What is mysticism? In other words, what constitutes the 'mystic'? From intuition...

What is mysticism? In other words, what constitutes the 'mystic'? From intuition, I'd say it concerns some sort of direct confrontation with God/the Universe, the revelation of a truth once concealed.. I'd like to hear your thoughts though.

Also: What is the relationship between mysticism, hermeticism, and esotericism?

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ontology.

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understanding the limitations of access through transcendentalism and moving forward anyways.

if you want to work your way through "legitimate" mysticism, you must work your way through kant, understand what he destroys, and then the movement beyond that limitation

following up, people here like to meme the shit out of hegel, but his ambitions were just this. absolute knowledge is the spirit (geist) recognizing itself as itself, within itself. this takes place through a very nuanced use of the word Science. its been worth it so far for me, so maybe you should give it a try.

What a banal creature you have become.

>What constitutes the 'mystic'?
Principles are its language. Knowledge that transcends our 'signals'. The abstractions and the ideas are alive; 'as above, so below'.
Truths that behave as if they were fractals. They penetrate every layer of reality. Dualism would be an example of this. Monism another. I think the simplest we can have it would be; when you need to move to symbols from signals.

personal spiritual experience

>entire observable universe
>Sol in the middle not Earth

hmm

>What is mysticism?

>The supernatural state of soul in which God is known in a way that no human effort or exertion could ever succeed in producing. There is an immediate, personal experience of God that is truly extraordinary, not only in intensity and degree, but in kind. It is always the result of a special, totally unmerited grace of God. christian mysticism differs essentially from the non-Christian mysticism of the Oriental world. It always recognizes that the reality to which it penetrates simply transcends the soul and the cosmos; there is no confusion between I and thou, but always a profound humility before the infinite Majesty of God. And in Christian mysticism all union between the soul and God is a moral union of love, in doing his will even at great sacrifice to self; there is no hint of losing one's being in God or absorption of one's personality into the divine.
Source: catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=35033

Mystics Prophets & Seers: Rules for the Discernment of Extraordinary Phenomena in the Spiritual Life
>catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=594

>if you want to work your way through "legitimate" mysticism, you must work your way through kant

Nah

Some friends and I spent hours in the library discussing a couple sections of the Phenomenology (Introduction, Lordship and Bondage, Stoicism). I'm still trying to understand what H. means when positing that the being-for-conciousness of the in-itself constitutes "the moment of truth". Thoughts? Any advice/recommendations on how to approach Hegel, secondary literature or otherwise?

>What is the relationship between mysticism, hermeticism, and esotericism?

Your definition of mysticism is spot on, though you should be careful not to fall in the "perennial philosophy" trap by losing sight of the distinct differences and nuances of the various traditions. It's a handy umbrella term in everyday speech, but next to useless in close readings due to the ambigiutiy of the word. In other words, mysticism itself differs widely between traditions. It's more efficient to narrow your scope to a single tradition and then ask what constitutes it's mystic elements.

Hermeticism is more of a historical meme than a tradition in it's own right. Whereas Nietzsche, with some grain of truth, called Christianity Platonism for the people, Hermeticism was Platonism for Ptolemaic Egypt and Alexandria in particular. Until Isaac Casaubon made a thourough philological analysis of the Corpus Hermetica in the 16th century - dating it around the 3rd century CE, showing how it employed Greek techincal terminology and philosophical concepts - it was widely held that Hermes Trismegistus was an Egyptian prophet contemporary with Moses, thus giving him a heavy air of authority. With the Egyptian craze following Napoleons expedition, Hermeticism gained an aura of mystique and was loosely employed by occult organizations.

My general advice is to approach these studies with a clear head – it is very tempting to get swayed by sentimental rhetoric and tall tales, entertaining and inspiring at first but crippling at the long end.

Great response, thank you. What precisely would you say is wrong with perennial philosophy?

You seem to be very knowledgeable of these topics. Any books you recommend?

