Janz, B. - Mysticism & Understanding - Steven Katz and His Critics

Mysticism and understanding Steven Katz and his critics

BRUCEJANZ

Interpretation is the only game in town I

Language is the universal medium in which understandshying occurs Understanding occurs in interpreting1

We are interpretation all the way downl

A current debate in theory of interpretation revolves around what has been called universal hermeneutics the position expressed by the above quoshytations On this position there is no object of interpretation no final refershyence for the defence of any interpretation no guarantees about any of our attempts to understand The distinction between truth and meaning is fuzzy or even non-existent While debate continues concerning whether this antishyfoundationalism applies to natural science and our experience of the outside world the position enjoys much greater acceptance in the human sciences

If this is the case there is one interesting counter-instance in the human sciences worth considering mysticism Is mystical experience interpretive all the way down or is there bedrock Is there something that anchors mystical experience or is the very experience itself an interpretation Does mystical experience require reference to mediating factors such as tjJeoshylogical doctrine culture or whatever or is it pure Does interpretation conshydition the experience or merely follow the experience Is mystical experishyence really part of the human sciences or is it a natural science

Stanley Fish Is There a Text in This Class (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1980)p350352

2 H-G Gadamer Truth and Method 2nd cd (New York Crossroad 1989) p 389 3 D Hiley J Bohman and R Shusterman eds The Interpretive Turn (Ithaca NY Cornell

University Press 1991) p 7

BruceJanz is Assistant Professor of Philosophy in Augustana University College 4901 46 Aveshynue Camrose AB T4V 2R3

Studies illReligiun Sciences Religieuses 241 (1995) 77-94 copy 1995 Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion I Corporation Canadienne des Sciences Religieuses

78 Studies in Religion Sciences Religieuses 241 1995

While Steven Katz was not the first to apply universal hermeneutics to mysticism he certainly gave its most eloquent expression and has been the focus of most of the subsequent debate In his essay Language Epistemolshyogy and Mysticism4 he argues that there is no pure mystical experience at the core of the various interpretations at least no core that is available eishyther to the mystic or to the later interpreter

If a measure of the success of a philosophical article is how much attenshytion it commands Katzs article is a winner Relatively little of the attention has been positive however A host of writers have attacked Katz on a variety of points Gary Kessler and Norman Prigge5 Peter Byrne6 James Robertshyson Price m1 J W Forgie8 Huston Smith9 Donald Evans10 Sallie B Kingll Robert Forman12 Jonathan Shear13 Michael Stoeber14 Nelson Pike15 have all argued against various aspects or implications of Katzs pro

4 Steven Katz Language Epistemology and Mysticism in S Katz ed Mysticism and Philosaphical Analysis (Oxford Oxford University Press 1978) p 22-74 For further work by Katz on this see also The Conservative Character of Mystical Experience in S Katz ed Mysticism and Religious Traditions (Oxford Oxford University Press 1983) and S Katz Mysticism and LanifUage (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992)

5 Gary Kessler and Norman Prigge Is Mystical Experience Everywhere the Same Sophia 21 (1982) 39-55

6 Peter Byrne Mysticism Identity and Realism A Debate Reviewed Internalionaljournal ofthePhilosaphy ofReligian 16 (1984) 23744

7 James Robertson Price The Objectivity of Mystical Truth Claims Thomsl 49 (1985) 81-98

8 J W Forgie Hyper-Kantianism in Recent Discussions of Mystical Experience Religious Studies21 (1985) 205-18

9 Huston Smith Is There a Perennial Philosophy journal of the American Academy of Relishygian55 (1897) 553-66

10 Donald Evans Can Philosophers Limit -hat Mystics Can Do A Critique of Steven Katz Religious Studus 25 (1988) 53-60

II Sallie King Two Epistemological Models for the Interpretation of Mysticism journal of the American Academy ofReligion 61 (1988) 257-79

12 Robert Forman The Construction of Mystical Experience Faith and Philosaphy 5 (1988) 254-67 and Robert Forman Paramartha and Modern Constructivists on Mystishycism Epistemological Monomorphism versus Duomorphism Philosaphy East and West 39 (1989) 393418

