these folks prayed, it was repetitive, mind-stilling prayer, like the Orthodox repetition of the Jesus prayer ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner"), and it was also conversational prayer, meditating on God's wisdom and message and also receiving messages from Him, like St. Antony or any of these other Saints of note.
In fact, many mystics across time, some of which who have become doctors of the church like St. Hildegard of Bingen, were ones who absolutely received visions and direct revelation from God, and the things they said didn't always line up with people's interpretations of Scripture, but it always came back to the core of the story. One thing folks like Wanjiru and others commonly say is that mysticism can take people away from the "sufficiency" of Scripture—in which they're peddling the known and categorized heresy of sola scriptura (or "scripture alone") doctrine, a convenient (and rather ironically un-Biblical) thing that wipes away the possibility of the infinite, ineffable God's continuing revelation of Himself to His creation. Anything outside the front and back cover of a Bible is considered suspect, even if it lines up with the Bible, and of course the Bible itself is considered inerrant, infallible, and perfect (even when we have more than enough proof that it is, in fact, a very human document full of flaws and mistakes and contradictions as much as it is a divinely inspired document).
These folks often don't understand what it means for something to be Scripture, or what anything being Scripture-backed actually refers to. It doesn't mean something people say has to follow every single code and idea backed up by the Bible (because even the Bible doesn't back up or follow every single code or idea in the Bible; there are plenty places where expectations are thwarted and concepts are taken further, clarified, or outright flipped, especially where Jesus comes in). However, one thing that the avid student of the Bible will notice is that everything in the Bible takes people back to the core message of the texts: love.
Jesus Himself summed up all the law into two neat commandments: love God, love one another. Everything that has ever been said, and can ever be said, and will ever be said, by any mystic that's actually transmitting anything from God, will bring us back to this core message. But many times, mysticism-critical Christians will fall all over themselves, insisting that there's so much more to the Bible than that... when there really isn't. In the wise words of Rabbi Hillel:
“What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary.” – Hillel, Talmud, Shabbat 31a.
(And boy, that sure does sound a lot like something that our Savior in Christianity said in Matthew 7:12, doesn't it? Even though Rabbi Hillel was around a century earlier!)
So when St. Catherine of Genoa says there is no hell, but instead the mercy of purgatory, because the all-loving, all merciful God is in fact all loving and all merciful—when St. Julian of Norwich backs it up, and so do so many other famous mystics of the church, coming to the same revelation—it isn't a denial of scripture. It is, however, a sign that God is trying to tell us something that, perhaps, we got wrong. In fact, we would get it wrong, just by virtue of how controversial and scandalous the entire story of the Prodigal Son is (which Jesus told, and the meaning of which still continues to escape many hell-obsessed Christians).
Now, lest you think this blog is all just a big beat-down on poor Wanjiru, let me direct your attention to other folks who just miss a turn or two in their logic around mysticism. Some folks, like Evangelical writer Mike Duran, have such a skittish nature to them about mysticism, as well as a misconception about what is and isn't actually compatible with Christianity. He spends a bit of time in his blog, "The Dangers of Christian Mysticism," decrying anyone who would combine concepts of astrology or the "divine feminine" into Christianity, even though neither of those things are foreign to Christian tradition or art. I will admit, though, that he is right to be skeptical of folks who randomly try to throw bits of more Eastern spirituality into Christianity, because to paraphrase Carl McColman in The Big Book of Christian Mysticism, Christianity has plenty of its own beautiful mystic tradition! No one has to go scavenging for spare mystic bits in faiths like Hinduism or Buddhism, especially given that western society doesn't even do those faiths justice and often waters them down into some goofy capitalist New Age nonsense!
(That doesn't seem to be why Duran is against it, though, as you might imagine. But I mean, hey. Wrong math, right answer.)
Anyway, Duran seems to really like that heresy of "Scripture alone," and he also quotes Tim Challies who erroneously insists on some distinction between "Evangelical" and "mystic" in the beginnings of the Protestant era. Odd, considering some of the most ardent defenders and spreaders of the Gospel were... the Saints. The Mystics. But anyway, Duran has a problem with what he sees as mysticism's tendency to, you know, not try to trap God between the covers of a book and instead listen to the way God continues to speak to us everyday. He says:
This idea of “going beyond” the Bible is intrinsic to much mystic thought. However, it potentially violates both the doctrine of “Scripture alone” and “faith alone,” opting instead for an experience of God that transcends the typical restraints of Scripture. In such a scenario, the mystic concludes there are no boundaries (or very few) to one’s experience of God. The experience alone is its justification and authority. Thus, you must “Know the God of the bible… then go beyond.”
