The Philosophy of Mysticism
"Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science. What the mystic finds waiting for him, then, is a humanity which has been prepared to listen to his message by other mystics invisible and present in the religion which is actually taught. Indeed his mysticism itself is imbued with this religion, for such was its starting point. His theology will generally conform to that of the theologians. His intelligence and his imagination will use the teachings of the theologians to express in words what he experiences, and in material images what he sees spiritually. And this he can do easily, since theology has tapped that very current whose source is the mystical. Thus his mysticism is served by religion, against the day when religion becomes enriched by his mysticism. This explains the primary mission which he feels to be entrusted to him, that of an intensifier of religious faith." - Henri Bergson
"Men talk of the extravagances and frenzies that have been produced by mysticism; they are a mere drop in the bucket. In the main, and from the beginning of time, mysticism has kept men sane. The thing that has driven them mad was logic... The only thing that has kept the race of men from the mad extremes of the convent and the pirate-galley, the night-club and the lethal chamber, has been mysticism the belief that logic is misleading, and that things are not what they seem." - G.K. Chesterton
"No word in our language not even 'Socialism' has been employed more loosely than 'Mysticism.'" - Ralph William Inge
"What I don't like today is, to put it coarsely, the phony Hasidism, the phony mysticism. Many students say, 'Teach me mysticism.' It's a joke." - Ellie Wiesel
"The kingdom of God is within you." - Jesus Christ
Mysticism according to Bernard McGinn concerns itself with "the preparation for, the consciousness of, and the effect of a direct and transformative presence of God." Personally I do not believe that just because someone sees Christ in the sky on the cross or has a vision of Vishnu that one has achieved union with God. I propose something different. Mystical union is experienced via a recognition of the continual awareness of the presence of God in the here and now. This is, I think, the meaning of Christ's words when he says that the kingdom of God is within us and the ideas of the Shin Buddhist Shinran where he discusses the idea of "Other-Power" (I know this primarily from the Kyoto School of thought).
I had written a series of papers for a grad program that I was in; It was at a very Thomist Catholic school, so that gives you an idea of how the faculty were (nothing against Thomism its just the "Strict Observance" camp that really grinds my gears). The course was two parts, fall and spring, and we were expected to write two book reviews throughout both sections of the course. My first paper was on the Carmelite friar Nicolas Herman, known to the world by his tonsured name Brother Lawrence. He wrote the classic book The Practice of the Presence of God and I really wanted to do this book; This is probably one of the best books on mysticism that anyone can read. It is not at all technical. My professor, who I was not at all fond of, emails me later that day and says no "New Age" books are allowed. This is why I dislike Thomist's of Strict Observance; Aquinas was a great man but he was just that: a man. I don't think he'd be happy with people canonizing his philosophical work as the alleged "theory of everything." After some back and forth, she did her homework and allowed me to write about the text. My own personal definition of mysticism, that it is an awareness of God in the present moment, was initially formed when I read him. My second paper was on the first book that Alan Watts wrote. It is titled Behold the Spirit: The Study of the Necessity of Mystical Religion and it is one of my favorite reads. I loved Watts early in college but as I matured I found his later works rather dry. My professor allowed me to write a review of it because of its "theologically conservative nature despite the minor quips." What was my professor referring to? The early Alan Watts adhered to an orthodox Christian view that portrayed Christ as the fulfillment of all things and this was backed up by his interest in Zen Buddhism, Daoism, and Vedanta; Like Aquinas analyzed Aristotelianism and the other schools of Greek philosophy, Watts sought to analyze Christianity through Asian thought. My third paper was on Meister Eckhart, a Dominican friar accused by the Inquisition of heresy, and one of the greatest medieval thinkers. Specifically the paper focused on his 71st sermon, focusing on the concept of nothingness in relation to God, and his short treatise On Detachment. My final paper was on Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book The Cost of Discipleship, specifically his distinct between cheap grace and costly grace and his analysis of the Sermon on the Mount.
This is not only an opener on mysticism and a criticism of Strict Observance Thomism. I truly believe that genuine mysticism is a middle ground between rationalism and religion.
