Silence in religious experience has almost always been considered one of the root means for attaining ultimate union with God, the Absolute, the "Arch-Good," Nirvana, or whatever men have deemed divine. Rufus M. Jones, the Quaker, writes that it is essential for "worship or as a method of preparing the soul for spiritual experiences."1 Pythagoras is said to have required of his initiates from one to five years of absolute silence in order for them to attain a correct approach to knowledge. The worshippers of Mithra required silence of all their initiates, considering it the "symbol of the living, imperishable God."2 In the Old Testament, silence is the means of meeting the holy as well as of becoming wise. It is the high node of knowing God and it is also the proper was of showing awe and love in His presence. "Be still and know that I am God" (Ps. 46:10). As a means of becoming wise, it is particularly emphasized in Ecclesiastes:

A wise man will keep quiet till the right moment, but a garrulous fool will always misjudge it. (20:7)

In Ecclesiastes, there is more concern with silence as a means of gaining the respect of one's fellowman and preserving or enhancing one's fortune with it than as a means of reaching the divine. There seems also to be more concern with right speech and right silence and how they should be related than with the absence of speech--at least, of the kind which nay help to find nod or the divine.

In the New testament, little is said directly concerning the use of silence3

Jesus enjoins his followers to seek isolation and the "silence" of solitary prayer, but there is no special emphasis upon silence as the most important mode by which God is to be reached or attained. Silence acquires this extra-ordinary status only with the Christian mystics of the first centuries of the Christian era. The desert fathers made silence, in its various distinguishable modes, the most important of the ways of religious living. In Book the First, of the Sayings of the Holy Fathers, Palladius reports:

When Abba Arsenius was in the palace, he prayed to God and said, "O Lord, direct me how to live," and is voice came to him, saying, "Arsenius, flee from men, and thou shalt live." And when Arsenius was living the ascetic life in the monastery, he prayed to God the same prayer, and again he heard is voice saying unto him, "Arsenius, flee, keep silence, and lead is life of silent contemplation, for these are the fundamental causes which prevent is man from committing sin."4

The desert fathers did not, in general, clearly separate silence (non-speech) from other modes of action or existence such is fleeing from the cities or the company of men and living in quietude. Palladius reports Abba Arsenius as saying,

Verily I say unto you, if the man who dwelleth in silence heareth but the twittering of is sparrow, he shall not be able to acquire that repose in his heart which he seeketh; how much less than can ye do so with all this rustling of the reeds about you? 5

Apparently Abba Arsenius conceived of silence as both non-speech and non-sound or absolute absence of sound.

Until the formation of the later monastic orders, in particular, the Benedictine orders, there were no institutionally organized sets of rules applying to silence. 6 The desert fathers, cenobitic, hermetic, and anchoritic, emphasized the importance of silence in all its significant modes--flight from man, non-speech, quietude, solitude, silent prayer and contemplation, but they used these modes according to their own, inner requirements. 7 Ritualization of silence was a much later development; and it began when the religious felt that their lives must be institutionally organized in well-defined ways. At that time, it was felt that the way to Christian perfection and God depended upon following is well-defined pattern of monastic and religious life.

However, despite its ritualization, silence--at least, in the Judaeo-Christian tradition--has not always been conceived as one of the chief ways to reach God, nor have its various meanings and uses been clearly distinguished. Historically and in its present usage, it is still an ambiguous notion conceptually and practically. One particularly significant consequence has been that its non-religious and religious functions are confused to the detriment of religious understanding and practice.

To show these ambiguities, we shall examine two works: first, a manual, The Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues, written in 1609 by Alfonsi Rodriguez, a Spanish Jesuit, which is still very popular and widely used as is text by Roman Catholic religious; and second, an interesting pamphlet on Hesychasm by Father Hausherr, "Solitude et vie contemplative."

1. In The Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues, a three volume work which grew out of a series of sermons given by the Spanish father to novitiates, the tenth treatise of volume 2 and in particular chapters 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8, deal with silence. In the first chapter, silence is effusively extolled. Father Rodriguez quotes a number of saints: for example, St. Bernard to the effect that "continual silence, and removal from the noise of the things of this world and forgetfulness of them, lifts up the heart and askes us think of the things of heaven and sets our heart upon them"; and St. Diodorus, that silence is "the mother of holy and lofty thoughts." 8 In the third chapter, Father Rodriguez extols silence as conducive to modesty and humility. In the fourth, he points to its rewards and blessings. In the fifth, he propounds its use as a method of prayer by which to ascend to God and through which God makes his presence felt. In the seventh, he justifies it as not making for a sad life, as so many people who misunderstand it asseverate, but as producing a cheerful, even a joyous life. In short, he tries to compile a collection of justifications from the Bible, the saints and human experience to justify silence to the religious.

Nevertheless, Father Rodriguez is not merely concerned with silence as a builder of Christian virtues and is way for the praying religious to reach God. Having a strong, practical bent, he points to silence as a means for learning both how to speak well (in order to do missionary work) and to live on good terms with one's fellow religious, high and low, and the laity. In chapter 8, "Of the Circumstances Necessary for Speaking Well," basing himself largely on quotations from the Old Testament, he insists that silence is essential for learning how, when, and about what to be silent, and how, when, and about what to speak (2:129). There, is "a time for keeping silent and a time for speaking." 9

Father Rodriguez even goes to the trouble of putting together a compendium of rules gathered from the writings of Sts. Basil, Ambrose, and Bernard, which may be summarized as follows:

1. Examine carefully what you say before saying it, but follow the heart first, then reason.
2. Look to the purpose and intent of speaking, (The end must be the good of others, not that of one's own advantage.)
3. Observe closely the one you speak to before speaking.
4. Consider the time of speaking, so that your speaking will not come to nothing.
5. Be careful of time and manner of voice. Speak softly, subduedly, and serenely.

If these rules are followed, a man, obviously not merely a religious, will make his way in the world, be liked by his fellowmen and very likely influence their judgments and actions. Of course, there is one troublesome problem for which Father Rodriguez provides no solution to learn when, how, and on whom to apply these rules.

