Spinal Fire Scientia Est Potentia

The Importance of Mystery…

When many people think of the word mystery, images of Scooby Do and the Mystery Machine are conjured. This is because our culture has largely lost the importance of Mystery in our daily lives and as we grow throughout our lives. The definition of Mystery is multifaceted and revealing of its powerful nature. According to Dictionary.com, Mystery is…

1. Anything that is kept secret or remains unexplained or unknown: the mysteries of nature.
2. Any affair, thing, or person that presents features or qualities so obscure as to arouse curiosity or speculation: The masked guest is an absolute mystery to everyone.
3. A novel, short story, play, or film whose plot involves a crime or other event that remains puzzlingly unsettled until the very end: a mystery by Agatha Christie.
4. Obscure, puzzling, or mysterious quality or character: the mystery of Mona Lisa's smile.
5. Any truth that is unknowable except by divine revelation.
6. (in the Christian religion)
a. A sacramental rite.
b. The Eucharist.
7. An incident or scene in connection with the life of Christ, regarded as of special significance: the mysteries of the Passion.
8. Any of the 15 events in the lives of Christ and the Virgin Mary meditated upon during the recitation of the rosary.
9. Mysteries,
a. Ancient religions that admitted candidates by secret rites and rituals the meaning of which was known only to initiated worshipers.
b. Any rites or secrets known only to those initiated: the mysteries of Freemasonry.
c. (in the Christian religion) the Eucharistic elements.
10. Mystery Play

Note the references to religions, rituals, knowledge, and secret societies. This is the heart of Mystery’s meaning and is actually the cornerstone upon which our knowledge is built in our society. If we go back in time before compulsory schooling, before the massive reforms that changed the nature of schooling, a School referred to a Mystery replete with meaning and ritual. In fact, one of the oldest definitions we have for school is, “a body of pupils or followers of a master, system, method, etc.: the Platonic school of philosophy.”

In my life, the most meaningful learning experiences that I’ve ever had, occurred in Mystery Schools. They were not called Mystery Schools, but they were structured as such. A Mystery School has levels that are attained through achievement and each level is progressively harder. A Mystery School demands internal reflection at each level upon a previously obfuscated area of esoteric understanding. This leads to personal growth in the Mystery. A Mystery School has rituals that are metaphors for the levels of Mystery and these metaphors must be applied to the initiate’s life.

The purpose of the Mystery is to promote growth in the Mystery tradition and change the initiate’s life at every step of the way. In this way, all knowledge is scaffolded by the Mystery, giving it meaning and application. If schools awakened the traditional Mystery aspects of learning, students would connect with the knowledge in a deeper way and would find more meaning in their time spent in school.

When I was a child, school was boring. I didn’t like to go and I would rather have spent my time doing just about anything else. Eventually, I learned to go to school for other people. My family valued school and they valued achievement in school. I discovered that I was very good at school and that I could gain a lot of social points for taking the various courses and earning symbols that represented high achievement. It also became apparent to me, at an early age, that if I wanted to make something of myself, I needed to do well in school.

This entire process was almost entirely disconnected to any deeper meaning and was motivated mostly by societal pressure and self interest. The deeper meaning that I did get from my experience in school came from the love and affection I received from my family when I did well. This taught me an important personal lesson in that it shaped my work ethic, but this was not because of what happened in school, it was part of the structure of my family.

The meaningful lessons I’ve gotten from Mystery Schools occurred outside of traditional schools. My very first Mystery was my family’s Catholic faith. I was baptized into it shortly after was born and I remember going to Mass and being bored to tears. Around eight years old, I remember going to special religious education classes that were preparing me for Confession. This was the sacrament where I learn that God forgives all of the Sin of those who ask for forgiveness.

My next sacrament was the Eucharist. This is the important sacrament of First Communion in which I actually drank the Blood and ate the Flesh of my savior Jesus Christ, accepting Him into my life. The last Sacrament, one I did not complete, was Confirmation. This was the step that would have sealed me into the Catholic faith, where I would have confirmed my body, mind, and soul to the Trinity. By the time I reached this level, I was thirteen years old and I had learned enough about myself to know that I didn’t believe in God and that I couldn’t go through with it. I begged my parents to stop making me go to the classes and stop forcing me to go through these steps. They finally relented when I started making trouble in the classes and pissed off all of the Nuns.