"Men talk of the extravagances and frenzies that have been produced by mysticism; they are a mere drop in the bucket. In the main, and from the beginning of time, mysticism has kept men sane. The thing that has driven them mad was logic... The only thing that has kept the race of men from the mad extremes of the convent and the pirate-galley, the night-club and the lethal chamber, has been mysticism the belief that logic is misleading, and that things are not what they seem." - G.K. Chesterton
"No word in our language not even 'Socialism' has been employed more loosely than 'Mysticism.'" - Ralph William Inge
"What I don't like today is, to put it coarsely, the phony Hasidism, the phony mysticism. Many students say, 'Teach me mysticism.' It's a joke." - Ellie Wiesel
"The kingdom of God is within you." - Jesus Christ
Mysticism according to Bernard McGinn concerns itself with "the preparation for, the consciousness of, and the effect of a direct and transformative presence of God." Personally I do not believe that just because someone sees Christ in the sky on the cross or has a vision of Vishnu that one has achieved union with God. I propose something different. Mystical union is experienced via a recognition of the continual awareness of the presence of God in the here and now. This is, I think, the meaning of Christ's words when he says that the kingdom of God is within us and the ideas of the Shin Buddhist Shinran where he discusses the idea of "Other-Power" (I know this primarily from the Kyoto School of thought).
I had written a series of papers for a grad program that I was in; It was at a very Thomist Catholic school, so that gives you an idea of how the faculty were (nothing against Thomism its just the "Strict Observance" camp that really grinds my gears). The course was two parts, fall and spring, and we were expected to write two book reviews throughout both sections of the course. My first paper was on the Carmelite friar Nicolas Herman, known to the world by his tonsured name Brother Lawrence. He wrote the classic book The Practice of the Presence of God and I really wanted to do this book; This is probably one of the best books on mysticism that anyone can read. It is not at all technical. My professor, who I was not at all fond of, emails me later that day and says no "New Age" books are allowed. This is why I dislike Thomist's of Strict Observance; Aquinas was a great man but he was just that: a man. I don't think he'd be happy with people canonizing his philosophical work as the alleged "theory of everything." After some back and forth, she did her homework and allowed me to write about the text. My own personal definition of mysticism, that it is an awareness of God in the present moment, was initially formed when I read him. My second paper was on the first book that Alan Watts wrote. It is titled Behold the Spirit: The Study of the Necessity of Mystical Religion and it is one of my favorite reads. I loved Watts early in college but as I matured I found his later works rather dry. My professor allowed me to write a review of it because of its "theologically conservative nature despite the minor quips." What was my professor referring to? The early Alan Watts adhered to an orthodox Christian view that portrayed Christ as the fulfillment of all things and this was backed up by his interest in Zen Buddhism, Daoism, and Vedanta; Like Aquinas analyzed Aristotelianism and the other schools of Greek philosophy, Watts sought to analyze Christianity through Asian thought. My third paper was on Meister Eckhart, a Dominican friar accused by the Inquisition of heresy, and one of the greatest medieval thinkers. Specifically the paper focused on his 71st sermon, focusing on the concept of nothingness in relation to God, and his short treatise On Detachment. My final paper was on Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book The Cost of Discipleship, specifically his distinct between cheap grace and costly grace and his analysis of the Sermon on the Mount.
This is not only an opener on mysticism and a criticism of Strict Observance Thomism. I truly believe that genuine mysticism is a middle ground between rationalism and religion.
Comments (35)
A mystic, in my view, is someone who experiences something that they find impossible to put into words (the experience is 'unintelligible'), while simultaneously recognizing the experience as something so profound that they feel compelled to investigate, often ranking it above the rational world of sense experience in terms of its significance.
The so-called 'mystical experience' and the investigation of its meaning is therefore the root of mysticism.
The search and the act of priming oneself for such an experience I would probably not call mysticism. Though it is obviously related, it is a particularly prickly subject since there seems to be no reliable method of triggering a genuine mystical experience.
Plato and various Neo-Platonist works do a very good job at putting in rational terms a relationship with what is fundamentally unintelligible.
In terms of modern scholars, I found the lectures by Pierre Grimes on Plato and various related subjects a treasure trove of insight. (Freely available on his YouTube channel)
Today we have to admit that too radical mysticism is equivalent to fanaticism or naivety, unless it takes seriously the challenges I have talked about. But a mysticism that is not radical and not deep is just not mysticism: what makes mysticism is exactly radicality and depth. This makes mysticism difficult today.
Maybe that's nothing to do with mysticism
EDIT: the reason I mention is that it doesn't feel entirely from me. Maybe I'm just mentally ill. I have none of the certainty that tends to go with mystical experience
I do see what you are saying, but I think I disagree with that. Criticism has become popular, but is not new. The mystic doesnt make less sense today, when to simple logic, they never made any sense ever.
