"Mysticism and the Mystical Experience examines both the variety and universality of mysticism, both currently and historically. It considers how various authors have defined mysticism and raises questions about acceptable definitions. It also considers the nature of the mystical experience, its prerequisites and results, and takes up the arguments of proponents for and against the claim of a single universal mysticism in contrast to a multiplicity of mysticisms."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Mysticism presents a challenge to anyone who is interested in fundamental questions about the nature of reality, knowledge, and how we should live. In this book the author examines questions posed by mysticism. He clarifies the nature of the claims advanced by Western and Asian mystics, and explores the beliefs and values of classical mystical ways of life for their interconnections and reasonableness. Jones discusses whether all mystical experiences and all mystical claims of knowledge are similar, and examines the relation of concepts and experiences in mystics' claims. Also presented are standards for evaluating competing mystical claims, and mystics' problems with language. Whether mystics' arguments are rational is investigated along with the relation of moral and non-moral values and the role of beliefs and values in enlightened mystics' ways of life. Mysticism's relation to the enterprises of science, theology, psychology and ethics is also examined.

A comprehensive exploration of the philosophical issues raised by mysticism. This work is a comprehensive study of the philosophical issues raised by mysticism. Mystics claim to experience reality in a way not available in normal life, a claim which makes this phenomenon interesting from a philosophical perspective. Richard H. Jones’s inquiry focuses on the skeleton of beliefs and values of mysticism: knowledge claims made about the nature of reality and of human beings; value claims about what is significant and what is ethical; and mystical goals and ways of life. Jones engages language, epistemology, metaphysics, science, and the philosophy of mind. Methodological issues in the study of mysticism are also addressed. Examples of mystical experience are drawn chiefly from Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta, but also from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Daoism. “This is a significant extension of the seminal work by Walter Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy. That work has stimulated much literature, all of which Jones manages to review here. He critically extends Stace’s universal core and embeds it in a sophisticated discussion of the extent, range, and metaphysical implications of mysticism.” — Ralph W. Hood, Jr., coauthor of The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach

In September of 1976 a group of some fifty scholars and practising mystics gathered at the University of Calgary. The chief objective of the Conference was to ponder and assess the nature of mysticism in its Eastern, Western and North American Indian forms. The method the Conference followed was somewhat unusual in that it aimed at a dialogue between the practising mystics and the scholars. What this book presents to the reader is not the outcome of the dialogue, but the personal statements and papers from which the dialogue began. Of course there is a degree to which the dialogue is already present, in that the papers of the scholars were written with the statements of the mystics in hand. Among some of the philosophers present, a set of more formal comments on each others presentations was recorded and these have been included.

2022 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title The purpose of this book is to fill a gap in contemporary mystical studies: an overview of the basic ways to approach mystical experiences and mysticism. It discusses the problem of definitions of “mystical experiences” and “mysticism” and advances characterizations of “mystical experiences” in terms of certain altered states of consciousness and “mysticism” in terms of encompassing ways of life centered on such experiences and states. Types of mystical experiences, enlightened states, paths, and doctrines are discussed, as is the relation of mystical experiences and mysticism to religions and cultures. The approaches of constructivism, contextualism, essentialism, and perennialism are presented. Themes in the history of the world’s major mystical traditions are set forth. Approaches to mystical phenomena in sociology, psychology, gender studies, and neuroscience are introduced. Basic philosophical issues related to whether mystical experiences are veridical and mystical claims valid, mystics’ problems of language, art, and morality are laid out. Older and newer comparative approaches in religious studies and in Christian theology are discussed, along with postmodernist objections. The intended audience is undergraduates and the general public interested in the general issues related to mysticism.

This will be the fourth in an influential series of volumes on mysticism edited by Steven T. Katz, presenting a basic revaluation of the nature of mysticism. Each presents a collection of solicited papers by noted experts in the study of religion. This new volume will explore how the great mystics and mystical traditions use, interpret, and reconstruct the sacred scriptures of their traditions.

