Introduction

Abstract

This book proposes an interpretive framework for understanding mystical experiences. The basic approach of the mystic typology is syncretic and formative, though most of the ideas are developed in response to problems I observe in the work of various scholars of mysticism. In reaction to the limitations of contemporary explanations of mystical phenomena, I suggest an integrative interpretation that I consider to be in many respects a more consistent, unifying and fruitful explanation of mysticism. Currently there are two dominant schools of thought on mystic typologies: constructivists view mystical experiences to be different, over-determined by the socio-religious milieu within which the mystic is immersed; essentialists insist that mystical experiences are everywhere the same, though subject to different socioreligious interpretations. In response to the problems I see in these different views of mysticism, I suggest in Chapters 1 and 2 an hypothesis that rests somewhere in between these two extremes: there are indeed different kinds of mysticism, but these types are not solely dependent upon the socio-religious history of the mystic. Although this proposal is not in itself new - R. C. Zaehner suggested the same in the 1950s - what I attempt to do in this book is clarify an experiential hierarchy that draws the various authentic mystical experiences cogently together in terms of a theistic, teleological framework.