1. Mysticism
Author(s): Michel de Certeau and Marsanne Brammer
Source: Diacritics, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), pp. 11-25
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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2. MYSTICISM
MICHELDE CERTEAU
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Translator'snote. Michelde Certeauwas an eminenthistorianat thetimethatthis article was
publishedin the Encyclopaediauniversalis(1968) [rpt. 15 (1990): 1030-36 (Paris)]. Wellknown
in Francefor his earlierstudiesof mysticism-inparticular hisworkon Favre,his editionofSurin's
Guide spirituel(1963), and his monumentalCorrespondance Surin (1966)-de Certeau also
of
pursuedstudiesinpsychoanalysis,culturalanthropology, semiotics,linguistics,and contemporary
culture. In "Mysticism"de Certeau examinesthe developmentof relations between a scientific
discoursethatreifiedthe mysticalas an objectof inquiryin accordancewith its own categories and
methodologies,and a mystical "language"thatbothintegratedand interrogatedthatdiscourseon
the basis of a lived experience exceeding its capacities. De Certeau continues his analysis of
mysticismin La fable mystique(1982), translatedbyMichaelSmithas The MysticFable,where he
examines "therelations of this 'modern'mysticismwith a new eroticism,with a psychoanalytic
theory,withhistoriography to
itself,andfinallywiththe 'fable'(thatreturnssimultaneously orality
and tofiction)" [12].
Themasculinegenderingof the word mystic (le mystique)and its accompanying pronouns in
this article is primarilydue to French usage. Theword mystiquewithoutany articlefunctions in
Frenchas the adjectivemystical;withafemininearticle(la mystique) wordmeans "mysticism,"
the
and with a masculine article (le mystique)it means "the mystic," irrespective of that mystic's
gender.
I am verygratefulto Luce Giardfor her generousand invaluableassistance in the translation
of this essay; in addition,I wouldlike to thankAgnesChouchanand MichaelSmithfortheircareful
editing of the text.
diacritics / summoer1L992 diacritics
22.2: 11-25 11

3. To Freud's analysis of religion in The Future of an Illusion (1926), Romain Rolland
opposed a "religioussensationcompletely differentfrom religions in the strictsense": a
"sensationof the eternal," "oceanicfeeling"thatcould be describedas a"contact"and
an
as a"fact" [letterto S. Freud,5 Dec. 1927]. Rolland sent Freudthe threevolumes of his
Essai sur la mystique et l'action de l'Inde vivante upon publication in 1929; Freud
respondedto his objectionsin the firstchapterof Civilizationand Its Discontents (1929).
He moreover wrote to his "friend,""How foreign to me are the worlds in which you
circulate! Mysticism is as impenetrableto me as music" [20 July 1929]. Later,Freud
would object to the assimilation of his method with that of Jung's, who, he said, "is
something of a mystic himself and has ceased for a many years to belong to our group"
[letterto R. Rolland, 19 Jan. 1930].
A significant debate. It was recordedover a period of thirtyyears in a particularly
rich groupof publicationsdedicatedto mysticism; these publicationsinclude contribu-
tions from ethnosociology (in France,for example, fromEmile Durkheim'sLesformes
dldmentaires la vie religieuse [1912] to Lucien L6vy-Bruhl'sL'experiencemystique
de
et les symboles chez les primitifs[ 1938]); fromphenomenology(fromHeiler to Rudolph
Otto and Mircea Eliade); from literaryhistory (The Mystical Element of Religion by
Friedrichvon Hugel [1908] to the eleven volumes of Histoire littfraire du sentiment
religieux by Henri Bremond [1917-32]); from philosophy (notably William James in
1906, MauriceBlondel, JeanBaruziin 1924, HenriBergson in 1932); fromthe diffusion
of Hinduismand IndianBuddhismin WesternEurope,to which RomainRolland,Rene
Guenon,and Aldous Huxley contributed, additionto L. de La Vallee-Poussin,Olivier
in
Lacombe, Louis Renou, and others. This abundant outputhas includedpositions thatare
quite different, but it seems to have in common the connection of mysticism to the
primitive mentality, to a marginal and threatenedtraditionexisting within Christian
churches, to an intuitionthat had become foreign to the intellectual understanding, or
betterstill, to an Orientwhere the sun of "meaning"would rise at the momentthatit set
in the West. Fromthe beginning,the mysticismdiscussedin these workshadfor its place
an elsewhereandforits sign ananti-societywhichneverthelesswouldrepresentthe initial
ground [fonds] of man. A way of considering and defining mysticism that we still
recognize today dates from this period; it is in this climate that Freud's reaction was
situated.
The disagreementthatappearedin the lettersand worksof these two correspondents
between 1927 and 1930 is characteristic the perspectivesthatopposed-and continue
of
to oppose-a "mystical"point of view to a "scientific"one. RomainRolland describes,
in the mannerof Bergson, a donn6eof experience-"-something withoutlimits, infinite,
in a word, oceanic"; Freud finds only a production of the psyche born from the
combination of a representationand an affective element, itself susceptible to being
interpreted a "geneticderivation."Rollandrefersto a "subterranean
as sourceof religious
energy," distinguishing it from its appropriation channeling by the Church;Freud
or
returnsto the "constitutionof the self' according to a process of separationfrom the
mother's womb and differentiationfrom the outer world. Of course, both returnto an
origin; for the former, this appears in the form of the All and has its most explicit
manifestationin the Orient;for the latter,it is the primitive experience of a wrenching
away [arrachement], beginningof individualorcollective history.Insum, forRomain
the
Rolland the origin is the unity thatjust "breaksthrough"["affleure"]to the surface of
consciousness; for Freudit is the division constitutiveof the self. Nevertheless, the fact
which both must explain is of the same type: a dissent of the individualin relationto the
group; an irreducibilityof desire within the society that represses or masks it without
eliminating it; a "discontentwithin civilization." The unstablerelationshipsbetween
science and truthrevolve aroundthis fact.
