âMysticalâ is a provocative word to place at the center of an academic text. The term carries with it many emotional overtones: for some, it is appealing and curious; for others, it is off putting. The latter would tend to automatically dismiss any possible connection between mysticism and psychoanalysis. In both cases, however, these emotional reactions have little to do with the actual use of the term in the academic literature that focuses on mysticism as its field of study. This repugnance is very much the result of the positivistic legacy of 19th century science, which has strongly influenced western academic culture in general and psychoanalysis in particular. Following the revolution that resulted in academic reverence for materialism, empiricism, and formal logic, the analytic philosophers of the late 19th and early to mid-20th centuries considered mysticism as part of âmetaphysicsâ: a set of leftover terms from an old, religious way of thought that is full of inaccurate, nebulous concepts. They wished to cleanse our language from such misleading words and render it immaculately âaccurateâ and fit for scientific use.
This cleansing mission, however, was only partially successful because âmetaphysicsâ continued to be of interest to certain philosophers and, later on, to some psychoanalysts as well. I wish to argue that the mystical, in its broad, nonreligious definition, is closely related to key aspects of the psychoanalytic endeavor. Its exploration, therefore, ought to be a major psychoanalytic concern. The mystical element in psychoanalysis carries with it much deeper implications for theory, meta-theory and practice, than its current, relatively marginal position in psychoanalytic discourse may suggest.
The notion of nonreligious mysticism, immanent to deep human intimacy, will be developed through William James and Martin Buberâs notion of a spectrum of mystical phenomena and âthis worldâ mysticism. At the end of the chapter, the ideas of these two thinkers will be combined in order to formulate a definition of the specific meaning of the mystical in psychoanalysis and, hopefully, enable a more scholarly, focused, and less prejudiced discussion thereof.
Classical definitions
Two classical books are often quoted when discussing mystical and religious experience: Rudolf Ottoâs The Idea of the Holy and William Jamesâ The Varieties of Religious Experience. Both these fundamental works focus on the features of experience rather than religious history or sociological structure. Both are thus committed to analyzing something deeply personal. As such, they may help elucidate not only what âmysticismâ means in scholarly contexts (as these authors can be viewed as the founders of such discourse) but also its potential meaning in a psychoanalytic context, as a phenomenon of consciousness and possibly a form of connection.
Both thinkers viewed mystical experience as a unique phenomenon in its own right and rejected any reductionistic view of it. Both characterized it in similar terms. But whereas Otto still saw it only as meaningful in the religious context, expressing perhaps the more familiar stance toward mysticism, Jamesâ view was both more neutral and more inclusive, bringing us closer to the sought-after definition of the mystical in psychoanalysis.
Rudolf Otto was a protestant theologian and philosopher influenced by Kant and the phenomenological tradition. He put forth a thesis that integrated Kantâs ideas about a priori categories of thought, such as time and space â which Kant believed to be preexisting structures of mind that shape and predate our perceptions â and his own (Ottoâs) Christian belief. He suggested that there is a mental category that is designed to perceive the âNoumenonâ â hidden, divine reality. Otto (1917/1950) also makes an important distinction between rational thought and the ostensibly ârawâ experience of the holy. To him, religious emotion arises primarily from the latter. He writes:
whoever makes use of the word ânon-rationalâ today ought to say what he actually means [âŠ] we began by the rational in the idea of God and the divine meaning by the term that in it which is clearly to be grasped by our power of conceiving, and enters the domain of familiar and definable conceptions. We went on to maintain that beneath this sphere of clarity and lucidity lies a hidden depth, inaccessible to our conceptual thought, which we in so far call the ânon- rational.â (p. 58)
In Ottoâs terms, ârationalâ does not resemble the common meaning of the phrase ârational explanationâ â a statement that is both logical and adheres to a materialistic worldview. Rather, he referred to everything that can be formulated in concepts and discussed â including ideas about the nature of God. Otto considered such theological concepts essential for a âmatureâ religion, which must integrate experience and rational conceptions for the sake of achieving moral goals. For him, the moral element was particularly important and he held protestant Christianity to be the perfect model for such mature religiosity.
Nevertheless, for Otto, theological concepts are nothing more than âideogramsâ that can only point toward something nonrational, that lies beyond the reach of discursive thought. In one of the opening paragraphs of his book, Otto gives a provocative warning: those who have not experienced what he is talking about at first hand, who have never had a âdeeply felt religious experienceâ (p. 8), might as well stop reading. They would not understand his book. This statement is a strong expression of the paradoxical mission Otto felt he had undertaken â to talk about that which cannot be put into words.
According to Otto, not only is the religious feeling nonrational, it belongs to an essentially different emotional category. Though it has âneighboringâ emotions, most notably the esthetic feeling â which Otto saw as the most adjacent to the religious feeling and as potentially facilitating the evocation of the Numinous, the Numinous is an independent, a-priori category of thought, and the only thing that can trigger this unique emotional experience is contact with the Noumenon.
This contact may be experienced in different ways because, according to Otto, the Noumenon has many facets or âmoments,â which he sought to catalogue. The mysterium tremendum, for example, is the experience of awe-inspiring mystery that arises from encountering the total Otherness of the Numinous. According to Otto, the mystical experience brings the mystic closer to God, but the feeling of otherness, both terrific and beatific, is never wholly overcome. Contact with the deity can also inspire a feeling of âfascinationâ â an energetic, passionate aliveness. This âmomentâ is responsible for the deep happiness reported by mystics who feel that they have been granted living contact with God. Otto, however, stresses the element of awe and, after describing this passionate encounter, mentions the augustum â a feeling of holiness and moral perfection which gives rise to the moral facet of religion. By delineating these different âmoments,â which parse the ineffable into distinct emotional hues, Otto is attempting to bridge between the rational thinking required for discursive communication about religion and the nonrational feeling experienced in a true encounter with the Noumenon â to which no words could ever do justice.