13 Jonathan Shear Mystical Experience Hermeneutics and Rationality International Philosaphical Quarterly 30 (1990) 391-40 I

14 Michael Stoeber Constructivist Epistemologies of Mysticism A Critique and a Revishysion Religious Studies 28 (1991) 107-16

15 Nelson Pike Steven Katz on Christian Mysticism in Mystic Unian An Essay in the Pheshynomenology ofMysticism (Ithaca NY Cornell University Press 1992) p 194-207 For other discussions of Katz see also J Gill Mysticism and Mediation Faith and Philosophy 1 (1984) 111-21 GraceJantzen Mysticism and Experience Religious Studus 25 (1988) 295-315 Bernard McGinn The Foundations of Mysticism (New York Crossroad 1991) p 321-24 A Perovich Mysticism and the Philosophy of Science Journal ofReligion 65 (1985) 63-82 and Wayne Proudfoot ReligiottsExperience (Berkeley CA University of Calishyfornia Press 1985) p 122-54

Janz Steven Katz and his critics 79

ect in favour (usually) of the importance of purity of the pre-interpretive experience

The purpose of this article will be to outline the debate over the relationshyship between the mystical experience and interpretation I intend to show that both Steven Katz and his critics assume a certain metaphor for mystishycism which fuels this debate I will then suggest another metaphor that at least in part resolves the debate by recasting mysticism as a hermeneutical issue (although not one that necessarily buys into universal hermeneutics) rather than an epistemological one

1 Definitions and distinctions

The first distinction that must be made is between the purity of a mystical experience and the phenomenological unity of mystical experiences If a mystical experience occurs without any dependence on social cultural theological religious or other mediation it can be called pure This is not exactly the same use of pure that Hornel6 uses in discussing pure and mixed mysticism for he limits the distinction to lack of doctrinal conshytent while in this context the purity of the experience refers to the lack of any mediation or influence at all in determining or producing the mystical experience To assert that mystical experiences are unified means that they are identical despite different theological or cultural contexts

The unity of the experience is different from its purity If we decide that the experience is pure at best only the first step toward a unified experishyence has been achieved In itself demonstrating purity does not necessarily entail the unity or similarity of any mystical experiences across cultures and traditions It is still possible at least logically assuming that the purity of the experience has been shown that a Christian mystic and a Hindu mystic could have pure introvertive mystical experiences but that these could be fundamentally different Arguing that the purity of the experience entails the unity of experiences requires a metaphysical assumption about the nashyture of reality that would negate the purity of the experience because the arguer would have to claim that the mystics experience had as part of it the experience of a single reality for all mystics It could just as well be the case that one mystic directly experiences a reality different from that ofanother

Furthermore demonstrating unity across traditions (for instance the agreement of mystics with each other on important points) does not necesshysarily entail purity The seeming unity of experiences could be the result of later interpretation To argue that unity implies purity means that the pushyrity of the experience must already have been assumed The interpreter

16 James Horne The Moral Mystic (Waterloo ON Wilfrid Laurier University Press 1983) p39-40


must be able to show positively that differences amongst reports of experishyences are attributable to some later factor and nothing else It is very unshylikely that this could be done Further arguing that unity entails purity asshysumes that we can get beyond the mechanism for reporting the experishyences to the experience itself While this may be true for a particular mystic by that mystic himself or herself it would require a meta-mystical experishyence to transcend particular experiences

What happens ifwe demonstrate lack of purity Does this allow us to conshyclude that there is also either unity or a lack of unity This does not necesshysarily follow We might show that there is no essence or core to mystical exshyperience Nevertheless it still could be that the mediating factors are wideshyspread enough and similar enough to allow for a unity of the experience without purity There may be mediating elements that transcend particular religious systems perhaps ones common to all humanity that could mean that the experiences of various mystics are still very similar Experiences of death for instance could inform and structure the mystical experience even though death is universally experienced

