Atheistic Mysticism

Not God, Not Self, Not Knowing, Not Doing

By
Todd F. Eklof
April 15, 2007

Erich Fromm, the early 20th century social psychologist and humanistic
philosopher, came to refer to himself as an “atheistic mystic,” a term many might
consider an oxymoron. How can an atheist, who doesn’t believe in God, also be a
mystic, who, by definition, claims to be one with God? Obviously this was an intentional
play on words from a man who appreciated the importance of what he called,
“paradoxical logic,” explaining, “Opposition is a category of [the human] mind, not in
itself an element of reality.”1 As in Taoist philosophy, the human mind perceives the
world through duality, yin and yang, which is, in reality, one, Tai Chi, which is usually
translated the “Great Ultimate.” The Yin and Yang mandala represents a union of
opposites, each of which contains a spot of the other in it. Tai Chi was first used in the I
Ching, or “Book of Changes,” implying that all things have the power to change into
their opposites. This is not unlike the Greek notion of enantiodromia which Heraclitus
used to “convey the idea that everything changes into its opposite in the course of time.”2
Carl Jung explained its meaning by saying, “Where there is a church, the devil is not far
away,”3 and, “One must be a saint to have infernal thoughts. It is the pair of opposites,
the law of enantiodromia.”4

Those who understand and appreciate this fundamental law of harmony are not
uncomfortable with contradiction and paradox. They understand that life is the
proverbial pendulum that always swings back and forth. Those who can’t deal with life’s
contradictions, however, become unyielding extremists who have a hard time coping with
differences and change. For these, changing into their opposite, can come suddenly and
by force, just as many now, after nearly fifty years of denial, are finally forced to admit
that global warming is real. Those who are more open to change, to other possibilities,
can move with the pendulum, and prepare themselves for what’s coming. But even those
who remain at only one side of the pendulum, those who are rigid and inflexible, cannot
escape the law of enantiodromia. As the prophet Isaiah exclaimed, “Every valley shall be
lifted up, and every mountain shall be made low; the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places made smooth.”5 Thus, Jung went on to explain, “The enantiodromia
of Heraclitus ensures that the time will come when this dues absconditus [this hidden
god] shall rise to the surface and press the God of our ideals to the wall.”6 In other words,
1
Fromm, Erich, The Art of Love, A Bantam Book, Harper & Row, New York, NY 1956,
1953, p. 64.
2
Jung, C.G., Dream Analysis, Bollingen Series XCIX, Princeton University Press,
Princeton, NJ, 1958, 1984, p. 224n.
3
Ibid. p. 334.
4
Ibid.
5
Isaiah 40:4 [NRSV]
6
Jung, Carl, Psychological Types, CW vol. 6, Bollingen Series XCIX, Princeton
University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1971, 1990, p. 96.
 Atheistic Mysticism

our Shadow, our unconscious opposite, will eventually reveal itself whether we want it to
our not.

But this does not mean the law of enantiadromia should loom over us like a
foreboding omen. Rather, to be aware the every action has an equal and opposite
reaction, that everything holds its opposite and becomes its opposite, enables us to get
into the swing of things, into the dance of opposites, making life fun, and fluid, and
exciting when we’re prepared for it. “It is the opposite which is good for us,” Heraclitus
exclaimed, “The way up and the way down are the same.”7 Every saint is a sinner, and
every hero has an Achilles’ heal. This fundamental truth should not shock us and catch
us off guard. We should expect it and celebrate it, just as we expect night to follow day,
and spring to follow winter. For in the end, there is no day without night, or spring
without winter. That they seem different is only an illusion of a perceived duality that
doesn’t really exist. All opposites contain and create each other, which means, in realty,
there are no opposites because all things emanate from one source, Tai Chi, the Great
Ultimate.

If we accept this, then it is not so hard for us to understand that our biggest idea of
all, our notion of God, must also contain its opposite, the idea that there is no God at all.
Atheism and Theism are two sides of one coin. One leads to the other. The road to
atheism leads to theism, and theism to atheism. Belief leads to disbelief, and disbelief to
belief. Thus, as Fromm pointed out, atheism and mysticism are not incompatible, but are,
in truth, one path. Mysticism is the beginning of atheism, just as atheism is the beginning
of mysticism.