And in some ways, mysticism actually makes more sense now, with the total deconstruction of the self being a big part of philosophy of mind, and with illusion being the substance of any identity.
And the religion that attaches to mysticism, it seems to me, is utterly non-sectarian. An orthodox Catholic mystic might say the same thing about the mystical as a non-theistic Taoist. The differences between the churches are somewhat cleared away from a mystical point of view (which is why various churches are too skeptical to embrace it, along with the fear people will be led to confusions that obviate the need for a personal God, which is the opposite of what religion is supposed to foster.)
Just curious; why do you think mysticism is inherently radical?
Thats why I said that mysticism today is difficult, but not impossible. I agree with you, but I think that what you said represents some kind of theoretical mysiticsm, not what really happens. What you said is true in theory, but in practice an orthodox Catholic, for example, cultivates a strong intimacy with God conceived as Trinity, God incarnate in Jesus Christ, God who is the founder of the Roman Catholic church, that is meant to be as the only authentic place where you can experience the sacramental presence of Jesus Christ. Whithout these things, a mystic can be a mystic, but not a Roman Catholic mystic. In this situation he cannot, as you said,
Quoting Fire Ologist.
I think that, even from a Roman Catholic context, what you said is possible, but only with enormous efforts, difficulties and problems, which make it possible just in theory.
I think that mysticism in inherently radical because I conceive mysticism as a spiritual experience that connects with its content with an intimacy, depth, strength, superior to any other kind of spiritual experience. So, for example, a Roman Catholic mystic experiences the content of his/her religion in such a way that these things become to them like daily food, emotional fulfillment, the source of each moment of their life. This way, a dogma like the doctrine of the Trinity could be something exposed to many perspectives to a theologian, or to a normal believer, but to a mystic it becomes something so strong, so deep, that can be compared, emotionally, to a sexual intercourse. This means that the mystic will experience the dogma of Trinity in an extreme radical way, not in ways so open to discuss different perspectives.
Quoting Dermot Griffin
Quoting Dermot Griffin
Does it have to be a awareness of "God"? I think not. If (as you refer to Watts) Zen, Advait Vedanta, and Daoism can be thought of as (having) Mystical (branches), then it is not God, as commonly thought of (even by Mystics) in the West. But rather an "experience" of either Oneness with all, or Emancipation from the mundane, or "knowledge" of ultimate reality, or any combination of these, and more.
For me, so called mystic practices (I don't like "mysticism" as a name--it implies other than what it really means) may (but more often may not) turn one's aware-ing away from the constructions and projections of the mundane, and point one to the ultimate truth of their being; which, sure, one may choose to see as sacred or god; but I choose to see as Truth. That is a Truth from which all of the usual constructions and projections have been "cleared away." Moreover, for me, this experience does neither last, nor permanently alter the successful practitioner. The constructions and projections flood in as soon as the mystical practice ceases.
Why do it? The successful practitioner gets a glimpse into reality, can judge all mundane experience accordingly, which is astronomically further than the rest of us stuck only in the constructions and projections.
I see your point as valid...but dig a bit deeper and maybe makes a valid point which need not be limited to the theoretical.
A Catholic Mystic in contemplative prayer, properly practiced and a proper practice of Jnana Yoga or Zazen, may yield the same aware-ing. It is only after the fact that most (but not necessarily, and not necessarily all) practitioners allow the Narratives of their own locus in History to fill the "void" of that experience with constructs.
Thus, if we are referring to real mysticism, the resulting effect on the organic being is the same for all: mind becomes finally (but briefly) yoked to reality/the body. It is only upon re-entry into the constructed atmosphere that variations start to project.
Life has a funny way of getting in the way. The topic has always interested me.
Watts advocated a pantheistic view towards the end of his life, that the universe was God and all things in it were one with God, and that God through his creation is really playing hide-and-seek with himself in an endless game. Its an interesting idea but I would describe myself as a panentheist rather than a pantheist because in my eyes God is the greatest possibly being that can be conceived but still must contain the universe within himself. And I think your take on the goal of mystical practice as, if I understand correctly, a deeper knowledge of a higher truth or series of truth's to be correct but I do also believe that an awareness of the presence of God can coincide with knowing a higher truth (or as many mystics out it God is the higher truth itself but the two can be distinct).