We are, of course, not concerned with the lack of concreteness of these rules; our concern is with Father Rodriguez's ambiguous use of the notion of silence. What is silence? Is it simply not-speaking, holding one's tongue on all occasions? Obviously not, since Father Rodriguez spends a chapter on its use in speaking well. Does it mean not speaking to God? Obviously not, for then it excludes prayer, and Father Rodriguez plainly believes in prayer and in speaking to God. Does it mean avoiding commerce with men? Solitude? Plainly again, No! Does it mean living in a world totally devoid of sound? Again, he cannot possible mean this. Without pursuing all the possible variant meanings in which he uses the term, silence, one particularly notices that he is not aware of these different meanings or their consequences.

2. Renewed interest in recent times in the desert fathers has led to renewed consideration of silence and its various modes. In an interesting pamphlet, Solitude et vie contemplative d'aprÈs l'Hesychasme, 10 Father T. Hausherr defines Hesychia as tranquillity, silence, quietude (p. 5); and these as either interior or exterior. As interior, it is peace or tranquillity; as exterior, it is solitude, i. e., being removed from people (p. 9). Later he attempts a more careful definition of these terms and defines solitude as (a) flight from men; (b) silence, i. e., holding one's tongue among men; and (c) living totally within oneself and without the companionship of others. The purpose of solitude is also threefold: (1) to contemplate, to philosophize; (2) to learn charity, i. e., love of God and men; and (3) to give oneself to God, to him and him alone (p, 9).

There is plainly confusion in making terms like tranquillity, silence, quietude, synonymous in meaning; not because they are technical terms, but because they ordinarily differ in meaning, despite some overlap; and Father Hausherr does little to remove this confusion. Perhaps his reason is that he is more concerned with evoking the attitudes of the desert fathers than in clearly distinguishing these meanings. Perhaps he actually sees no significant differences between then. Perhaps he feels that his only objective should be to formulate the trinitarian formula of the hesychastic life: (1) removal of self from contact with most or all of mankind; (2) silence in the sense of non-speaking; and (c) giving oneself over to prayer, oral or rental.

Whatever clarification Father Hausherr brings to the concept of silence, he achieves only indirectly, through amassing quotations from the desert fathers on each prong of the above formula. Respecting (1), removal of self from contact with most or all men, the meaning seems to be mainly negative. Silence seems to mean to avoid living in cities and entering in daily interaction with men and their usual business; in other words, not desiring or seeking what most men want: power, wealth, sex, amusement.

Beyond these abstract negations, the desert fathers differ radically. For most, (1) meant living in cenobitic or hermetic communities. For a few, it meant anchoritism, i. e., not merely reclusion for periods of time within a monastic community but complete exclusion of contact with any human being. For still others it meant one or another of the various kinds of reclusion for varying periods of time with periods of return to the ordinary life of men in order to bring them to the ways of God. 11

Respecting (2), silence seems again to be interpreted negatively as non-speech, but beyond this, it varies in interpretation from desert father to desert father. For some, it meant complete avoidance of speech. Some desert fathers ran away or hid when they encountered men. For other fathers, silence meant avoidance of speech only when speech was idle or frivolous. Essential speech was always permissible, but it must never endure beyond requirements. For still others, non-speech was enjoined except when speech was required as for the singing of psalms, liturgical utterances at mass and by the rules of a monastic order. This was the attitude most frequently espoused by the desert fathers, which found expression in the rule of St. Basil. 12 For still others, non-speech was enjoined for humans, but not enjoined for talking to oneself, to God or to any of his agents, as, for example, in oral prayer or oral meditation. This last remark leads directly to (3).

Respecting (3), aloneness, silence was interpreted as a means for providing the greatest amount of time for prayer. It gave a monk time to live inwardly, to pray, thus seemingly contradicting the rule of silence, of not-speaking, since prayer meant speech with God, Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints. Moreover, such speech was very frequently spoken out loud. Logically, of course, one can make much of this inconsistency between non-speech and speech with God, but it is more reasonable to interpret the desert fathers' insistence on non-speech in the following way: non-speech with men is enjoined within whatever limits the differing fathers thought appropriate in order to open the way to continual speech with God. Speech with God was the quiddity and substance of any person's life, for through it a person was eternally saved and achieved eternal happiness. Even though embodied, through such speech he could achieve on earth as much of this eternal happiness as was possible for any embodied being.

Concerning the value of non-speech, there were also differences. For example, St. Arsenius is quoted as saying, "I have often repented of speech, but never of silence." Non-speech for Arsenius was a good-in-itself. However, St. Pambo believed that non-speech could be even worse than "le bavardage exterieur," 13 Hausherr quotes him as saying that one can talk incessantly to oneself, "du matin au soir," without such talk possessing any spiritual quality (p. 55).

Even if silence is solely interpreted as non-speech, it faces ambiguity. (i) It may be taken in its ordinary meaning as not uttering words or sentences out loud, even in a whisper, to others, but permitting thinking such words or sentences to oneself. (ii) It may also be taken to mean not to speak out loud to others what one thinks, but it is permissible to speak out loud in the privacy of one's chamber what one may not speak in the presence of others. One may do this in reverie, saying out loud what one did not think of saying at the time or did not dare to say in the presence of others, or one may do it in prayer, the kind of prayer often called "oral." (iii) It may mean (ii), but with a specific limitation on speaking out loud to others. One may not, in the privacy of one's chamber or in reverie, address anyone other than God or his divine agents. (iv) Finally, it may mean an extraordinary psychological state in which words or expressed thoughts are completely absent. In this state, one sees, hears, smells, feels, without linguistic mediation of any kind.

Father Hausherr does not keep these meanings separate; and so silence as non-speech is confused and often identified with prayer (which is itself an ambiguous term) or with that extraordinary psychological state called by E. Herman the "Orison of Stillness," 14 by St. Teresa of Avila, "interior silence;" and by Father Baker, "contemplation."