Questions of how the divine presence is understood and interacts within the world have been around since the time of the biblical prophets. The Jewish mystical tradition conceives God as active, just, powerful, and present while allowing for divine limitation so as to understand the relationship between G-d and the Jewish people in their history. Jewish Mysticism surveys Jewish visionary and mystical experience from biblical and ancient Near Eastern times through the modern period and the emergence of modern Hasidism. Marvin Sweeney provides a comprehensive treatment of one of the most dynamic fields of Jewish studies in the twenty-first century, providing an accessible overview of texts and interpretative issues. Sweeney begins with the biblical period, which most treatments of Jewish mysticism avoid, and includes chapters on the ancient Near East, the Pentateuch, the Former Prophets and Psalms, the Latter Prophets, Jewish Apocalyptic, the Heikhalot Literature, the Sefer Yetzirah and early Kabbalistic Literature, the Zohar, Lurianic Kabbalah and the Shabbetean Movement, and the Hasidic Movement. Placing Jewish apocalyptic literature into the larger development of ancient Jewish visionary and mystical experience, Sweeney fills gaps left by the important but outdated work of others in the field. Ideal for the scholar, student, or general reader, Jewish Mysticism provides readers with a fresh understanding of the particular challenges, problems, needs, and perspectives of Judaism throughout its history.

This book presents key psychoanalytic theories from a fresh perspective: that of the mystical element. The author explores the depth-structure of central assumptions in psychoanalytic theory to uncover the mystical core of conventional analytic thinking. Exploring authors from Freud and Ferenczi, through Bion and Winnicott, to contemporary voices such as Ogden, Bollas and Eigen, the book shows that psychoanalysis has always operated on the assumption of psychic overlap, a "soul-to-soul" contact, between patient and analyst. Surprisingly, the book shows how this "magical" facet goes hand in hand with a pragmatic worldview that explores the epistemological complexities of psychoanalysis in search of a way to join the subjective, even the mystical, with the practical aim of serving as a validated mental health discipline. This is accomplished through an interdisciplinary and intertextual encounter between psychoanalysis and the innovative pairing of William James’ pragmatic philosophy and Martin Buber’s dialogic thought. The author's paradoxical stance surrounding the nature and role of psychoanalysis and its mystical facet resonate the great challenge embedded in Winnicott's insistence on tolerating paradox and Bion's demand to respect all parts of the (psychoanalytic) truth, in this case, the practical and mundane alongside the mystical and magical. The book’s broad, interdisciplinary outlook will captivate both psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic therapists as well as scholars of philosophy.

This study of the meaning and the experience of mysticism is a product of the author's personal interest in mysticism and his reflection, as a philosopher, on some of the philosophical questions raised by mysticism is a "a psychological process which occurs with varying degrees of intensity in everyone's life" and the observation that this process changes the experiencer, the author goes on to discuss such questions as "Can we define mysticism?" and "Can we describe mystical experiences?," "Is mysticism rational?," and "What is the meaning of mystical experience?"

Did Chinese mysticism vanish after its first appearance in ancient Taoist philosophy, to surface only after a thousand years had passed, when the Chinese had adapted Buddhism to their own culture? This first integrated survey of the mystical dimension of Taoism disputes the commonly accepted idea of such a hiatus. Covering the period from the Daode jing to the end of the Tang, Livia Kohn reveals an often misunderstood Chinese mystical tradition that continued through the ages. Influenced by but ultimately independent of Buddhism, it took forms more various than the quietistic withdrawal of Laozi or the sudden enlightenment of the Chan Buddhists. On the basis of a new theoretical evaluation of mysticism, this study analyzes the relationship between philosophical and religious Taoism and between Buddhism and the native Chinese tradition. Kohn shows how the quietistic and socially oriented Daode jing was combined with the ecstatic and individualistic mysticism of the Zhuangzi, with immortality beliefs and practices, and with Buddhist insight meditation, mind analysis, and doctrines of karma and retribution. She goes on to demonstrate that Chinese mysticism, a complex synthesis by the late Six Dynasties, reached its zenith in the Tang, laying the foundations for later developments in the Song traditions of Inner Alchemy, Chan Buddhism, and Neo-Confucianism.