The way this works is quite simple; a believer tries to get closer to God, but, as
San Juan de la Cruz wrote, “the higher one climbs, the less one understands.”8 That is to
say, the more we try to comprehend the nature and being of God, the more overwhelming
the task becomes, until we eventually realize it is impossible, that God cannot be known,
that, as the Kabbalah states, “Every definition of God leads to heresy; definition is
spiritual idolatry,”9 and “All the divine names, whether in Hebrew or any other language,
provide merely a tiny, dim spark of the hidden light for which the soul yearns when it
says, ‘God.’”10 This is what Erich Fromm was getting at when he explained, “the most I
can do is to say what God is not, to state negative attributes, to postulate that [God] is not
limited, not unkind, not unjust. The more I know what God is not, the more knowledge I
have of God.” 11 And so, knowing God becomes a form of not-knowing; what San Juan
called not to know knowing. “This is the dark cloud,” he said, “that brings light to the

7
Ibid. p. 426.
8
De Nicolas, Antonio T., St. John of the Cross: Alchemist of the Soul, Paragon House,
New York, NY, 1989, p. 137.
9
Matt, Daniel C., The Essential Kabbalah, Quality Paper Back Book Club, New York,
NY, 1995, p. 32.
10
Ibid.
11
Fromm, Erich, The Art of Loving, A Bantam Book, Harper & Row, New York, NY,
1956, p. 58.

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night.”12 This paradox of darkness bringing light is the same as saying atheism, the belief
in no God, is the surest path to God. The unknown author of the mystical Cloud of
Unknowing said, “When I speak of darkness, I mean the absence of knowledge.”13 And
so, the “Cloud of Unknowing,” the author explains, “is about the cloud within which is
united to God.”14

In the Hebrew Scriptures, it is a cloud that leads the children of Israel through the
wilderness. And so, if we are to follow God, this story suggest we have to let go our all
our clear notions about God, and look, instead, to our questions, to the uncertainty, to
what we don’t know. As Lao Tzu explained in the Tao te Ching;

The Way objectified

is blurred and nebulous.

How nebulous and blurred!

Yet within it there are images.
How blurred and nebulous!
Yet within it there are objects.
How cavernous and dark!
Yet within it there is an essence.
Its essence is quite real…15

Another unknown 5th century Christian mystic said similarly that the soul must,
“lose herself in That which can be neither seen nor touched; giving herself entirely to this
sovereign Object without belonging either to herself or to others; united in the Unknown
by the most noble part of herself and because of her renouncement of knowledge; finally
drawing from this absolute ignorance a knowledge which the understanding knows not
how to attain.”16 Or, again, as San Juan more succinctly explained, “The soul travels to
God not knowing, rather than knowing…”17

But even this idea of traveling can be misunderstood to imply that there is
something we must do to obtain this “not to know knowing.” Yet, just as the mystical
side of each religion explains that we can’t know God, it also instructs that there is
nothing we can do to acquire oneness with God, that is, the mystical experience of God

12
Ibid.
13
Johnston, William, ed., The Cloud of Unknowing & The Book of Privy Counseling,
Image Books, Doubleday, New York, NY, 1973, 1996, p. 44.
14
Ibid. p. 33.
15
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Mair, Victor H., trans., Quality Paperback Book Club, New
York, NY, 1990, 1998, #21, p.85.
16
From Dionysius the Areopagite, see Underhill, Evelyn, Mysticism: A Study in the
Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness, Dover Publications, New York,
NY, 1930, 12th edition, 2002, p.93.
17
De Nicolas, ibid. p. 232.