At this point it might be well to summarize a number of points already made. In the long tradition established concerning silence, little has been done to clarify either its meaning or its usages. In terms of meaning, at least three basic meanings have been usually confused: silence in the sense of non-speech, not-speaking; silence in the sense of solitude, being alone, removed from men; and silence in the sense of non-vocal speech, unvoiced speech addressed to oneself, to God, the Devil or to any other being. On occasion, of course, as with, St. Arsenius, it was also used in the sense of soundlessness or quietude, i. e., is very low, almost indiscernible volume of sound. In terms of its practical employment, it was used in such a way as to confuse its non-religious and religious function. It was, for example, considered the most important mode of reaching God and in developing the highest virtues. At the same time, it was considered a means for learning how to deal with men and acquiring the art of speaking well. Of course, one may say that these usages are not inconsistent with one another, for in terms of a religion devoted to God and men, all of these usages may be said to converge. Unfortunately, not so! For the desert fathers, the practice of silence involved the practice of avoiding men and using silence to learn to speak well was certainly not a hesychastic ideal.

II This very short history of the role of silence among Christians shows that it gradually became an especially important instrument--particularly for the contemplative religious--in reaching God, the divine, the ultimate in experience. But it was not merely conceived as serving this purpose, it was also considered essential for learning how to speak well, to deal with others, to attain wisdom and to acquire the essential virtues of Christian perfection. Despite its alleged importance, silence has never been clearly analyzed into its essential modes or, as we shall now say, its essential antitheses. To this task we now turn. There are three basic antitheses which we believe have been widely confused and treated often as one and the same. The first is that between speech and non-speech, speaking and non-speaking. The second is that between sound and non-sound, a distinction which essentially characterizes the human environment. The third is that between interior speech and interior non-speech which is both a condition and an act of a person and which has been characterized as the highest state attainable by any person. We shall analyze each in turn.

The antithesis between speaking-and non-speaking usually has its being through a social relation, involving as a minimum two persons or beings, a speaker and a listener, i. e., a non-speaker. Of course, listening involves more than non-speaking: the listener interprets to himself what is said and the one who speaks usually anticipates a reply. This social relation is terribly complicated, and there is no time to develop the varieties of relationships involved.

However, this much should be said: First, this minimal speech-situation, as we might call it, of two persons is an abstraction from the social situation in which speaking and non-speaking occur. Speaking, i. e., the using of a group-language, the making of sentences composed of sounds ordered and understood in certain ways by the group--cannot exist for a simple two-person relation. Speaking arises only within a permanently organized social group composing what is often called a society. Second, speaking involves a group-language in the sense that given spoken sounds have a commonly understood meaning which, when ordered in certain ways and spoken in certain specific situations, are usually correctly interpreted by all who speak and are spoken to. Third, the parties of the speech-situation fairly regularly exchange 'place'; the one who has spoken becomes a listener; the listener a speaker. The process of exchange of 'place' continues until the speech-situation completes itself. Fourth, the speaker and listener in such exchanges are not necessarily the same beings. A speaker may speak about the same matter to different listeners and evoke different responses or he may speak about different matters to the same or different listeners at different times.

The fifth point is of such importance that it must be dealt with at some length. It was mentioned earlier that the minimal speech-situation involves two beings: one who speaks and one who listens. Such speaking and listening intrinsically involve intention or purpose which may be of very short duration or controlling over the lifetimes of the speakers and listeners.

One situation, in particular, often controlling over a lifetime, is important. It is the one in which listening is taken to play is particularly significant role. The so-called classic therapeutic relation in psychoanalysis is a typical example. The therapist's role is to listen and only on occasion orally to respond. Another is the empathic relation, in which a person listens sympathetically to one who is troubled, who confesses or is seeking advice. However, the special situation we wish to discuss is that in which a speaker addresses himself to a divine being and/or his divine agents. In this situation, the human speaker addresses himself to an unknown, an invisible being, one who may or may not be listening; one who even if he is listening may never respond, or if he responds may respond in unanticipated, mysterious ways. Unlike other listeners, if this being or beings does not respond, there is no way of knowing that he or they exists. Lastly, the modes of address used by human speakers addressing a divine being or his agents are usually radically different from the usual modes of speaking; these modes vary from highly individualized address to worked-out rituals favored by specific religious institutions or sub-institutions. The important point is that such speaking is considered by these speakers of the utmost importance. It makes all the difference in the world to what they are and become; and what they are and become depends entirely upon their ability to elicit responses from the divine being or beings addressed.

The second antithesis almost always confused with the first is that of sound-soundlessness. Here sound relates intrinsically to hearing. If sound is dealt with as the physicist deals with it, it means the presence in space of movements, waves, occurring at certain rates or frequencies; soundlessness as its pole is consequently space empty of such movements. If sound is associated with, human hearing, then it is not merely movements or waves in space occurring at certain rates; it is something heard. In this sense, sound is, as such, an indescribable experience. No one who is incapable of experiencing it knows what it is. The born deaf do not know. To those who hear, various sounds, of course, are often describable. There are today a vast number of words such as loud, soft, harsh, sweet, high, low, etc., which are used to identify specific heard sounds. Soundlessness, in this sense, would therefore be that state of audition in which the hearer believes he hears nothing, in which sound a presumed or experienced to be completely absent. Such is state of affairs for anyone except the born deaf is obviously not the case. For the born deaf, there is no antithesis between heard and unheard sound. For the healthy hearing person, there is a difference, but it is not in terms of the absolute absence of sound. The difference is between loud and soft sound, i. e., between is high volume and a low volume of sound, or between ordered and disordered sound. A man may speak of the "silence" of the heavens, a woodglade, or his room; but he cannot mean soundlessness, i, e., total absence of sound. He will hear sounds, muted, low, such as the beating of his heart, the soft soughing of the wind, the quiet rustle of leaves. Such muted sounds often produce the experience which I call "quietude," i. e., a low volume of sound which may or may not be disturbing psychologically. For some persons quietude may be and often is nerve-racking: for others, it is quieting, soothing.

Again, there is the way of speaking of absence of sound when one does not hear what one is listening for or expects to hear. Sound of course is present. Thus one speaks of a "sudden silence" in is room when people cease for a long moment to speak. Sound is present, but not the sounds of voices speaking to which one had been attending or responding.

Finally, there is a way of speaking of absence of sound when one is referring to ordered or harmonizing sound as against disordered or discordant sound. Ordered sound is often experienced as a sort of silence; disordered as noise, even as loud, unendurable noise if it persists. Thus the sounds of a forest or of the sea may be experienced as silence because they are experienced as ordered, harmonized, but a low hum, broken in rhythm, varying in pitch and volume, may be experienced as unendurable sound driving one mad.