Several years prior to Ottoâs efforts, another thinker also sought to develop a systematic approach to religious experience. This was philosopher and pioneer psychologist William James, one of the two fathers of pragmatic philosophy. In The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902/1987), he tried to capture the essence of what he called âpersonal religion,â as opposed to the institutionalized facet of religious life. He sought to establish a new science of religion, one based on actual religious experiences and their myriad varieties. To that end, he collected many reports of mystical and religious experiences from around the world. As a pragmatist, the potential implications of religious experiences for the lives and surroundings of those who have had them were of the outmost importance to him. The effects on the personâs quality of life and psychological health, and the effects these people, in turn, exert on those around them, are what allows the investigator to capture the value and impact of a given phenomenon. According to Jamesâ pragmatic approach, anything that cannot be understood in terms of its implications is meaningless â both scientifically and morally. The meaning of the mystical experience is thus derived from the fact that it can be life changing. In this context, James claimed that the mystical experience may generate an inner transformation that later coalesces into a way of life; thus, it is the source of both personal religion and the phenomenon of conversion.
James offers a definition of mystical states with the ambitious goal of making it universally applicable to any religion, as well as to nonreligious mystics. For him, mysticism was an alternative state of consciousness with several definable characteristics that can be observed across different cultures and historical eras. This notion of the universality of mystical experience is shared by many later scholars of religion, including Otto.
There is, however, an important difference between the views of James and those of Otto, that may help elucidate the question of nonreligious âprofane mysticismâ (Ben-Shlomo, 2012). For Otto, âmature religionâ must derive a set of rational conceptions from the mystical experience. In his view, the pure experience of the Numinous is essential, but it is only a starting point â perhaps like when a baby meets the world for the first time, still unable to name or understand the things it encounters. In contrast, James holds that the interpretations people give their mystical experience are neither âderivedâ from it nor essential to it. Rather, they are rooted in a personâs cultural background and affected by their level of intelligence. They might be sophisticated or simplistic and infantile. Either way, such interpretations are subsequent constructs and are theoretically secondary to the moment of pure experience. In a way, both thinkers distinguish between mystical experience and the religious âmeaningâ often attached to it. Their main disagreement concerns the value of, so to speak, naked experiencing, unclothed by dogma.
In defining this unique experience, James â much like Otto and other thinkers who preceded him â begins with a negative characteristic: the experience is felt to be ineffable. Those who have not had such an experience stand in relation to it as those who have never loved are in relation to love; as those who lack musical hearing are in relation to music. In fact, James views openness to this kind of state of consciousness as a sort of talent, much like musical or mathematical ability. Second, the mystical experience has a Noetic quality. Though it is more akin to a state of feeling than to intellectual knowledge, one feels as though one has been gifted with deeply meaningful knowledge: a truth that lies beyond the reach of regular discursive thought, beyond the intellect. While these two characteristics are sufficient for James in defining an experience as mystical, he nevertheless adds two more which, although not essential, are very common: first, the mystical experience is usually transient and short-lived; second, the experience is markedly passive. The mystical experience is felt to be received, sometimes even forced, from the outside. A person may seek out a mystical experience and try to prompt its occurrence, through practices such as meditation, but they cannot compel or will it to happen.
James thus resembles Otto in viewing the mystical experience as essentially nonrational, in Ottoâs terms. He would probably understand Ottoâs grave, though moving appeal that his book be read only by those who can grasp its meaning. But, where Otto greatly stresses the elements of strangeness and of overwhelming, awe-inspiring holiness, Jamesâ definition does not commit itself to any specific emotional content. On the contrary, He shows that mystical experiences have many shapes and colors. Jamesâ case studies seem to suggest that he leans more toward the âcharmingâ aspect of the Noumenon, but this is a subtle preference. Importantly, this difference between the two thinkers in terms of dominant âmoodâ seems to derive from Ottoâs commitment to his protestant belief. His description of strangeness and awe clearly assumes the transcendence of the Noumenon. While this view is typical to western religions, it is less dominant in eastern ones, which stress unity and the immanent presence of the divine in the human. Loyal to the âvarietyâ of his chosen title, James recorded the testimonies of Christians who believed Jesus had found and saved their ailing soul, as well as those of eastern mystics and even those recounting nonreligious mystical experiences of unity with the natural world, who tended toward a pantheistic interpretation. His resulting model of a powerful, nonverbal Noetic feeling of âillumination [and] revelation, full of significance and importanceâ (James, 1902/1987, p. 343) is therefore more elegant and concise, as well as more inclusive and universal.
Importantly, James does not take any definite position regarding the ontological reality of the mystical experience (although, as will be discussed, he does have a certain hypothesis) be it theistic, pantheistic or reductionist (such as explaining it away as an illusion resulting, perhaps, from neurological abnormality). In general, he rejects any essentialist view â unlike Otto, who speaks of contact with the Numinous. The only commitment James makes is to the experience itself, in all its richness. For him, the experiences of âspiritualâ life are neither less nor more valid than other feelings or perceptions. They are simply part of the wide range of human experience and, given their particular importance to and influence on those who have them, they deserve the attention of the psychologist and the philosopher. His parsimonious approach respects experience yet steers clear of any theological agenda or other preimposed answers, such as those offered by the positivistic view. Thus, it serves as a good lens for observing this field of human experience, which has previously been used (and sometimes abused) by so many biased or interested parties such as the church, contemporary scientific hegemony or its counterpart â modern ânew ageâ culture.
