Draft: Mystics Teaching 'Silence', The Perennial Awakening:
Doug Hamilton
A perennial cycling as silent meditative spiritual practice that gathers in communal movements does appear throughout time, as a mystic may surface sharing their experience and practice when groups may form into practice movements which academics can note can note as "New Religious Movements".
Sitting, 'meditating' in Communal Spaces
Historically This is Not New..
“I. Mysticism
The history of mysticism is as old as the world. It grew in to notice
in Europe in the fourth century, when the followers of Plato took for
their foundation-stone his famous doctrine: “ That Divine Nature was
diffuse through all human souls; that the faculty of reason from which
proceeds the health and vigor of the mind was an emanation from God in
to the human soul, and comprehended in to it the principles and
elements of all truth”. These mystics maintained that silence was the
only method by which the hidden word was excited to produce an inward
feeling of joy when the knowledge of hidden things was shown to man.”
Reference: Perkins, William Rufus, and Barthinius Larson Wick. History of the
Amana Society, or Community of True Inspiration. Iowa City: State
University of Iowa Publications, 1891, p. 2.
In Spiritual Practice & Communalism, examples for instance:Mother Ann and the Shakers:1845 Millennial Laws: Section II Orders concerning the Spiritual
Worship of God,etc:
"Believers are required by the orders of God, to retire to their rooms
in silence, for the space of half an hour, and labor for a sense of the
gospel, before attending meeting.
2. All should sit erect in straight ranks in retiring time, ... ; and
none should have any conversation upon anything whatever, neither should
they sleep nor idly lounge away the time, or leave the room except it be very
necessary."
Shaker Meditative Practice:
https://groups.google.com/g/communal-studies-forum/c/0wLtbs5giDo/m/ynaQanTJnMkJ
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George Fox and the Quakers
Mystics Teaching 'Silence',
Mystics of the early Quaker teaching would travel out through countrysides gathering people in method into silent group meditations.
On trips walking or on horse-back they would travel hundreds of miles through rural England and the Eastern seaboard of America. To hamlets, towns and cities to have people take the opportunity to sit together in silent meditation practice. Out of this concerted work a spiritual movement did awakened, the early Society of Friends.
This was George Fox's work in the 17th Century and then others followed too like Elias Hicks in the 18th and early 19th Centuries.
George Fox teaching:
“Friend,
Be still and cool in thy mind and spirit from thy own thoughts, and then thou wilt feel the principle of God to turn thy mind to the Lord God, whereby thou wilt receive this strength and power from whence life comes to allay all tempests against blusterings and storms. That is it which moulds up into patience, into innocency, into soberness, into stillness, into stayedness, into quietness up to God with his power. "
https://sites.google.com/view/quaker-meditation-instruction/home
Friends Meeting of Worship, 17th Century. Entering into this form of
worship.
“… the first that enters into the place of your meeting, be not
careless, nor wander up and down either in body or mind, but
innocently sit down in some place and turn in thy mind to the Light,
and wait upon God simply, as if none were present but the Lord, and
here thou art strong. When the next that come in, let them in
simplicity and heart sit down and turn to the same Light, and wait in
the Spirit, and so all the rest coming in fear of the Lord sit down in
pure stillness and silence of all flesh, and wait in the Light. A few
that are thus gathered by the arm of the Lord into the unity of the
Spirit, this is a sweet and precious meeting in which all are met with
the Lord…. Those who are brought to a pure, still waiting on God in
the Spirit are come nearer to God than words are… though not a word be
spoken to the hearing of the ear. In such a meeting where the
presence and power of God is felt, there will be an unwillingness to
part asunder, being ready to say in yourselves, it is good to be here,
and this is the end of all words and writings, to bring people to the
eternal living word.” -1660
-Alexander Parker, Letters of Early Friends, ed. A.R. Barclay (London;
Darton and Harvey, 1841), pp. 365-66. Alexander Parker was a close
companion of George Fox.
https://groups.google.com/g/communal-studies-forum/c/dZwST3nteSw/m/kGexdAasmecJ
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The mystic Werkzeug or Instrumentsof Amana & the old "Community of True Inspiration" :"..of all truth. These Mystics maintained that silence was the only method by which the hidden word was excited to produce an inward feeling of joy when the knowledge of hidden things was shown to man. This little sect of believers spread its doctrine towards the West."
Consideration of Early Amana spiritual practice…
https://groups.google.com/g/communal-studies-forum/c/1o-OegxC-zA/m/QuyOL7rLRVUJ
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The Unity movement, founded by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore in 1889.