It seems plainly wrong to speak of silence in terms of the antithesis, sound-soundlessness. For hearing humans or the born deaf, there can be no such experience. The only antithesis experienceable by hearing humans are those of loud-muted, attended-unattended, ordered-disordered; and these antithesis interact and influence each other. Those who like the desert fathers sought silence sought an environment in which sound was usually muted, not so disordered as to interfere with prayer or any other religious activity in which they were constantly engaged, and in which the sounds to which they attended--such as their own words of prayer--did not suddenly and frighteningly vanish. This sort of silence, we prefer to call "quietude."

The differences between non-speaking and quietude are so striking that they ought never to be confused. First, non-speaking is a constant activity of the will; a rejection of speech-responding to the world of men in their ordinary incarnation. Quietude is not an activity of the will; it is a condition of one's environment and it may or may not exist. It may be sought for and lived in; it may even be a creation of the will, created in order that a certain kind of life can be lived, but whether sought or created, it is still an external condition, a situation, in which a person lives. Circumstances at any time over which the person has no control may destroy it.

Second, non-speaking and quietude can each occur under almost any set of circumstances. A person may not speak, whether there is quietude or not; and he does not necessarily need quietude. Or he may need quietude and will not speak otherwise. This is frequently the case with the teacher or the preacher. Quietude can occur independent of speakers or non-speakers, i. e., whether persons desire it or not; and it may be terribly disturbing when it occurs. To many, the absence of the usual background of noises is often frightening and often interpreted as evidence of something being wrong; a city street suddenly emptied at night of its usual sounds is terrifying.

To the religious as to the thinker, quietude is often considered a necessary condition for living a certain kind of life of for doing certain things. The thinker for example, considers quietude necessary in order to think; disordered sounds or sounds above a certain volume are usually disorienting and disruptive of concentration. This is the reason he usually seeks the quiet of his study or the library. (Of course, quietude is usually necessary for such an activity as sleep or rest, although many learn to sleep or rest under "noisy" conditions.) When a person is not engaged in thinking, he may prefer to spend his time where there is a relatively high volume of sound as in night clubs, at parties, or in a laboratory.

Some religious--those known as 'actives'--consider quietude a necessary condition only for certain purposes such as meditation or prayer or sleep. Otherwise, they spend a great deal of their time surrounded by relatively high volumes of sound. Although it is not usual for them to frequent night clubs or attend parties, they do spend a great deal of time advising, helping, and working with people for all sorts of accepted religious objectives. Other religious--those known as 'contemplatives'--consider quietude an almost absolute condition of their way of life. Since they spend most of their time in prayer, they feel the need for quietude in order to achieve that high level of inward concentration or contemplation which brings them closer and closer to God. Some contemplative monks have even gone so far as to say that quietude is insufficient, destructive of repose of heart. Those who have demanded soundlessness--Arsenius, for example--are, of course, asking for the impossible.

Non-speech, which is an act of the will, and quietude, which is an outward condition of life, have been considered by many religious--particularly of the contemplative kind--two of the basic conditions for achieving the highest experience possible for a human: union with God, the divine, the ultimate. Nevertheless, non-speech and quietude have never been considered in themselves sufficient. Without them, of course, the highest experience has been, in general, considered impossible except through grace and the mysterious will of God. Consequently, two other conditions have often been insisted upon often identified with silence. One is isolation from mankind, living utterly alone, being an anchorite, or living as much as possible in one's cell, and the other is working as hard as possible with one's hands and praying as frequently as possible in any of its forms.

It is not necessary at this point to establish in detail that isolation can be considered a correlative condition of non-speech and quietude. However, it should be pointed out that one may isolate oneself as completely as possible, and yet forego non-speech and quietude. One may, for example, spend one's time talking out loud to the trees, the wind, to oneself, to God; or one may live in an environment of roaring winds, crashing waters, howling jackals, and buzzing insects.

We turn now to the most difficult of the antitheses: exterior-interior silence. The terms "interior silence" and "exterior silence" are in mystical circles well known, but they are even slipperier, more ambiguous, and more difficult to deal with than the antitheses so far discussed. First of all, this antithesis confusedly develops out of the speaking-nonspeaking antithesis. "Exterior silence" is often used as a name to identify the habit of non-speaking to any living creature. It is often associated with the so-called perpetual vow of silence, taken by some Hindu monastic orders. In this sense, a non-speaker is not one who does not speak. He does not speak with men in order to spend his time speaking to God or gods or to any of his or their divine agents or to anything else which is not human. Consequently, a non-speaker, as Sts. Poemen and Ambrose noted, may be speaking constantly to himself, to God, the devil or any number of imaginary creatures. In short, he may be spending his waking and sleeping hours in unceasing internalized conversation. Such internalized conversation may often be, as these saints also noted, of a gross, nonspiritual kind.

Second, this antithesis has also been confusedly derived from the sound-soundless antithesis. "Exterior silence" has often been identified with, soundlessness. Of course, this has rarely been the meaning intended, for no human can live for long in a world completely emptied of sound. 15 What has certainly been meant is, in most cases, "quietude," an environment of muted sound suited to the needs of the religious to help them enter into conversation or dialogue with the divine--insofar as the divine is conceived as a person.

Intriguingly enough, because of the above confusions, "interior silence" has been frequently wholly identified with internalized conversation or dialogue. As a result, interior silence has developed antitheses of its own, accepted and denied at the same time. One particular antithesis is that of prayer-nonprayer.

The life of "interior silence" is conceived as wholly a life of prayer and painfully contrasted with the nonprayerful life of most men.