...But what if what we know about God is correct? What if the traditional theological parameters are INTENDED to keep us from going “beyond”? On what grounds can we distinguish the voice of God from the voice in our head, or the voice of the devil for that matter?
But it was St. Thomas Aquinas who said: “This is the ultimate in human knowledge of God: to know that we do not know Him.” He's too big to know fully. God is, in the words of sages like Meister Eckhart, is-ness. God, in His own words, just is ("I am that I am")! What we know about God is simply what we're able to perceive, and what we're able to perceive is missing so much. This is a key point in specifically apophatic (or "without image") mysticism: the idea that every image we can put on God just becomes another idol at the end of the day, because it cannot capture all He is and everything we could know about Him. That's where mysticism becomes so important: one has to respect tradition to some degree, and has to keep two level feet on the ground, yes... but one also has to realize that not all the pages in the world would be enough to fully catalogue and understand God.
God is everything, and to the flawed human mind, this looks like nothing. God is apparent in everything, which means He is hidden in everything, too.
For the most part, a lot of the articles and videos and such I saw that had to do with any "dangers" of mysticism (like Justin Peters from Grace to You and Kevin DeYoung from The Gospel Coalition and Wanjiru and Duran) all have a similar through-line: yeah, sure, have a relationship and an experience with God, but watch out, because it could all be demonic lies or just tricks of the mind leading you away from the Bible instead of to it. They insist that mysticism requires us to see the rational mind, the intellect, "as the enemy of your relationship with God," per Justin Peters, when in reality, that was never the case. Just because many modern proponents of a commercialized, watered down, and dumbed down version of mysticism will tell you to let go and resonate or whatever, doesn't mean that's what mysticism actually was. Plenty of mystics doubled as theologians, even polymaths, like St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Hildegard von Bingen.
The reality is that stable footing in mysticism requires a balance of experience and scholarship, which is why books like Mark A. McIntosh's Mystical Theology are so refreshing: they remind us that once upon a time, spirituality and theology were intertwined, not separated and judged on a scale of merit. Without one, the other suffered, becoming either cold and impersonal or disconnected from reality and therefore prone to delusion. They must go together.
Moreover, with so many concerns about how mysticism might drag people away from Scripture, the truth is that we should concern ourselves with the message of the Bible, not the Book itself. For all this fear and warning away from mysticism, we find more of the same with these folks: this warning away from the actual experience of faith. The actual core message of the Bible is what everything leads back to; it's why Jesus, for all He flipped expectations on their head, never actually innovated the very spirit of the Scriptures; it's why all these mystics, saying things that sound strange and unbiblical, are actually perfectly in line with the heart of the Gospel. These folks don't understand that.
But these folks also don't get everything wrong, either.
Where Anti-Mystic Christians Have a Decent Point
I won't lie to you: for everything I disagreed with in these four sources I pointed out, there was just as much that I do agree with. I mentioned from Wanjiru, how she makes good points: how she warns Christians not to replace that core of the Gospel with what they interpret in their experiences. That's a through-line in these sources: the warning to never lose sight of that message, and that's all well and good. In fact, as a Christian Witch, I've seen this exact phenomena all over the cyber-spiritual community: how people replace actual source material, doctrine, historical fact, tradition, everything with their own "personal gnosis." I've seen people claim to be romantically involved with the Archangel Metatron, which... if you've ever read the Book of Enoch... you would know is not in the realm of possibility.
Because Metatron is Enoch after his ascension to heaven. And Enoch is the prophet who catalogued exactly how so many angels fell because of their love of and relations with human women. The whole "flood the world thing"? That was because of the giants, the Nephilim, that these unions made.
Still, there are many people—be they witches, Christians, or some crunchy New Age folks—who will take their "experiences" (delusions) and run with them precisely because they're more convenient than having to grapple with the actual boundaries and parameters of the faith they claim to follow and like so much. As Kevin DeYoung of The Gospel Coalition says:
Without an outer, objective Word, the internal Word always gives way to rationalism, because in appealing to our inner sense of things, we end up just appealing to our own reason. Over time, then, Scripture is increasingly silenced, as we continue doing and thinking what we want, and Scripture is consulted only to confirm what we already “know.” The result is a cold, lifeless church, without the power of God or the truth of God’s word.
And in a shorter way, Mike Duran adds on:
Without some boundaries, mysticism can veer into potentially dangerous, unorthodox, even occult areas.
