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Permeating each of the world's major religious traditions, mysticism may be described as the level of deep, experiential encounter with the divine, or ultimate, however that may be understood, that links religious and spiritual pursuits across cultures and across the centuries. Mysticism differs from more defined forms of religious experience, inasmuch as it frequently transports the individual beyond the confines of the religious tradition itself to a realm often described as lacking in any sense of differentiation, whether it be between aspirant and God, or between self and non-self.

The task of defining mysticism bears reevaluation, however. As Frits Staal has written, "If mysticism is to be studied seriously, it should not merely be studied indirectly and from without, but also directly and from within. Mysticism can at least in part be regarded as something affecting the human mind, and it is therefore quite unreasonable to expect that it could be fruitfully explored by confining oneself to literature about or contributed by mystics, or to the behavior and physiological characteristics of mystics and their bodies." (p. 123). That being said, according to a loose, phenomenological typology, one may consider mysticism to be that genre of subjectivity and behavior manifesting in an "altered," or nonconventional mode, framed in a religious or spiritual narrative, and experienced by those who are refered to, at least in English, as "mystics."

Mysticism in various religious traditions

The Christian tradition manifests varied branches of mysticism, including the Discalced Carmelites, a movement within the Carmelite order that espouses a form of mystical development still followed today in the Catholic Church. Founded by St. Teresa of Avila (1515–1582) and St. John of the Cross (1542–1591) in sixteenth-century Spain, the movement defended the practice of inner prayer against its persecution by King Philip II of Spain. Educated by Jesuits, John of the Cross began theological studies at the University of Salamanca in 1567 but left to help Teresa of Avila in her efforts to found the Discalced Carmelites. Imprisoned by the non-reformed Carmelites from 1575 to 1578, he used his imprisonment to his advantage, composed poetry, and, finally, escaped to face further suspicion regarding supposed connections to socalled illuministic books roundly condemned during the Inquisition. Only after the Apostolic See had examined his orthodoxy in the early seventeenth century were his books published openly.

St. John primarily articulates a systematic approach to mystical development appropriate to cloister spirituality, though he wrote his last book, The Living Flame of Love, for a laywoman, and used it as a vehicle of instructing both lay and monastic Christians in the methods for attaining mystical union. St. John may primarily be remembered for explicating a so-called via negativa mode of spiritual engagement in which one prays without focusing on imagery and without actively pursuing any specific intellectual content (Mallory, pp. 1–7). Some generations earlier, Dominican mystic Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) similarly utilized a kind of "negative theology" to point towards the inadequacy of human language and perception in capturing the fullness of mystical experience: "There is no knowing what God is" (Steere, pp. 143–144). And in the Indian Advaita tradition, as Mahadevan wrote in the preface to The Wisdom of Unity, one experiences transcendent unity as "the distinctions and differences that teem this world" fade away in the recognition of "the eternal nonduality of the Self."

The Sufi tradition exhibits the depth of Islamic spirituality and exemplifies the paradoxical quality of mysticism in general. According to Rumi (1207–1273), a Persian mystic and poet, "What is Sufism? He said: To find joy in the heart when grief comes." Rbi 'a (717–801), a Sufi mystic and an Islamic saint, "introduced the element of selfless love into the austere teachings of the early ascetics and gave Sufism the hue of true mysticism." Never marrying and not favoring the prophet Mohammad in any particular way, she loved God absolutely, and completely, losing herself in contemplation of him. Sufism also provides a good example of the nature of the path that carries mystics of all stripes, a series of steps towards a deep experience of God, toward the realization of emptiness, or towards whatever the goal may be. In Islam, Sufis follow the arqa (path), in which the mystic practices thr (preferring others over oneself), a practice that later dissolves as the difference between oneself and the other is "subsumed in the divine unity" (Schimmel, p. 99).