For reasons difficult to unravel, the life of prayer has been considered is life of "interior silence." Yet it seems obvious that a life of prayer is not a life of non-speech. It exists within a special kind of social-speech relation in which the praying person relates himself directly or indirectly through symbols to an invisible being, divine, malevolent, or imaginary. The symbols may be objects like icons, statues, stories of sanctified or malevolent beings to which the praying person addresses himself through specific actions and/or words. Among certain groups of religious, this social-speech relation takes on a number of well-attested modalities.

he most widely practiced is that of oral prayer which may be private, i. e., a two-being relation--or group, i. e., a many-one or many-many relation. Private prayer may or may not be ritualized, but it frequently is in well-developed religions. A person in the privacy of his room or cell may speak out loud to the invisible being or beings he wishes to reach. Group prayer is usually highly ritualized. The canonical hour and the mass of Catholicism are examples of highly ritualized group oral prayer.

A second mode, usually considered of higher degree, is that of meditation or mental prayer. In meditation, the praying person usually does not speak out loud; he internalizes his speech. Furthermore, his speech is part and parcel of a more complex pattern of experience and behavior. Internalized prayer is based upon or produces a succession of images and feelings which, often enough, make the praying person feel he is in the presence of the divine or the invisible beings he has been addressing. It also produces rationalizations, not in the Freudian sense, but in the older meaning of abstractions and practical inferences.

Examples of this mode of prayer can be found in most manuals of Christian Perfection. For those not acquainted with this mode of prayer in its ritualized form, the following example may serve as illustration. In a work called New Practical Meditations, 16 Father Bruno Vercruysse provides meditations for each day of the year. The subjects are taken from the Old and New Testaments and from theology. For July 3, he provides a meditation concerned with the "Great Prerogatives of Our Blessed Lady." He begins by quoting the story of Mary's visit to Elizabeth. He then orients the meditation around three basic motifs: (a) Prerogatives given to Mary before the Incarnation; (b) Prerogatives given to Mary at the Incarnation; and (c) Prerogatives given to Mary after the Incarnation. To affect significantly the thinking and feeling of the religious, he asks them to imagine for themselves as vividly as possible the entire scene of the visit of the Virgin Mary to Elizabeth, and then, after sufficient effort at imagining, to consider these prerogatives in terms of (1) application, (2) self-feeling, and (3) resolutions for future action. To help in such consideration, he suggests respecting (1) congratulating Mary; respecting (2) rejoicing in her exceptional fortune; and respecting (3) resolving to increase their "devotion to the Holy Virgin."

The purpose of this sort of meditative exercise is obvious. It is to develop and strengthen religious faith by internalizing scripture and doctrine and to help in the acquisition of virtuous habits through resolution and practical action. Whether such meditative exercises do or do not develop faith and virtuous habit has never been scientifically ascertained. Certainly, in recent years, exercises of this sort have been subject among the religious to serious criticism.

Is third mode of interior silence, rated the highest, is often called contemplation or the prayer of simplicity.

In I Want to See God17 Father Marie-Eugene provides an excellent summary of what St. Teresa in her Life and Mansions had to say about contemplation. The saint distinguishes two stages, an earlier in which the soul is the active agent and is later in which God takes over and possesses the soul. 18 In the first stage, there is a strong tendency towards melancholy; the breakdown of health, and even the abandonment of prayer. 19 To prevent this, Teresa recommends controlling the "imagination and understanding." She recommends as one control active recollection, i. e., reading, imagining and reflecting upon biblical and religiously edifying stories, episodes, and sayings. 20

The second stage occurs of itself. It cannot be made to occur by any act of the human will. This is the stage when God takes over. The will is overcome and can no longer act. According to St. Teresa, one need no longer be troubled by the imagination and understanding and they can now be allowed to do whatever they please. Apparently these faculties have lost the power to cause the will to act wrongly. Strangely enough, she describes this interior silence as becoming more and more noisy the more perfect it is. Her head is filled with noises like those of "brimming waters" rushing down or like an enormous flock of little birds whistling. 21

At some point in the second stage, imagination and understanding cease to act altogether. This will also does not act, yet it is not passive. In the Way of Perfection, she says

All the faculties are calmed, and the spirit realizes it is close to its God . . . This state resembles a swoon, both exterior and interior, so that the exterior man does not wish to move, but rests. . . . The faculties are reluctant to stir; all action seems to impede them from loving God. 22

At some point beyond this all the faculties--imagination (which for her includes sensation and perception), understanding, and emotion (the will) cease completely to function; and it is at this point that the soul is united with God. Teresa's God of union, as she describes him, is not the God of the Old and New Testaments or of theology; he is experienced only and wholly as a loving presence. But even in this respect, he is a totally unknown, without attributes of any known kind. Furthermore, in this state, language is completely absent; consciousness vanishes; there is not even a sort of pre- or post-dialogue analogous to speech. She conceives it as is marriage analogous spiritually to the physical marriage of a man and woman.

As Catholic authorities admit, St. Teresa is not consistent in her descriptions; and so St. John of the Cross's description of what he often called "infused contemplation" is frequently preferred to hers, largely because it is theologically the more orthodox in expression. I shall strip his description of its theological language. In agreement with Father W. Johnston, 23 I believe his theological language is not intrinsically connected with his experience. Other language, such as that of Zen, can do equal justice to it.

1. For St. John, the entity in this experience which he calls "God," is an absolute unknown; it has no properties intellectually, perceptually or volitionally known to man that can be ascribed to it. "Nada, Nada, Nada,"24 are the words St. John uses in denying that God has properties analogous to any known in experience. This does not mean he considered the experience wholly negative; to him, it was the most positive of any experience possible to man: it is a union of love so far beyond description that not even his poetry is able to give any inkling of what it is like.

2. When this experience occurs, the three dimensions of the soul--the intellect, sense, and will--are completely emptied of content. This he insisted, is a fundamental and indispensable condition. The intellect must be emptied not only of any concepts attributable either to this world or the next, but of any concepts. Consequently it can never know God in the sense of having concepts of him. Sense must also be emptied of all sensations, images, or memories of this world or the next. The consequence is that intellect and sense are not only neutralized but exist in complete, absolute darkness, is darkness so dark that at the stage before union, the soul is completely lost and in despair, for it no longer possesses any experimental guidelines with which to interpret and organize its experience. Finally, the will, too, must be emptied not only of all knowledge of what it desires in this world or the next, but of all desire. It becomes simply blind and without will for what is an absolute unknown: and it, too, lives in this darkness which becomes darker and darker as this unknowing willessness intensifies. However, when union is achieved, the darkness and despair vanish and the soul is infinitely filled with an infinite love.

