On the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology — trans. C. E. Rolt
The translator’s English as printed (C. E. Rolt). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
Be this as it may, Dionysius is unquestionably speaking of a psychological state to which he himself has been occasionally led. It must, however, be carefully distinguished from another psychological state, apparently the same and yet really quite different, of which there is also evidence in other writers.
Amiel speaks of a mental condition in which the self lies dormant, dissolved, as it were, and absorbed into an undifferentiated state of being; and it is well known that a man’s individuality may become merged in the impersonal existence of a crowd. The contrast between such a state and Unknowing consists wholly in the difference of spiritual values and spiritual intensity. Amiel felt the psychic experience mentioned above to be enervating. And the danger is fairly obvious. For this psychic state comes not through spiritual effort but through spiritual indolence. And the repose of spiritual attainment must be a strenuous repose,
The same psychic material may take either of two opposite forms, for the highest experiences and the lowest are both made of the same spiritual stuff. That is why great sinners make great saints and why our Lord preferred disreputable people to the respectable righteous. A storm of passion may produce a Sonata of Beethoven or it may produce an act of murder. All depends on the quality and direction of the storm. So in the present instance. There is a higher merging of the self and a lower merging of it. The one is above the level of personality, the other beneath it; the one is religious the other hedonistic; the one results from spiritual concentration and the other from spiritual dissipation.
Be that as it may, Dionysius is unquestionably speaking of a psychological state into which he himself has occasionally been led. It must, however, be carefully distinguished from another psychological state, apparently the same and yet really quite different, of which there is also evidence in other writers.
Amiel speaks of a mental condition in which the self lies dormant—dissolved, as it were, and absorbed into an undifferentiated state of being; and it is well known that a man’s individuality may become merged in the impersonal existence of a crowd. The contrast between such a state and Unknowing lies wholly in the difference of spiritual values and spiritual intensity. Amiel felt the psychic experience mentioned above to be enervating. And the danger is fairly obvious. For this psychic state comes not through spiritual effort but through spiritual indolence. And the repose of spiritual attainment must be a strenuous repose,
The same psychic material may take either of two opposite forms, for the highest experiences and the lowest are both made of the same spiritual stuff. That is why great sinners make great saints, and why our Lord preferred disreputable people to the respectable righteous. A storm of passion may produce a Sonata of Beethoven, or it may produce an act of murder. Everything depends on the quality and direction of the storm. So it is in the present case. There is a higher merging of the self and a lower merging of it. The one is above the level of personality, the other beneath it; the one is religious, the other hedonistic; the one results from spiritual concentration, the other from spiritual dissipation.