Yes, I would say that most philosophers that I read are mystics but not all philosophers are mystics. The early Bertrand Russell believed that math and the rules of propositional logic are ways to understand higher metaphysical ideas or forms. He later went away from this belief. And I love your take on the unexamined life. You definitely arent the same person 5 years ago compared to now.
Ive never really thought about radical mysticism or the implications of it. I once had a priest at my church (he didnt last long) go on a fire and brimstone tirade about why Centering Prayer and meditation are bad for you. I dont do centering prayer but I did make the argument that there are older methods of contemplative prayer that predate this and they produce the same stimuli as things like centering prayer or various forms of Buddhist meditation. That was my only conversation with him. 6 months in the parish and he was done.
In contrast to the philosopher who reflectively contemplates (i.e. unlearns 'learned denials of') how every presence conceals absence, I think the mystic meditates (i.e. unreasons (paradoxically / dialectically) 'inferential reasoning') in order to encounter, or surrender to, (the) absence that encompasses and dis/en-closes (un/en-folds) every presence. In other words, simplistically, they seem the opposite ends of a telescope or like complementary photo negatives of one another.
Quoting ENOAH
That is both spot on to me, and could easily make no sense to somebody. Re-entry from a mystical practice. In fleeting moments or longer breaths. I like it.
And if that atmosphere is constructed with a man on a cross and a dove, the one re-entering might fall back into the Catholic, whereas if that atmosphere is a Chinese monastery, one falls back into that, and we all fall back into hunger, sleep
Thats the thing about the mystical, it doesnt exclude anything. Or at the same time, it excludes everything besides it (and it may just as well be God). It begins when all is let go of completely, and at that exact same moment all fills up and carries away completely. It is paradox, so it is both impossible to say, and impossible to be, but it IS, sometimes, for fleeting seconds, if lucky, or blessed, if you will.
In Catholic terms, it is God not conceived as Father, or Son. Maybe the Holy Spirit, but really enough is said when the Catholic mystic conceives of God as God. The One. Like Being itself unified as one being. The not-Me (this is where God remains personal, though not my self.) Consciousness. It alone. Where there-ing is here-ing and I-ing is not. God overlaps precisely with those fleeting moments where the mystic would say the word all or one or even nothing; there can still be mystical behavior, without rejecting or refuting anything Catholic.
Im no mystic. And Im no saint. And I aint no philosopher, but now I forget what I was trying to say.
Hah. You are spot on. Both, "could easily make no sense" to some; and how you happened to have read it.
Quoting 180 Proof
I do agree with both of you and see no prohibitive contradiction.
In some instances it's the opposite of what they/one might think.
The mediocre philosopher may think he is applying reason to get at the Truth; but is only digging herself deeper into a "world of" language, using language as both it's instruments and judge.
The mediocre mystic might think they are uniting themselves with God or the Divine; but are really silencing the cacophony and grounding themselves in the epitome of what we might see as boredom; meaningless matter, the organic being.
Yet if any vocation or discipline can access true being for the rest of its the philosopher and the mystic, "complimentary photo negatives."
I look at it like this. There is one subject. One object of experience.
The philosopher takes this subject, and with reason, cuts it apart to understand it.
The religious person takes this same subject, and, without understanding it, calls it God in the hope of becoming part of the subject.
The mystic, sees the subject, and leaves it be, so that there is only the subject, and not the self facing it, and thats how the subject is experienced (not known or understood).
So the philosopher and the religious overlap in that they remain apart from the subject.
The mystic and the philosopher overlap, in that the subject can be so empty of personhood, the honest philosopher will doubt all metaphysics and language about the subject (the human understanding), and both the mystic and the philosopher might say they know nothing at all.
The religious person and the mystic overlap, in the joy that is the subject, the experience of the subject.
The scientist, like the philosopher, uses reason to break the subject apart, but then the scientist takes one part of the subject (say, the physical), and calls that part the whole subject. Like biology does not sit in physics, or physics is not being physics.
So the religious approach is the only that truly preserves the person, and the mystic approach is the only that truly preserves the subject.
But its all one conversation, just that the mystic cant use words or even needs to speak. The mystical experience is truly singular, like the object of scientific inquiry is particular. But the mystical experience is the singular experience of all or one or nothing or ing-ing or the infinite and the scientific particular is as demonstration of the the universal, the laws of physics, the certain mathematical truth.