12

4. 1
The ModernStatus of Mysticism
Whatever one thinks of mysticism, even if one recognizes in it the emergence of a
universal or absolute reality, it can only be treatedin terms of a specific cultural and
historical situation. The West, whether it is considering shamanism, Hinduism, or
MeisterEckhart,has its own way of regardingmysticism;it speaksaboutit froma certain
position. One would not thereforeknow how to sanction the fiction of a universal
discourse about mysticism, therebyforgetting that the East Indian, the African, or the
Indonesianhave neitherthe same conception of nor the same practicesfor what we call
mysticism.
Geographical Determinationand Historical Conditioning
The attentiondirected by Europeananalyses towardthe mysticism of others is guided
more or less explicitly by internalinterrogations disputes,even when these analyses
and
consider foreign traditions. For example, the scientific inquiry into Hinduism or
of
Buddhismwas (and still is) inhabitedby the "uneasiness"that the irruption different
civilizations and the erosion of Christianbeliefs arousedin Europe,by the nostalgia for
spiritualreferencesdetachedfromChurchallegiances, or by the opposite desire to better
adaptthe diffusion of EuropeanChristianthoughtto the Orientand to restorea universal
that would no longer derive from the power of the Occidentals, but ratherfrom their
knowledge. The relationshipsthatthe Europeanworldmaintainedwith itself and others
had thereforea determiningrole in the definition, the experience, and the analysis of
mysticism. This statementdoes not by any means deny mystical experience its authen-
ticity or these analyses theirrigor;it only emphasizes theirparticularity.
This localizationof "our"point of view also obeys historicaldeterminations.In the
course of our history, "one"place has been given to mysticism; it has been assigned,
within social or scientific life, a region of its own, with its own objects, itineraries,and
language. In particular, from the time thatEuropeanculturehad ceased to define itself
as Christian-that is, since the sixteenth or seventeenthcentury-one no longer desig-
nated as mystical that form of "wisdom"elevated by a full recognition of the mystery
alreadylived and announcedin common beliefs, but ratheran experimentalknowledge
thatslowly detacheditself fromtraditional theology or churchinstitutions,characterized
by the consciousness,received or acquired,of a fulfilling passivity in which the self loses
itself in God. In otherwords, whatbecomes mystical is thatwhich diverges from normal
or ordinarypaths;thatwhich is no longer inscribedwithin the social communityof faith
or religious references,but ratheron the marginsof an increasinglysecularizedsociety
and a knowledge that defines its own scientific objects; that which thus appears
simultaneouslyin the form of extraordinary, even strange,events and as a relationship
with a hiddenGod ("mystical" Greekmeans"hidden")
in whose public signs pale, flicker,
or completely cease to be believable.
One indicationof this isolation (in the sense in which any element can be isolated)
appearsin the fact thatit is only in the seventeenthcenturythatone begins to speakof "la
mystique"; the recourse to this noun corresponds to the establishmentof a specific
domain. Previously "mystique"was only an adjective that qualified something else; it
could be assigned to all types of knowledge or objects in a still religious world. The
substantivation thisadjectivein thefirsthalfof the seventeenthcentury,a time in which
of
mystical literature proliferated, a sign of the greatdivision [d6coupage] thatoccurred
was
diacritics / summer 1992 13

5. concerning knowledge and facts. A certainspace would delimit, from this point on, a
mode of experience, a genre of discourse,an areaof knowledge. At the same time that
its propernameappeared(designatingat thattimea novelty), mysticismconstituteditself
in a place apart. It circumscribedisolatable facts ("extraordinary" phenomena),social
types (the "mystics,"anotherneologism of the time), anda special science (elaborated by
the mystics themselves or takingthem as its object of analysis).
Whatwas new was notmysticallife-since thisundoubtedly beeninitiatedin the
had
very beginnings of religious history-but its isolation and objectificationin the eyes of
those who began to be unableto participate believe in the principlesuponwhich it was
or
established.
In becoming a specialty, mysticism founditself limited to the marginsof the sector
of the observable. It would be subjected to the paradox growing from an opposition
between particular phenomena(classed as exceptional) and the universalmeaning-or
one true God-of which mystics claimed to be the witnesses. Mysticism would
progressivelybe divided between strangephenomena-the objects of a curiosity some-
times devout, sometimespsychological, psychiatric,or ethnographic-and the Absolute
the mystics spoke of, which would be situatedin the invisible, regardedas an obscure,
universaldimensionof man,perceivedorexperiencedas a reality[unrdel]hiddenbeneath
a diversityof institutions,religions,anddoctrines.Itis in thissecondaspectthatone draws
closer to what Romain Rollandcalled the "oceanic feeling."
The position given to mysticism by Western societies over three centuries would
determine,then,the theoreticalandpracticalproblemsposed to mysticalexperience. But
it would also determinethe optic by which mysticism (whatevertime or civilization it
belongedto) wouldbe viewed fromthenon: anorganization properto "modern" Western
society defines the place from which we speak of mysticism.
The Traditionand Psychologizationof Mysticism
This determinationhas led to two sorts of effects, equally perceptiblein the experience
of mystics as they describe it and in the studies dedicatedto them: the formationof a
of
particulartraditionand the "psychologization" mystical states.
