Spiritual Pride

One of the consequences of mystical experience is spiritual pride. It is the inevitable result of a sinful being encountering directly the Divine. Christ died on the Cross so the way between mankind and humanity would be clear. The devil no longer stands between God and man (Revelation 12). But humanity remains stained by the domination of evil. We remain sinners even as we have been saved. Thus there seems to be no way for God to touch the heart of a human being without some risk of spiritual pride.

Now there are two types of spiritual pride, one moral and one experiential. Moral pride is self-righteousness. A person sees how God has changed their lives, and takes a certain pride in this. This pride inevitably causes one to look down upon their fellow human beings. Of course, this pride is not completely false. It is not true that one has no influence upon one's place in the world. The problem is that the heights that God pushes us to are far beyond anything any sinful human being is capable of. And so the height and breadth that is reached is taken to be some sign of one's own unique value. It is like a child who genuinely thinks they are taller than everyone else because their father has put them up on their shoulders.

Some people don't have a very strong sense of themselves as a 'good' person. But another type of pride can develop and in someways it is the more dangerous. It is the pride of encountering God. One has a mystical experience and this starts to make one feel very special indeed. But it makes even less sense than the former type of pride, for mystical experience is given by God as God gives the rain, it falls on the righteous and the unrighteous alike. A person who can 'see' by the grace of God could be an Isaiah, but they could also be a Balaam. God gives vision not according to any calculation of moral rectitude or worth. One may even suspect that there is some random genetic or psychological predilection. There is no proper place for pride of any kind here.

Of course the cure for both kinds of pride is first and foremost the Cross. Seeing the weight of our sin and the cost of our pride should break it's power. The pride itself is the murder of God and if we see this it should help to break the power of the ego in these cases. In the case of experiential pride, there is also the fact that experiences of the darkest sort may also result from the pride. The mystic can 'see' the spiritual realities that underly the religious struggle. Thus pride and shortsightedness both become manifest in the dreams and visions, and they are terrible to behold. One must never, ever ignore these experiences in favor of the more transcendent experiences simply because they are difficult or disturbing. They are as God-given as the other. They are ways of crushing down the demon of ego so something better can be put in its place.

But in the end it is that vision of God on the Cross...it is the gospels themselves, that really endure. A Christian must never fail to face the Cross fully, to be broken down. If we fail to share in the crucifixion we will have no way to share in The Resurrection.

I must admit that this reflection comes from some recent personal experiences. I felt my ego expand with some amazing cosmic encounters and then had it broken to the ground with the worst kind of confrontation with the pride that developed. I am sorry for my pride, and thankful for the vision both beatific and soul-crushing.