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that is toda ciencia trascendiendo, “beyond all knowing.”18 And so, in addition to not
knowing, mysticism teaches not doing, what, in Eastern thought is called wu wei, which
can be translated as non-action, non-striving, and non-busyness. Today our lives are in a
terrible state because our schedules are overstuffed with too many responsibilities and
tasks to get done. We don’t feel good about just sitting, and being, and emptying our
minds of all our worries and woes. Instead, our lives are filled with activity, distraction,
and play. We have no time for wu wei, for not doing, for what in Judaism is called “the
Sabbath.” Yet to rest, to do nothing, is one of the divine commandments. Notice there is
not a command that says, “Thy Shall work,” or, “Thy Shall stay busy all the time.” But
there is one that says, “Thy shall remember the Sabbath, and keep it holy.” In
Christianity, wu wei and the Sabbath, is simply called “Grace,” the idea that there is
nothing we can do to save ourselves, that salvation comes by not-doing. As Paul is
reported to have written, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not
of your own doing; it is the gift of God.”19 Again, as the author of The Cloud explained,
“The active life is troubled and busy about many things but the contemplative life sits in
peace with the one thing necessary.”20

But not-knowing, and not-doing isn’t the end of mystical atheism. It also requires
us to let go of our notions of self, the one thing, according to Descartes is indubitable, “I
think, therefore I am,” cogito ero sum. Through science, however, we now know that
what we take as our body is merely the identification of a pattern that is being created and
destroyed so fast it appears to be solid. As physicist Frank Tipler explains, “At the
subnuclear level, the quarks and gluons which make up the neutrons and protons of the
atoms in our bodies are being annihilated and recreated on a timescale of less than 10-23
seconds; thus we are actually being annihilated and replicated—resurrected—10-23 times
a second in the normal course of our lives.”21 Quantum science also tells us that all the
matter in the known universe could fit into the palm of our hand, and that even that
meager amount is really energy particles moving so fast around a mini black hole,
emptiness, that it creates the illusion of solid things. We’re not really here. At best,
we’re a pattern that keeps repeating itself to some degree, but with many subtle or
dramatic changes along the way, so that we never step into the same river, or the same
body twice. As cosmologist Brian Swimme puts it, “Your self is an organizing activity.
Your self is not that which is organized and given form.”22 The Upanishads put it thusly,
“About this self [atman], one can only say, ‘not… not’ [neti… neti]. [It] is ungraspable,
for [it] cannot be grasped.”23

18
Ibid. p. 137.
19
Ephesians 2:8
20
Johnston, ibid. p. 50.
21
Tipler, Frank J., The Physics of Immortality, Anchor Books, Doubleday, New York,
NY, 1994, p. 236.
22
Swimme, Brian, The Universe is a Green Dragon, Bear & Company Publishing, Santa
Fe, NM, 1984, p. 128.
23
Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 4.5.15.

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Athesitic mysticism takes this notion of no-self to the next level, by emphasizing
selflessness. This is expressed in Hinduism by those who are called “renouncers,”
referring to those who give up all possessions, and property, even society and shelter, in
their spiritual quest. Jesus, though not a Hindu as far as we know, was a renouncer who,
in his words, had “nowhere to lay his head,” and instructed his disciples not to carry
money, or food, or extra clothes, or worry about where they’ll live. People like Mother
Teresa, who spent her entire life living in poverty with the poor people of Calcutta was a
renouncer, as were men like Gandhi and King who ultimately gave up their lives for the
good of all.

The not-self of atheistic mysticism is about letting go, and letting be. Just as we
attach ourselves to our ideas, and our activities, we attach ourselves to our own sense of
self by identifying too closely with what we do and think. In Buddhism this is called
trishna, or clinging to life, which is the cause of suffering and keeps us caught up in the
spell of maya, illusion, and the samsara, the endless round of birth and death. In physics,
samsara, is the pattern that keeps repeating itself to create the illusion of our bodies, the
endless cycle of birth and death, resurrection at the rate of 10-23 seconds. Atheistic
mysticism is about letting go of our illusionary self, of our egotistical associations with
our bodies, our thoughts and our activities. So, in the end, atheism is not merely the lack
of belief in God, it is the beginning of the path toward God. It is a mystical path of not-
God, not-knowing, not-doing, and not-being.