From the place thathad been made for them, the mystics, theirapologists, and their
critics establisheda traditionthatrespondedto this recentlyisolated unity in conformity
with what had occurredin otherfields of research. For example, once biology had been
defined in the seventeenthandeighteenthcenturies,it servedas a basis for a classification
of past knowledge, selecting from it problemsthat were analogical to those it was then
treating.A distinctionwas madein ancientworks(through split thatwould have greatly
a
surprised theirauthors)betweenwhatwas"scientific"andcouldthusenterinto thehistory
of biology, and what was theological, cosmological, and so on. A moder science thus
gave itself a specific tradition,excavated, in accordance with its present, from the
sedimentsof the past. Similarly,the newly "isolated"mysticism found itself, from the
seventeenth century on, endowed with a complete genealogy. The identification of
similarities presentedin the works of ancient authorsauthorizedon the one hand the
gatheringof diverse works underthe same name and, on the other,the fragmentation of
the same literarycorpus accordingto the moder categories of exegesis, theology, and
mysticism. It became possible to distinguish in the works of a patristic writer, in a
medievalgroup,or withinaNordic school of thoughtaportionthatbelonged to mysticism
and a level of analysis that corresponded to it. From then on, constellations of
references-the "mystical authors"-defined an object that conformed to a certain
viewpoint. A "treasure"was formed in three centuries that constituted a "mystical
tradition"and obeyed less and less the criteriaof any particularChurchmembership.
14

6. Catholic,Protestant, Hindu,ancient,andfinally nonreligioustestimonieswere assembled
underthe same singularnoun: la mystique. The identityof "mysticism,"once posited,
createdrelevantcriteria,imposeda reclassificationof history,andpermitted establish-
the
ment of facts and texts thatserved from thenon as a foundationfor any study of mystics.
Reflection and experienceitself arebothdeterminedtoday by this workof collating such
a diversity of informationand referencesinto one circumscribed place itself defined by
a socioculturalconjuncture.
This conjuncturealso prompted,as we have seen, the identificationof mystical life
with a certain numberof "phenomena." Extraordinary events characterizedmystical
experience from the moment it was compelled, in an increasingly de-Christianized
society, to migrateinward. Necessarily estrangedfrom more secularizedglobal institu-
tions and rapidly shrinkingChurch institutions,the lived sense of the Absolute-the
universal God-found its privileged indices, internal or external, in phenomena of
consciousness. Lived experience became the sign and punctuationof the perceptionof
the infinite. Experience was expressed and deciphered in more psychological terms.
Moreover,because religious terminologycould no longer be trusted(religious vocabu-
lary continuedto circulate,but was progressivelydetachedfrom its first signification by
a society thatwould from then on assign metaphoricaluses to it, using it as a repertoire
of images and legends), the mystics were drawnaway, by the life they lived and by the
situation that was given to them, towarda language of the body. In a new interplay
between what they recognized internally and the part of their experience that was
externally(socially) recognizable,mystics were led to createfromthis corporealvocabu-
lary the initial markersindicating the place in which they found themselves and the
illuminationthey received. Justas Jacob's woundin the hip was the sole visible markof
his nocturnalencounterwith the angel, so ecstasy, levitation,stigmata,fasting, insensi-
bility to pain, visions, tactile sensations, odors, and the like furnishedthe music of the
senses with the scale of a specific language.
"Unutterable"Meaning and Psychosomatic "Phenomena"
The mystics created,from all these psychological or physical "phenomena," means of
a
articulatingthe "unsayable" [indicible]. They spoke of "something" could really no
that
longer be said in words. They thereforeproceededto a descriptionthatran the gamutof
"sensations,"allowing us to measurethe distance between the common usage of these
words and the truththat the mystics, led by their experience, gave to them. This lapse
[decalage] in meaning, inexpressiblein verballanguage,could be made visible through
the continuous counterpointof extraordinary psychosomatic phenomena. The "emo-
tions"of affectivity and the alterationsof the body thusbecame the clearestindicatorsof
the movement producedbefore or after the stability of intellectual formulations. The
threadof psychosomaticsigns was from then on the borderlinethatmade it possible for
mystical experience to be articulatedin socially recognizableterms, to be made legible
to the eyes of unbelievers. From this viewpoint, mysticism found its moder social
language in the body (though,in many respects,an establishedspiritualvocabularyhad
once been its medieval "body").
These psychosomatic manifestationswere taken seriously by scientific observers.
To an inquirythatwas successively medical,psychological, psychiatric,sociological, or
ethnographic, they provided that part of the experience that science could grasp-
mystical"phenomena."In particular, workof Dr. J. M. Charcot(1825-93) was a fine
the
example of the attentiondirectedby the psychiatristin the nineteenthcenturytowardsa
group of cases and events in which a hystericalstructurewas diagnosed. Bound to its
corporeal language, mysticism borderson or overlaps the pathological-all the more
diacritics / summer 1992 15

7. since the "extraordinary" of
character mysticalperceptionwas increasinglyexpressedin
of
the nineteenthcenturyby the "abnormality" psychosomaticphenomena. In this way,
mysticism enteredthe psychiatrichospitaland the ethnographic museumof the marvel-
ous.
If, by its own logic, scientific analysiswas thereforecaughtin the trapof a positivism
that in advance gives truthvalue to "objective"facts it defines itself, it was no less
determinedby the actualsocioculturalconditionsof the mysticalexperience. Did not the
believers come to confuse mysticism with the miraculousor extraordinary?In the end,
medicalorethnologicalobservationwent less astray(since it claimedto stay on the terrain
of phenomena)thanthe eminenttheologianof the period,FatherAugustePoulain, who,
in orderto accountfor the meaningof mysticism,ceaselessly enumerated collection of
a
stigmata, stories of levitations,psychological "miracles,"and somatic curiosities [Des
graces d'oraison: Traitd de thdologie mystique (1901)]; here the lived meaning of
experience was assessed according to the degree of psychosomatic awareness of the
In
extraordinary. theend, suchmeaningwas buriedundertheproliferation peculiarities
of
thatboth Churchapologists and scientific observerscolluded in amassing.