Finally does the lack of unity allow us to conclude there is a lack of pushyrity No this does not follow either Mystics could have deep differences beshytween reports of experiences and it could be that we could in principle never get beyond those reports Even mystics themselves have to rely on the reports of other mystics to determine whether there is unity Perhaps the reports differ sufficiently to cast doubt but that couldjust be a result of the necessity of the theologically and culturally biased reporting mechanism not the experience itself

So to summarize (1) Purity does not necessarily entail unity or lack of unity (2) Unity does not necessarily entail purity or lack of purity (3) Lack of purity does not necessarily entail either unity or lack of unity and (4) Lack of unity does not necessarily entail either purity or lack of purity

All this means that if a person wanted to argue against Katzs position that mystical experience is not pure it would not be sufficient to link it to the unity of mystics across traditions On the other hand it also would not work to point to the differences in mystical experiences to argue for Katzs position Establishing unity does not necessarily mean anything for purity and establishing lack of unity does not necessarily mean anything for lack of purity Thus Huston Smiths17 argument for perennial philosophy (meaning unity as is clear by page 564) may be true but it is strictly speakshying irrelevant if it intends to argue for the phenomenological purity of the mystical experience Smith is not the only one to make this connection

One objection to this analysis (made by several earlier readers of this article) might be that it holds for all mystical experiences except those in

17 Smith Is There a Perennial Philosophy p 553-66


which there is no intentional object Experiences of pure consciousness it might be said must be exempt because they lack any content at all and are therefore both pure (because there is nothing not to be pure) and unified (for there is nothing to distinguish one experience from another) The problem with this objection is that Katz would be unwilling to admit that these pure consciousness experiences actually exist at all In other words for this objection to have force it must assume the ultimate correctness of one side of the debate

The second distinction that must be made concerns the names used for each side in this debate Katz uses a couple of terms for the other side esshysentialist for instance and also philosophia perennis 18 The first term implies that there is a core or essence to mystical experience which precedes intershypretation The second (here used differently than by Smith above) implies that this core extends universally In other words the first term implies pushyrity and the second implies unity

Names for the other side are many and varied ranging from the relatively neutral to the positively vituperative Katz calls his own position the contexshytual thesis19 The names given by others include constructivist 20 hermeneutshyical21 mediated22 neo-Kantian23 hyper-Kantian24 and pluralist25

Notice that these terms have different implications Katzs contextual thesis is only about purity not about unity although he does make comshyments about the diversity (lack ofunity) of mystical experiences To call the position constructivist is to change the emphasis from saying that the exshyperience is understandable only in its context to saying that the experishyence can be generated from other parts and therefore may also be reducshyible to those parts Katz himself calls the other side reductionist in that its supporters reduce all reports of x to one claimed essence y26 Contextualshyism on the other hand does not imply reductionism for him Constructivshyism is not the same as Katz contextualism because to say that a mystical exshyperience happens within a context is not the same as saying that it is conshystructed from more basic parts

Associating Katzs position with Kant (neo-Kantian hyper-Kantian) is acshytually to call it constructivist in a more specific way The critics that characshy

18 Katz Language Epistemology and Mysticism p 24 19 Ibid p 46 20 Forman The Construction of Mystical Experience Forman Paramartha and Modern

Constructivists on Mysticism and Stoeber Constructivist Epistemologies ofMysticism 21 Shear Mystical Experience p 391-401 22 Gill Mysticism and Mediation p 111-21 23 Evans Can Philosophers Limit What Mystics Can Do p 53-60 24 Forgie H)per-Kamianism p 205-18 25 King Two Epistemological Models p 257-79 26 Katz Language Epistemology and Mysticism p 24


terize Katz as neo-Kantian do so because of the family resemblance beshytween Katzs position that the mystical experience is mediated by tradition and Kants position that sensation is mediated by categories These critics all attack Katz by saying that he has deviated from the transcendental (unishyversal and necessary) nature of the Kantian categories and has thus made the mystical experience into a construction of personal experience In other words the mystical experience seems to be reduced to a psychologishycal experience which undermines the possibility of any objective nature