PS. I should add that the artist also deals in the one subject, but the artist takes from the philosophical, the religious and the mystical as he or she sees fit, and yields crap, or a reflection of wisdom and beauty.
I'd say "awareness of God" is the (or a possible) interpretation of the experience, not the experience itself.
And, imo, this "object" conceals (its) absence. In broad strokes, I think religion (to worship) idolatrizes-fetishizes-mystifies '(the) absence' and mysticism (to meditate) denies negates 'whatever conceals absence' in order to "experience" absence as such whereas philosophy (to inferentially contemplate) describes makes explicit 'presence concealing absence' and science (to testably map-model) observes 'only fact-patterns (i.e. states-of-affairs concealing absence) in order to explain dynamics.
This looks interesting, but it is a zip file. Can someone unzip it?
[quote=Wittgenstein]Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.[/quote]
He starts off by comparing two views of mysticism, William James' influential modern view and that of Jean Gerson writing in the 14th century. With this comparison he is able to tease out the problem with James' focus on peak experiences, and as many of the case studies show, many "mystics" focus on a great deal aside from there experiences. Gersons' view makes a different sort of comparison. If the theologian comes to know God in the manner of the historian, the mystic's knowledge is more akin to how the someone knows their spouse or friend a juxtaposition of academic knowledge and experiential knowledge.
Harmless' books on Saint Augustine is also phenomenal, basically all the greatest hits compiled for across his extremely voluminous corpus, as is his book on the Desert Fathers, although that is a bit more historical.
I'd be interested to hear some of the conclusions regarding this!
A main point is that the focus on "peak experiences," tends to actually exclude a great deal of the people who we think of as "mystics" from the definition because they never wrote about such experiences. For example, the most famous "Beatific Vision" and "Platonic Ascent" in St. Augustine's work takes place in the Book IX of the Confessions. Yet it isn't a meditative trance but rather a conversation with his mother shortly before her death. (Book IX). Likewise, St. Bonaventure's "The Mind's Journey Into God," is cast into the mold of St. Francis' vision of the Seraphim, but that's just the mold for a heavily intellectualized ascent where the prose and ideas, not some actual singular experience, are the focus.
The other big point is that the focus on "peak experiences" to the exclusion of all else has led to a misleading picture because perennialists are searching through disparate texts to find details that fit their notions of what the "true perennial mysticism" is and ignoring how these author's religious context is interwoven with everything they write. Particularly, this sort of abstraction goes wrong when applied to the heavily intellectualized Christian Neoplatonism tradition, but it also shows up in "New Age" versions of Meister Eckhart or Rumi, who have been denuded of all their content, e.g. modern Rumi translations that completely ignore the constant allusions to the Koran in their presentation or "gnostic" or even "Buddhist" versions of Meister Eckhart that essentially ignore both his own claims to orthodoxy and all the evidence for this (or the fact that most of his work is straightforwardly presented as commentaries on Scripture).
The perennialist search for commonalities isn't necessarily misguided, because there are commonalities. However, it becomes misguided when it tries to flatten everything out, and one of the ways it does this is to try to look solely at "ineffable experience," and then to ignore the surrounding religious context as mere "interpretation" of that experience.
For example, if you look at Thomas Merton, who is a deep student of the Zen tradition, he still sees a very deep distinction between it and his own tradition at the level of experience (e.g. the awareness of sin as sin), even though he sees similarities as well.
How do you perceive Plotinus in that context? He presents the experience of the ascent of the soul as involving:
Are there other ways in which perennialist thinking tries to "flatten everything out"? As to the focus on "ineffable experience", I think it is necessary to keep in mind that, while what is subsequently said about experiences which are ineffable, is essentially interpretive, to cast these utterances as "mere" interpretations misses the fact that experiences, however ecstatic they may be, can only be of further help to us insofar as we are able to make some sense of them.
And this making sense necessitates, not objectivist or literalist language, but metaphorical or mythological language. What people say about their ecstatic experiences is usually couched in the terms. the metaphors, of the cultural context in which they have grown up. It is when these culturally mediated interpretive statements about ecstatic experiences are taken literally and understood literally in objectivist terms that fundamentalism takes hold.
Seconded.
There's a distinction made in Buddhism between realisation and experience.
