# The World of Reality explained — Practical Mysticism > Chapter companion for Practical Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill. ## What happens This chapter challenges the practical man's assumption that the world of common sense is the only reality. It argues that human perception constructs a limited, conventional picture of reality, akin to a tapestry that omits much of the actual richness. By examining the subjective and fragmentary nature of this constructed world, the chapter introduces the possibility of other planes of reality and the need for a 'spring-cleaning of the soul' to achieve direct, unmediated contact with the Real. It presents the artist and poet as exemplars of a contemplative consciousness that can access a fuller, more vital world through 'absolute sensation' and a purified perception. ## Themes in this chapter ### Perception and Illusion The chapter extensively explores how human perception constructs a limited and often illusory picture of reality, comparing it to a tapestry that omits the full richness of the world. ### Contemplation and Action Contemplation is presented as the essential activity of artists and a path to direct communion with reality, contrasting with the practical man's action-oriented worldview. ### Union with Reality The chapter's central aim is to create dissatisfaction with the conventional world and point toward the possibility of union with a deeper Reality, which is the object of the mystic's quest. ## Character check-ins ### The Practical Man The practical man is the primary interlocutor, whose worldview of single vision and common sense is questioned and shown to be a limited construction. ### John Keats Keats is quoted for his aspiration 'O for a life of sensations rather than thoughts!' as an example of the poetic desire to escape conceptual thought and reach intuitive contact with reality. ### William Blake Blake is cited for his aphorism 'If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is—Infinite,' emphasizing the need to cleanse perception from mental cobwebs. ### Walt Whitman Whitman is listed among the great poets and artists who have demonstrated direct communion with a visible natural order beyond the ordinary. ## Key lines > The practical man may justly observe at this point that the world of single vision is the only world he knows: that it appears to him to be real, solid, and self-consistent: and that until the existence—at least, the probability—of other planes of reality is made clear to him, all talk of uniting with them is mere moonshine, which confirms his opinion of mysticism as a game fit only for idle women and inferior poets. The practical man argues that the only world he knows is the one he sees, and until other realities are proven, mysticism seems like nonsense for the lazy or artistic. _This sets up the central challenge of the chapter: to show the practical man that his world is not the whole of reality._ > The relation of this universe to the world of fact is not unlike the relation between a tapestry picture and the scene which it imitates. The world we perceive is like a tapestry that only roughly represents the actual scene, missing many details. _This metaphor illustrates how our mental construction of reality is a simplified, conventional version of the full truth._ > O for a life of sensations rather than thoughts! Keats wished to live by direct sensory experience instead of intellectual analysis. _This quote from Keats exemplifies the desire to escape conceptual thought and reach a more immediate contact with reality._ > If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is—Infinite. Blake believed that if we purified our perception, we would see the infinite nature of everything. _This aphorism underscores the need to remove mental clutter to perceive reality directly._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/practical_mysticism_se/chapters/ii-the-world-of-reality - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/practical_mysticism_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/practical_mysticism_se/chapters