The reactionprovokedby such an extremeposition hascontinuedto reiterate,within
the last fifty years, the rupturebetween mystical "phenomena"and the existential
radicalism of the experience itself. It is to the latter that the great philosophical and
religious studies have been devoted, such as those of JeanBaruzi[SaintJean de la Croix
et le problemede ' experiencemystique(1924)], Bergson [Lesdeuxsources de la morale
et de la religion (1932)], and Louis Massignon[Lapassion d'al Halldj, martyrmystique
de l'islam (1922)]. These have had theirequivalentin the Christiancorpusin the works
of FatherMauricede La Taille (1919), FatherMarechal(1924 and 1937), andDom Stoltz
(1937), who, among others,gave back to mysticism its structure doctrinalmeaning.
and
But this "reinvention"of mysticism probably confined itself too exclusively to the
philosophical or theological analysis of textual sources, too quickly abandoning the
symbolic language of the body to psychology or ethnology.
2
The Mystical Experience
Paradoxes
The mystical, then, appearsin paradoxicalforms. It seems to driftfrom one extreme to
the other. In one of its aspects, it is on the side of the abnormal,a rhetoricof the strange;
in the other,it is on the side of an "essential"thatits whole discourseannounceswithout
being able to express. The literature placed underthe sign of mysticism is very prolific,
often even confused andverbose. But it is so in orderto speakof whatcan be neithersaid
nor known.
Another paradox: even though mystical phenomena had the character of the
exceptional, even of the abnormal,those presentingthese extraordinary events experi-
enced them as the local and transitorytraces of a universal reality, as expressions
overflowing with the excess of a presence thatcould never be possessed.
Finally, these often spectacularmanifestationsalways returnedto what remained
mystical,thatis to say hidden. Thus, two contraries coincide in the expression"mystical
phenomena":what is "phenomenal" appearsand is visible; what is "mystical"remains
secret and invisible.
Mysticism cannot be reduced to either of the aspects that always comprise this
paradox.It is held withintheirrelation.It is undoubtedly relationitself. It is therefore
this
16

8. an objectthatescapes [quifuit]. It alternatelyfascinatesandirritates.Withthese mystical
events the proximity of the essential seems to be announced. But if, in dealing with a
languageof the "unsayable," criticalanalysis rejectsthis languageas lacking in rigor,as
a commentarytoo encumberedwith images and impressions,it will encounternothing
more in the field of observationthanpsychological curiositiesor small marginalgroups.
In order to avoid this choice between an "essential" that ends by vanishing beyond
languageinto the "unsaid," strangephenomenathatcannotbe isolated withoutbeing
and
rendered insignificant, we must return to what the mystic says of his or her own
experience, to the individualperceptionof observablefacts.
The Event
Psychosomatic events which are classified as mystical pose a particularproblem.
Extraordinary phenomenaseem at firstto specify mysticism. They contraststronglywith
ordinarylife. They standout in the observablelike the signs of a foreign language. But
thisirruption strangesymptomsonly signalsmomentsorthresholdsthatarein factquite
of
specific. Mystical life is comprisedof experiences that initiate or transformit. These
"moments"are like throwingopen a window into one's dwelling; they give a new sense
of ease, allow a breathof fresh air to enterone's life. The song of a bird thatreveals to
the shamanhis vocation, the spokenwordthatpierces the heart,the vision thatturnsone's
life upsidedown-these are decisive experiences,indissociablefrom a place, a meeting,
a reading,butnotreducibleto the meansthatconvey them. "Ithappenedthere"the mystic
can say, because he keeps, engravedin his memory, the smallest circumstancesof that
instant;the precisionof the memoriesin any "life"or "autobiography" demonstrates this.
But, he adds, "It was not that,"because for him the experiencehas to do with something
other thana site, an impression,or a certainknowledge.
These privileged events can be found outside mystical life. Julien Green, for
example, writes in his Journal of a moment akin to the "oceanic feeling" of Romain
Rolland:
Dec. 18,1932. Afew momentsago, I paused beneathone of theporticoes of the
Trocadero to view the prospect of the Champ-de-Mars. It was as if it were
springtime, a luminous mist floating above the gardens. Sounds had that
buoyant,airy qualitythattheyonly have on thefirstfine days of spring. For two
or three seconds, I relived a whole part of my youth-my sixteenth, my
seventeenthyear. This made a strange impressionon me, more painful than
agreeable. Nevertheless, there existed an accord between myself and this
landscape so profound that I asked myself,as I used to do in earlier days, if it
would not be delicious to dissolve into all of this, like a drop of water into the
ocean-to not have a body any longer, butjust enoughof a consciousness to be
able to think: "Iam a tinypart of the universe. The universeis happyin me. I
am the sky, the sun, the trees, the Seine, and the houses on its banks . .." This
strange thoughthas never completelyleft me. Afterall, it is perhaps something
of this kindthatawaits us on the otherside of death. And,suddenly,I wasfilled
withsuch happinessthatI returnedhomewith thefeeling thatI shouldpreserve
the memoryof this great mirage, as I would a rare and precious thing.
