The modern academic study of mysticism began in earnest towards the end of the nineteenth century. The term ‘mysticism’ derives from the same time period and, as Michel de Certeau demonstrates, is an offspring of la mystique,1 a term that first comes to the fore in early seventeenth century France . ‘Mysticism’ was initially coined by Western intellectuals to refer to that phenomenon or aspect of the Christian traditio that was understood to emphasize religious knowledge gained by means of an extraordinary experience or revelation of the divine. This has remained a constant theme in he academic study of the subject. For instance, Margaret Smith describes mysticism as ‘the most vital element in all true religions, rising up in revolt against cold formality and religious torpor... The aim of mystics is to establish a conscious relation with the Absolute, in which they find the personal object of love"2. Evelyn Underhill, an important early figure in the study of mysticism, argues that the one essential feature of mysticism is "union between God and soul". Underhill suggests that "The mystic way is best understood as a process of sublimation, which carries the correspondences of the self with the Universe up to higher levels than those on which our normal consciousness works"3. For Underhill, the experience of the mystic is "communion with a living Reality, an object of Love capable of response". This language is, of course, uncompromisingly Western and Christian, but it is applied by Underhill to all forms of mysticism throughout the different world-religious traditions.

This is an astonishing statement to make – that the notions of God, communion, the soul and the themes of a loving relationship between the two can be found in all non-Christian religious experience. Actually such notions and themes are imposed upon them. Underhill and Smith, of course, are not alone in this regard. It has been a presupposition of a great deal of scholarship in the study of mysticism that one can apply Christian categories (including the category of mysticism itself) to religions, cultures and experiences beyond their original context. As the study of mysticism has developed along the lines of the comparative study of religion, theistic definitions have become increasingly problematic. Indeed, mysticism suffers from the same problems of definition as does the equally problematic term ‘religion’4.

All contemporary studies of mysticism fail to appreciate the sense in which notions of the ‘mystical’ are cultural and linguistic constructions dependent upon a web of interlocking definitions, attitudes and discursive processes, which themselves are tied to particular forms of life and historically specific practices. Just as these various meanings and applications of ‘the mystical’ have changed over time, so too have the variety of attitudes towards them and evaluations of their importance differed according to circumstance. Grace Jantzen therefore argues "the idea of ‘mysticism’ is a social construction and that it has been constructed in different ways at different times. Although ... medieval mystics and ecclesiastics did not work with a concept of ‘mysticism’ they did have strong views about who should count as a mystic, views which changed over the course of time ... The current philosophical construction of ‘mysticism’ is therefore only one in a series of social constructions of mysticism..."5.

Definitions shift over time, of course, and modern notions of mysticism differ significantly from the early and medieval Christian understanding of ‘the mystical’. On this point we may agree with Talal Asad when he suggests, that there cannot be a universal definition of mysticism "not only because its constituent elements and relationships are historically specific, but because that definition is itself the historical product of discursive processes"6. Such definitions, however, will never be universally applicable when one addresses different cultural milieux or historical periods. For instance, if we try to translate the term ‘mysticism’ into Sanskrit by making emphasis on the sense of ‘the secret doctrine’ we often come across the terms rahasyavâda, guhyavâda, gudhârtha, gahanavastu, gupta, upanishad, tantra —depending on the different aspects of this term. But if we make an emphasis on the mystical experience other words from the Indian traditions may be considered and explored: sâkshâtkâra, anubhûti, yogipratyaksha, samâdhi, samâvesa, anubhava, jîvanmukti, bodhi, pratyabhijñâ, sahaja jñâna and others.

Although classical Greek terms are used in the entire domain of Christian mysticism, the subject does not seem to be a classical Greek phenomenon at all. There seems to be no clear evidence of mysticism in the Christian or the Indian sense of the word before Plotinus7. There is no direct link between the Greek mysteries, e.g. that of Eleusis, and Christian mysticism. For in the mysteries the ‘mystic’ becomes an epoptes, someone who sees ‘the Holy’ in objective shape, not the one who becomes one with it. Plato became the mediator between the antique mysteries and mysticism in his dialogues Symposion and Phaidro in which he combines the ascent of the soul to the most sublime, truly spiritual vision, with Eros, at the same time according considerable space to the language of Eleusis8. The absorbtion of the metaphorical language taken from the mysteries in the conception of a spiritual ascent resulted in a model of mystical diction, which was adopted enthusiastically by the Jew, Philo, and whose attraction early Christianity was unable to resist – an influence first documented in Christian Gnosis, then in Pseudo-Dionysius, the Areopagite (c. 500).

The fact remains, however, that the words ‘mysticism’ and ‘mystical’ do not appear in the Bible9. There is no mention of them in the New Testament. In the Old Testament the word ‘mystes’ does occur, albeit only to dismiss the cults of the Canaanites10. The adjective mystikos is used to term something concerned with the mysterion, which in turn designates both human and an eschatological mystery. According to Hans Urs von Balthasar: "In the New Testament the whole emphasis is placed on the axis between revelation and faith; the subjective forms in which the gift of faith can appear are differentiated to some extent, but without any judgment being pronounced or any psychological interest displayed"11. The Early Fathers and the whole Middle Ages very often used the adjectives mystikos or mysticus in direct semantic derivation from the word mysterion, and in so doing intended not only to introduce a psychological dimension to religious practice, but also and primarily to oust prophecy – which, according to the New Testament, had lost its immediate function after the Saviour’s coming12.

