mysticism

mysticism, mystical theology. In modern usage ‘mysticism’ usually refers to claims of immediate knowledge of Ultimate Reality (whether or not this is called ‘God’) by direct personal experience; ‘mystical theology’ is used to mean the study of mystical phenomena or the science of the mystical life. Paranormal experiences, such as trances and visions, are often regarded as ‘mystical’, but are not usually thought essential. Protestant theologians have tended to regard mysticism with suspicion.

In recent years there has been increased interest in the subject.

Language connected with ‘mystery’ was common in the early Church; its use depends on the conviction that Christian doctrine and liturgy involve matters known only by revelation. The phrase ‘mystical theology’, however, is first used by Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite. As well as ‘philosophical theology’, which uses clear concepts and arguments, there is a ‘mystical theology’, which has to do with symbols and rituals, leading us beyond intellectual notions of God to a real union with Him in the ‘truly mystic darkness of unknowing’; here the height of the ‘mystic words’ of Scripture are apprehended and the ‘mysteries of theology’ are revealed in silence.

In some later Byzantine writers the third stage of spiritual progress, which Dionysius calls ‘unitive’, is named ‘mystical’, and this is taken to mean that one is now in a position to ‘initiate’ others into the mysteries of God.

Medieval W. interpreters of Dionysius tended to see ‘mystical theology’ as leading, through the purgative and illuminative ways, to a loving union with God at the peak of our affectivity, in which all intellectual operations are left behind. There was, however, debate as to whether ‘mystical theology’ is to be located entirely in the will and affections, or whether it is rather the ascent of the intellect, enlightened by faith, to union with God. In later medieval writers ‘mystical theology’ was increasingly taken to mean an experiential knowledge of God, and some writers specified particular subjective experiences as constituting or indicating the attainment of ‘mystical theology’ (generally identified from the 16th cent. with contemplation). This process reached its height in St Teresa of Ávila and St John of the Cross, whose influence thereafter predominates.

Since the 17th cent. there has been debate among RC theologians as to whether ‘mysticism’— the phrase replaced ‘mystical theology’ — is to be regarded as the normal flowering of sanctifying grace, open to all Christians, or whether it should be seen as a special grace reserved for the few. Modern discussions have been dominated by the notion of ‘mystical experience’ and, on the one hand, by the quest for mystical elements common to different religions, and on the other, by attempts to identify a specifically Christian ‘mysticism’.