fairly but a little time
ago, had perished in the sudden explosion of brute force. On the
other hand, the thoughts of the English race are now turned, and
rightly, towards the most concrete forms of action--struggle and
endurance, practical sacrifices, difficult and long-continued
effort--rather than towards the passive attitude of self-surrender
which is all that the practice of mysticism seems, at first sight, to
demand. Moreover, that deep conviction of the dependence of all
human worth upon eternal values, the immanence of the Divine
Spirit within the human soul, which lies at the root of a mystical
concept of life, is hard indeed to reconcile with much of the
human history now being poured red-hot from the cauldron of
war. For all these reasons, we are likely during the present crisis
to witness a revolt from those superficially mystical notions
which threatened to become too popular during the immediate
past.

Yet, the title deliberately chosen for this book--that of "Practical"
Mysticism--means nothing if the attitude and the discipline which
it recommends be adapted to fair weather alone: if the principles
for which it stands break down when subjected to the pressure of
events, and cannot be reconciled with the sterner duties of the
national life. To accept this position is to reduce mysticism to the
status of a spiritual plaything. On the contrary, if the experiences
on which it is based have indeed the transcendent value for
humanity which the mystics claim for them--if they reveal to us a
world of higher truth and greater reality than the world of
concrete happenings in which we seem to be immersed--then that
value is increased rather than lessened when confronted by the
overwhelming disharmonies and sufferings of the present time. It
is significant that many of these experiences are reported to us
from periods of war and distress: that the stronger the forces of
destruction appeared, the more intense grew the spiritual vision
which opposed them. We learn from these records that the
mystical consciousness has the power of lifting those who
possess it to a plane of reality which no struggle, no cruelty, can
disturb: of conferring a certitude which no catastrophe can wreck.
Yet it does not wrap its initiates in a selfish and otherworldly
calm, isolate them from the pain and effort of the common life.
Rather, it gives them renewed vitality; administering to the
human spirit not--as some suppose--a soothing d