Pseudo-Dionysius, the Areopagite, must be accorded the title of the Father of Christian mysticism. He is the pivotal mediator introducing Greek thinking with its formative impact into Christianity. This is witnessed linguistically in his adoption of the diction of the Hellenistic mysteries, in terms of content, in his transposition of the biblical mysteries of salvation into an ahistorical context, ‘timelessness and permanence’. Two points in Dionysius’ understanding of mysticism seem to be important for all of later Christian mysticism. First, he prepared the literary vessel, the treatise De mystica theologia, in which mystical experience not only found narrative expression, but also received its coherent logical and theoretical structure. Secondly, this formal structuring of mystical experience on the plane of the ratio provides at the very outset both a linguistic and a philosophical framework for mystical theology. Unlike what is often termed mysticism today, Dionysian mysticism is not the description of paranormal states of consciousness, the gratiae gratis datae (Thomas Aquinas), in which one’s union with God affects experiential and sensual knowledge of Him. Dionysius has a more fundamental approach: striving for mystical contemplation impies setting out on a path. The goal of this path is "becoming united with what is beyond all being and knowing by unknowing"13. The process is described as an ecstasy detached from the self, as a radical effacement of self-awareness, and as an exclusive alertness for "the sovereign-substantial ray of Divine Darkness.

The best general account of the origins of the term in the Christian tradition is probably that offered by Louis Bouyer. Bouyer argues that there are three dimensions to the early Christian concept of mystikos – all of which very soon become interwined as the tradition develops. These elements are: biblical, liturgical and spiritual or contemplative. The first denotes the idea of mystical hermeneutic of scripture – that is, an understanding of the biblical message rooted in allegorical interpretation. Mystikos is also used to describe the liturgical mystery of the Eucharist – the timeless communion with the divine. Finally, the term is also used to denote a contemplative or experiential knowledge of God. For the Hellenized Church Fathers all three aspects were inextricably interwoven14.

However, when we come to the Protestant Reformation, we find Martin Luther as the arch-critic of mystical or allegorical hermeneutics. He argued that: "The Holy Spirit is the simplest writer and speaker in heaven and earth. This is why His words can have no more than the one simplest meaning which we call the written one, or the literal meaning of the tongue"15. Luther dismisses the ‘twaddle’ (merissimae nugae) of mystical theology, which he condemns as being more Platonic than Christian. This relates to Luther’s emphasis upon the transparency of the Bible’s meaning and the importance of individuals having access to, and being able to read, the Bible for themselves. Thus, in the post-Reformation period the mystical and allegorical approach to biblical exegesis came increasingly under fire and we see a gradual decline in the status of the mystical within Western Christendom.

From the seventeenth century onwards we see the gradual secularization of ‘the mystical’. The category now becomes closely associated with the metaphors and mysteries of poetry and literature – cultural forms that became defined during this period in strict opposition to the alleged transparency of meaning to be found in prose in scientific writing. Thus in the seventeenth century, as Certeau argues, Western science established its own distinctiveness – its cultural and political identity, though the exclusion of more expressive modes of thought and the construction of a category known as ‘literature’16. In this way, oppositions were set up between the opacity of rhetoric and allegory and the plain transparency of prose. Fiction becomes opposed to factual writing, subjectivity to objectivity, the metaphorical is contrasted with the literal, and the multivocality of ’literature’ was seen as distinguishing it from the unvocality of science.

In the modern era, as Certeau suggests, the traditional hagiographies and writings of the saints become adapted and designated ‘mystical’. Thus one finds the invention of a Christian mystical tradition. Emphasis shifts from a focus upon the virtues and miracles of the saints to an interest in extraordinary experiences and states of mind. It is at this point in European history, "that already existing writings were termed ‘mystic’ and a mystic tradition was fabricated"17. The seventeenth century usage of the term ‘mystical’ appears to have become increasingly pejorative. The claim of the apologists for the mystical to access the ‘secret’ meaning of scripture was always likely to be seen as a threat to the Church’s institutionalization of biblical meaning if made by those outside its auspices. So we find the predominance of a second strategy, namely the invention of an ancient mystical tradition within the orthodox walls of Christianity. This involved a selective colonization of classical Christian authors – in particular the early church fathers and a variety of medieval Christian writers and saintly figures. The consequence of this strategy, of course, was that it tied the newly sanctified mystic and their apologists to the established tradition of exegesis and the overreaching authority of the Church, as well as binding them to a canon of acceptable and orthodox ecclesiastical literature. So it would seem then that the birth of ‘a Christian mystical tradition’ also coincided with its domestication by the ecclesiastical authorities.

Modern conceptions of the mystical have increasingly become divorced both from the originally Christian context of the term and from the scriptural and liturgical dimensions that the notion implied in ancient and medieval Christianity. The center of gravity in religion has shifted from authority and the scriptural/liturgical dimensions to experience. Already in 1938, J.M. Moore observed: "No term has been more frequently employed in recent religious discussion than the phrase ‘religious experience"18. The mystical becomes overwhelmingly experiential in the discourses of modernity. As a result, the contemporary study of mysticism, operating within a post-Enlightenment context, provides an overwhelmingly psychological construction of the subject area. An excellent example of this is the seminal work of William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, where we find the statement that "personal religious experience has its root and center in mystical states of consciousness"19. For James, organized or institutional religion was ‘second-hand’ religion. True religion was to be found in the private, religious and mystical experiences of individuals20. In criticizing this psychologized orientation, Grace Jantzen points out that: "Philosophers writing about mysticism after James regularly cite and accept his description of mysticism as a basis for their evaluation of it; but do not notice its provenance. Perhaps because of the empiricist strand in James’ writing, and his liberal citation of sources, subsequent philosophers too readily take for granted that his description of mysticism is reliable, and, contrary to the spirit of James, do not investigate actual mystics for themselves"21.

