What Is Mysticism?

What Is the Question?

Mysticism is the direct, experiential encounter with what the mystic takes to be ultimate reality or the divine. The word comes from the Greek mystikos, meaning "hidden" or "initiated," and it originally referred to the hidden meanings in scripture and to the esoteric practices of the religious traditions. In its modern philosophical sense, mysticism refers to the experience itself, the felt encounter with the divine that the mystic reports. The philosophical question is what to make of such experience. Is it veridical, an encounter with a real divine reality? Is it a distinctive psychological state, to be explained by psychology and neurology? Or is it shaped by the theological expectations of the tradition, so that the Buddhist's experience of emptiness and the Christian's experience of union with God are not the same phenomenon but different constructions?

The SEP entry on mysticism sets the contemporary debate as a contest between perennialism, which holds that mystical experiences across traditions share a common core, and constructivism, which holds that the experiences are shaped by the theological and cultural contexts of the experiencers. The debate bears directly on the argument from religious experience, and it is one of the central questions in the philosophy of religion.

Historical Background

Mystical traditions are found in every major religion. In Hinduism, the Upanishadic sages sought union with Brahman, the ultimate reality underlying all things. In Buddhism, the meditative traditions, especially in Zen and in the Theravada forest tradition, sought the direct experience of nirvana or of emptiness. In the Abrahamic traditions, the mystical traditions run from the Hebrew prophets, through the Christian mystics such as Augustine, the author of the Cloud of Unknowing, Meister Eckhart, and Teresa of Avila, to the Sufi tradition in Islam, especially in the work of Ibn Arabi and Rumi.

The philosophical engagement with mysticism is more recent. William James, in The Varieties of Religious Experience, gave the first systematic philosophical study, drawing on a wide range of personal accounts and identifying the common features of mystical experience. Rudolf Otto, in The Idea of the Holy, distinguished the experience of the numinous, the encounter with the wholly other, and gave it a central place in the philosophy of religion. W. T. Stace, in Mysticism and Philosophy (1960), developed the perennialist position, arguing that the cross-cultural commonalities in mystical experience are evidence for a single divine reality. Steven Katz, in a series of papers in the 1970s and 1980s, developed the constructivist position, arguing that the experiences are shaped by the theological expectations of the traditions.

William James and the Marks of Mysticism

James's analysis of mystical experience, in the lectures on "Religion of Healthy-Mindedness" and "The Value of Saintliness," identified four marks that distinguish mystical states from ordinary experience. The first is ineffability: the experience defies expression in words, and the mystic who tries to describe it resorts to paradox, metaphor, and negation. The second is noetic quality: the experience is not just a feeling but conveys knowledge, a sense that "this is true" and that the experiencer has seen into the nature of things. The third is transiency: the experience is brief, often lasting only seconds or minutes, and it fades, leaving the experiencer with a memory rather than a continued state. The fourth is passivity: the experiencer feels acted upon rather than acting, swept up by a power not under their control.

James's marks have been the starting point for the philosophical analysis of mysticism, and they have been refined and contested in the subsequent literature. The marks capture something real about the phenomenology of mystical experience, but they also raise questions: are the marks necessary, are they sufficient, and do they apply to all mystical experiences or only to some? The contemporary literature has produced careful taxonomies, distinguishing, for instance, theistic from non-theistic mysticism, and introvertive from extrovertive mysticism.

Perennialism: Stace and the Common Core

The perennialist position, developed by Stace and continued by Robert Forman and others, holds that mystical experiences across traditions share a common core. The common core, on Stace's reading, is the experience of pure consciousness, the state in which the contents of consciousness fall away and the consciousness itself remains, undifferentiated and undivided. This state, the perennialist argues, is the same whether the experiencer is a Hindu sage, a Buddhist monk, or a Christian mystic, and the differences in the reports are the result of the theological interpretations that the traditions impose on the experience.

The perennialist argument is that the cross-cultural commonalities are evidence for a single divine reality. The argument relies on the principle that similar experiences across very different cultural contexts are more likely to be veridical than to be coincidental. If Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and Sufis all report an experience of union with a reality beyond the ordinary, and if the experience has the same phenomenology across the traditions, then it is reasonable to infer that there is a single reality corresponding to the experience, namely the divine or ultimate reality. The perennialist's case is part of the wider argument from religious experience, and it provides a powerful piece of evidence for theism, or for a broader form of religious realism.

