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Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in ultimate or hidden truths, and to human transformation supported by various practices and experiences.
Mysticism, the practice of religious ecstasies (religious experiences during alternate states of consciousness), together with whatever ideologies, ethics, rites, myths, legends, and magic may be related to them. Learn more about mysticism in this article.
Nov 11, 2004 · Correspondingly, the term “mysticism” will refer to practices, discourse, texts, institutions, and traditions associated with these experiences. The definition excludes paranormal experiences such as visions, voices, out-of-body experiences, and powers such as telepathy.
Sep 26, 2019 · Personal experiences of the divine or absolute—mysticism—are part of every religious tradition. Learn about mysticism and mystics through history.
Nov 11, 2004 · In the Hellenistic world, ‘mystical’ referred to “secret” religious rituals. In early Christianity the term came to refer to “hidden” allegorical interpretations of Scriptures and to hidden presences, such as that of Jesus at the Eucharist.
mysticism, The theory and practice of religious ecstasies. Traditionally conceived as the spiritual quest for union with the Absolute, the Infinite, or God and the perception of its essential oneness, mysticism is now understood to encompass many other varieties of ecstatic experience and perception, including that of nothingness or of the ...
Aug 24, 2021 · “Mysticism” is a slippery word. People may use it to discuss medieval Christian saints’ communion with God, 3,000-year-old Vedic texts, or twenty-first-century Wiccan sex magic. Others use it to attack religious practices they see as irrational or unserious.
Starting in the 17th century, one finds the beginning of the modern uses of the term as it became deracinated from a total religious matrix. In its new incarnation as a noun (la mystique), “mysticism” was utilized in the service of multiple academic methods designed to analyze religious phenomena.
Mysticism - Spiritual, Experiential, Transcendent: Because religious ideas that are obscure or cryptic may be called “mystical” in popular parlance, mysticism is often mistakenly thought to be essentially irrational.
MYSTICISM, HISTORY OF. Mystical experience is a major form of religious experience, but it is hard to delineate by a simple definition for two main reasons. First, mystics often describe their experiences partly in terms of doctrines presupposed to be true, and there is no one set of doctrines invariably associated with mysticism.