W. James’s own approach to the study of mysticism was heavily influenced by Schleiermacher and the Romantic reaction to Kantian philosophy. One dominant trajectory in the contemporary study of mysticism since James has been the study of ‘altered states of consciousness’ and the phenomena connected with their attainment. James suggests that although such states are inaccessible to the ordinary rational mind, such experiences may impart exceptional meaning and truth-giving quality to the agent. Thus "our normal waking consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different"22.

The point is, of course, that contemporary Westerners do not normally take these states as ‘normative’ if they consider them at all. When such experiential states are discussed they usually are rejected as delusory, subjective and hallucinatory, or are described as ‘altered’ states of consciousness – a phrase that presupposes the normative nature of so-called ‘everyday’ experiences23. In some religious traditions, however, especially in Buddhism and classical Yoga, such ‘altered states’ are sometimes taken to be the normative and ‘natural’ state of mind, and it is the everyday states of waking and dreaming, etc., that are somehow as ‘alteration’ of, or an aberration from, that norm. Thus in the Yoga sûtras of Patañjali, yoga is defined as ‘the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind’24. The ‘normal’ status of the seer is to abide in this own form (svarûpa), as pure consciousness (purusha).

The privatized and narrowly experiential conception of the mystical results in a peculiar preoccupation in academic literature on the subject with indescribable and largely inaccessible experiences of an extraordinary nature. The suggestion that ‘mysticism’ is somehow antithetical to rationality, and that it is emotional in contrast to a detached and dispassionate intellectual sphere remain to be argued for and cannot be uncontroversially assumed. Theologian Paul Tillich argues, for instance, that ‘Mysticism is not irrational. Some of the greatest mystics in Europe and Asia were, at the same time, some of the greatest philosophers, outstanding in clarity, consistency and rationality’24. Indeed, many of those figures who are frequently described as mystics, such as Plotinus, Augustine, Ibn Arabi, Kûkai, Asanga, Shankara or Abhinavagupta have produced intellectual systems and literary works of a highly sophisticated and erudite nature. Although such historically influential works may not figure prominently in university courses these days, the intellectual integrity and cultural importance of such figures and traditions can hardly be questioned.

Specifically the characterization of Indian religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism as mystical has also tended to support the exclusion of Hindus and Buddhists from the realm of rationality. Western philosophers (especially in the Anglo-American analytic tradition) have tended to construct a secularized image of their discipline as the exercise of ‘pure rationality’. In contrast, Indian forms of ‘systematic thought’ have usually been excluded from the realm of philosophical debate on the grounds that they are tained with ‘theological’ assumptions that are culture-specific (as if this were not the case in the West). Indian philosophy, we are frequently told, tends towards the mystical and the otherworldly and thus does not maintain the high standards expected of Western philosophy as the pursuit of truth though the exercise of pure rationality. One hardly needs point to the political consequences of such attitudes towards non-Western philosophies and cultures. It is notable that the word ‘experience’ became very conspicuous and important in the encounter between India and the West. According to W. Halbfass this is because: "‘Experience’ seems to refer to a category transcending the dichotomies of science and religion, the rational and the irrational. It promises a reconciliation of the ancient and the modern. It appeals to the modern fascination with science, but rejects its commitment to objectification and quantification. It is device of reinterpretation and cultural self-affirmation, which serves to defend the Indian tradition against charges of mysticism and irrationalism"26.

Postcolonial critics have pointed to the ethnocentricity of much Orientalist historiography. The most influential example being James Mill’s A History of British India with its periodization of Indian history culminating in the ’liberating arrival’ of the British. Eurocentric bias, however, is also apparent in the various histories of philosophy that continue to be produced, with their pointed exclusion of any intellectual thought from non-Western cultures. Such works are generally characterized by a questionable appropriation of Ancient Greek culture under exclusive rubric of the ‘West’ and the limited (if any) discussion of the importance of Egyptian, Islamic and Indian thought in the development of European philosophy and science. What is of particular interest is the absence of reference to the role played by Egyptian and Oriental ‘mystery traditions’ in the formulation of Greek philosophical ideas and approaches27. The significance of these mystical influences upon important early figures in Greek thought such as Plato and Pythagoras has been largely suppressed by modern historians of philosophy, who have remained intent upon drawing a sharp distinction between philosophy (the rational) and mysticism (the irrational).

Immanuel Kant has been an enormously influential figure in the development of modern Western intellectual thought. His own ‘Copernican Revolution’ involved the realization that our experience of the world is preconditioned by certain a priori categories that provide the framework through which human experience the world. For Kant, knowledge of things as they are (noumena) remains strictly beyond rational human apprehension. This recognition of the impossibility of any unmediated cognition of reality has had such a lasting influence upon Western intellectual thought since the Enlightenment that it is often simply taken for granted. As Kevin Hart notes: "From the institution of philosophy as an autonomous academic subject in the Enlightenment to the later half of the twentieth century, philosophers have shown little interest in the problems generated by the claims of mystics. It was common enough before Kant for philosophy to define itself against poetry or theology; but it is Kant who, more vividly than any before him, introduces mysticism to this role: ‘supernatural communication’ and ‘mystical illumination’ become, for Kant, ‘the death of philosophy"28. Given the relative lack of antagonism between ‘philosophy’ and ‘religion’ in non-Western contexts, the exclusion of apparently religious of mystical thought from the realm of philosophy provides one of the most obdurate obstacles to a postcolonial and cross-cultural dialogue between Western and non-Western cultural traditions.