This incredible experience does not, in human time, last long; it comes and goes, but once experienced, it is awaited with is yearning which goes beyond the pull of any other desire known. Nevertheless, the experience cannot be created or willed. It comes of its own, or, as St. John says, when God wills it to occur. However, it is true that those who have experienced it are likely to experience it again.

These modalities of "interior silence" help to unravel some of the important features of the interior-exterior silence antithesis. (1) Vocal prayer is plainly is case of the social-speech relation. In this case, the one who prays speaks aloud to an invisible listener. Only when he ceases speaking, does he reverse his role to become a listener; yet even while speaking (praying), he fervently hopes to be heard and responded to, although he does not know when and in what manner he will be responded to. The hoped-for response may be an action of some sort, a vision, a noise, or words. It may occur within the mind of the one who prays or outside his body. However, it is important to emphasize that throughout the period of prayer there is never the absence of speech except in the form of pauses which are usually not listening pauses.

2. Meditation frequently takes the mode of soundless speech but not necessarily. However, it usually involves listening in is special forms. It is not usually expected that the divine will speak directly to the meditator. The meditator listens to the speech of the Divine through the medium of reading sacred texts or devotional literature inspired by it. Thus the Divine soundlessly but indirectly speaks through the words it has communicated to specially selected men. Through reading, the listener soundlessly learns the divine meaning; but it can happen that the Divine will speak to him directly by whatever means it deems fit. When the meditator listens to the Divine through reading the Word, the speech antithesis dose not disappear, but it is often supplemented by the sound-soundlessness antithesis. In other words, there may be no external sounds, but the soul internally hears the sound of the words it reads. When this is the case, the listener lives in an interior world of quietude, even though quietude may not be external to his body. The world outside his body may be noisy and disordered yet he hears nothing of it. What exists within his soul is quiet speech, on the one side, and listening and meditating on it, on the other.

3. The third modality brings us close to the particular sense of the antithesis of interior-exterior silence, we wish to emphasize. It arises out of the speech-nonspeech and sound-soundlessness antitheses, but culminates as an experienced union of two beings in whom these antitheses are annihilated. There is no longer speaking or listening, for spoken, read, or soundlessly communicated words are neither available nor thought. The person exists in a state beyond speech and beyond personness. There is also neither sound-soundlessness nor quietude, yet quietude prevails.

Involved in this union are other significant states or conditions, (a) Mental functions such as thinking, sensing, recollecting, imagining, imaging, wishing, hoping, wanting, needing, are stilled. The word "stilled" is used here to indicate the duality of this experience. Not only is there is sort of stopping or mobilization of these functions, but, as with an immobilized engine, there is also an inner quietude, as if there were no sound. (b) This experience of union--the cognizance of two beings in relation to each other which is the first phase of this experience is at the same time transformed into a unity; the two beings become one and indistinguishable. (c) The emotional characteristics of this experience are identified by such words as Joy, peace, love, ease, nondesire, yet the words are recognized as utterly wrong. Also such words as non-joy, non-peace, non-love, non-ease--we have already used the word, "non-desire"--are equally wrong. Yet the 'non' seems to identify the essential nature of this experience by appearing to deny the applicability of either set of terms. (d) This paradoxical sort of denial seems absolutely necessary, because the experience, in its ultimate moment, is a non-experience: Ordinary consciousness has vanished: all distinctions indigenous to human experience, are annihilated; one is nothing and yet is everything. 25

It is only after the person moves out of this experience that he recognizes the inadequacy of any language to describe it. It is at this stage of strange recollection that he invents the antithesis of interior-exterior silence and, at the same time, declares that in the final state, this antithesis is completely transcended. The silence experienced here fuses as it rejects the speaking-listening and sound-soundlessness or noise-quietude antitheses.

What is the specific element in this experience which has led to the invention of the expression "interior silence?" Admittedly, this element is unsatisfactorily conveyed by such words as "stilled," "immobile," "inactive." In ordinary speech, when we say an engine is "stilled," we mean it has ceased to move, to produce force, energy, heat, power, sound. Consequently the word, silence," seems somehow to apply to this state of affairs, because in becoming immobile, inactive, nonproductive, the engine ceases also to make sounds and were it also human and alive, to speak. There is an imperfect analogue to this in the experience so often described as "interior silence," and for which we think the word, "stillness," to be a preferable expression.

Is this interior-silence "experience" or "non-experience," the outer world is no longer there. It is motionless, soundless, speechless. Vanished also is the body of the "experiencer." It, too, has become "still," and the experiencer no longer experiences his body. Of course, this is true only psychologically. Physically or physiologically on examination, the stilled body would show evidence, however reduced, of vital notion or activity.

Internally, the experiencer's psychic functions are also stilled. He neither thinks, remembers, senses, imagines, yearns, desires, or "feels"; the word, "feels" used for lack of a better word to include such experiences as pains, pleasure; and emotions. In a way intellectually contradictory he nevertheless seems to "experience" love and bliss at the same time but a love and bliss outside the order of even the most intense of ordinary experiences. Thus "interior silence" is not simply "silence," only "experienced" interiorly. It is, in fact a fusion of three kinds of "silences"--non-speaking, quietude" and stillness.

It seems easy, now to keep cognitively separate those kinds of "silences"--and to distinguish some of their characteristics and uses.

a. Non-speaking in the sense of not using words to communicate with other human beings is a kind of behavior well recognized and much described. Depending upon circumstances, it has been effusively praised and condemned. Its importance in the life of men becomes particularly apparent when it exists in the sub-modality of listening. As the horizon of listening is extended, its human importance and significance are also extended, for it expands listening from attending to what others say to reading the words of others, to giving heed to conscience, to the words of the long dead, to the invisible spirit or spirits which inhabits or controls the universe and our lives. Listening, of course, always implies a speaker, visible or invisible, who is speaking. Thus listening is different from observing or attending, neither of which necessarily involves a speaker.