The theme of total, devotional love also infuses Christian mysticism, as evidenced by the Franciscan movement of the alumbrados, those mystics "illuminated" by the Holy Spirit, some of whom practiced dejamiento (abandonment) of oneself to the love of God, with the result that the formal sacraments of the Church were seen to be superfluous (Hamilton, pp. 1–2). And according to the visions of the German mystic, Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1180), love appears as a beautiful apparition, such that "the fire of God's love runs through the world and its beauties, constantly re-enlivening the cosmos as a miracle of perfection" (Schipperges, pp. 68–69, citing Hildegard's Book of Divine Works).

The status of duality, or non-duality, occupies branches of mysticism otherwise separated by virtue of culture, time, or doctrine. This is unsurprising, particularly given the nature of mysticism itself in transcending boundaries, which are often perceived as limitation; for example, the dualisms of sense versus spirit, and attachment to creation versus attachment to God, pervade St. John's writings, as Marilyn Mallory posits in her 1977 book, Christian Mysticism. Interestingly, in attempting to express non-duality and paradox, mystics often choose poetry as a modality capable of pointing beyond the mundane levels of a world with defined, black and white borders, at the same time that it promises great aesthetic enjoyment to its listeners. And as Herbert Guenther indicates in The Royal Song of Saraha (1969), beginning with Mar pa (1012–1097), Tibetan teacher and translator, the Doha tradition in Tibet utilized melodious verses composed and sung by mystics to both express and indicate non-conventional modes of awareness and states of deep appreciation and joy.

Sometimes referred to as "states of infused contemplation" (Pike, p. ix), union exists as a central preoccupation of many mystics. In Christianity, for example, union covers experiences from prayers of silence, to prayers of union, to more intense experiences of rapture, so-called ecstasy states similar along certain dimensions to shamanic flights of the soul. As Nelson Pike puts it, "the paradigm union experience … unfolds through a dualistic stage into a state in which the distinction between subject and object is lost" (p. 59). Language fails at this important juncture, causing many mystics to resort to metaphor and poetry in describing their experiences. St. John of Ruysbroeck (1293–1381), for example, describes his experience of being permeated, stating, "the iron is within the fire and the fire is within the iron; and so also the air is in the sunshine and the sunshine in the air" (pp. 236–237).

Sociologically, mystical traditions in many religions rely upon a period of tutelage by a respected member of the community, and a period of discipleship on the part of the aspirant. As Frits Staal comments, "The need for a qualified teacher is stressed in almost all the traditions of mysticism .… In Islam it is the foundation of the silsila or 'spiritual lineage'" whereas in Indian religions, one refers to "the guruparampara, 'the direct lineage of teachers'" (p. 144). Tibet, for example, historically organized a good part of its country's social structure around this kind of hierarchical, lama-discipline relationship, and this tradition of devotion to idealized teachers in some cases stimulates the minds of Western academics who study Buddhism. One also may find the master-discipline lineage tradition in other religions, such as the Sufism of West Africa. 'Umar al-Shaykh (864–960) brought the Qdiriyyah order of Sufism to the western Sudan in West Africa, having been initiated into the order of the Qdiriyyah masters and hajj, as Ibrahim Doi posits in "Sufism in Africa" (1991).

In communities, and in some cases, entire societies, in which mystical achievement translates into positions of power and prestige, authenticity exerts itself as a powerful mediator of who will or will not be accepted by the group, which teachings will be honored, and whose interpretations will be valued. In the Islamic world, for example, Jami (1414–1492), a Persian poet and mystic, describes two types of mystics, those who are concerned with their own salvation and who practice in complete reclusion, "and those who return from their mystical experience in a higher, sanctified state of mind and are able to lead other people on the right path" (Schimmel, p. 7). Grace Jantzen also discusses the manner in a "gendered struggle for power and authority" permeates mysticism in early and medieval Christendom, though the same may easily be claimed for mystical traditions more generally (p. xv).

Members of mystical communities also distinguish between "the true Sufi, the mutasawwif who aspires at reaching a higher spiritual level, and the mustawif, the man who pretends to be a mystic but is a useless, even dangerous, intruder" (Schimmel, p. 20). In some cases, too, the mystic's life is seen to contradict that of the householder, and severe sanctions may ensue. For example, the father of Dnyaneshwar, a well-known fifteenth-century Indian saint, abandoned the world for the mystical path after leading a householder's life for many years. He later returned to family life, however, fathering Dnyaneshwar, who was condemned as an outcaste on the basis of his father's violation of the orthodox injunction that a sanyasi (renounced person) should never return to the life of the householder, according to Ian Ezekiel.

