Non-Linear Mysticism
Eno's Clever Wordplay Reveals a Subtle Truth
Brian Eno (b. 1948) first came to prominence as an andrygynous glam-rocker during a short stint playing keyboards for the British band Roxy Music; in a subsequent solo career and through collaborations with King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp, he became one of the most stylish and interesting art rock musicians of the mid-1970s. He was also one of my favorite musicians in my college years, and his albums Another Green World and Music for Airports continue to delight me. But it was “Backwater,” an obscure track on his 1977 album Before and After Science, that yielded the lines that twenty years later I would use for the epigraph of my first book:
If you study the logistics and heuristics of the mystics
You will find that their minds rarely move in a line.
Granted, Eno was engaging in some clever wordplay here, and I doubt he was seriously trying to comment on the mystical mind. But beyond sending me scurrying to the dictionary to look up “heuristics,” these lines offered my young mind a glimpse into what would become a defining way I understood contemplative conscioussness: as a nonlinear experience.
By the way, heuristics means the methods we use to solve problems, especially problems that cannot be solved perfectly or tidily. So the “heuristics of the mystics” basically means the ways that mystics try to make sense of the mystery of life, mystery of the Divine, and so forth.
In the contemplative world we tend to prefer speaking about the heart rather than the head: many believe experience, not dogma or doctrine, forms the foundation of the spiritual life. But a healthy mysticism rests on a synergy between the mind’s wisdom and the heart’s intuition. And Brian Eno playfully reminds us that the mind of a mystic simply cannot be nailed down to A+B=C logic.
But how does the nonlinear mystic think, or reason? Spaciously, playfully, paradoxically, holistically, inclusively; compassionately and lovingly. A mystic or contemplative does not eschew logic or philosophy, but simply refuses to be constrained by such domains. Logistics and heuristics, after all, rely on words to do their heavy lifting; while mystics look over the shoulders of every word to gaze wondrously into the abyss of loving silence.
Join Carl McColman on a pilgrimage in search of “The Wisdom of the English Mystics,” May 26-June 2, 2026! We’ll visit London, Oxford, Norwich (home of Julian) and Pleshey, Evelyn Underhill’s favorite retreat house. Space is limited. For more information, visit: sdicompanions.org/product/english-mystics-journey-2026/