Obviously, important as non-speaking is in society and in good relations with other persons, its more important function is to serve as a preparatory condition for thinking, for considering consequences, for taking into account what should not be neglected. Thus it is not merely an essential element of the speech situation, it is, at the same time, an essential condition for dealing with the future, for making possible the separation of the essential from the inessential, the important from the unimportant, the appropriate action and response from the inappropriate. Failure to utilize non-speaking for such purposes is the reason so many people say their worst fault is speaking out of turn, not listening enough. "Wise is the man who knows when to speak and when not to speak (Ecclesiastes 3:7).

b. Simply as an element of the speech-situation, non-speech does not involve either quietude or stillness. Quietude--an environment of relative soundlessness or relative absence of sound--is in some respect always necessary. If sound becomes too loud, too intense, speech itself--and so listening--becomes impossible. Nothing can be heard; and so speech is futile. This does not mean that there are not other forms of communication such as flags, gestures, smoke-signals, available to deal with such situations. These sorts of sign languages have long been in use; and in an extended discussion of non-speaking they would deserve special emphasis and analysis. But ordinary quiet is not the sufficient degree of quietude required by a thinker, a meditator, or the religious. When one listens to oneself, one's conscience, or the voices of invisible speakers, the need for a high degree of quietude becomes absolute. Sometimes not only the rustle of leaves, the sough of the wind, the whisper of turning pages, the light scraping of a pen, but also the sounds made by our bodies, internal and external, must be screened out. The mind or soul seems to be a fragile thing, easily distracted, not merely by its own thoughts, its own efforts to feel, sense, imagine, observe, abstract, but by even relatively low levels of sound. Again, analysis would be required to deal with the different ways in which this assertion is true and false; we cannot attempt this here. All that we need to say now is that thinkers and the religious have found is high degree of quietude absolutely necessary.

It is essential to say that quietude as such does not involve either nonspeech or stillness. It can exist independent of either and it is necessarily sought to escape the fatigue produced by noise as well as to restore energy-levels through rest or sleep. The person who is resting or sleeping is not necessarily either not-speaking or stilled, although both may be true. In short, quietude like non-speaking or stillness is essential for adequate human functioning, but it is not required at all times, only periodically. The length of this period and the degree of quietude required basically depends upon biological needs; but both period and degree of quietude can change significantly, acquiring new dimensions of meaning, when they subserve such needs as thinking, writing, meditation, or "interior silence." The thinker and writer require quietude for relatively long periods. However, when they cease to think or write, they may prefer relatively high levels of sound. It is the mystic, the hermit, who is likely to seek perpetual quietude, considering it an essential condition for attaining the highest possible spiritual experience.

Before turning to stillness, there is one difference between non-speaking and quietude which must be stressed because it is often forgotten. Non-speaking is a act of will--to use an archaic expression. It is a person who refuses to speak; prefers to listen. Quietude is an environmental condition, outside of and surrounding the person. It is not is human act, although a human act like avoiding men by going into the desert or building sound-proof walls can bring it into existence.

c. Stillness reduced to essentials involves two differences: (i) immobility and (ii) inaction. The first is a state, the second is condition. Immobility is best illustrated by physical rest or motionlessness and physiological death. Of course, absolute rest or motionlessness, as a matter of experience, does not exist; it is a notion derived from a physical theory like that of Newton's. 26 In terms of physical experience, there is only relative immobility or two or more objects moving at the same speed and in the same direction. Change the direction or the speed or both, and motion becomes experientially recognizable between these objects.

All things, animate and inanimate, living and dead, illustrate at times relative immobility or rest, but this sort of immobility is not particularly significant for organisms--particularly of the order of men. The sort of immobility which is highly significant is that of physiological death; but such death is never simply characterized by physical immobility. In some aspects, death is not an immobility at all. Actually, it is a fusion of several kinds of immobility and mobility. One kind of immobility might be called "behavioral." An organism ceases completely to respond in recognized ways to all internal and external stimuli. For example, it makes no pain, pleasure, thought, or percept responses; and such typical cyclic behavior as food-getting, food-elimination, resting, sleeping, reproducing cease. Another kind is physiological immobility in the narrow sense. For example, heart-beating and other types of biological pulsation stop. Nevertheless, physical, behavioral, and physiological immobilities are not decisive tests of physiological death; in addition such processes must occur as the rapid degeneration and destruction of soft organs and tissues and uncontrolled chemical transformations.

Inaction as related to humans is a very difficult concept to clarify. However, some things can be said which can help to identify a few of its important characteristics. First, it does not mean physical immobility, rest. An inactive organism is not necessarily immobile and it is certainly not dead. It may be waiting, holding itself in readiness to act or respond to a stimulus or set of stimuli at the appropriate moment. Furthermore, it may be, as a whole, immobile or immobilized, but its parts--organs--and processes--such as respiration--may have accelerated enormously. Second, it is not dead. Inaction is a specially selective mode of response: in sleep it is the response of an organism to fatigue; in thought and meditation--which often fixates an organism into is special posture--it is a special way of responding to a puzzle, a problem, or a desire to attain to a certain psychological state. Thinking and meditation have long been recognized as is mode of excluding all normal responses to typical stimuli in the organism's environment. A dead organism does not respond to anything.

This combination of immobility and inaction generally characterizes stillness. An organism is not still, if it is only immobilized. A horse or a man is not still, only immobilized, if one or the other is asleep or anesthetized. An organism needs also to be inactive, i. e., it must show by its posture that it is alert to and concentrated upon some stimulus or act of stimuli which it expects to affect it or by which it expects to be affected. Or again, it shows by its posture, that it has already been affected by a stimulus or set of stimuli. One usual indication of the first alternative is the organism's inattention and unresponsiveness to normal stimuli. Another is the difficulty of making it break away from its present posture. A usual indication of the second alternative is a radical change in behavior. The organism begins is radically new sequence of behaviors or takes on is new posture and attitude.

It is easier to illustrate these alternatives than to specify the general characteristics of this fused state of immobility and inaction. A cat, resting on its haunches, eyes focused on a bird or rabbit is an example of stillness. A runner, fingers resting lightly on the ground, torso raised in readiness, eyes fixed on the cinder path, waiting the crack of the pistol, is another. In both cases, the stillness of the cat or the runner is preparatory to action which a movement of the bird or the fired pistol triggers. A patient setting immobile in a dentist chair with mouth wide open waiting for the drill to begin cutting into the enamel of one of his teeth is a typical example of one expecting to be acted upon or affected. In the first two instances, the bird or rabbit movement and the fired pistol trigger a completely new sequence of behaviors. In the latter case, the stillness may continue, but in a new mode of expression: the patient may give evidence either of relaxation or of greater strain and tension as the drill grinds on his tooth. On the other hand, he may jump up screaming and rush out of the dentist's office, i. e., he may break the mold of the stilled state.

