Christian mysticism

Christian mysticism is traditionally practised through the disciplines of:

• prayer (including oratio, meditation and contemplation);
  
• self-denial, including fasting, broadly called asceticism; and
  
• service to others, again broadly called almsgiving.

Christian mystics interpret sacred texts and the life, sermons and parables of Jesus metaphorically: e.g. Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) in its totality contains the way for direct union.

Whereas Christian doctrine generally maintains that God dwells in all Christians and that they can experience God directly through belief in Jesus, Christian mysticism aspires to apprehend spiritual truths inaccessible through intellectual means, typically by emulation of Christ. William Ralph Inge divides this scala perfectionis into three stages:

1. the "purgative" or ascetic stage,
2. the "illuminative" or contemplative stage, and
3. the "unitive" stage, in which God may be beheld "face to face."

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