Constructivism: Katz and the Shaping of Experience

The constructivist position, developed by Steven Katz and others, holds that mystical experiences are shaped by the theological and cultural contexts of the experiencers. The constructivist argues that there is no common core of pure consciousness, and that the differences in the reports reflect differences in the experiences themselves, which are produced by the different practices, expectations, and conceptual schemes of the traditions. The Buddhist's experience of emptiness and the Christian's experience of union with God are not the same phenomenon interpreted differently, but different phenomena, shaped by the different religious formations of the experiencers.

The constructivist argument is that the principle of credulity does not apply to mystical experience, because the experience is not independent of the tradition but is shaped by it. The constructivist cites the diversity of mystical reports, the dependence of the reports on the prior theological commitments of the experiencers, and the absence of a recognizable common core when the reports are examined carefully. The constructivist does not necessarily deny that the experiences are veridical, but holds that the veridicality cannot be inferred from the cross-cultural commonalities, because there are no cross-cultural commonalities, only culturally shaped experiences.

The perennialist replies that the constructivist overstates the diversity and understates the commonalities. The reports, when examined carefully, do share recognisable features, including the four marks James identified, and the differences in interpretation do not entail differences in the experience itself. The perennialist also argues that the constructivist's principle, that experience is always shaped by conceptual schemes, would, if applied to sense experience, undermine the veridicality of all perception, which is not what the constructivist intends. The debate is technical, and the state of the question is that both positions have adherents, and the philosophical work continues.

The Cognitive Science of Mysticism

A more recent development is the cognitive science of mysticism, which seeks to explain mystical experience in terms of brain function, cognitive processes, and evolutionary psychology. Neuroscientists such as Andrew Newberg have studied the brain activity of meditators and mystics, and have found distinctive patterns, including decreased activity in the parietal lobe, which is associated with the sense of self and spatial orientation. The cognitive science of mysticism has been taken by some to support the constructivist position, since the brain states can be taken to be producing the experience rather than receiving it.

The defender of the veridicality of mystical experience has several replies. The first is that the neurological correlation is ambiguous, since the brain may be a medium for the experience rather than its producer, as the radio analogy suggests. The second is that the cognitive science does not show that the experiences are non-veridical, only that they have natural causes, and a religious experience can have both natural and divine causes. The third is that the cognitive science of mysticism is still in its early stages, and its findings are not yet sufficiently robust to bear the philosophical weight that has been placed on them. The debate is live, and the question of what the cognitive science shows is a contested one.

Mysticism and the Argument from Religious Experience

The debate about mysticism bears directly on the argument from religious experience. If the perennialist is right, and mystical experiences share a common core across traditions, then the argument is strengthened, because the cross-cultural commonality is evidence for a single divine reality. If the constructivist is right, and the experiences are shaped by the traditions, then the argument is weakened, because the diversity of the reports does not support a single object. The state of the question is that the debate is unresolved, and the argument from religious experience remains a live but contested part of the case for theism.

Contemporary Relevance

Mysticism remains a live topic, both in philosophy and in the wider culture. The persistence of mystical experience, even in secularized societies, and the revival of contemplative practices such as meditation and centering prayer, suggest that mysticism is a deep feature of human psychology and spirituality. The philosophical question of what to make of it is correspondingly urgent, and the debate between perennialism and constructivism, and between the defender of veridicality and the cognitive scientist, continues.

The deeper lesson is that the question of mysticism is part of the larger question of how to weigh experiential evidence, and of how to balance the principle of credulity against the explanatory challenge. The question reaches into the foundations of epistemology, and it is not settled by a single argument. The honest philosophical stance is to take the experience seriously, to engage with the explanatory challenge, and to weigh the evidence as carefully as the question deserves. The mystic's claim to have encountered the divine is not to be dismissed lightly, but neither is it to be accepted uncritically, and the philosophical work is to find the right balance.

Sources

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Mysticism" — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mysticism/
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Religious Experience" — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/religious-experience/
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "William James" — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/james/
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Philosophy of Religion" — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-religion/

Related Topics

• What Is Religious Experience? — the wider category.
• What Is the Sacred? — the object of the experience.
• Is Faith Rational? — the wider question.
• What Is Prayer? — a related contemplative practice.
• Does God Exist? — the central question.
• Philosophy of Religious Experience — the wider domain.