Christian Mysticism
Christian Mysticism revives the practices of the ancient Catholic Mystics. They used occultic means to connect with the spirit realm (principally Contemplative Prayer), claiming their experiences were of God, and that they were communing with God. Nothing could be further from the truth. The spiritual entities they connected with were deceiving spirits that led them into falsehood and far from Biblical truth, and bound them up in terrible demonic bondage.
The practices are typically described in a number of steps including: 1. Awakening; 2. Purgation; 3. Illumination; 4. Dark Night of the Soul; and, 5. Union. The Bible in no way whatsoever presents these steps as a means to achieve union with God. The only way that the Bible lays out is through faith in the blood of Jesus Christ and the new birth i.e. to be born again. It is in the finished work of the cross that we are to trust in, not personal effort including meditation techniques, self denial and self affliction.