Mysticism

Mysticism is the search for experience of 'ultimate reality', and a person who seeks to have such experience is known as a mystic. Thus what the mystic seeks may be contrasted, in one dimension, with our 'normal' experience of the everyday world - the mystic seeks experience not of the everyday world but of 'ultimate reality', e.g. of God or of whatever is taken to be the most fundamental or basic reality - and, in another dimension, with discursive knowledge of 'ultimate reality', i.e., the kind of knowledge that might be acquired by reason and argument - the mystic seeks not discursive knowledge but experience of 'ultimate reality'.

Mystics often adopt an austere or ascetic lifestyle to minimise their exposure to the distractions of the everyday world or may even live in a separate community along with other mystics, and typically they engage in distinctive practices - e.g., meditation, the repetition of certain words or phrases, ritual dancing - which they believe will bring them closer to the experience of 'ultimate reality'.

There are many different forms of mysticism, most but by no means all of them with a foundation in religious belief: all the great religions of the world have their mystical traditions. Thus, within the Abrahamic religions, Sufism is a form of Islamic mysticism, Cabbalism is a form of Jewish mysticism, certain forms of Gnosticism may be regarded as heretical forms of Christianity, while within Catholic Christianity well-known mystics include the Spanish nun St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) and the Spanish monk and poet St. John of the Cross (1542-1591). The religious or other beliefs to which mystics are committed will not only influence the kinds of practices in which they engage in their search for experience of 'ultimate reality', but will shape their conception of the 'ultimate reality' they hope to experience, and thereby their description of any mystical experiences they may have, e.g., as union with God, loss of the self, complete detachment from the world, etc.

The words 'mystic', 'mysticism', and 'mystical' come from the Greek μυστικός (mustikos, of or related to the mysteries (τὰ μυστικά, ta mustika, the mysteries or secret rites of the Greek mystery religions)). The '-c-' in mystic and mystical is hard, like '-k-', whereas in mysticism it is 'soft, like '-s-'.