There are two problems in characterizing Katzs work as Kantian though First the only place Katz mentions Kant is in a specific limited context27 He is arguing against the phenomenologists position that the given can be intuited He points out that these intuitions lead to very differshyent descriptions of the given and cites Kant approvingly that epistemic acshytivity requires bringing to light both the conditions of knowing in general as well as the grounds of its own operation He does not propose to outline what that structuring is and says that it will not happen in the manner Kant worked out

Is this enough to argue for constructivism I do not think so It is not clear that Katz would agree with the claim that contextualization implies Kantian constructivism In fact I suspect that he would be more amenable to a comparison with Wittgenstein than with Kant a comparison that Sallie King makes and critiques

The second problem is that Katz is being accused of not quite being like Kant At least if he followed Kant faithfully (so the argument goes) he would be committed to (1) the transcendental nature of the categories which would ensure at least the unity of experiences if not their purity and (2) the noumenal world which provides the stuff for the categories to structure But Katz seems to want to have the Kantian categories without the Kantian restrictions on relativism He is therefore a constructivist of the crassest sort who would reduce mystical experience to a collection of intershychangeable parts

Criticizing Katz for almost looking like Kant however is not much of a criticism Most contemporary critics of Kant also pointed out the problems with Kants doctrine of transcendental idealism it is only recently that that particular doctrine has been reconsidered and defended And even if Katz and Kant both depend on categories (which is by no means clear) it does not follow that these categories are identical or that their structure or imshyplementation is identical In fact Katz says that he does not follow Kant on the way to structure experience

Even if Katz does bear some resemblance to Kant does this imply relashytivistic constructivism Not necessarily Katz nowhere wants to claim the reshy

21 Ibid p 59


ductionist thesis Perhaps there is a way to contextualize mystical experishyence that does not fall into the problem of arbitrariness or subjectivity and retains the importance of the mystical experience In short I think the atshytempt to critique Katz as if he was a Kantian strayed from the fold misses the point

Jonathan Shear calls Katz a hermeneutical thinker and characterizes such thinkers as holding that the standard seemingly commonsensical analyses of mystical experiences do not do justice to general epistemologishycally related facts of the nature of human experience28 This position is overly generalized Shear argues and is sometimes completely false

Shear wants to cast Katz as a constructivist although the word he uses is hermeneutical For instance consider this paragraph

Let us now examine Katzs general argument a little further His basic claim as we saw is that all mystical experiences (like all others) are shaped by the exshyperiencer in terms of memory apprehension expectation language accumulashytion of prior experiences concepts etc Thus as we saw mystical experiences like all others are built of all these elements29

-hile Katz does use words of this sort30 and could therefore be taken in isolated instances to be advocating a constructivist program most times he sounds quite different For instance all experience is processed through organized by and makes itself available to us in extremely complex episteshymological ways31 This seems to be contextualization not construction Katz resists reducing mystical experience to component elements that are all naturally explainable I myself do not believe he is driven to this kind of reductionism My argument later will try to establish a rapprochement beshytween purity and contextualism But Shears attempt seems to simply be a misunderstanding ofboth hermeneutics and Katzs position

Sallie King characterizes Katzs position as pluralist as opposed to her own Buddhist-phenomenological model32 But pluralism implies lack of unity while Katz is arguing for lack of purity On the face of it then it seems that King too has missed the point In calling her model phenomeshynological however she is clearly intending to address the question of pushyrity She seems to be following a modified form of Ninian Smarts posishytion33 It should be pointed out though that the most she can do (and pershy

28 Shear Mystical Experience p 392 Shears use ofthe term hermeneutics is very difshyferent from my use later in this article

29 Ibid p 394 30 Katz Language Epistemology and Mysticism p 59 31 Ibid p 26 32 Sallie King Interpretation of mysticism p 258 271 33 Ninian Smart Interpretation and Mystical Experience in R Woods ed Understanding

Mysticism (Garden City NY Image Books 1980) p 78-91


haps the most that can be done) is to argue that the pure experience is at least possible