The surpriseproducesstrangenessbut it also liberates. It drawsto the surfacea secret of
life and death. Something is introduced into the consciousness that is not itself
consciousness but the annihilation consciousness, or the spiritof which consciousness
of
seems to be the surface,or an unfathomablelaw of the universe. The unsuspected,that
diacritics / summer 1992 17

9. hasthe violence of theunforeseen,gatherstogetherall thedays of existence, as the whistle
of the shepherdgathershis flock, and reunites them in the continuity of a disquieting
relationshipwith the other.
The mystical experience often has the same form as this, although ordinarilyit
engages in anotherkindof relationship with thatwhich suddenlycomes to it. In theWest,
it is the discovery of an Otheras essential or inevitablethatdefines this relationship. In
theEast,it is morea rendingof thefragileveil of anungrounded consciousness[in-fond6e]
underthe pressureof a realitythatengulfs it. Undoubtedly,it is impossible to name what
happens;it seems to rise up from some unfathomable dimensionof existence, as froman
ocean whose originsprecedemankind.The very term"God"(or"Absolute"), ratherthan
providing a guidepost for the experience, receives its meaning from this dimension.
Languagewill be transformed it. Alreadylife is changedby it: "Whenthe divine touch
by
flows in you, it turnsyour habits upside down," said Ibn 'Ata' Allah of Alexandria,a
Moslem mystic of the twelfth century,and he cited a saying from the Koran: "If kings
enter a village, they will damage it" [xxvii, 34].
Under the shock of an analogousexperience,Jean-JosephSurin wrote in 1636:
His workis to destroy,to ravage, to abolish and then to remake,to reestablish,
to resurrect. He is marvelouslyterribleand marvelouslysweet; and the more
terrible he is, the more desirable and alluring. In his actions, he is like a king
who, marchingat the head of his armies, brings everyoneto their knees.... If
he takeseverything away, it is in orderto expandwithoutlimits. If he separates,
it is in order to uniteto himselfthatwhich he separates outfrom all the rest. He
is miserly and liberal, generous and jealous of his interests. He demands
everythingand he gives everything. Nothing can satiate him and nevertheless
he contents himselfwith little since he has need of nothing.
A descriptionof the experienceratherthanof God, this text tells of a manifestationthat
does notreceive its verificationorrationalefromtheoutsideworld. The onlyjustification
for the truththatcomes to light is a "recognition" is yet nothingmore thana markof
that
that truth. It springs,in a way, from the very adhesionthatit bringsabout. "How trueit
is!";the mystic has nothingelse to say underthe blow thatbothwoundsand delightshim.
There the unbelievableand the obvious coincide. It is a transformation a revelation.
and
It is impossibleto identifythe event with a particular instantin time because of what
it awakensin the memoryandbecause of all the life experience [le vtcu] thatemerges in
thatparticular moment. By the same token,it is also impossibleto reduceit to the product
of a long preparation, since it happensunexpectedly,as a "gift,"and is unforeseeable.
No one can say, "Itis my truth" "Itis me." The event imposes itself. In a very real
or
sense, it alienates. It pertainsto the sameorderas ecstasy: thatis, to thatwhich transports
one outside oneself. It expels one from the self insteadof gatheringone to it. But it has
the characteristicof opening up a space that the mystic can no longer live without.
Indissociablefrom the assent thatis its criterion,such a "birth" draws from man a truth
that is his withoutcoming from him or belonging to him. Thus, he is "outsidehimself'
at the very moment thata Self is asserted. A necessity is arousedin him, but underthe
sign of a melody, a spoken word, or a vision coming from elsewhere.
The Discourse of Time: An Itinerary
The paradox of the mystical "moment"refers to a history. What is asserted there is
somethingthathas alreadybeen saidelsewhereandwill be saidotherwise,somethingthat
in itself rejectsthe privilegingof a presentand refers to otherindicators-those past and
18

10. those to come. The perceived Trace-connected to encounters, to experiences
[apprentissages],to readings-extends the fissureof an Absence or a Presence through-
out thewhole networkof familiarsigns thatbitby bit areseen to havebeen misunderstood.
The event cannotbe reducedto its initial form. It calls for a beyond [unau-deld] to what
was only a first unveiling. It opens up an itinerary.
The mysticalexperiencewill unfoldin discourseandmysticalprocess withoutbeing
able to stop at this first momentor to contentitself with merely repeatingit. A mystical
life is begun when it recoversits roots and experiencesits strangenessin ordinarylife-
when it continues to discover in other ways what has occurredthat first time.
This movementbeyond [I'au-deld]the event is history-history alreadymadeor yet
to be made. The movement beyond personal intuition is the social plurality. The
movementbeyond the surprisethathas touchedthe depthsof the emotions is a discursive
unfolding, a reorganizationof the known througha confrontationwith other kinds of
knowledge or modes of knowing. The experiencethatcould streakacross the conscious-
ness like a flash of lightning in the night is diffused throughthese differentaspects into
a multiplicity of relationshipsbetween consciousness and spirit, in all the registers of
language,action, memory,andcreativity. Such is at least the case for manymystics. For
others, in a more Eastern tradition,it is silence that progressively extends its effects,
attractingto itself, one by one, the activities of being. At any rate,the very thing thatthe
mystics recognized could not be circumscribedin the particularforms of a privileged
instant. God, whose absentproximitythey perceived in the form of a space thatopened
out into such a precise place in theirlives, cannotbe limited to thatplace. He cannot be
identifiedor confined to the site thathe has neverthelesstouched. One cannotarresthim
there.