The philosophical orientation of the Upanishads and Gîtâ seems to have appealed to Westerners with a variety of interests and agendas. The texts appealed to anti-clerical and anti–ritualistic sentiments of many Western intellectuals and proved amenable to abstraction from their own context via an emphasis upon interiority. The allegorization of Vedic ritual found in the Upanishads could be applied to all religious practices and institutions, proving amenable to the growing interest in non-instutionalized forms of ‘spirituality’. On the other hand, for Christian missionaries the Upanishads could also be used as evidence of an incipient monotheism within the Hindu tradition. For the liberal Christian this provided a platform for inter-faith dialogue between Christianity and Hinduism and a recognition of some commonality between faiths. Max Müller, for instance, was interested in the comparability of Indian religion and his own liberal version of Christianity and became increasingly preoccupied by the possibilities of a ‘Christian Vedânta’ in his later years29.

For Christians with a more evangelical zeal, the Upanishads represented a way into the ‘Hindu mind-set’ which opened up the possibility of converting Hindus to Christianity. J.N. Farquhar, missionary and Indological scholar, for instance, saw Vedânta as the apex of Indian religious thought and precursor for the Christianization of India. According to him "The Vedanta is not Christianity, and never will be, but it is avery definite preparation. It is our belief that the living Christ will sanctify and make complete the religious thought of India"30. Furthermore, the allegorization of ritual in the Upanishads suited missionary critiques of Vedic ritualism as well as providing an indigenous source for the critique of Hindu polytheism and idolatry. Thus, under fervent pressure and criticism from Christian missionaries and increasing interest from Orientalists, one finds an emphasis among the various Hindu ‘reform’ movements on the repudiation of idolatry, particularly in the cases of Dayânanda Saraswati and Rammohun Roy. Both the Arya Samaj and the Brahmo Samaj promulgated an uncompromising monotheism as the essence of the Hindu religion. Sarasvati argued that sm was present in the ancient Vedic Samhitâs and Roy argued strongly for a monotheistic interpretation of the Vedânta. Both movements, of course, reflect the influence of Western constructions in their exposition of the core of Hinduism.

We should note also that the construction of ‘Hindu mysticism’ and the location of a spiritual essence as central to the Hindu religion is bound up with the complexities of colonial politics in the nineteenth-century India. The Romantic interest in Indian culture frequently focused upon the question of its apparent pantheism. J.G. Herder was himself deeply involved in debates about the validity of Spinoza’s philosophical system and saw a similar pantheistic monism as the core of Hindu thought. Similarly, F. Schlegel associated Hindu and Buddhist thought with pantheism and F.W.J. Schelling provided a spirited defense of pantheism and its implications for moral life. A. Schopenhauer, being himself an influential figure in nineteenth-century European thought, inspired the interest of many in the ‘spiritual’ philosophies of India and, perhaps influenced by Anquetil-Duperron, propounds a form of perenialism when he notes that "Buddha, Eckhart and I all teach essentially the same"131 Schopenhauer’s association of Buddhist and Vedântic thought with the apophatic theology of Meister Eckhart has become a recurring theme in Western representations of ‘the Mystic East’ from the late nineteenth century onwards and continues to this day. For P. Deussen the Vedânta philosophy of Shankara represented the culmination of Hindu thought, providing evidence that idealisms that were in vogue in nineteenth-century European thought were already present at the core of the Hindu religion. In particular one finds an increasing tendency within Western scholarship not only to identify ‘Hinduism’ with the Vedânta (thus establishing an archaic textual and canonical locus for the Hindu religion) but also a tendency to conflate Vedânta with Advaita Vedânta. Advaita, with its monistic identification of Atman and Brahman, thereby came to represent the paradigmatic example of the mystical nature of the Hindu religion.

In colonial terms, of course, the conflation of Advaita Vedânta, representing the paradigmatic example of the mystical nature of the Indian religion, and ‘Hinduism’ also provided a ready-made organizational framework within which the Western Orientalist and their colonial ruler could make sense of the fluid and diverse culture that it was their job to explain, classify, manage and control. For the Hindu intelligentsia of the nineteenth century, the philosophical traditions of Vedânta seemed also to typify the ancient, noble and ascetic ‘spirituality’ of the Hindu people well. Rammohun Roy, Dayânanda Saraswati, Swâmi Vivekânanda and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan were all unanimous in a rereading of Vedânta (however differently conceived) that rendered it compatible with social activism and worldly involvement. Quite remarkably therefore, Vedânta – the renunciate philosophy that exemplified for Western Orientalist a passive mysticism and otherworldly quetism – became a vehicle for anti-colonial and revolutionary protest through the Gandhian principle of satyagraha. As Richard G.Fox notes: "Gandhian cultural resistance depended on an Orientalist image of India as inherently spiritual, consensual and corporate ... Otherworldliness became spirituality ... Passiveness became at first passive resistance and later nonviolent resistance ... Gandhian utopia reacts against negative Orientalism by adopting and enhancing this positive image. It therefore ends up with a new Orientalism, that is, a new stereotype, of India, but an affirmative one, leading to effective resistance"32.