[quote=Letting Go of Spiritual Experience, Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche;https://tricycle.org/magazine/letting-go-spiritual-experience/]In Buddhism, we distinguish between spiritual experiences and spiritual realizations. Spiritual experiences are usually more vivid and intense than realizations because they are generally accompanied by physiological and psychological changes. Realizations, on the other hand, may be felt, but the experience is less pronounced. Realization is about acquiring insight. Therefore, while realizations arise out of our spiritual experiences, they are not identical to them. Spiritual realizations are considered vastly more important because they cannot fluctuate.[/quote]
Likewise in Zen training, students are generally admonished from either seeking for special experiences or becoming fixated or attached to them if they arise. Such experiences are called maky?, and can include vivid visions, strange sensations, or profound insights that may seem deeply spiritual or significant. Zen practitioners are admonished against becoming attached to these experiences or seeing them as a sign of progress, as they are considered distractions from the true path of enlightenment.
A mundane allegory I had for this distinction was, imagine you're out shopping, and you've parked some distance away from the grocery store. As you make your way back to your car with your shopping, it begins to pour with rain, so you attempt to run. But then, you realise you can't feel or hear your keys in your jeans pocket, and that you must have left them on the store counter. 'Running in the rain' is an experience. 'Realising you've forgotten your keys' is a realisation. (Perhaps this is why Plato seems to make a connection between realisation and remembering, anamnesis.)
There's a chapter in Urs App's book Schopenhauer's Compass, concerning what Schopenhauer called 'better consciousness', which he also says can be found in the writings of several of Schopenhaur's near contemporaries, including Schelling and FIchte. (Rather a nice little Wikipedia on this, Higher Consciousness.) I'm sure Plotinus is describing a universal realisation in that passage, paralllels could be found in Vedanta literature as well.
Quoting Janus
The Katz-Forman debate in comparative religion revolves around the universality or context-dependence of mystical experiences. Steven Katz argued that mystical experiences are invariably expressed in terms of the cultural, religious, and linguistic contexts in which they occur. According to Katz, mystical experiences are not universal but are instead deeply influenced by the specific traditions and beliefs of the mystic, resulting in significant differences across different religious contexts.
In contrast, Robert Forman posited that there is a core, universal mystical experience that transcends cultural and religious boundaries. He suggests that, despite variations in interpretation and expression, the fundamental experience of mysticism is essentially the same across different traditions. Forman's perspective emphasizes the possibility of a common mystical core, accessible to mystics regardless of their specific cultural or religious backgrounds.
I mentioned Katz in an honours thesis I did on the topic, but overall didn't agree with his account which I found reductionist. On the other hand, it's a mistake to try and identify the so-called 'universal core' because these kinds of realisations are almost impossible to define or articulate. Which is why they are generally represented in symbolic language! We can't 'get behind' the symbolic form to discern what it 'really is' about. Another analogy - how would you find out whether 'death by drowning' is alike or different to 'death by suffocation'?
I do agree that there is a kind of 'lazy syncretism' which tries to blend different philosophies into a kind of melange. In fact I've even been guilty of that myself in the past. But I still think there's a very sound case for the universality of some forms of mystical insight.
Insight or experience? There seems to be no doubt that mystical experiences are universal inasmuch as they occur in every culture. Are the attendant insights ever context-independent though?
Are Katz and Forman disagreeing about the same things?
To even express any kind of insight requires language. But then, consider the Flower Sermon, the apocryphal origin of Zen, wherein the Buddha holds up a single flower. That is intended to convey an unconditional insight. But as soon as you begin to discuss it then the point is already moot.
I believe the genuinely mystical transcends philosophy, yet philosophy orients itself with respect to it. This relationship is evident in Christian Platonism, where negative theologyoften associated with Christian mysticismis defined as 'beyond words' and thus not easily discussed in dialogical terms. However, the mystical element of that tradition remains implicit in much of the surrounding philosophical discourse. But then, it was also constantly informed by the presence of actual teachers and exemplars of the faith, who provided a living dimension to the tradition which is generally absent in modern academic philosophy.
I think it is still possible to have teachers in a secular context, because what they would be teaching are psychological and physical techniques for gaining self-knowledge and altering consciousness. That said I also believe that not everyone needs a teacher, a tradition or a "sangha".
This is why I prefer the term 'mystical' experience, because 'peak' implies something intense and lengthy, whereas it appears mystical experiences come in various forms, and not all of them are like that. Some last only an instant, though the impression they leave on the mind is very profound.
Mystical experiences do not have to involve meditative trances, but maybe this is the point the author was trying to make?