Two Kinds of Mystical Art in the Age of Scientism
Communications in Humanities Research December 31, 2025 Tingting Chen
Mysticism, defined as a tradition of direct, private union with ultimate reality, resurges within modern scientistic culture, especially in art. Historically rooted in medieval Christianity and transformed by Romanticism, it reacts against Enlightenment rationalism and scientism. Scientism, based on empirical methods and exclusion of the supernatural, delegitimizes mystical knowledge but also provokes new mystical quests by generating spiritual emptiness and a crisis of meaning. In art, two forms of mysticism emerge: one treats artworks as vehicles of transcendent knowledge about supernatural realities, directly colliding with scientism's epistemic limits; the other locates mysticism in the creative process and private experience without asserting ontological claims, making it more acceptable to scientism but weakening its claim to genuine transcendence.