A type of religious attitude (appearing in many guises and within many religions from antiquity onwards) emphasizing various practices – ascetic, contemplative, or other – for obtaining knowledge of and unification with God or spiritual reality by means not open to reason and not relying on dogma.
Mystics claim to achieve this knowledge or unification by experiences which have a favorable affective quality and cannot be put into words (they are ‘ineffable’); though it is claimed that mystics of widely differing traditions readily understand each other’s writings.
Source:
H L Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1935); contains discussion of historical growth of mysticism, though in the service of Bergson’s own philosophy
Table of Contents
- 1 Videos
- 2 Related Products
- 2.1 The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism
- 2.2 The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism (Modern Library Classics)
- 2.3 Megiddo II: The New Age
- 2.4 Alchemy & Mysticism
- 2.5 Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness
- 2.6 Mysticism: The Preeminent Study in the Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness (Image Classic)
- 2.7 The Big Book of Christian Mysticism: The Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality
- 2.8 The Art of Mysticism: Practical Guide to Mysticism & Spiritual Meditations (The Sacred Mystery Book 1)
- 2.9 Liturgical Mysticism
- 2.10 The Mysticism of Sound and Music: The Sufi Teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan (Shambhala Dragon Editions)
Last update 2020-06-17. Price and product availability may change.