I learned more from this experience ex post facto. A big lesson I learned was that I was way too young to be delving into these deep esoteric concepts. I had no clue about any of the deeper aspects of the Sacraments and was unable to internalize them at the time. By the time I was a young teenager, I had the inkling of what I was really doing in Confirmation and decided that I did not want to do it.

Another lesson I took from this is that the step of the Mystery are important no matter when you do them and no matter what you think at the time. The Catholic faith is predicated upon the lessons you learn after you complete the Sacraments. Practitioners of the faith are supposed to reflect upon the Sacraments and glean more and more wisdom from them as they travel deeper into the Mystery. The quality of the reflection cannot be judged by anyone and is meaningful only to the person who experiences the Sacraments. This is an important aspect of Mystery Schools.

My other periods of indoctrination into Mysteries were very similar to this. When I was a child, I was involved in Scouting and I remember earning the various ranks and learning the lore and the knowledge associated with each rank not because they meant anything to anyone else, but because they were important to my identity. The Mystery of Scouting focuses heavily on the building of good character. In fact, I can still recite the Scout Law. A Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent. Each of these aspects of character are a part of my internal moral compass and they inform my emotions as to when I have strayed and to when I am trotting the correct path.

An important part of sinking these Mysteries into my being was the Rituals. Each meeting was opened with a ritual. The recitation of our beliefs was a ritual. Every step we took, every rank we earned, was a ritual. As I progressed through the Mystery, the rituals become more and more complex and more and more meaningful. All kinds of imagery, iconography, and recitations were involved. Eventually, various tests, such as surviving for three days in the wilderness with only a knife were incorporated. Thus, each step became a Rite of Passage on my Journey to become a Man. These Rites are what sunk the knowledge deep into my being and helped to shape me into who I am.

Martial arts are another form of Mystery. There are levels, there are tests, and there are internal lessons to be learned along the entire way. I have taken several martial arts throughout my life and each has had an esoteric explanation that wove through the curriculum, albeit in different ways. In karate, my sensei would test us for our new rank with a very formal process. We needed to follow the protocol and we needed to be prepared for anything if we wanted to pass. The test was physically, mentally and spiritually grueling. Sensei told us that the test was designed to exhaust our bodies, exhaust our minds, and delve into our spirit. We needed to reach deep down into ourselves and challenge ourselves like we never challenged ourselves before. The ultimate lesson was that our limits are often nowhere near where our minds place them.

Another lesson of the martial arts is that the metaphor of the symbol is important. In karate, for example, there are five colors of belt; white, green, red, brown, and black. The white belt stands for winter, for purity, for newness, for new life and for death. The green stands for new shoots breaking through the grounds in the spring. The red belt stands for summer, where it’s hot and the learning is fast and furious. The brown belt stands for the maturity of fall, where movement happens instinctually and realistically. The black belt stands for winter, for death, for the beginning of life in a new cycle. The meaning of the symbol gives the initiate a deeper matrix in which to view it.
Another Mystery School in which I have learned major lessons in my life is PSI Seminars. This series of classes is specifically designed to teach personal development and leadership through self knowledge. There are many aspects of this Mystery School that I am not able to talk about because revealing it would ruin the Mystery for all of those who read this. This secret aspect of Mystery traditions is designed to increase interest in the Mystery through suspense and it is designed shock the initiate into a new frame of mind once the Mystery is revealed. The metaphor of the revelation provides the scaffolding for personal growth and the development of self knowledge.

Despite what I wrote above about my experience with traditional school, there are aspects of school that still retain vestiges of Mystery traditions. The diploma and degree system comes directly from the lexicon of popular Mystery schools. The pomp and circumstances and the wearing of differently cut caps and gowns and robes during the graduation ceremony comes directly from the old tradition of schooling as places of Mystery transference. Schools could very easily embrace their Mystery traditions again. They could use all aspects of the Mystery schools in which kids are already involved to make learning more meaningful. Schools could embrace Mystery traditions in order to teach quality personal development and quality character skills.

To do this, the school needs to become clear about the philosophy. They need to design a series of metaphors that act as steps to understanding this philosophy. They need to design rituals that reinforce the metaphors at every level. They need to make sure that every teacher passes through the Mystery and is fully initiated. A school like this would teach lessons that would build knowledge and would keep building the knowledge ex post facto. A school like this would have meaningful rituals that would be like guiding metaphors for initiates. A school like this would teach lessons that push a student’s limits and teach them about their true capabilities. A school like this would interest students through a process of selective revelation, shocking initiates into higher states of understanding. A school that embraced its Mystery traditions just might accomplish everything it set out to do and more.