That "outer, objective word" DeYoung mentions, naturally, doesn't quite exist in the way he thinks: there are a thousand and two ways to interpret the exact same passage in Scripture, especially the more you know the ancient language, sociopolitical context, etc. However, the reality is that there are many people who don't actually study the Bible at all and just go on whatever God "put on their heart" or whatever their pastor said (that may not be all that legit, either, given how many pastors seem to just hop on a stage with a microphone and start talking some uneducated nonsense). Say what you want about liturgical denominations, but at least these priests are required to have some actual theological study under their belt.
Point is, while I as a Christian Witch understand the many flaws and errors of the Bible, and the flaws in its very compilation in the first place (because... I've actually studied that stuff and have seen the evidence of it), the fact of the matter is that one cannot just throw the Bible out entirely, either. It is still valuable, it still professes a core message, and it still gives us insight into the character of God that we can perceive and that we can test our experiences against. Without any anchoring source material to test the spirits, we have no way of knowing if what we're experiencing is actually legitimate or not. I have spoken to many spirits, some of God, some not, and there is a consistency with the spirits of God (angels, Saints) that there is not with spirits who are indifferent or sometimes even hostile to Him (pagan deities, demons). If you have no knowledge of God's message to humanity, though, you have a much harder time parsing that.
And that's in a witchy context, mind you, but plenty of "vanilla Christians" as I call them fall into the same anti-intellectual trap. So many times, people will tell me that they don't need books about the Bible, but just the Bible, and that's bad enough—but many Christians don't even get as far as the Bible. They treat any kind of study as something worldly and hyper-rational, as if logic and ration somehow detract from the experience of God rather than ground it. As Peters says:
It is a tragedy that the vast majority of professing Christians – and please do note my use of the term “professing Christians” – have come to the place where they believe that doctrine and theology are almost like bad words: “Well, I don’t need doctrine, I don’t need theology; I just love Jesus.”
But how can one love Jesus if they have no idea what He's even about? If they've never actually grappled with the scandalous, progressive, radical message of the Gospel in its entirety? Having a "relationship" with Jesus can't even happen if one doesn't put in the bare minimum to actually get to know the Guy. And they always say that: "it's not a religion, it's a relationship." But again... what relationship is this one sided and still healthy? Why expect Jesus to know everything about us while we can't know a single thing about Him from the source? What it really is, is an excuse to be spiritually lazy, and an excuse to decree anything cozy and comfortable people "hear from God" (translation: decide for themselves) as their own personal Gospel.
The problem with that is that it's just plain old spiritual bypassing. It's complacency disguised as contemplation. It's laziness, and it is easily distinguishable from real mysticism because it does absolutely nothing to actually develop someone spiritually. That's what mysticism is all about: growth into God, maturing as a soul and doing some of the work of purgation now, on earth, rather than saving it all for when we die.
And that's why people need real mysticism: because it doesn't just validate things you already believe and let you sit comfortable and happy where you are. It's something that puts you face to face with a God whose full Face we'll never be able to actually comprehend, and that challenges us to become better than we were before. To leave behind our toxic ways, to more fully understand, absorb, and exemplify the core message of the Bible. It's not something that's supposed to be easy, or cute, or fun, or something to use to feel better than others with. It is a walk over hot coals and broken glass; it is wearing our own face down against a grindstone until we are smoothed away of all our pocks and scars. It is a series of trials, and for many, even just being asked to exercise a little discipline in one's day to day life is too much in this world of excess and ease.
That sounds terrible. Terrifying, even. But again, we need that. We need to be challenged, to be pushed out of our comfort zone, in order to become stronger mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. We need to be stripped of our illusions in order to find Truth. And mysticism is absolutely a valid way to do that—granted that one actually commits to putting in the work.
So how about you? Are you ready for that kind of work?
Sources
DeYoung, Kevin. “The Dangers of Mysticism.” The Gospel Coalition, 5 June 2009,
Duran, Mike. “The Dangers of Mysticism.” Mike Duran, 27 Nov. 2017,
Ng’ang’a, Wanjiru. “Mysticism: The Dangers of Seeking Special Revelation.” In Truth She Delights,
Peters, Justin. “Mysticism: The Deadly Dangers of Trusting Personal Experience Over Biblical
Authority (Justin Peters).” Grace to You, 20 May 2022, https://www.gty.org/conferences/session/TM22-10/mysticism-the-deadly-dangers-of-trusting-personal-experience-over-biblical-authority-justin-peters.
Sara Raztresen is a Slovene-American writer, screenwriter, and Christian witch. Her fantasy works draw heavily on the wisdom she gathers from her own personal and spiritual experience, and her spiritual practice borrows much of the whimsy and wonder that modern society has relegated to fairy-and-folktale. Her goal is to help people regain their spiritual footing and discover God through a new (yet old) lens of mysticism.