Mysticism and Language.

• Author: Deutsch, Eliot

Mysticism and Language is a sequel to other works edited by Steven Katz which deal with mysticism: Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis (Oxford, 1978) and Mysticism and Religious Traditions (Oxford, 1983). As the title indicates, this collection of essays by scholars of mysticism concentrates on language, namely, the problems involved in the traditional claim that, as enunciated by Katz, "Mystics do not say what they mean and do not mean what they say" (p. 3).

The work consists of ten essays which, on the expository and historical side, cover Jewish mysticism (rather noticeably with three of the essays devoted primarily to it), Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism, Chan/Zen and various forms of Christian mysticism. Rather unsurprisingly, there is little agreement among the authors (Katz, Moshe Idel, William P. Alston, Ninian Smart, Stephen H. Phillips, Bimal Krishna Matilal, Bernard Faure, Carl W. Ernst, Bernard McGinn, and Ewert H. Cousins) as to how "mysticism" is to be defined and what areas of experience and kinds of conceptualizations are to be included in it. In terms of what is in fact presented in the collection, "mysticism" includes Kabbalistic symbology, Zen koan practice, mantra recitation, ecstatic love unions, Neoplatonic emanational theories, negative theology, and various forms of "nondualistic" experience. William P. Alston in his essay, "Literal and Nonliteral in Reports of Mystical Experience," allows that "I will term 'mystical' any experience that is taken by the subject to be a direct awareness of (what is taken to be) Ultimate Reality or (what is taken to be) an object of religious worship" and notices that, in spite of the reach of this definition, it "may fail to stretch over some forms of Buddhist mystical experience and may not cover 'naturalistic' mystical experience." It would seem, then, that with this kind of definitional framework much might get included that some scholars would want to reject (would a presumed direct awareness of the devil by a Satanist count as a mystical experience?) and much that most others would want to include gets excluded by fiat. But, says Alston, "since I am writing the paper, I get to do it my way!" (p. 80).

In a rather charming essay, entitled "What Would Buddhaghosa Have Made of The Cloud of Unknowing?" Ninian Smart, doing things his way, brings out nicely not only problems that nonmystics confront when attempting to understand and assess mystic claims (the thrust of many of the essays)...