Otto archieves this through a demonstration of Eckhart’s Christian allegiance and superiority to the quietistic illusionism of Shankara’s Advaita. Eckhart’s system is alive and dynamic, while Shankara’s tends towards abstractions. Shankara’s goal is "quietism, tyaga, a surrender of the will and of doing, an abandonment of good as of evil works"33, while Eckhart’s quietism is in reality an "active creativity". Shankara rationalizes the paradoxes of mystical language while Eckhart "exites his listeners by unheard of expressions". Unlike Shankara, Eckhart’s theology "demands humility". Shankara’s Brahman is a static and unchanging absolute, while Eckhart’s is a God of "numinous rapture". Towards the end of his study Otto places a great deal of emphasis upon what he sees as the antinomian implications of Shankara’s system. The charge of amoralism – of mystical antinomianism, is, along with pantheism, probably the most consistent criticism made of Eckhart’s writings by subsequent Christian theologians. Indeed, the Papal condemnation of Eckhart’s writings (In Agro Dominico) explicitly censures Eckhart for implying that soul’s emptying of self-will leads to a renunciation of works. Otto’s concern, however, is to demonstrate that this representations of Eckhart is inaccurate and he arrives at this conclusion by contrasting Eckhart’s "dynamic vitalism" with what Otto sees as the amoral and static quietism of Shankara. "It is because the background of Shankara’s teaching is not Palestine but India that his mysticism has no ethic. It is not immoral, it is a-moral. The Mukta, the redeemed, who has attained ekata or unity with the eternal Brahman, is removed from all works, whether good or evil ... With Eckhart it is entirely different. ‘What we have gathered in contemplation we give out in love’."34  Shankara’s amoral quietism is seen as a product of his Indian backgruond.

Otto’s representation of Shankara’s Vedânta system, therefore, becomes a useful foil, a theological cleansing sponge, which purifies Eckhart of heresy while at the same time absorbing these heretical defects into it. Otto never really questions the normative characterization of ‘mysticism’ as quiestistic, amoral and experientialist. What Otto attempts in Mysticism East and West is a displacement of the negative connotations of ‘the mystical’, which he relocates or projects onto a ’mystic East’ exemplified by Advaita Vedânta of Shankara. Thus Otto declares in the conclusion that "Eckhart thus becomes necessarily what Shankara could never be"35. The contrast between these two representatives (Shankara and Eckhart) can be universalized to demonstrate the differences between East and West in general. This elision is subtle but effective. The universalization of a single representative of Indian religious thought creates a caricature of Indian culture that is then shown to be inferior to the normative standards of Christian examples.

Let us look at the other problem. A prevalent, one might even say perennial, theme within modern writings on mysticism is a theological position known as perennialism. According to this doctrine there is an essential commonality between philosophical and religious traditions from widely disparate cultures. The notion of a philosophia perennis that runs through the philosophical and religious traditions of the world is also a major theme in the works of René Guénon, the Theosophical Society, and undergirds much of the New Age appropriation of ‘Eastern’ religions, within contemporary Western culture. This perceived commonality is often given what its proponents have described as a ‘mystical’ content. In a popular and widely read work on mysticism by F.C. Happold, the author suggests that: "Not only have mystics been found in all ages, in all parts of the world and in all religious systems, but also mysticism has manifested itself in similar or identical forms wherever the mystical consciousness has been present. Because of this it has sometimes been called the Perennial Philosophy"36 .

In terms of the modern study of mysticism the most influential work of this genre is clearly The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley (1944). Huxley describes the philosophia perennis as: "The metaphysic which recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man’s final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being"37. In this anthology of excerpts from a variety of religious and philosophical texts from around the world no attempt is made to provide a sense of social, historical or cultural location of these religious expressions. This is no surprise since the perennialist position tends to underplay the significance of sociohistorical context. Beside, Huxley was heavily influenced in his description by Vivekânanda’s neo-Vedânta and the idiosyncratic version of Zen exported to the West by D.T. Suzuki.

In 1957 a direct response to Huxley’s The Perennial Philosophy was published in the form of R.C.Zaehner’s Mysticism Sarced and Profane38. Zaehner’s work involves an explicit repudiation of Huxley’s perennialist claim that ‘mysticism’ represents a ‘common core’ at the center of all religions. Instead, Zaehner argued, there are three fundamentally different types of ‘mysticism’: theistic, monistic and panenhenic. For Zaeher, the theistic category (which includes most forms of Christian and Islamic mysticism, Hindu theologians like Râmânuja the Vishistâdvaitin) is superior to the other two. The monistic category, which Zaehner describes as an experience of the unity of one’s own soul, includes Buddhism (despite its rejection of both monism and belief in a soul), Sâñkhya (which has a dualistic ontology) and Advaita Vedânta. Panenhenic or ‘nature’ mysticism seems to be something of ragbag collection of those mystics not easily classifiable in terms of the ‘world-religious traditions’. Theistic mysticism is said to be superior to the other forms, most notably because it is the only type of mysticism that has a firm moral imperative as a fundamental and constitutive aspect of the experience itself. This claim belongs to a much older Christian theological strategy, which is to suggest that non-theistic religions lack a proper moral foundation since they do not believe in the existence of a benevolent deity in which the notion of a moral goodness can be grounded.

A number of scholars, notably Ninian Smart and Frits Staal, have criticized Zaehner for the theological violence his analysis does to a variety of non-theistic religious perspectives, forcing them into a framework defined by Zaehner’s own brand of ‘liberal Catholicism’39. Zaehner’s distinction between theistic and monistic mysticism was challenged by Walter Stace as well. Replacing Zaehner’s threefold typology, Stace distinguished between two types of mystical experience (cross-culturally) – introvertive and extrovertive mystical experiences. The introvertive mystical experience is a complete merging of everything and constitutes for Stace not only the superior of the two types of experience but also the mystical core of all religions. The extrovertive experience is only a partial realization of introvertive union – and amounts to a sense of harmony between two things. For Stace all mystical experiences have the following characteristics: they provide a sense of objectivity or reality, a sense of blessedness and peace and a feeling of the holy, the sacred or the divine. Both mystical experiences are of an underlying unity and also characterized by paradoxicality and are alleged to be ineffable by mystics40.