Unity Church was rooted in a mystical perspective, particularly through the teachings of its founders, Charles and Myrtle Fillmore.
"..Especially powerful moments are experienced in a meditative state of prayer called “the Silence.” When we sit in the Silence, we become receptacles, or Holy Grails, to be filled with the divine mind."
“We get our most vivid revelations when in a meditative state of mind,” Charles Fillmore said. “This proves that when we make the mind trustful and confident, we put it in harmony with creative Mind; then its force flows to us in accordance with the law of like attracting like.”
https://groups.google.com/g/communal-studies-forum/c/esh_5TjbCpQ/m/7C9O0Q8GGzkJ
The Mystics, Teaching 'Silence';
It seems that in their times as mystics will surface and start sharing, they can employ non-god (atheistic) descriptors, like 'light' or 'silence' to describe their experience.
For many reasons, personal safety being one within their historic times, Mystics may start off cautiously sounding spiritual and also non-theistic or even atheistic in language.
Like these quotes,
'Teaching Silence':
"..There is a huge silence inside each of us that beckons us into itself, and the recovery of our own silence can begin to teach us the language of heaven."
-Meister Eckhart
"..Theologians may quarrel,
but the mystics of the world speak the same language."
-Meister Eckhart
Teaching 'silence'...Elias Hicks, a Quaker mystic
in the early 19th Century talking with people,
"Peace, be still." This command and requisition was made upon a former, occasion; and I apprehend it will apply fully to us. I believe there can be no occasion to demand it more than the present one. The comfort and improvement of this large assembly depends principally upon it. Therefore, it becomes our duty individually, to labour to be still. And, in the first place, we are to still our bodies. This is a work that seems in a degree to be comprehended in our power as men and creatures; hence this is the first step. For we must always do what we can, rightly and justly; for it is by this right labour, and industry, that there is something to receive the divine blessing upon.
But this is not enough, my friends,--we must endeavour to have our minds still. And here is a much greater work, which it is beyond the power of man to effect of himself. And this shows us the necessity of individually endeavouring to get our bodies still, that so we may retire to that fountain of strength, which only can enable us to experience our minds to be brought into stillness"
Sermon by Elias Hicks:http://www.qhpress.org/quakerpages/qhoa/keys.htm
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Maharishi, "The Power of Silence..""...My mission in the world is spiritual regeneration to regenerate every man everywhere into the values of the Spirit. The Values of wholeness of life are pure consciousness, absolute bliss, absolute bliss consciousness, which is the reservoir of all wisdom, the ocean of happiness, Eternal Life." ~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (Power of Silence, pg. 162)Also withIn the Perennial cycle:
Mystics running up against an orthodoxy:When evangelicals drove Friends Meetings off the rails..
"An early evidence of Orthodox concern and influence was Philadelphia Yearly Meeting's adoption of a new Discipline in 1806, in which denial of the divinity of Jesus, the immediacy of divine revelation or the authority of Scripture were made disownable offenses.
Friends who sought to maintain the traditional doctrines of Friends were alarmed at London Yearly Meeting's general epistle for 1836, which for the first time presented the Evangelical views as the official position of Friends. A paragraph on the Holy Scriptures stated that they were "the only divinely authorized record of the doctrines of true religion" and "the appointed means of making known to us the blessed truths of Christianity."
= A SHORT HISTORY
Quaker Mystics & Non-theism
Non-theism within Quakers it seems started back with the founding Quaker mystics and their atheistic expressions of their inner awareness. Expressing their experience using 'light' and 'silence' and such words.
These worked as a descriptive languaging of their experience and galvanized an initial spiritual movement & organization in their time.
In the course of time this mystic critique by experience contrasted with orthodox 'belief' theistic religionists and did get the mystics in trouble and persecuted by that orthodoxy.
What also came along in sequence of time was a period of 'disownments" of the mystic inner-light Quakers - as 'Great Awakening' methodists flooded in to roles of the 19th Century Society of Friends Meeting organizations and an ensuing period of "separations" within Meetings followed from the perpetration of the 'disownments'.
As one reads in to the disownments and their triggering separations it evidently was a cruel violent thing that fundamentalist orthodox theology perpetrated on the old Quakers and community.
An apparently unfortunate sequence of time for Quakers to what had initially started off as an enlarging vibrant spiritual practice movement.
And, Yay George Fox !
"It is cultivating spiritually simply to sit with silence.. as spiritual practice."
The George Fox Song..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIv95dM7FwY
-Doug Hamilton
December 2025