"Philosophical faith” and mystical experience: Convergence and divergence

Mystical experience does not reveal a deep unity of religious traditions but instead represents a convergence at a specific evolutionary phase. Mysticism parallels the phenomenological phase of religion, focusing on the experience of consciousness, similar to philosophical phenomenology. This phase acts like an "energy minimum" toward which mystical traditions devolve and desacralize. After this phase, religious consciousness shifts from phenomenological Presence to eschatological Coming, where traditions diverge again. From an Orthodox ascetic perspective, philosophical faith as a phenomenological mysticism is insufficient because it only changes consciousness, whereas true Christian experience requires transformation of the whole human nature, including the flesh.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Introduction. The common version that mystical experience reveals the deep unity of religious traditions, hiding behind the external facade of their differences, seems controversial. Theoretical analysis. It is justified that the similarity between different traditions of mysticism does not express the quintessence of religiosity, as such, but only convergence in a certain phase of the evolution of religions. Mysticism is compared with the entry of religion into the phenomenological phase of development. Mysticism, like philosophical phenomenology, is turned to the experience of consciousness. Phenomenology forms the common space of meeting for mystical experience and the experience of philosophical faith. Phenomenological experience is similar to the “energy minimum” of mystical states. Like the state of heat death in thermodynamics, this is a kind of common denominator, at which all mystical traditions are aimed in the process of devolution, and then desacralization. After the mystical-phenomenological phase, religious consciousness is reoriented from the phenomenological Presence to the eschatological Coming. Here the trajectories of divergence are again indicated. Conclusion. From the standpoint of Orthodox ascetics, the philosophical faith, as a phenomenological version of mysticism, is insufficient, because it is associated only with a change in consciousness. The true experience of God’s message in Christianity requires the transformation of everything - including the flesh of human nature.