The experience itself as well as the form in which it is reported is shaped by concepts which the mystic brings to, and which shape, his experience ... The forms of consciousness which the mystic brings to experience set structured and limiting parameters on what the experience will be ... This process of differentiation of mystical experiences into the patterns and symbols of established religious communities is experiential and does not take place in the post-experiential process of reporting and interpreting the experience itself: it is at work before, during, and after the experience41.

Katz, like R. Gimello, H. Penner, W. Pruodfoot and numerous others agree in rejecting attempts to drive a wedge between interpretation and the experience itself. The very nature of the experience is itself socially constructed according to the culture, beliefs and expectations of the mystics having the experiences. Hindus do not experience a vision of young woman that they then interpret as the Mother Kâli – they experience the Mother Kâli. It is not just the language of mystical reports that is culturally conditioned but the experience itself. On this view, mystical experiences are radically contextual and the pluralistic account offered by Katz invites us to respect the richness of the experiential and conceptual data avoiding any reductionist attempt. The social constructivist position of Steven Katz has now become the mainstream philosophical position within the study of mysticism, and the historicist repudiation of the possibility of a ‘pure experience’ has become an increasingly popular and dominant trend within Western culture and scholarship. Works, such as Emile Durkheim’s The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912) demonstrates an increasing tendency not only to interpret religious phenomena in terms of their social context, but also to explain religion as a product of those sociological conditions and relations. According to Durkheim, religion, despite what its adherents might claim, is really the idealization of each given society’s image of itself42. This trend, of course, provided a useful corrective to the tendency to treat religion as an experiential and private phenomenon in the work of scholars such as E.B. Tylor and W. James. From post-structuralism (Michel Foucault, Hans George Gadamer, Jacques Lacan) and postmodernist relativism (Jean Baudrillard, Jean-François Lyotard, Richard Rorty, Jacques Derrida) to contemporary work within ‘the sociology of knowledge’ (Max Scheler, G.H. Mead, Peter Berger, Thomas Luckmann), one finds an almost universal rejection of the possibility of an unconditioned or unmediated experience of reality. All knowledge is conditioned by, and firmly embedded within, linguistic and cultural forms. We also see a rejection of universal ‘grand narratives’ in favour of a multiplicity of localized histories and a reputation of a variety of essentialisms. As a result ‘the mystical’ also represents the conceptual site of a historical struggle for power and authority.

However, since the late 1980s a number of critical responses have been made to the social-constructivist position. Most of this work has involved questioning Katz’s ‘single epistemological assumption’ that all experiences are medited by cultural, historical and religious factors. Robert Thurman, for instance, makes a distinction between two alternatives: complete constructivism and incomplete or partial constructivism – the view that concepts and beliefs are not the only factors involved in experiences, there being other factors such as sensory input, etc.43 Thurman states that partial constructivism will not suffice for Katz’s analysis to be proven – that is, to demonstrate that there can be no common core to mystical experiences, since perennialists could argue that the common feature is to be found in the non-conceptual or unconstructed aspects of those experiences.

Anyway, as time has gone by it has become clear that the position one takes with regard to the problem of mystical experience is bound up with the type of epistemology one accepts. Katz, as we have seen, bases his stance upon the presuppositions of neo-Kantian epistemology that ‘there are no pure, unmediated mystical experiences’. According to Katz, mystics are wrong to think that an unconditioned experience of reality is even possible. From his neo-Kantian perspective, mystics recondition themselves with a new conceptual mind-set rather than attain a release from cultural and conceptual conditioning as some traditions and texts proclaim. Is is clear that Katz’s account creates problems for the non-dualistic and monistic traditions in particular. Mystical experiences of a ‘unitive-absorptive nature’, that is, precisely those forms of mysticism that tend to presuppose some kind of unmediated experience of ultimate reality, can be found in Buddhism, Advaita Vedânta, Yoga and Sufism. Testimony to such an experience can even be found, as Katz notes, in Christian mystical tradition, but ‘is absent from its Jewish counterpart’44. As Richard King points out, Katz’s analysis safeguards his own Jewish beliefs in a transcendent reality and the inherent limitations of human beings45.

Let us take a look at the texts of Mahâyâna Buddhism. For Buddhist philosopher Dignâga (400-480 CE) sense-perception (pratyak·a), although immediate and non-conceptual in itself, is mediated in human experience by conceptual constructions (kalpanâ). What we apprehend with our senses, in its unmediated givenness, is the particular instant (svalak·ana) that characterizes what is really there. However, the picture of reality that we, as unenlightened beings, construct is the product of an association of our ‘pure sensations’ with linguistic forms – acquired from our linguistic and cultural context46. These result in a misapprehension of reality since they derive from the construction of universals (samânyalak·ana) in a world in which only unique particulars exit. The goal of Buddhist system of thought, of course, is to liberate the practitioner from attachment to these linguistic and cultural forms through meditative cultivation of the mind (citta-bhâvanâ), ethical discipline (œila) and the development of analytical insight (prajñâ). Dignâga’s constructivism, therefore, postulated a way out of the web of cultural and linguistic conditioning through the cultivation of the perfection wisdom (prajñâpâramitâ) and the development of a non-dual (advaya) and unconstructed or non-conceptual awareness (nirvikalpa jñna) of things as they really are (yathâ bhûta, tathatâ). Beside, Dharmakîrti (c.650) and other Buddhist schoolars discuss in detail the potential deceptiveness of states of awareness, including Yogic states, and they try to determine criteria such as sphutatva, ‘clarity’, which can help distinguish true Yogic perception (yogipratyak·a) from mere hallucinations47. For most Buddhist traditions the non-conceptual nature of enlightenment is the result of a long and often arduos path of mental activity.