Throughout this brief account, the existential dimensions of mysticism should not be ignored. Mystics from all traditions often point towards aspects of reality beyond the conventional world of thoughts and forms. Yesh, a Hebrew term used by rabbis to indicate the treasure awaiting saints in the future life, roughly translates as there is, thereby signaling deeper existential dimensions than those normally encountered. As Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935), a Jewish mystic, writes, "So long as the world moves along accustomed paths, so long as there are no wild catastrophes, man can find sufficient substance for his life by contemplating surface events, theories, and movements of society." But "when life encounters fiery forces of evil and chaos," he continues, "the man who tries to sustain himself only from the surface aspects of existence will suffer terrible impoverishment, begin to stagger … then he will feel welling up within himself a burning thirst for that inner substance and vision which transcends the obvious surfaces of existence and remains unaffected by the world's catastrophes" (Weiner, pp. 3–4). In the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbala, one searches for yesh in a kind of "subsurface reality," a dimension of existence in which "good and evil [lose] the distinction so apparent to surface vision" (Weiner, pp. 6–7).

Interpreting mysticism

Interpretative approaches to mysticism vary, from those influenced by traditional disciplines such as philology and the history of religions, to those that take their inspiration from contemporary Western sciences of the mind. Frits Staal, for example, canvasses dogmatic approaches, philological and historical approaches, phenomenological and sociological viewpoints, and physiological and psychological frameworks. In this last category, one moves from Freud's dislike for "dark" phenomena such as mysticism and Yoga, to Jung's archetypal metaphysics according to which a variety of mystical phenomena may be classified. Nevertheless, Staal himself claimed that he "would not be surprised if the study of mysticism would one day be regarded as a branch of psychology," by which he meant "that psychology would be deepened and widened so as to be in a position to take account of these particular aspects of the mind" (p. 116).

Psychology and cognitive science. Approaching mysticism from the interpretive lens of cognitive science, visions and locutions offer themselves as interesting candidates for investigation. Neurologist and author Oliver Sacks, for example, frames Hildegard of Bingen in terms of medical literature on migraine. He writes, "The religious literature of all ages is replete with descriptions of 'visions,' in which sublime and ineffable feelings have been accompanied by the experience of radiant luminosity." He continues, "It is impossible to ascertain, in the vast majority of cases, whether the experience represents a hysterical or psychotic ecstasy, the effects of intoxication, or an epileptic or migrainous manifestation" (p. 112). Somewhat similarly, mental health professionals also have investigated patterns of commonality between the reported mystical experiences of religious practitioners and psychotic inpatients, concluding, "Contemplatives and psychotics taken together could be separated from Normals, but not from each other, with the Hood Mysticism Scale. The Normals and Contemplatives taken together could be separated from the Pyschotics, but not from each other, with the EGO Scale (Knoblauch's Ego Grasping Orientation Inventory) and the NPI (Raskin and Hall's Narcissistic Personality Inventory)" (Stifler, p. 366).

Hindu and particularly Buddhist mysticism assumes "the perfectibility of man," as Herbert Guenther puts it (p. 42). This fact opens the way for some incredible claims concerning human capacities, such as the claims that enlightened humans may attain ja 'lus, or "rainbow body," at the time of death, such that their bodies dissolve into rainbow light and all manner of spectacular visions appear to the disciples left behind (Lhalungpa, pp. 82–97). Obviously, traditions postulating no ceiling on human accomplishments open the way for psychological grandiosity to manifest in the character structures of certain practitioners. Invoking a contemporary, psychiatric frame of interpretation, one can recognize a pathological "mechanism of defense" in the "primitive fantasy" of omnipotence (Kernberg, pp. 2–21) and the signs of "narcissistic personality disorder" in fantasies of unlimited success (Beck, p. 234). Along somewhat similar lines, Schumaker argues that we should "understand religion and psychopathology (and, indirectly, hypnosis) as systems of artificial order that are dependent upon an active dissociation process" (p. 34). The fine line between insightful interpretation of one system of thought and practice in terms of the reality framework of another, and critical, almost condescending judgment, on the other hand, however, highlights the difficulties one encounters when employing one specific cultural lens to interpret behaviors arising in different segments of the same culture, or in different cultures altogether.