This internalexigency andtheobjectivesituationof theexperiencealreadyallow one
to distinguisha spiritualsense of the experiencefrom its pathologicalforms. A process
is "spiritual"when it is not confined to a single moment, no matter how intense or
exceptionalthatmomentmay be, when it does not dedicateeverythingto its revival as if
it were a paradise to recover or preserve, when it does not lose its way in imaginary
fixations. It is realistic, engaged, as the Sufis say, in the ihlds-on the track of an
authenticitythat begins with the relationshipwith oneself and others. It is therefore
discriminating. It relativizes the ecstasy or the stigmataas a sign that would become a
mirageif one wereto stop there.The mysticdoes notidentifytheessentialwith the"facts"
thatinitiatedor tracedthe progressof a fundamental perception. The essential is not the
ecstasy, or the stigmata,or anythingexceptional-not even the affirmationof a Law or
a One. Al-Halladj describedthis in a letter to one of his disciples; in it he called into
question all the certaintiesupon which the communityof believers (the Moslem umma)
had been founded:
My son, may God hidefrom you the apparentmeaningof the Law and reveal to
you the truthof impiety! Because the apparentmeaning of the Law is hidden
impietyand the truthof impietyis manifestknowledge. Now therefore: praise
to God, who manifestsHimselfuponthepoint of a needle to whomsoeverHe will
and whohidesHimselfin theheavensand on theearthfromwhomsoeverHe will,
with the result thatone attests that "Heis not" and the otheratteststhat "There
is only Him." Neither is he whoprofesses the negation of God rejected, nor is
he who confesses his existence praised. The intent of this letter is that you
explain nothingby God, thatyou extractnot a single argumentation from him,
that you desire neither to love him nor to not love him, that you do not confess
his existenceand thatyou are notinclined to denyit. Andabove all, refrainfrom
proclaiming his Unity!
diacritics / summer 1992 19

11. The greatestof Moslem mystics do not trustin any appearance; even the most sacredlaw,
the most fundamentalaffirmationof the believer still belongs to the orderof "appear-
ances" in comparisonwith a Reality thatis never given "as such" [commeca], directly,
or caught in the net of an institution,a body of knowledge, or an experience.
In seventeenth-century FranceConstantinde Barbanson, along with scores of others
morefamous,no longerrelativizedthe Law, which is for Islamthe rule of faith,butrather
the "ecstasy"and the "ravishment," traditional
the beginnings and marksof mysticism:
It is an actual touchof thedivineoperationin thesuperiorpart of themindwhich
so suddenlyseizes the creaturethat, by drawingone's attentionawayfrom the
inferiorparts, the creatureis completelyabsorbedin the attentionone gives to
an operation within the mind so powerful that the exteriorsenses ... are left
completelysuspended,emptiedandpreventedfromoperating.... Whatis only
an exterior effect, all too visible in the eyes of men that admireonly extraordi-
nary things of this kind, is somethingmore to befled than to be desired.
In his language,which distinguishesbetween psychic and spirituallevels accordingto a
hierarchyof planes, Constantinde Barbansonconcludes thatthis "operation," although
"admiredby many,"is a "sign thatthe soul at its core is still relatively unrefined,"even
if it is already"quitehighly elevated."
"AndI say," writes MeisterEckhart,"thatGod is neitherbeing norreason;nor does
He know this or that. This is why God is empty of all things and why He is all things."
These early writersrefer to conceptions of man that have become foreign to us; but in
relativizing their assertions, be they institutionalor exceptional, they have the clarity
[nettet]l characteristicof the whole mystical tradition. Everywherethe same reaction
makesitself understood.The greatestof mystics-John of theCrossandTheresaof Avila,
for example-repeat it: the extraordinary does not characterizethe mystical experience
any morethanits conformityto an orthodoxy.It is rather characterized therelationship
by
that connects each of these momentsto others, as one word connects with other words,
in a symbology of meaning.
The Social Language of Mysticism
The mystic is drivenby each experiencetowarda moreradicalinteriority[en-defd] also
expressed as a "beyond"[au-deld] exceeding one's strongestmoments. The unity that
draws the mystic "into himself," as some say, also pushes him forwardtoward as yet
unforeseeablestages of his journey,for which he or otherswill constructa vocabularyin
view of a languagethatbelongs to no one. One momentthe mystic will say, "WhatI have
experiencedis nothingcomparedto whatis coming,"andthe next,"Otherwitnesses must
attest to the fragmentthat is my experience." Mystical language is a social language.
Consequently, each "enlightenedone" [illumine] is broughtback to the group, borne
towardsthe future,inscribedwithina certainhistory. For the mystic, to "prepare place"
a
for the Otheris to preparea place for others.
The exceptionalnatureof whathappensto the mystic ceases to be a privilegein order
to become the index of a particularplace thatthe mystic occupies withinhis or her group,
withina history,withinthe world. The mystic is only one amongmanyothers. A similar
movement inserts the mystic within a social structureand makes him accept his death:
these are two modalitiesof the limit-that is, of joining with othersand with the Other.
Certainly,a "hidden" finds its effectiveness at the very momentthatit loses itself in
life
thatwhich is revealed within itself to be greaterthanitself. For mystics, the difficulties,
the "tests"and trials,the obstacles and conflicts have the meaningof indicatingto them
20

12. theirown death,the specificity of theirown speech, and theirtruerelationshipwith what
has been given them to know. This effacement within ordinarylanguage is finally the
modesty of the mystic. An immersionin the common nescience is likewise evidence of
this modesty;this is illustrated the discreetmannerin which a fourth-century
in Egyptian
monkspeaksof this modestyin theApophthegmata theDesert Fathers: "Truly,Abbot
of
Joseph has found the way, because he has said: 'I do not know."'
The redirectingof the personallife to the social life is simply a returnto origins. It
is not only a gesture thatreveals the truthof the ecstasy: it allows what has precededit
andmadeit possible-a socioculturalsituation-to resurface. But it discloses a meaning
to this anonymityof facts. The "Thereis" or "Therewas"-the historical,linguistic, or
psychological data [donndes]of a situation-is transformed because it is now recognized
as given [donnd]. At the beginning of everything,there is a gift [un donnd].