The examples of Dignâga, Dharmakîrti, Kamalaúîla (700-750 CE) and Tibetan Ge-lugs-pa tradition of Buddhist scholastism illustrate acceptance of the conditioning role of cultural, mental and behavioral factors in the eventual attainment of enlightenment. This position is in an agreement with Katz in acknowledging the role of conditioning factors as the constitutive of the final experience of enlightenment. Where Buddhist version of constructivism tend to diverge from Katz is in the recognition that the enlightenment experience that results from such conditioning processes is an event of such transformative proportions that it propels one beyond the wheel of conditioning (samsâra), thereby resulting in a transcendence of cultural particularity. Therefore, the Buddhist position is to be sharply contrasted with epistemologies of limitations that restrict the potential of human beings to achieve some form of unmediated awareness. In other words, Buddhist constructivism is based upon what one might call an epistemology of enlightenment. Exploring what she calls a ‘Buddhist-phenomenological epistemological model’ as an alternative to the Katzian position on the possibility of unmediated awareness, Sallie B. King argues, that not only do many examples of our secular experience reveal the possibility of the ‘primitive’ mode without the presence of verbal functions, but that turning off of this linguistic function is the very purpose of many forms of meditation48. Indeed, in the classical Sâmkhya-Yoga tradition, a progressive path is outlined also for overcoming the fluctuations of mind (citta vrtti) and attaining the a state of unconstructed and concentrated awareness (nirvikalpa samâdhi), where one perceives reality as it is and the seer — a transcendental and immaterial pure consciousness (puru·a) — dwells in its own pure form, untouched by the vicissitudes of worldly existence. In Advaita Vedânta tradition of Shankara, the realization of enlightenment is described as piercing the veil of illusions that constitutes our illusory experience (mâyâ) and achievement of an unmediated awareness of reality (aparok·a jñâna).

All this reveals that Western epistemologies of mysticism reflect the sociocultural and political changes that have occurred in the West since the Enlightenment and thus remain peculiarity of Eurocentric in orientation. As Anne Klein points out, when we examine the claim to an unmediated awareness in Asian traditions: "we confront some of the fundamental issues that divides us, as contemporary Euro-Americans, from the worldview in which it was conceived. How are we to understand a literature whose fundamental theses are anthema to most contemporary Western intellectual traditions? For example, both dGe-lugs-pa and Rnying-ma-pa, and Buddhism generally, claim that one can become a knower or self whose agency is free from the constraints of language (compare Lacan), who gains some form of unmediated knowledge (compare Kant), and – most antithetical of all – that this knowledge and its object are unconditioned by particularities of history and thus accessible in the same form, albeit through different means, to all persons regardless of cultural or psychological particularity (compare Foucault)"49.

1. Certeau, M. ‘"Mystique’ au XVIIe siecle: Le probleme du langage ‘mystique’". – In L’Home devant Dieu: Melanges offerts au Pere Henri du Lubac, vol.2. – Paris: Aubier, 1964, p. 267.

 2. Margaret Smith, "The Nature and Meaning of Mysticism". – In Richard Woods (ed.) Understanding Mysticism. – London: Athlone Press, 1980, p. 20.

 3. Underhill, E. "The Essentials of Mysticism". – In Richard Woods (ed.) Understanding Mysticism. – London: Athlone Press, 1980, p. 29.

 4. See: McGill, B. The Foundations of Mysticism. – London: SCM Press, Vol. 1, 1991, p. 265.

 5. Jantzen,G. Power, Gender and Christian Mysticism. – Cambridge: Cambridge Studies in Ideology and Religion, vol. 8, 1995, p. 12.

 6. Asad,T. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam.- London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993, p. 29.

 7. Burkert, W. Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassischen Epoche. – Stuttgart, 1977, p. 413.

 8. Burkert, W. Ibid., p.12.

 9. Balthasar, H.U. "Zur Ortsbestimmung chistlicher Mystic". – In Pneuma und Institution, Skizzen zur Theologie IV, Einsiedeln, 1974, p. 298.

 10. Book of the Wisdom of Solomon 12.6 and 8.4.

 11. Balthasar, H.U., Ibid., p. 300.

 12. Lampe, G.W.H. A Patristic Greek Lexicon. – Oxford, 1978, pp. 891-893.

 13. Lossky, V. The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. – London, 1957, p. 17.

 14. See: Bouyer,L. The Christian Mystery: From Pagan Myth to Christian Mysticism. – Edinburg: T. & T. Clark, 1990.

 15. Luther’s Works, Vol.39, p.178, from Gerald L.Bruns, Hermeneutics, Ancient and Modern. – Yale University Press, 1992, p. 143.

 16. Certeau, M. The Mystic Fable, Vol.1. The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, translate by Michael B.Smith. – Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992, p. 95.

 17. Certeau, M. ‘Mystic speech’ in Heterologies: Discourses on the Other. – Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986, p. 82.

 18. Moore, J.M. Theories of Religious Experience. – New York: Round Table, 1938, VII; H-G. Gadamer declares also : "It seems to me that the concept of experience is among the least clarified concepts which we have." In H-G.Gadamer Truth and Method. – New York: Continuum, 1985, p. 310.

