On the Mystical Logic of Howard Thurman

by Darian Spearman

I first would like to thank Dr. Anthony Neal for his work explicating the philosophical elements of Howard Thurman’s work. I had heard of Thurman before, but I had never read any of his work until the opportunity to review Neal’s Howard Thurman’s Philosophical Mysticism: Love against Fragmentation. I was certainly intrigued by the title of Neil’s book, but I never expected I would have the spiritual and intellectual connection with Thurman that I now have. When asked about the book by my doctoral advisor, I remember saying, “I wish I had discovered him earlier in my life.”

There are so few resources available on Black Mysticism in our education systems. I’m glad I was able to encounter another sign of confirmation through the work of Neal and Thurman.

I now shift to Neal’s discussion of Thurman on mysticism and logic. Neal begins by distinguishing mystic existence from mysticism.  By “mystic existence,” I take him to mean the experiences and states of being that allow for kinds of direct perception of reality that are unavailable to ordinary consciousness. “Mysticism,” on the other hand, refers to the philosophical stance that the diversity of phenomena observed in the cosmos is but a veil concealing the true unified nature of reality.

Neal states that while it may seem like mysticism and logic are in opposition to each other, the lack of philosophical work intertwining the two is more a testament to the Western philosophical tradition’s aggrandizement of logic and deep skepticism of intuition (the chief perceptual tool of mysticism).  Thurman was not deterred by this bias and drew upon the work of Baruch Spinoza, Henri Bergson, and T. Hywel Hughes to develop a framework in which the unity of reality he intuited via mysticism could illuminate logics through which life unfurls throughout the universe, bringing the cosmos into ever-greater harmony with itself.

Neal presents the following as the logical framework for Thurman’s overarching argument:

1. Creation exists in the mind of God; therefore existence is whole or one
2. Existing in the mind of God causes the interconnectivity of all things
3. Life emanates from the mind of God and, as such, this is a living world
4. Life is also alive, and as expressions of life, we, too, are alive
5. Within life exits the foundation of the connection to the mind of God
6. Humans also exist in the mind of God and reflect the consciousness (intent) and creativity (possibility) of the mind of God
7. Through consciousness, human realize, owing to intuition, an internal connection to an existence beyond themselves
8. Therefore, in order to actualize our greatest possibility, whether as an individual or community, we must realize our internal nature in the external world

I think this formulation captures the structure of Thurman’s argument well, but I think there are some elements of Thurman’s mystical logic, and perhaps mystical logic proper, that are mentioned elsewhere in the chapter that provide even more evidence of the unique fruits to be derived from Thurman’s mystical logic.

The first element is that Thurman’s mystical logic is one of multiplicity. Neal argues that the awareness of cosmic unity articulated by Thurman does not imply that there is a single vantage point from which to perceive, experience, and create within the cosmos.  Rather, the dynamic multiplicity of existence is to be combined with the aim of harmonious advancement toward the good, which is also perceived as love.

A question remains, however. If the multiplicity of life is something to be protected rather than converted into a single perspective, how is unity to be achieved?

I think there is an answer to be found in Thurman’s The Search for Common Ground, in the chapter “The Search in Common Consciousness.”  In that chapter, Thurman argues that because all forms of life use similar devices and mechanisms to develop themselves, living things do not merely have common origins and common participation in consciousness but also have levels of communication that tend toward harmonious coexistence. Thurman states that various creation stories of the world take the fact of communication between all living things for granted, for it is

the logic of the process that brought life into being in the first place. What men have discovered throughout the ages is that not only is there an affinity that the mind has for the external world, but also that there is an affinity between man’s own consciousness and the many forms of consciousness around him.

That is to say there is the possibility for different forms of life to participate in a certain general consciousness together.

An important question arises here. What is the logic of which Thurman speaks? It could not be a logic that is too formalized, for we are not able to share experience with non-human organisms through it.

I would argue that this logic is the logic of communication. Communication, derived form the Latin word communicare, which means “to join with or to share,” now generally refers to the sharing of information or to make another organism or interpretive entity aware of something, but what is most important is that information is shared with another entity. All across nature we see that the ability for organisms to communicate with, or at least in some instances not be in collision with, one another is an essential feature of any stable and harmonious ecosystem. That is to say, in order for life to survive and become more complex, it must be able to reach out to other forms of life.

The mystic understands that because we come from a common origin, the capacity for one form of life to communicate with another can be deepened to the extent that different species can communicate deeply with one another. Thurman gives several examples (a girl with a snake, monkeys praying, a bishop with warthogs).  Thus, the “logic” in question is the process by which the inferiority of one form of life can be accessed by and or shared with another form of life.

The second important point Neal makes is that Thurman’s mystical logic is dialectical. He states that “Thurman, through his mystical logic, produced a dialectic aimed at demonstrating the necessity of communal experience for the individual and the necessity of particular communities to be in community with other particular communities, consequently forming much larger communities, such as nations.” However, in order for Thurman’s logic of multiplicity to hold the reverse process must also be true. The larger forms of community are strengthened in scale with the depth and richness of the inner life of each individual. This means that for Thurman mysticism at its best is a social process in which one is always attuned to the possibility of harmony between individuals who are in a constant state of growth and deepening of their experience.

Community allows the individual to enlarge their sense of self and cosmic awareness. Individuals, as they discover new methods of living and experiencing, in turn create new possibilities for its manifestation, which can then in turn improve or shape communal arrangements. This process works through a dialectical logic because the inevitable contradictions between the demands of communal living and individual growth needs are not necessarily destructive but in fact are creative.

I see the mystical dialectic proposed by Thurman as similar to the notion of the “dialectic as the logic of praxis” advanced by Jean-Paul Sartre in the Critique of Dialectical Reason as a correction to the determinism underlying the dialectical reasoning of many of Sartre’s contemporaries.

All this leads to some concluding questions readers may consider from Neal’s analysis and, by extension, Thurman’s thought.

What exactly is the relationship between mystical existence and mystical experience? What is the relationship of both these notions to mysticism?

Neal claims that Thurman’s theoretical formulations of mysticism are not original, though his applications of those formulations are. I think others, such as Paget Henry and James Bryant in their “From the Pattern to Being: Howard Thurman and Africana Phenomenology,” would disagree with this assessment.

Readers interested in a summary of who Howard Thurman was may wish to consult the following sites, in addition to Anthony Neal’s book:

• https://www.bu.edu/articles/2011/who-was-howard-thurman
• https://www.bu.edu/thurman/about-us/about-the-htc/

Darian Spearman is a PhD Candidate in Philosophy at The University of Connecticut at Storrs. His research interests include Africana Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Science, and Philosophy of Myth.