Spiritual perception does indeed unfold within a mental, linguistic, and social
organizationthat precedes and determines it. As has been known since Herskovits,
experience is always defined culturally,even if such experience is mystical. It receives
its formfroma milieu thatstructures beforeall explicit consciousness. It obeys the law
it
of language. Thus a neutralelement and an orderassert themselvesjust as much as the
meaning that the mystic uncovers there.
"Language" refersnot only to the syntaxandvocabularyof a certaintongue-that is
to say, the combination of aperturesand closures that determine the possibilities of
comprehension-but also to the codes of recognition,the organizationof the imaginary,
in
the sensory hierarchizations which smell or sight predominate,the fixed constellation
of institutionsor doctrinalreferences,and so forth. Thereis a ruraland an urbanregister
of mystical experience. Some epochs are characterized exorbitanciesof the eye and
by
olfactoryatrophy; others,by the hypertrophy the earor sense of touch. A sociology can
of
classify mystical manifestationsand even visions in the same way. In a minoritygroup,
for example, the testimonyis presentedas a persecutedtruth;the witness, as a martyr; the
representations, as a pierced heartor an illuminatedilliterate.
From this point of view, the mystic speaks only a received language, even if the
mystical "excess"-the wound and the opening of meaning(or what, with Derrida,one
might call the "hyperbolicmoment")-is not identifiablewith the historicalstructure on
which its form and very possibility both depend. Thus, in the case of the shepherdess
Catherine Emmerich(1774-1824),acomplete languageemergesfroma silentWestphalia,
hidden away from the literati. Such a language fascinatedthe romanticpoet Clement
Brentano,who made himself its scribe. Due to this alliance between the aristocratic poet
and the mystic villager, the discourse of the "visionary"woman broughtthe "savage"
tongueof a ruralworldto thesurfaceof a written"literature." subterranean
A organization
was broughtto light, unveilingand multiplyingthe resourcesof a peasanttraditionwithin
the very mystical experience that sprang from it. Emerging from obscurity, a whole
pastoralpeople revealsitself in thepoem of gesturesandvisions throughwhich Catherine
narratesthe scenes of the life of Jesus, scenes which for her were contemporary. The
popularimmensities of which she is the echo are indissociable from the "divinedepths"
of which she speaks.
In its variousforms the vast, latentstructurations languagearealways articulated
of
upon the desire and the surpriseof the mystic to which they provide a geographicalsite
and a historicaldetermination.
The Body of the Spirit
It is not enough to refer to the social body of language. Meaning is writtenthroughthe
letterandthe symbol of thephysicalbody. Mystics receive fromtheirbodies the law, the
diacritics / summer 1992 21

13. place, andthe limitof theirexperience. The"experienced" monk,Philoxenede Mabboug,
once daredto say, "The sensible is the cause of the conceptual;the body is the cause of
the soul and precedes it in the intellect."
Prayeris also first and foremosta discourse of gestures. "How to pray?-It is not
necessary to use a lot of words,"replied Macarius. "It is enough to hold one's hands
stretchedhigh." Arsenius,another"DesertFather," would remainstandingevery night,
turning his back to the setting sun; he held his handsextended towardthe Levant "until
the sun once again illuminatedhis face: thenhe would sit down." His physical vigilance
was the languageof desire, like a treein the night;therewas no need to breakthe silence
with words.
The precedinginstancesare merely indicative. In any case, the mystic "somatizes,"
interprets music of meaningwith his or her corporealrepertoire.One not only plays
the
one's body;one is playedby it, as if thepianoor trumpet were thecomposerandtheplayer
only the instrument. In this regard,stigmata,levitation,visions, and the like reveal and
adopt the obscure laws of the body, the extreme notes of a scale never completely
enumerated,never entirely domesticated,aroused by the very exigency of which it is
sometimes the sign and sometimes the threat.
A dangerouscloseness-dangerous for its witnesses, but even more for society-
often binds, at the limits of experience,the "mystical"to the "pathological."The bonds
between madnessandtruthareenigmaticanddo notconstitutearelationof necessity. But
it is still more erroneousto posit social conformityas the criteriaof spiritualexperience.
Psychological "balance"complies with social norms (however changeable) that the
mystic transgressesagainandagain,just as Jacobcrossedthe fordof the Yabboqonce he
had been seized on the otherbankby the nocturnalangel.
From the "deeper body" and through it arose the very movement that finally
characterized"mystical"language: that of expressing an essential in the mode of a
sidestep [un 6cart]. Its gestureis to pass beyond, throughthe "phenomena" always
that
risk being taken for the "Thing"itself.
Actually, mystical manifestationsexpress what Nietzsche was aiming at ("I am a
mystic," he said, "and I do not believe in anything")when he referredto a beyond
emerging within language: he wrote, "Es spricht"("It speaks");a nonsubject(stranger
to all individualsubjectivity)demystifies consciousness,its clearsurfacemuddiedby the
stirredwatersof the deeps. InSein undZeit (Being and Time),Heideggerreferssimilarly
to an Es gibt-which meansnot only "thereis," but"it gives" [ca donne]: thereis a given
which is also giving. It is this fulfilling deprivationthatSurinspeaks of when he places
his Spiritual Canticle underthe sign of a "lost child"and "wanderer":
Happy death, happysepulchre
Of this lover, in Love absorbed
Whosees no longer grace nor nature
But the sole abyss into which he hasfallen.
A disconcerting (one could say "disconcerted")itinerary,moving from side to side.
