Mystics

(mis'tiks.) [From Gr. mystikos, occult.] (Eccl. Hist.) Those whose tendencies in religion are towards a more direct communication with God than is afforded by revelation; not through the medium of the senses, but through the inward perception of the mind. Thus the quietism of Madame Guyon, Fenelon, ., sought for revelation in a species of ecstasy. The Illuminati in Germany, the followers of Swedenborg, .; were mystics. In antiquity, many sects or cla es have laid claim to Mysticism. In the Platonic philosophy, for instance, and in the Eastern systems, from which that philosophy is derived, the human soul being regarded as a portion of the divine nature, it is held to be the great end of life to free the soul from the embarra ment and mental darkne in which it is held by the material trammels of the body in which it is imprisoned. [s. 628]