Note from Earl in the Unknown
Mysticism: Not Just Spells, But Something Close to Home
My great-grandmother used to tell stories in the dark; star gazing through the night sky. No books. No notes. Just her voice.
Gods arguing across the sky. Worlds ending and starting again. People turning into something else without warning.
She never introduced them as stories. No “once upon a time.” No signal that this was something imagined. She spoke as if it had already happened.
And at that age, I didn’t question it.
You don’t lie there as a child analysing what’s real. You just picture it. The room disappears. What she’s describing feels just as solid as anything you saw that day.
It didn’t feel like being told a story. It felt like being reminded of something I hadn’t seen yet.
Years later, I tried to work out why that stayed with me. It wasn’t the content. It was the delivery.
There was no effort to make it sound magical. No attempt to convince me. If anything, it sounded ordinary. Like she was explaining something that existed slightly out of reach—not invented, just not visible.
University
By the time I got to university, that sense of certainty was gone. I’d already dropped out once. Coming back didn’t feel like a fresh start. It felt like I’d forced my way back into something that wasn’t fully mine.
Lectures, deadlines, essays—it all worked. It just didn’t land.
So I started changing things around me. Nothing dramatic.
I painted the living room a deep blue. Put a gold horse on the windowsill. And, for reasons I couldn’t properly explain, I bought a small statue of Zeus and kept it near where I worked.
If you’d asked me what I was doing, I wouldn’t have had a clean answer. I didn’t think it was going to help me pass anything. But I kept it there anyway.
Zeus
At first, it felt slightly ridiculous.
You sit down to write an essay, glance over, and there’s a Greek god staring back at you. It doesn’t exactly scream “serious academic approach.”
Part of me knew that. Part of me didn’t care.
Because something about it worked. Not in a way I could prove. But the space felt different.
Less like I was forcing myself through tasks, more like I’d stepped into something that was already set up. As if the room had been arranged before I arrived, and I’d just followed along with it.
I stayed at the desk longer. I paid more attention. I stopped rushing through things just to get them done.
It didn’t make the work easier. But it made it feel… placed.
And every so often, without meaning to, I’d look up at the statue and get the strange sense that it hadn’t always been where I’d left it. Not moved—just… not quite fixed. Like it belonged to the room in a way I didn’t.
Question
Then the other thought would show up. Quieter, but harder to ignore.
This doesn’t mean anything. It’s just an object. You’re just making it mean something.
And that’s where it became uncomfortable.
Because both things felt true.
On one hand, nothing had changed. Same lectures. Same deadlines. Same work.
On the other hand, everything about how I approached it had shifted. And I couldn’t fully explain why.
That tension stayed there. Not strong enough to stop me, but strong enough to keep me aware of it.
Am I doing something that actually helps—or just convincing myself that it does?
Museum
I finished the degree. No sudden transformation. No dramatic turning point. Just steady progress, built on something I couldn’t properly define.
After that, I started going to museums more often. Not to study anything in detail. Mostly just to walk through.
At first, it’s straightforward. You look at objects. Read a few descriptions. Move on. Glass cases. Soft lighting. People passing without stopping for long. Everything in its place.
But if you stay in one place a little longer, something shifts.
You stand in front of something that’s been around for hundreds of years. An object that’s outlived the person who made it, the person who used it, and everything around it.
And for a brief moment, it doesn’t feel distant.
You’re still standing there, doing nothing. But the gap between then and now feels thinner.
Not gone. Just… less certain.
Like you’re not entirely looking at it anymore. More like you’ve ended up on the same side of it, without noticing when that happened.
Middle
And just like before, the same question shows up.
Is that real? Or are you just filling in the gaps because your brain doesn’t like empty space?
There’s no clear answer. And that’s the part that people tend to avoid.
Because it’s easier to go one way or the other. Either dismiss it completely or fully believe there’s something behind it.
Sitting in the middle is harder. Because nothing settles there.
That’s where most of these experiences actually happen. Not strong enough to prove anything. Not weak enough to ignore.
Mysticism
That’s the closest I’ve got to understanding mysticism.
Not as something you study. Not as something you prove. But as something that keeps showing up in places where it shouldn’t really matter.
In a story told without hesitation. In an object that changes how you work, even when you know it shouldn’t. In a room full of things that shouldn’t feel familiar—but do, for a second, before you remember where you are.
You don’t have to call it anything. Most people don’t.
You can explain it away if you want to. Say it’s habit. Association. Pattern recognition. And maybe that’s all it is.
But that doesn’t really change the experience.
Shift
Because once you’ve had a few of those moments—properly had them, not brushed past them—it becomes difficult to treat everything as straightforward.
Not mysterious in a dramatic sense. Just not as fixed as it first appears.
And that’s usually where the shift happens. Not when you start believing something new. But when you realise you don’t have a clean way to explain everything you’ve already experienced.
And after that, things don’t exactly become strange.
They just stop feeling entirely settled.
Like something has already happened—and you’re only just noticing it now.
Until the next journey into the unknown.
— Earl in the Unknown
“Mysticism is not about escaping the world — it is about discovering that the world may be far deeper than we first believed.”
Question for You
Have you ever experienced a moment that felt strangely meaningful, even though you couldn’t explain why?
Table of Contents
If this reflection resonates with you, you may enjoy exploring the philosophy behind this project in Earl in the Unknown
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