We could go on but the point is this confusing the two issues of purity and unity has led to misconstruing Katzs position This misconstrual has its most clear manifestation in the names used for that position This should not be taken as an apologetic for Katz rather I simply want to set the stage to consider the debate in a new way

2 Mysticism as epistemology

Much discussion in mysticism has been carried on over the epistemological status of the experience the mystic has Is the mystics experience knowlshyedge Is it verifiable or communicable The present debate I would argue is also driven by epistemological concerns Katz on the one side argues that the experience happens within a context That could make the mysshytics experience almost a separate Wittgensteinian language game not acshycessible from other language games Or it could reduce the experience to the level of doctrine and tradition making it accessible to anyone who cares to take a first-year religious studies course If a contextualized experishyence is to be known therefore it entails either meta-mysticism-a mystical leap between mystical language games-or no mysticism at all

Either way the concern affects the knowledge status of the experience The first option rules mysticism out of court as knowledge at all Many people find this unpalatable because it is common to claim a kind of inner rationality to the mystical experience The experience is not irrational but super-rational accessible only on its own terms A contextualized mystical experience could easily be an arbitrary experience undistinguishable from psychosis The second option makes mystical knowledge trivial simply a way of accessing publicly available doctrines The experience itself could then be explained psychologically and dismissed as an affectation of cershytain personali ty types

Katz meets some of these problems as well as addressing the essentialist critique by recasting his position as a dialectic between the radical (that is the experience is completely unique-roughly equivalent to the essenshytialist position) and conservative (that is the experience conserves the tradition-the contextualist position)34 He even uses the term hermeshyneutical of this position as I do35 In shifting his emphasis he recognizes that a balance must be struck between the two extremes Unfortunately the answer (that there is a dialectic between the two extremes) seems to inshydicate a separation between elements within mysticism and is far from

34 Katz The Conservative Character p 3-60 35 Ibid p 5

85 Janz Steven Katz and his critics

the unified experience that mystics actually report His attempt at reconcilishyation has not seemed to satisty the critics

So there are some problems with Katzs position if we take it as operatshying within the realm of knowledge claims although I do not think that Katz is ignorant of these problems Despite them there are benefits to advocatshying the position that mystical experience is mediated or constructed by doctrine tradition or culture

One seeming benefit is that it enables us to explain why mystics from difshyferent backgrounds give different reports of their experiences Buddhist mystics after all rarely have visions of the Virgin Mary Even outside the visionary type of mysticism experiences tend to confirm doctrinal posishytions Of course given what I said earlier about the difference between the purity and the unity of the mystical experience this advantage looks better than it actually is Katz wants to argue for lack of purity this benefit applies to lack of unity (diversity) There would need to be some explicit argument given for why the first entails the second for the implication is not a logishycally necessary one Thus we will have to look for better reasons for argushying for the contextual thesis

Second reports of mystics tend to confirm their own tradition It is rare that a mystic reports experiences that are at variance with his or her tradishytion Michael Stoeber does point out that mystics are sometimes heretics36 but this heresy commonly pushes the boundaries of the stagnant metaphysshyics of a tradition rather than denying that tradition These heretics are radshyical in the true sense of the word they go to the root of the tradition to reshycover it37 This is a much better reason At least it deals with the convershygence between theology and experience within a tradition

A third benefit of the contextual or mediated version ofmystical experishyence is that it undermines some of the traditional objections to mystical exshyperience For instance some might argue that mysticism makes for a hiershyarchical theology There can be a two-tiered system-those who have had the mystical experience (the elite) and those who have not (the seekers) Contextualism can answer this objection by saying that the experience is still within the public world of dogma and culture and therefore confirms that world Essentialisms only answer is that this is just the way it is Some are blessed and some are not

Furthermore if mysticism is contextual there could be an antidote to the perennial charge against some forms of mysticism quietism If some mystics are led to withdraw from the world that is not the fault of the expeshy

36 Stoeber Constructivist Epistemologies of Mysticism p 112 37 Steven Katz also argues for this sense of the radical although ironically the sense of radishy

cal as rooted is really his category of conservative (Katz The Conservative Charshyacter p ~)


rience but of the theology and culture which made that experience posshysible And this theology or culture can be addressed in ways that the experishyence cannot

