Seamus Heaney’s Personal Helicon evokes the poet’s childhood fascination with wells—dark, echoing sanctuaries of silence and wonder. These wells became, for the young Heaney, portals into depth and reverberation. As an adult, he writes that he continues to rhyme “to set the darkness echoing.” This image offers a luminous metaphor for education: not to fill minds with noise but to cultivate spaces where silence speaks and mystery resonates.
After four decades in education across continents and institutions both secular and Catholic, I have witnessed pedagogical models come and go. The moment before us, however, is not a passing phase; it is a threshold. The structures we have long trusted—the essay, the lecture hall, the exam paper—are dissolving into obsolescence. In their place comes an educational machinery tuned to algorithms and metrics. Schools respond with commendable adjustments: rethinking assessments, expanding curricula, exploring pedagogical practices. Yet I find myself asking: Are these recalibrations enough? Or is something more fundamental required, a reorientation of education’s purpose?
The psychologist Howard Gardner’s introduction of the theory of multiple intelligences in the 1980s broadened educational discourse beyond simple rationalism to include linguistic, logical, musical, kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal and intrapersonal ways of knowing—and Gardner later added naturalistic and existential intelligences. These last two, in particular, opened a path toward spiritual reflection: intrapersonal intelligence invited us to understand our inner landscapes, and existential intelligence challenged us to ponder life’s ultimate questions. But today, as machines increasingly simulate both introspection and philosophical inquiry, I believe we must go further.
There is also an intelligence Gardner gestures toward but does not name—one long cultivated in the Christian mystical tradition. I would call it mystical intelligence. It is not a skill to be measured but a disposition of the soul: a readiness for encounter, a surrender of control, a patient hospitality to mystery. Catholic faith, at its heart, is not a system of mastery but a posture of encounter with the living God. Mystical intelligence names this capacity to dwell within paradox, to listen with the heart, and to seek truth not only through reason but through reverent attention. It deepens rather than replaces the church’s intellectual tradition, reminding us that contemplation is not an escape from truth but its fullest reception. In an age flooded with data and noise, this may be the intelligence most needed—for it teaches us how to wait, how to listen and how to recognize the divine in silence.
The evolution of schooling reflects shifting societal aims. In ancient Greece, education prepared free citizens to participate in public life, cultivating rhetoric, philosophy and deliberation. More recently, we have adopted educational models designed to prepare clerks and officials—emphasizing mental arithmetic, penmanship and spelling, even now when calculators and spellcheck dominate. The trappings of these models—bells, classrooms, hourly schedules—remain. In recent decades, vocational emphasis has grown stronger, with a shift toward STEM disciplines, driven by the desire for economic advantage and power.
Byung-Chul Han, the Korean-German philosopher and cultural critic, argues in The Burnout Society that our age is marked by exhaustion. This rings especially true for students and young adults entering the workforce, who live in constant performance mode—expected to be academically accomplished, socially fluent and emotionally resilient all at once. Shaped by a culture of self-entrepreneurship, they are told they can become anything, do everything and optimize every moment. These kind intentions mask a deeper crisis of spirit: relentless productivity and hyperconnectivity have created conditions of depletion, anxiety and silent depression. There is little room to linger in uncertainty or rest in sufficiency.
Now we stand at the edge of major uncertainties. We do not know what jobs our current students will have, or how they will partner with artificial intelligence. The times call for a radical reimagining of the purpose of schools: They can embrace the broader, nobler role of preparing people for the trajectory of life, from childhood’s wonder through reflective adulthood to elder wisdom. Such an education would cultivate adaptability, presence and purpose, all rooted in mystical intelligence. This is an education worth imagining and delivering.
The scale of change in 20th-century physics, from classical certainties to quantum ambiguity, offers a helpful parallel for the exploration of mystical intelligence. Classical physics provided reassuring frameworks. But quantum mechanics overturned them, demanding humility and acceptance of uncertainty. The mystics have long known this disposition: an openness to paradox, a surrender to the unknown. Heraclitus spoke of constant flux; Anaximander described the boundless source of all things. Quantum discoveries echo these ancient intuitions. For instance, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle shows that we cannot simultaneously know a particle’s position and momentum with precision, underscoring a fundamental limit to knowledge that aligns more with contemplative wonder than with mastery.
Reason alone is no longer our most powerful guide in complexity. The rational frameworks that served us well now falter. It is time to recover the mystics’ wisdom in valuing attentive presence, wonder and readiness for mystery. These are not relics but tools for navigating what lies ahead.
I am encouraged by educators who have integrated contemplative practices into their classrooms. Their work points to a deeper calling, to reimagine the whole purpose of education: its goals, methods and measures of success. Whether through a few minutes of stillness or a shared reading in the style of lectio divina that invites layered reflection, these practices make space for presence and depth.
The marketplace churns too quickly for any curriculum to follow its lead; instead, we must draw students toward the deeper wells of interior formation. There, in the dark and echoing places, they may come to know not only what they can do, but who they are.
Mystical intelligence will flourish where students engage with beauty, poetry and sacred texts—not as material to dissect, but as doorways to presence. It calls for sacred pauses, reflective writing and teachers courageous enough to say, “I do not know” and mean it as reverence.
In this threshold moment, when artificial certainty multiplies and our students feel increasingly alone, I return to Heaney’s wells. We must call young people there, too: to stand at the edge, to lean in without fear and to let the silence echo. In that echo, perhaps, they will hear what no algorithm can compose—the ancient music of the soul, waiting to be remembered.
