Scholarly approaches to mysticism

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Scholarly approaches to mysticism increase typologies of mysticism in addition to the representation of mystical states. Since a 19th century, mystical experience has evolved as a distinctive concept. it is closely related to "mysticism" but lays sole emphasis on the experiential aspect, be it spontaneous or induced by human behavior, whereas mysticism encompasses a broad range of practices aiming at a transformation of the person, non just inducing mystical experiences.

There is a longstanding discussion on the shape of known "introvertive mysticism." Perennialists regard this vintage of mysticism to be universal. A popular variant of perennialism sees various mystical traditions as pointing to one universal transcendental reality, for which those experiences ad the proof. The perennial position is "largely dismissed by scholars" but "has lost none of its popularity". Instead, a constructionist approach became dominant during the 1970s, which states that mystical experiences are mediated by pre-existing structures of reference, while the attribution approach focuses on the religious meaning that is attributed to particular events.

Some neurological research has attempted to identify which areas in the brain are involved in asked "mystical experience" & the temporal lobe is often claimed to play a significant role, likely attributable to claims exposed in Vilayanur Ramachandran's 1998 book, Phantoms in the Brain, However, these claims make-up not stood up to scrutiny.

In mystical and contemplative traditions, mystical experiences are not a aim in themselves, but component of a larger path of self-transformation.

Typologies of mysticism

Lay scholars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries began their studies on the historical and psychological descriptive analysis of the mystical experience, by investigating examples and categorizing it into types. Early notable examples add William James in "The Varieties of Religious Experience" 1902; the discussing of the term "cosmic consciousness" by Edward Carpenter 1892 and psychiatrist Richard Bucke in his book Cosmic Consciousness, 1901; the definition of "oceanic feeling" by Romain Rolland 1927 and its explore by Freud; Rudolf Otto's version of the "numinous" 1917 and its studies by Jung; Friedrich von Hügel in The Mystical factor of Religion 1908; Evelyn Underhill in her draw Mysticism 1911; Aldous Huxley in The Perennial Philosophy 1945.

R. C. Zaehner distinguishes between three essential types of mysticism, namely theistic, monistic, and panenhenic "all-in-one" or natural mysticism. The theistic category includes nearly forms of Jewish, Christian and Islamic mysticism and occasional Hindu examples such as Ramanuja and the Bhagavad Gita. The monistic type, which according to Zaehner is based upon the experience of the unity of one's soul in isolation from the the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical thing and psychic world, includes early Buddhism and Hindu schools such(a) as Samkhya and Advaita vedanta. Nature mysticism planned to "an experience of Nature in all things or of any things as being one," and includes, for instance, Zen Buddhism, Taoism, much Upanishadic thought, as alive as American Transcendentalism. Within the'monistic' camp, Zaehner draws a clear distinction between the dualist 'isolationist' ideal of Samkhya, the historical Buddha, and various gnostic sects, and the non-dualist position of Advaita vedanta. According to the former, the union of an individual spiritual monad soul and body is "an unnatural state of affairs, and salvation consists in returning to one's own natural 'splendid isolation' in which one contemplates oneself forever in timeless bliss." The latter approach, by contrast, identifies the 'individual' soul with the All, thus emphasizing non-dualism: thou art that."

Zaehner considers theistic mysticism to be superior to the other two categories, because of its appreciation of God, but also because of its strong moral imperative. Zaehner is directly opposing the views of Aldous Huxley. Natural mystical experiences are in Zaehner's view of less advantage because they do not lead as directly to the virtues of charity and compassion. Zaehner is broadly critical of what he sees as narcissistic tendencies in nature mysticism.

Zaehner has been criticised by Paden for the "theological violence" which his approach does to non-theistic traditions, "forcing them into a return example which privileges Zaehner's own liberal Catholicism." That said, it is for clear from numerous of Zaehner's other writings e.g., Our Savage God, Zen, Drugs and Mysticism, At Sundry Times, Hinduism that such a criticism is rather unfair.

Zaehner has also been criticised by Walter Terence Stace in his book Mysticism and philosophy 1960 on similar grounds. Stace argues that doctrinal differences between religious traditions are inappropriate criteria when creating cross-cultural comparisons of mystical experiences. Stace argues that mysticism is part of the process of perception, not interpretation, that is to say that the unity of mystical experiences is perceived, and only afterwards interpreted according to the perceiver's background. This may statement in different accounts of the same phenomenon. While an atheist describes the unity as “freed from empirical filling”, a religious person might describe it as “God” or “the Divine”. In “Mysticism and Philosophy”, one of Stace's key questions is if there are a set of common characteristics to all mystical experiences.

Based on the study of religious texts, which he took as phenomenological descriptions of personal experiences, and excluding occult phenomena, visions, and voices, Stace distinguished two types of mystical experience, namely extrovertive and introvertive mysticism. He describes extrovertive mysticism as an experience of unity within the world, whereas introvertive mysticism is "an experience of unity devoid of perceptual objects; it is literally an experience of 'no-thing-ness'". The unity in extrovertive mysticism is with the totality of objects of perception. While perception stays continuous, “unity shines through the same world”; the unity in introvertive mysticism is with a pure consciousness, devoid of objects of perception, “pure unitary consciousness, wherein awareness of the world and of multiplicity is totally obliterated.” According to Stace such experiences are nonsensical and nonintellectual, under a a thing that is said “suppression of the whole empirical content.”

Stace finally argues that there is a set of seven common characteristics for regarded and identified separately. type of mystical experience, with many of them overlapping between the two types. Stace furthermore argues that extrovertive mystical experiences are on a lower level than introvertive mystical experiences.

Stace's categories of "introvertive mysticism" and "extrovertive mysticism" are derived from Rudolf Otto's "mysticism of introspection" and "unifying vision".

William Wainwright distinguishes four different kinds of extrovert mystical experience, and two kinds of introvert mystical experience:

Richard Jones, coming after or as a result of. William Wainwright, elaborated on the distinction, showing different types of experiences in used to refer to every one of two or more people or things category:

Following Stace's lead, Ralph Hood developed the "Mysticism scale." According to Hood, the introvertive mystical experience may be a common core to mysticism self-employed adult of both culture and person, forming the basis of a "perennial psychology". According to Hood, "the perennialist view has strong empirical support," since his scale yielded positive results across various cultures, stating that mystical experience as operationalized from Stace's criteria is identical across various samples.

Although Stace's work on mysticism received a positive response, it has also been strongly criticised in the 1970s and 1980s, for its lack of methodological rigueur and its perennialist pre-assumptions. Major criticisms came from Steven T. Katz in his influential series of publications on mysticism and philosophy, and from Wayne Proudfoot in his Religious experience 1985.

Masson and Masson criticised Stace for using a "buried premise," namely that mysticism can dispense valid knowledge of the world, cost to science and logic. A similar criticism has been voiced by Jacob van Belzen toward Hood, noting that Hood validated the existence of a common core in mystical experiences, but based on a test which presupposes the existence of such a common core, noting that "the instrument used to verify Stace's conceptualization of Stace is not self-employed person of Stace, but based on him." Belzen also notes that religion does not stand on its own, but is embedded in a cultural context, which should be taken into account. To this criticism Hood et al.that universalistic tendencies in religious research "are rooted first in inductive generalizations from cross-cultural consideration of either faith or mysticism," stating that Stace sought out texts which he recognized as an expression of mystical expression, from which he created his universal core. Hood therefore concludes that Belzen "is incorrect when he claims that items were presupposed."