Of course the critics do not object simply because of whim The appeal of the essentialist position differs for different critics but there are some important benefits to holding essentialism and denying contextualism

One commonly mentioned benefit is this while there are many differshyences in the reports mystics give of their experiences there are also many similarities The essentialist position takes these similarities seriously and accounts for the differences through later interpretation This reason like the first reason for the contextual thesis is not compelling because it conshyfuses the purityunity distinction Similarities do not entail purity any more than differences entail lack of purity

Second it ensures that mystical experience is not reduced to cultural exshyperience If mysticism is mediated by theology tradition or culture the fear is that it will be regarded as nothing more than an intense appreciation of that theology tradition or culture Mysticism will in some way become natshyural and that will take something important away from the experience

Third it ensures that the mystical experience is unique not reducible to psychological experience The mystic is not simply a particular brand of psychotic or religious fanatic If the experience is naturalized however that danger exists

Fourth following from the previous two reasons if mysticism is reducshyible it is also explainable A hallmark of mysticism is mystery and paradox yet if we find that it is reallyjust intensely felt theology or psychological abshyerration we can ignore the question of the meaningfulness of the experishy

38ence This isJonathan Shears concernFinally if mystical experience is mediated by expectations of some sort

it seems difficult to account for the reports of many mystics that there is a pure consciousness in the experience It is not an intentional experience at all

The concerns of both sides seem legitimate Furthermore the argushyments for one side or the other seem to rely in part on a conceptual confushysion (purityunity) and mislabelling of positions This is not to say that there are no good arguments for each side in fact I think there are Howshyever they seem to balance each other out How are we to decide between them I would like to suggest one reason for the impasse and propose a way out

38 Shear Mystical Experience Hermeneutics and Rationality p 400

87 Janz I Steven Katz and his critics

3 Mystical experience vs mystical understanding

There is an important presupposition in this debate which must be brought to light Virtually all discussants including Katz assume that mystical expeshyrience is analogous to sense experience The debate then becomes one over whether experience is structured in itself (Katzs position and one crishytiqued as neo-Kantian byJ William Forgie Donald Evans and to a certain extent Michael Stoeber) or whether experience is primitive (the position most of the critics hold) 39 Why are mystical experience and sense experishyence so easily related There are some good philosophical and historical reasons for this

The first and most obvious concerns light imagery used by many mystics leading one to believe that the mystical vision or insight or illuminashytion is like sight only enhanced As well some mystic experiences are reshyported as auditory rather than visual The mystic might hear voices or mushysic Again there is an easy connection between the experience and a heightened sensory state Furthermore the mystics that do not use vision or sound as metaphors use touch smell and taste It is the difference beshytween Augustine (lightintellectual presence) and Gregory of Nyssa (darkshynessimmediate presence) In general if a mystic wants to communicate the experience he or she has had metaphors must be used that the audishyence will understand In philosophical tradition the most significan t forms of knowledge are that derived from the senses and that derived from reashyson But the second also uses the first as its metaphor So knowledge that people already have is infused with the sensory metaphor

Another benefit is that the analogy to sensation ensures the reality of the experience The fact that we sense cannot be disputed although what we sense may be questioned In the same way if mysticism is like sensation it seems more difficult to dismiss the experience Furthermore sensation is something that everyone can relate to By using this metaphor for mystishycism the experience is easily communicated even if the meaning is not As well the analogy to sensation reinforces the immediacy of the experience There is a tradition (probably due to British empiricism) that sensation is primitive and immediate and forms the building-blocks of our mental

39 It should be noted that when I refer to the metaphor of sensation I mean the traditional empiricist position that sensation is primitive the building blocks for later interpretashytion Much discussion of mysticism has assumed this version of sensation I realize that it is quite possible that sensation is itself hermeneutical but that is not how most scholars of mysticism have taken it This is after all a metaphor which is assumed in making the mystical experience into an epistemological event and so the issue concerns what episteshymology has been inherited not which one could be consciously argued for One good source that argues for the hermeneutical nature of sensation is Graeme Nicholson Seeing and Reading (Atlantic Highlands NJ Humanities Press International 1984)


world But just as this view of sensation has been questioned so too this view of mysticism has been questioned by Katz and others

