Abstract
Philosophical studies of mysticism are abundant and often follow familiar patterns. Analytic approaches typically center on the epistemic validity of mystical experience, whereas continental styles emphasize the linguistic and performative dimensions of mystical texts. In either case, it remains rare for the philosopher to be so personally disclosive in their analysis. “I think I am temperamentally a mystic,” Critchley confesses in his Mysticism, before adding, “Maybe I’m just a bad philosopher” (69).
However one receives these and other self-reflective comments from a philosopher of C.’s stature—the present reader finds them endearing and disarming—they help account for some of the book’s more eclectic features. Written in the hope that it might help lift the Hamlet-like melancholy of our times (5)—a condition he later identifies as the problem of nihilism (288)—the book’s first part addresses several conceptual and terminological matters related to mysticism and its study, before transitioning into a series of expositions of mostly medieval Christian female mystics writing in the vernacular. With the notable exception of Meister Eckhart, whose mysticism of detachment intones God’s abyssal “nothingness,” these figures foreground the visionary, dramatic, and carnal dimensions of mystical life.
The latter part of the book turns to extended treatments of literary figures such as Anne Carson, Annie Dillard, and T. S. Eliot, who are not themselves mystics but engage deeply with mystical themes and figures in their writings. Their (perhaps surprising) prominence becomes as much a meditation on aesthetics and writing as it is on mysticism itself. The book rounds out with an excursus on music, particularly Krautrock, before concluding with a confession: that C., though an atheist and a philosopher, has sought to rethink the problem of nihilism and the central task of philosophy by plunging into religion’s “fiery core and beating heart: mysticism” (288).
The effort shines brightest in its expository middle section. While the selection of figures is admittedly shaped by personal preference, with Julian of Norwich assuming a central role, recurring themes include writing, self-abnegation, ecstatic vision, devotional objects, and the coincidence of opposites: light and darkness, pain and joy, matter and spirit, the eternal and the temporal. The writing here is highly engaging, at times even incantatory.
Perhaps most surprising is C.’s extended treatment of the Incarnation and the sufferings of Christ as the source of both realism and hope. Rejecting as anemic any retreat to an inner citadel of faith, which he describes as Lutheran and Kantian in tendency (266), C. embraces Julian’s “imagistic logic” and “painterly” approach to her Showings (147, 130). Drawing upon the scholarly work of Caroline Walker Bynum to elucidate medieval mysticism’s attentiveness to bodiliness, affect, and the enchanted materiality of religious life, C. extends his exposition to Dillard’s brutally beautiful Holy the Firm before turning to Eliot’s Four Quartets.
If the expositional through-line is not always clear, this is largely offset by powerful reflections on the creation and “de-creation” of the self, the poetry of place, the asceticism of writing, and the metaphysical implications of the Incarnation. One gets the sense that the author, while never explicitly disavowing his atheism, has either ventriloquized, or allowed himself to be ventriloquized by, the Christian mystical tradition to such a degree that earlier, more resolute stances appear open to renegotiation (288, 291). There is a searching quality and personal honesty here that is genuinely refreshing.
Whereas the book’s expository sections sing, the more conceptual first part falls somewhat flat. The choice of Bernard McGinn, Michel de Certeau, and William James as interlocutors is sound, but readers familiar with the broader philosophical work on mysticism may be surprised by how lightly it is engaged. Discussions of consciousness, the status of experience, and mystical itinerancy at times feel thin, and occasionally inconsistent.
To take one example, C. rightly critiques the modern preoccupation with “experience” as inadequate for understanding mysticism. Treating mystical experiences as discrete, unusual, and essentially private phenomena distorts how mystical life actually unfolds: as a life within a tradition, replete with rituals, symbols, narratives, and a network of communal practices.
And yet, C. frequently invokes mysticism in experientialist terms, defining it—along with the early Evelyn Underhill—as “experience in its most intense form,” even enticing the reader with the promise of special experiences: “wouldn’t you like to have a taste of this intensity?” (3).
Further inquiry into the contested role of experience seems especially warranted in a text like this, as would deeper engagement with mystical traditions that critique the pursuit of ecstasy (one thinks of the Cloud of Unknowing author, of Saint John of the Cross, or of Meister Eckhart, who is included in the book, though without sufficient reckoning with this nettled issue). Perhaps it is sobriety, rather than ecstasy—born from the fertile soil of boredom—that offers the enduring ground for mystical life.