 19. James,W. The Varieties of Religious Experience, The Gifford lectures 1901-1902. – Glasgow: Collins, 1977, p. 370.

 20. Smith, J.E. "William James’s Account of Mysticism: a Critical Appraisal" . – In Steven Katz (ed.), Mysticism and Religious Traditions. – New York: Oxford University Press, 1983, p. 247.

 21. Jantzen, G. "Mysticism and Experience". – In Religious Studies, 25, 1989, pp. 295-315.

 22. James, W. The Varieties of Religious Experience, The Gifford lectures 1901-1902. – Glasgow: Collins, 1977, p. 374.

 23. As Tart, C. notes: "Within Western culture we have strong negative attitudes towards Altered States of Consciousness (ASC): there is the normal (good) state of consciousness and there are pathological changes in consciousness. Most people make no further distinctions ... In broader perspective it is clear that man has functioned in a multitude of states of consciousness and that different cultures have varied enormously in recognition and utilization of, and attitudes towards, ASCs ... It could be expected that within psychology and psychiatry there would be far more exact terms for describing various ASCs and their components, but exept for a rich (but often not precise) vocabulary dealing with psychopathological states, this is not true". (Tart, C. Altered States of Consciousness. – New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1969, pp. 2-3) On page 2, Tart defines an altered states of consciousness for a given individual as "one in which he clearly feels a qualitative shift in his patern of mental functioning, that is, he feels not just a quantitative shift ... but also that some quality or qualities of his mental processes are different."

 24. ‚yoga-citta-vrtti-nirodha’, — Yoga Sûtra I.2.

 25. Tillich, P. Dynamics of Faith. – New York: Harper and Row, 1957, p. 60.

 26. Halbfass, W. India and Europe: An Essay in Philosophical Understanding. – Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1990, p. 401.

 27. The neccesity to rethink the fundamental bases of ‘Western Civilization’ and also to recognize the penetration of racism and continental chauvinism into all Western historiography is emphazised in the study of Bernal, M. Black Athena. The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization. – London: Vintage, 1991.

 28. Hart, K. The Trespass of the Sign: Deconstruction, Theology and Philosophy. – Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 210.

 29. See: Halbfass, W. India and Europe: An Essay in Philosophical Understanding. – Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1990, p. 134.

 30. Farquhar, J.N. The Crown of Hinduism. – New Delphi: Oriental Books Reprit. Corp., 1913, p. 54.

 31. Schopenhauer, A. Senilia , 1858; from Halbfass, W. India and Europe: An Essay in Philosophical Understanding.- Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1990, p. 111.

 32. Fox, R.G. ‘East of Said’. – In Spinker, M. (ed.) Edward Said: A Critical Reader. – Oxford: Basil Blachwell, 1992, pp. 151-152.

 33. Otto, R. Mysticism East and West: A Comparative Analysis of the Nature of Mystic. – London: Quest English edition, 1987, p. 173.

 34. Otto, R. Ibid., p. 205

 35. Otto, R. Ibid., p. 213.

 36. Happold , F.C. Mysticism: A Study and an Anthology. – Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, 1963, p. 20.

 35. Huxley, A Introduction. – In The Perennial Philosophy. – London: Harper & Row, 1944, p. VII.

 38. See: Zaehner, R.C. Mysticism Sarced and Profane, An Inquiry into some Varieties of Preater-natural Experience.- New York: Clarendon Press, 1957.

 39. See: Smart, N. ‘Interpretation and mystical experience’. – In Woods, R. (ed.) Understanding Mysticism. – London: Athlone Press, 1980, pp. 78-91, and Staal, F. Exploring Mysticis. -, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975, p. 73-75. In the later book F.Staal, by asserting that mystical research is just a variant form of the profane enquiry into the nature of consciousness, vehemently pleads in favour of opinion that the mystical experience should be explored solely as a mental state. In his view, explorations of this kind should be forbidden to philologists, historians and phenomenologists of religion.

 40. Stace, W. Mysticism and Philosophy. – London: Jeremy P.Tarcher Inc., 1960, pp. 131-132.

 41. Katz , S. ‘Language, epistemology and mysticism’, in Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, S.Katz (ed.). – New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, pp. 26-27.

 42. "Thus the collective ideal which religion expresses is far from being due to a vague innate power of the individual, but it is rather at the school of collective life that the individual has learned to idealize ... For society has constructed this new world in constructing itself, since it is society itself which this expresses" – Durkheim, E. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life – London: Allen&Unwin, 1976, p. 423.

 43.Thurman, R. ‘Introduction: mysticism, constructivism and forgetting’. – In Forman (ed.) The Problem of Pure Consciousness: Mysticism and Philosophy. – New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, p. 13.

 44. Katz, S. ‘Language, epistemology and mysticism’. – In Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, S.Katz (ed.). – New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, p. 41.

 45. King, R. Orientalism and Religion. Postcolonial Theory, India and the ‘Mystic East’. – Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 176.

 46. Dignâga’s Pramânasamuccaya I.3.

 47. On sphuatva, see McDermott, Ch. "Yogic Direct Awareness as means of Valid Cognition in Dharmakîrti and Rgyal-tshab". – In Mahâyâna Buddhist Meditation: Theory and Practice, M.Kiyota (ed.) Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1991, p. 151.

 48. See: King, S.B. ‘Two epistemological models for the interpretation of mysticism’. – In Journal of American Academy of Religion, 56. 2. 1988, p. 277.

 49.Klein, A.C. ‘Mental Concentration and the Unconditioned: A Buddhist Case of Unmediated Experience’. – In Robert E.Buswell Jr. and Robert M.Gimello (eds.) Paths to Liberation: The Mârga and Its Transformation in Buddhist Thought- Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1994, p. 270.