The status, experience, and understanding of consciousness, awareness, the mind, and the self, occupy tomes of mystical rumination. Indian philosophical systems of thought, and later Tibetan Buddhist writers, excel in this arena. For example, Prabhakara Mimamsaka philosophers occupy themselves with the question of whether or not the self is "self-luminous," concluding, "the self is not consciousness, and while consciousness (samvit) is self-luminous, the self is not" (Mahadevan, p. 11). Interestingly, this emphasis on consciousness and awareness makes mysticism a possible ally to contemporary brain science in the West. Mystical accounts from all of the world's major religious traditions, such as the rnam thar ("sacred biography") genre expressive of Tibetan Buddhist mysticism, frequently rely upon autobiography and sacred biography (hagiography) as narrative forms, further pointing to the centrality of the "self" and its transformations in the mystical journey. To oversimplify the situation, regular and frequently dramatic personal transformations wrought by the mystical path threaten to destabilize the self, a potentially dangerous, psychological situation mitigated by the creation of a "narrated self" (Wortham, p. 140), which can function as the hero or heroine in tales of miraculous accomplishment, thereby compensating for possible psychological fragmentation by means of a chronological narrative unfolding in which the mystic's own identity remains constant over the course of his or her lifespan.

The role of the body in providing a support for mystical experience constitutes another area in which mysticism and modern science, in this case, medicine, may complement one another. In the medieval Siddha traditions of Hindu alchemy and hatha yoga, for example, the body serves as the locus for complex worldly to transcendent transformations, as in when the practitioner utilizes pranayama (breath control) to transform mundane semen into the "divine nectar of immortality" and to transform mundane mind into "a state beyond mind" (White, p. 45). Because of its intricate involvement with body, speech, and mind, ritual plays an important role in catalyzing mystical states of awareness, as demonstrated, for example, by the tremendous emphasis placed on ritualized mantra repetition in both Hindu and Buddhist mystical traditions (Abe, pp. 138–149). Repetitive, ritualized mandala visualization provides a similar, corporeal engagement of the aesthetic sensitivities cultivated by mystical practitioners (Andresen 2000). Perversions of the relationship between self and body, as seen from the perspective of Western medicine's diagnostic recognition of eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, also has plagued mystics of many traditions. Whitney Miller develops a methodology of "psychomysticism," a kind of "contemplative counseling" in which the counselor emphasizes awareness and sensitivity, "a willingness to pay attention," following Bernard Lonergan's transcendental precept "to 'be attentive'" (p. 1).

The importance of context. Scholars of mysticism continue to debate whether or not mystical experience itself is mediated by context. Constructivists have held the view that, "linguistic, social, historical, and conceptual contextuality" shape the mystic's experience. On the other side, essentialists articulate a position whereby a common, pure core to mystical experiences supposedly exists, not merely within a single tradition such as Christianity or Buddhism, but across cultures and traditions, too. It is possible, as argued by Jensine Andresen, that constructivist and essentialist ("perennialist") positions may be seen to be complementary, inasmuch as species-wide perceptual systems and consciousness, which mediate between the qualia, or felt experience of the subjective, and the hard and fast reality of what is conventionally perceived to be an external world, are shared between all members of the human family, mystics included.

See also EXPERIENCE, RELIGIOUS: COGNITIVE AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS; EXPERIENCE, RELIGIOUS: PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECTS; MEDITATION; MONISM; MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE; MYSTICS; NEUROSCIENCES; PANTHEISM; PSYCHOLOGY; SPIRITUALITY; TRANSCENDENCE

JENSINE ANDRESEN