Unio mystica

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Unio mystica or henosis (Greek: ἕνωσις), becoming one with God, is the highest goal of mystics. It is attained when the spiritual disciple has attained the level of intuition. The medieval mystics called this union with God or the Christ the Mystical Marriage, whereby they regarded the purified virgin human soul as the Bride of Christ. It was a spiritual process that took place in the soul alone. A higher stage is represented by the "chymical wedding", in which the transformation of the human being takes on the character of a real natural process, as the true alchemists aspired to. In this way, something was to be achieved not only for the individual striving soul, but for the whole world. They did not immerse themselves in their own inner being, but in the spiritual of nature, in order to then see the spiritual being of man with the powers of knowledge thus gained.

„In the crusade period, the period of the 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, even 16th centuries, there were women's natures in particular who brought their minds into such mysticism that they felt this inner experience that mysticism brought them like a marriage with the spiritual, be it with the Christ, or something else. Mystical marriages were celebrated by many ascetic nuns and so on. I do not want to dwell today on the nature of these inward mystical unions, but it was something that took place within the mind, which could then only be expressed in words, which took place, as it were, within the ideas, the feelings and the words in which the feelings could be clothed. Valentin Andreae then countered this with his "Chymische Hochzeit des Christian Rosenkreutz" (Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz) out of certain ideas and spiritual-scientific contexts. This chymical wedding, we would say chemical wedding today, it is also a human experience. But if you read it through, this Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, you will see that it is not merely an emotional experience, but something that takes hold of the whole human being, not merely expressed in words; something that is not merely placed in the world like an emotional experience, but like a real process, a natural process, where the human being does something with himself that becomes like a natural process. In other words, something that is more imbued with reality, as Valentin Andreae means with his "Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz", than a mere mystical wedding of, say, Mechthild of Magdeburg, who was a mystic. Through the mystical wedding of the nuns, something was only done for the subjectivity of man; through the chymical wedding, man gave himself to the world, through him something was to be done for the whole world, just as through the processes of nature something is done for the whole world. Now this is again thought of in an eminently Christian sense. Concepts were what people wanted who thought more realistically - be it even in the one-sided sense of the old alchemists -, concepts they wanted through which they could master reality in the right way, through which they could intervene in reality more correctly, such concepts that now really have something to do with reality.“ (Lit.:GA 175, p. 82f)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
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