An Interview with David Torkington: Christian Mantras

I interviewed David Torkington, a spiritual theologian, author, and speaker who specializes in prayer, Christian spirituality, and mystical theology, about the use of Catholic mantras while meditating. Years ago my husband and I joined a group who followed Fr. John Maine's methods but discerned it was not for us. David's responses reveal his vast knowledge and experience and the real reasons for our unease.

[Tweet "A #Catholic mystical theologian weighs in on the prayer practice of using mantras. By @mjmjuneau"]

Melanie: Are you familiar with the Fr. John Main’s use of a Christian mantra, Maranatha, while meditating?

David: Yes I am. But I do not agree with his use of mantras for everyone, at all stages of the Christian prayer journey. To quote from my website:

1. The Christian mystical tradition continually asserts that any man-made means or techniques cannot attain true contemplation, which is a pure gift of God.
2. The gift of contemplation is only given after years of practising prayer in the context of an ascetical life-style. There is no such thing as instant mysticism in the Christian tradition. Techniques that purport to lead to the same are bogus.
3. Authentic Christian prayer never begins by introducing mantras to teach people how to pray, but by introducing them to a loving person to teach them how to love. It is only when first love leads them on, that words or phrases are taught, not to generate or maintain states of inner peace but to maintain the heart’s attention on the love that radiates from God. They should not be repeated, come what may, but should be discarded the moment this love begins to make itself felt so that it can be savoured in silent contemplation.
4. The experience of contemplation, then, is not due to the recitation of mantras calming the mind, but to the tangible experience of the love of God drawing the heart to ever more absorbing degrees of intensity. The use of words or phrases is merely a means to this end.
5. The ultimate aim of Christian contemplation is not to search for an experience of inner peace, but to search for God whose love eventually leads them into experiences that infinitely transcend any form of man-made

 Melanie:  You have just written the best response I have ever read. We live only two hours from Montreal, where Fr. Main’s monastery is, so his second, Fr. Lawrence Freeman, gave talks in Ottawa decades ago. We tried the mantra for a year but Fr. Lawrence repudiated any contact with the Holy Spirit … any sense of God’s love, any sense of an inner word or a word of knowledge or any insights. It seemed ridiculous to us and impossible to even try control the flow of the Spirit and shut out His voice.

David: I know of one person who travelled from the UK to John Maine’s monastery, and after a year of endlessly being told to ‘Keep saying your mantra,’ she was in despair. Her prayer life came to a halt until she discarded his method and returned to praying in the Christian way. We now have Fr Freeman in England promoting the John Main method and sadly he has a following…. All my writings try to promote the Christian way of prayer, and I consider it my life’s work.