There is a huge divide between people who believe and people who don’t believe.
In kirism, the philosophy of life I’ve developed, this is called the mystery divide. This divide is a wedge between groups, between brothers and sisters, between husbands and wives, and between husbands and husbands.
On most days, the mystery divide may not be a big deal problem for you. But it has its way of infiltrating and returning. Ultimately, the mystery divide really matters.
Say that a secular kirist and a spiritual kirist marry. They agree on a lot, on almost everything. They share important values. They get along. They love one another. But the mystery divide is there, playing itself out in maybe one or another of the following ways.
What if the person you live with and you love announces that he will only take homeopathic remedies for his chronic illness and that the elixir he swears by, which has absolutely no active ingredients, is pure magic? What then?
What if the person you live with and you love announces that a spell has been cast on her by a seriously unfriendly co-worker? Suddenly and immediately thereafter, she commences an actual, undeniable physical decline. What then?
What if the person you live with and you love wants to take your young son, who rarely speaks and who is showing all sorts of disturbing behaviors, to Tibet to spend a month with an energy healer specializing in autism? What then?
What if the person you live with and you love wants you to read a certain book channeled by another-worldly entity, a book that she enthuses is brilliant and powerful and that will change your outlook and your life? What then?
What if the person you live with and you love has decided to postpone starting his online business because of astrological considerations, even though you are 100% certain that right now is the best time to launch that business. What then?
What if the person you live with and you love bases her driving decisions on the numbers she sees on passing license plates, speeding up if she encounters certain numbers, slowing down if she encounters other numbers? What then?
What if the person you live with and you love informs you that she has just visited a traditional medicine woman who advised her to refuse all radiation and chemotherapy for her recently-diagnosed breast cancer? What then?
What if the person you live with and you love comes from a culture and a background where you are commanded to dip your newborn in a certain diphtheria-infested river—and he intends to continue with that tradition? What then?
Now the mystery divide has come home to roost in ways that matter.
If these were the sorts of disagreements where evidence would help settle them, that would be one thing. But they aren’t. This is a divide that just can’t be breached by evidence.
Both secular kirists and spiritual kirists have to come to grips with the alienating reality that with regard to psychic powers, homeopathic remedies, energy healers, acupuncture, aroma therapy, angel wisdom, and so on, agreement is impossible. You don’t believe in such things … or you do.
No one knows how to adequately handle the situation when two human beings have completely different views of how the universe is operating. The mystery divide is no joke, no mere annoyance, no mere inconvenience. It divides human beings.
The mystery divide really divides. Billions of human beings pay allegiance to mystery. Billions of human beings are antipathetic to mystery. Billions of human beings are confused as to what they really can and should believe and are internally divided.
What can be done? At a minimum, two kirists on either side of the mystery divide can decide to still love one another. They can smile. They can hug. They can kiss. Yes, one day some huge trench may open up out of the blue. But they can still love.
They can decide to still treat one another respectfully. As much as the one might want to convince the other, as much as the one might want to change the other’s mind, an attitude of respect can be maintained. This will be hard; but it is possible.
They can decide to still continue talking, even though each has made up his or her mind. Belief systems do change. Staunch opinions can shift. If you are still talking, that means that you have not arrived at a complete impasse.
A plausible philosophy of life can’t answer the question, “What’s true?” It can’t settle this mystery debate, close the mystery divide, or presume that an answer is waiting in the wings. Even the wisest philosophy of life has no power to do any of that.
It can, however, acknowledge the divide. It can exclaim, “Watch out!” And it can offer ideas about how secular kirists and spiritual kirists can lovingly coexist, even while an ontological Grand Canyon stands between them.
Of course, we want more than that. We want resolution, relief, assurances, comfort, a coming together. We want to be certain of the truth and we want answers. We want the divide between us and within us to evaporate. And we can’t have that.
Why is it important to look the mystery divide right in the eye? Because life requires that we make important choices, including life-and-death ones, and this divide makes arriving at those choices that much more difficult. It is a particular albatross that our species faces.
Perhaps a bridge can be built that honors stalwart rationality and that likewise honors metaphysical possibilities. Maybe there is some surprising missing link, more elusive than Darwin’s, that can knit together the two halves of our species.
Or maybe that bridge can’t be built. Maybe that divide is too great, too fundamental. Then we must return to our basic kirist practices and strive to live our life purposes, weighted down by these particular alienating differences in belief and outlook.
You might be surprised to discover that this mystery divide has affected you more than you know. Want to learn more? Please take a look at Lighting the Way: How Kirism Answers Life’s Toughest Questions. In these difficult and precarious times, a solid philosophy of life might do you a world of good.
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Purchase other books by Dr. Eric Maisel
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Dr. Eric Maisel is the author of more than 50 books. His interests include creativity, the creative life, and the profession of creativity coaching, which he founded; issues of life purpose and meaning; mental health and critical psychology (also known as critical psychiatry and anti-psychiatry); and parenting in a “mental disorder” age.
Dr. Maisel’s most recent books include Unleashing the Artist Within (Dover, 2019), Helping Parents of Diagnosed, Distressed and Different Children (Routledge, 2019), A Writer’s Paris (Dover reprint, 2019), Helping Survivors of Authoritarian Parents, Siblings and Partners (Routledge, 2018), Ten Zen Seconds (Dover reprint, 2018), 60 Innovative Cognitive Strategies for the Bright, The Sensitive and the Creative (Routledge, 2018) and The Magic of Sleep Thinking (Dover reprint, 2018). Please see our Publications section for more information on Dr. Maisel’s books.
Dr. Maisel writes the “Rethinking Mental Health” blog for Psychology Today and is a regular contributor to Mad in America, where he founded and edited its parent resources section. Among his favorite things are leading Deep Writing workshops around the world (in places like Paris, London, Rome, Dublin, Prague, New York and San Francisco), working with individual creativity coaching clients, and producing interesting and useful programs (like his Life Purpose Boot Camp Self-Paced Instructor Training).
Dr. Maisel divides his time between Walnut Creek, California, where he lives, and Belmont, California, where he babysits his grandkids a lot.
To contact Dr. Maisel, please use our contact form.
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