Perrenial Philosophers are skilled at finding similarities and common patterns between traditions. Generally, they operate outside the historical model in that they assume mystics across continents and ages have peeked behind the same veil and experienced the same truths, albeit expressing them differently according to their philosophical framework. This is their forte – their weakness, however, lies in whitewashing the nuances of traditions and failing to understand them in their own right. In many ways, such thinking ignores the essence of a paradigm.

As to recommendations, there is that old saying of different strokes for different folks. It is natural for people to sprinkle their own tastes to the plates of others. As for myself, I approach these matters in the form of Platonic Paideia, but that might not necessarily reasonate with you.

What leads you to ask about mysticism? What do you hope to gain from all this? Are you interested in magic as well? Do you have any particular leanings? I might have some recommendations for you based on that. This is not to be a tease, but I'm tired, so I'll check this thread tomorrow if it's still up.

mysticism to me is understanding a divine truth beyond language, an ilogical wisdom. Its price is often called maddness.

I suppose I'm drawn to what you've described - the idea of an underlying unitary truth. I suppose this is somewhat in line with William Blake's All Religions are One, a short series of tablets that appears to accomodate Perennial philosophy and universalism, and introduces Blake's Poetic Genius into his cosmology. I'm still new to this but I get the sense this connection established between poetry and religion (and, by proxy, the Divine or Truth) might be related to Hölderlin and Heidegger, particularly the former's influence on the latter, whose later writings have been described by many as "mystic". I'm drawn to Heidegger's idea in Letter on Humanism which states that "Language is the House of Being". But I'm now considering the relationship between language/poetry and the Divine, in light of what some have described as the irrational, illogical, and direct confrontation with God or the Universe without any sort of mediator, without language or poetry. The ineffable, indescribable in the face of the Sublime.

I'm not sure if this is tied to any particular tradition so much as a vague concept of the 'mystical' but these are my interests.

The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice by Robert Kriech Ritner is a curious work that deals with the religious nature of Heka – speech as the personification of magic. The fragments of Heraclitus by Dennis Sweet are also well worth pondering, dealing with the divine nature of Logos.

Mysticism isn't necessarily irrational, though. Plato's dailogues should be considered a conglomation of the Mediterrenean and Near Eastern mystery traditions, systematized, refined and expounded in a rational whole suitable for the Greek intellectual milleu.

Plato deals with language in several places, most notably the Cratylus where he discusses the etymology of the Homeric gods and the nature of rhetoric in the Phaedrus, which he calls psychagogia, or soul leading, a title bore by the Greek Goes, or "Shamans". I would like to recommend the Enneads of Plotinus in MacKenna's translation, but you'll need a firm grasp on Plato's corpus to really appreciate him.

As to the relation between poetry and the divine, Plato introduced the concepts of the divine frenzies in his Timaeus, of which there are four – the poetic frenzy, inspired by the Muses, the prophetic frenzy, inspired by Apollo, the telestic frenzy, inspired by Dionysos, and the erotic frenzy, inspired by Eros.

The Defense of Poetry by Percy Bysshe Shelley and On Poesy or Art by Samuel Taylor Coleridge are well known for their elevation of the poetic frenzy. In general, the Romantics are much more accesible than the Renaissance Platonists.

In regards to the "direct confrontation with God or the Universe without any sort of mediator, without language or poetry", this sentiment is best expressed in On Learned Ignorance by Nicholas of Cusa, whose full corpus is availiable at the site of Jasper Hopkins.

I hope this has been helpful.

This is incredible. Thank you for taking the time to help me to the extent you did. Are you an academic specializing in this or is it simply an area of interest?

I do these studies on my own, though it's more of a passion than an area of interest.

Mystical knowledge is knowledge that can only be comprehended through special personal experience. There are a few mystical texts but generally they belong to a larger tradition that relies on some sort of technique or practice like meditation or fasting or prayer. You can't learn how to be a mystic through books like you can learn to be a rational thinker through books (or at least that's what mystics say, generally. I'm ambivalent about the whole subject.)

Then what led you to mysticism, and what do you hope to gain from your studies?

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