None of these examples is an instance of the stillness which is inappropriately called "interior silence"; and they are not intended to be. They are intended only to show that immobility and inactivity are two of the outstanding characteristics of stillness. To emphasize a point already made with respect to non-speech and quietude, not all modes of stillness require that the still person be removed from speech or noise. They can occur in speech and noise situations.

Like non-speech or quietude stillness in some modes is essential in many sound situations and for many styles of life. A psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, or psychologist who has learnt to be still is able to reduce the tensions and strains agitating patients and visitors. This is also true of lawyers, preachers businessmen, mothers, fathers, lovers. Stillness can create is climate reductive of anger and misunderstanding. There is something in stillness--the stillness of a cat, for example--which can put a hunted animal like a bird off guard, or it can help to create trust, remove discomfort, make persons readier to confide or to co-operate. This something may be called "emptiness." The still being empties himself of currents, thoughts, moods, images, visible or invisible, which push against others and cause them to resist in turn. In its highest modes of expression, as in deep thought, or bliss consciousness or union with God, it is often experienced as emptiness and fullness at the same time. Mystics speak of emptying their minds of thoughts, sensations, images, imaginations, memories, visions, as is preliminary stage. This emptying of everything belonging to the world of intellect, sense, and will is a way of opening their minds to the ultimate. On is lower scale, it is typical of the still person to empty himself of everything that will prevent him from interacting with other persons seeking to reach him. Mystics also speak of a fullness which is emptiness at the same time. The emptying of the mind brings with it an ultimate experience, complete, absolute, indescribable; and because this experience has no attributes belonging to the world of intellect, sense, and will, mystics have no alternative than to speak of it as both empty and full. Thinkers who have learnt the art of stillness have often used analogous language. As they have given up forcing their minds and because still, they have felt their minds suddenly beginning to be filled with ideas coming as it were from nowhere.

III We began by saying that the notion of silence as used in the religious life has never been clearly analyzed and has resulted in a failure to understand how best to use silence--I might add, not merely in the religious life, but in all modes of life. To understand silence more adequately, it is necessary to distinguish three basic kinds of silence: non-speaking, quietude, and stillness, which exist in situations involving contraries such as speech, sound, unstillness, i. e., mobility and action. In many situations, these kinds of silence neither necessarily depend on each other or involve each other, but there are important situations of involvement. In some situations, such as speech, quietude of is certain degree is essential, for speech needs to be heard. In serious thought or meditation, either oral or internal, speech--depending upon whether it is a dialogue with others or with oneself--and quietude of a high degree and ever extended periods of time are essential. Sometimes, depending upon circumstances, the thinker or meditator may require stillness as well. For those who seek the mystical experience, at its highest level, non-speech, quietude of is very high degree, and stillness are absolutely essential. I close with one comment. I have briefly stated relationships between these sorts of silences which deserve serious study. Unfortunately, little or no serious investigation has been done--so far as I know--on their interconnection especially at the highest level, the moral, the intellectual, and the mystical. Claims, of course, have been made over millennia, but I still do not know to what extent they can be justified as scientific generalizations.

Notes
1. J. Hasting, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, s. v. "Silence."
2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. E. A. W. Budge, ed. and trans., The Paradise or Garden of the Holy Fathers, 2 vols. (London: Chatto & Windus, 1907), 2: 3.

5. Ibid., 2: 4, no. 6,

6. E. Cuthbert Butler, Benedictine Monachism, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Seculum Historale, 1924; photo reprint, 1961), p. 93 ff.

7. Budge, "Introduction" 1: xli

8. The Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues, trans. Joseph Rickaby, 3 vole. (Chicago: Loyola Univ. Press, 1929), 2: 111, 120.

9. Jerusalem Bible, Qu. 3: 1.

10. Spiritualité orientale, no. 3 [Etiollois (Essonne) Les Dominos, 1968]. This monograph first appeared in Orientala Cristiana Periodica (1956) under the title, "l'Hesychasme, étude de spiritualité."

11. Budge, "introduction," 1: xl ff; also 2: Sayings, chap. 14.

12. See Benedictine Monachism, p. 290, in which Father Butler quotes the rule from Cardinal Newman's translation of Basil's letter (Ep. 2, Church of the Fathers, (5).

13. Hausherr, p. 55.

14. E. Herman, The Meaning and Value of Mysticism, 3d ed. (London: James Clarke & Co., 1925), p. 120.

15. UPI Report on research on Noise and Silence by Dr. Gilbart C. Tolhurst.

16. Bruno Vercruysse, New Practical Meditation for Every Day in the Year, new ed., 2 vols. (New York: Bengiger Bros., 1954).

17. Father Marie-Eugéne, I Want to See God, trans. Sister N. Verde Clare, C. S. C. (Chicago: Fides Publishers Association, 1955).

18. Ibid., p. 432.

19. Ibid., p. 431.

20. Ibid., p. 432.

21. Collected Works of Saint Teresa of Jesus, ed. and trans. E. Allison Peers, 3 vols. (London: Sheed & Ward, 1946), vol. 2, Mansions, p. 234.

22. Stanbrook ed., rev. by F. Benedict Zimmerman (London T. Baker, 1925), c. xxi. I.

23. William Johnston, The Still Point (New York: Fordham Univ., Press, 1970).

24. Complete Works of St. John of the Cross, ed. and trans. E. Allison Peers, 3 vols. in one (Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1964), vol. 1, The Ascent to Mt. Carmel, Book 1, chap. XIII, p. 59.

25. Ibid., vol. 1, Dark Night of the Soul, chap. XXV, p. 456: also vol. 2, pp. 316-19.

26. Max Born, Einstein's Theory of Relativity, rev. ed. (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1962), pp. 57-58.