The art of mysticism : an inquiry into the notion of ineffability in (cataphatic) mystical experience
The University of Queensland June 19, 2007 Paul C. Martin 3 citations
Mystical experience, which William James called ineffable, can be understood through the lens of art and aesthetics. Focusing on Western Christian mysticism, the author argues that positive (cataphatic) mystical experience resembles an artistic or aesthetic experience in its phenomenology and psychology. The imagination plays a crucial role in realizing the presence of God, which is represented pictorially in the mystical imagination like a painting on the canvas of the soul. Using Kant's philosophy, the author contends that the consciousness of divinity is an aesthetic realization, and that mystics can and do articulate this experience through language and figures of speech, making their claims of ineffability problematic.