Through this historical mode is insinuated and made manifest what Toukaram (a
seventeenth-century Marathimystic) also sings of at the end of his Songs of the Pilgrim,
in orderto give their meaningto his itinerariesover the roadsof India:
I am going to say the unsayable
I live my death
I am because I am not.
22

14. 3
Mysticismand Religions
In 1941 Rene Daumal wrote: "I havejust successively readsome texts on bhakti,some
quotationsfrom Hassidic authorsand a passage of SaintFrancisof Assisi; to these I add
some Buddhistwordsand I am struckyet again by the observationthatsomething is the
same in all of them"[Lamystiqueet les mystiquesin Ravier]. But this use of the singular
"mysticism"[la mystique],as opposedto the plural"religions"-does it not dependupon
the fact that these passages are consideredby the same reader? On the one hand, there
exists no single point of observationfrom which it would be possible to contemplate
mysticism independentlyof some socioculturalor religious tradition,therebyspecifying
"objectively"the relationshipthat it maintainswith such traditions: there is, for any
considerationof mysticism, no viewpointfromSirius. Whetherit wishes to be or not,any
Westernanalysis is situatedwithin the context of a culturemarkedby Christianity. On
the otherhand,withinWesternscience as well as Westernexperience,mysticism implies
a distancing from establishedChurchauthority. It indicates the unity of a modern lay
reaction before sacred institutions. These two coordinates determine the site of any
of
currentinterpretation mysticism and religions.
The Plurality of Religious Structures
Even if studiesfromAsia andAfricaalso considermysticism in the singular,they restore
its pluralitywhentheyreinterpret Westernmysticismin termsof referenceproperto them.
This distancebetween heteronomousanalyses makes evident the differences thatdelin-
eate entire traditions;they can be classed accordingto three types of criteria.
Firstof all, the relationshipto time is decisive. It demarcatesa Westerntraditionof
Christian origin based upon a certain event and thus upon the plurality of history.
Antiquity, or Hindu civilization, presents a more "henological" form of mysticism,
characterized thereascensiontowardstheOne,orby theporosityof thephysicalworld:
by
history is open to the immanentreality that it veils underappearances. Of the various
theologies thatcorrespondto this firstdistinction,the formerplaces a Trinityat the heart
of themystery,establishesatleast thegapof creationbetweenGodandman,andconsiders
a communityto be the privilegedform of manifestation; latter,orientedby the sun of
the
a sole Principle,reveal within all being the diffusion of Being and destines each one to
ultimatenondistinction.
Second, thetraditions thatreferto a Scripture themselvesfromthose that
differentiate
give primacyto the Voice. Here one finds a spiritualityof the Law (too seldom evoked,
since the Law itself rejects the name of "mysticism")that casts, between the transcen-
dence of God and the fidelity of the servant, the barrierof a "letter"to observe: for
example,Jewish mysticismof the 108thPsalm,a mysticismbornof a modesty thatdenies
man thepretensionof "becomingGod"andestablishes"sons"withinthe reverentiallove
of the Father. A certainProtestant tradition maintainsthis inaccessibilityof the God who
is promisedbut not given to believers who are called but not justified. To this tendency
is opposeda mysticismof theVoice, thatis to say, of a presencethatrevealsitself in human
signs and elevates all interhuman communicationby actually animatingit.
Finally, experiences and doctrinesare distinguishedaccording to the prioritythat
they accord either to vision (contemplation)or to the spoken word. This first tendency
emphasizes knowledge, the radicalityof exile, the unconscious initiationsthat free one
from consciousness, the solitude of silence, and "spiritual" communion: such are the
"gnostic"mystics and the mystics of Eros. The second tendency links the call with a
diacritics / summer 1992 23

15. praxis, the message with workand the civic community,the recognitionof the absolute
with an ethics, and"wisdom"with brotherly relationships:such arethe mystics of agape.
Unity througha Distancingfrom Religions
The interestin mystics and the fascinationthey inspireimply a new kind of relationship
with religions. In the West, the study of mysticism is currentlyless determinedby the
scientific necessity of defendingthe mind againstchurchesthataretodayincreasinglyin
the minority. But because of this new situation, this study has been led to consider
mystical languageas a symbol-possibly the metaphor-of a hidden"Essence"thatmust
be identified philosophically,or a "meaningof life" to be elucidatedin the conceptual
terms of a society that has ceased to be religious.
From this point of view, mysticism is less a heresyor a liberationfromreligion than
an instrumentfor the workof unveiling,withinreligion itself, a truththatwould first be
formulated in the mode of a margin inexpressible in relation to orthodox texts and
institutions,and which would then be able to be exhumed from beliefs. The study of
mysticism thus makes a nonreligiousexegesis of religion possible. It also gives rise, in
the historical relation of the West to itself, to a reintegrationthat eradicates the past
without losing its meaning.
Like the ancient sphinx, mysticism remains the rendezvous of an enigma. It can be
situated but not classified. In spite of the differences between civilizations, some
interrelations exist that, in the West, grantspiritualprestige to East Indianor Buddhist
traditions, in theEast,diffuse the seductionsof JudaismandChristianity
and throughtheir
Marxistmetamorphoses.Somethingirreducible neverthelesslingers,uponwhichreason
itself depends-something whose phenomenareasonattemptsto "demystify"by displac-
ing its myths, but of which it cannotdisinfecta society. Perhaps,between exoticism and
the "essential,"the relationshipswill neverbe socially clarified. And this is the challenge
and the risk of the mystic-to draw them into this precise and luminous clarity [la
nettezza]that Catherineof Sienna held to be the ultimatesign of the spirit.
Translatedby MarsanneBrammer
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