Finally the discussion about mysticism has been driven in part by the question of whether mystical knowledge is legitimate This stems from the early philosophical discussions of mysticism as a branch of the religious experience argument for the existence of God or for the legitimacy of a particular religion While mystical insights have for centuries been apshypropriated enthusiastically by mainstream philosophers (often without givshying the true source its due recognition) mystical experience has been harder to deal with It is relatively recent that respectable philosophers have been able to talk about mystical experience without being accused of falling into psychology or worse yet religion

But how did philosophy deal with mystical experience when it began to take it seriously By using its own metaphors And the most important the most ready metaphor was that of knowledge But knowledge comes with its own metaphors which are often based on sensation Walter Ong does a marvellous job of showing the pervasiveness and usefulness of the sensory metaphors for knowledge40 The argument then goes like this mystical experience provides knowledge just as other experience provides knowlshyedge knowledge is not only normally derived from sensation but is best understood through sensory metaphors therefore mystical experience is best understood through sensory metaphors

There are though differences between the mystical experience and the empiricist version of sensation Sensation is after all only a metaphor for the mystical experience albeit one that has held such powerful sway that most people simply assume that the mystical experience is just another kind of sensation

One difference is that the mystic does not report the experience as one which requires further understanding but as one characterized as pure unshyderstanding The mystic does not have the sensation first and understand it later The raw data of the experience does not require any inbred funcshytions of the mind like judgment memory or whatever to be understood Any empiricist must combine an active mind and passive sensations This is not what happens in mystical experience though The experience is the understanding This is a very important difference for it collapses the trashyditional empiricistpragmatist structure of mysticism (critiqued by among others GraceJantzen41 ) and opens the door for characterizing mystical exshyperience as hermeneutical We need an account that deals with mysticism

40 Walter Ong I See What You Say Sense Analogues for Intellect in Interfaces of the Word (Ithaca NY Cornell University Press 1977) p 121-44

41 Jantzen Mysticism and Experience p 313-15


as understanding at its most basic level not as knowledge that has been constructed from some raw data It is this hermeneutical model I favour

There is another difference Many mystics report that there is consciousshyness without any object at all Sensation typically is intentional-it is of something Scholars who recognize the non-intentional nature of many mystical experiences but still hold on to the sensation metaphor are likely simply to drop the object and retain the subject Or if there is an obshyject it is an ontotheological one It is a metaphysical thing like the objects of normal sensation The point is that the subjectobject split is tacitly maintained in the metaphor used even though the scholar may try in other ways to transcend that distinction Sallie King goes partway in resolvshying this subjectobject split by relying on Husserlian descriptive phenomeshynology My modification of her position (which actually turns out to argue against her conclusion that there is a core to mystical experience) is that phenomenology must be hermeneutical not simply descriptive

It is important to note in this analysis that I am not suggesting that most analyses of mysticism claim that mysticism is like sensation and therefore falls into the traditional empiricist distinction between the knowing subject and the empirical object of that knowledge Many theorists explicitly reject the idea that mysticism is a subjectobject type of experience However they may be implicitly committed to that split in that they may hold that mystical experience gives or forms the basis for knowledge It is this conshynection I really take issue with because the metaphor of many discussions of knowledge has been sensory Thus the problem does not lie in the claim that mysticism is like sensation but that mysticism is knowledge which is like sensation The fact that some mystics report sensory-type experiences is used as a support of the epistemological character of the experience

Identitying the places where mysticism is not like sensation could argue for a neo-Kantian version of sensation but that is not the only conclushysion possible It might also mean that mysticism is more like an act in which experience and understanding are co-temporaneous-like reading for inshystance If a person does not understand at least at some basic level while reading the person is not reading but only looking The idea that the mysshytical experience is hermeneutical like textual experience opens up intershyesting possibilities These are well expressed in another context by one of Paul Ricoeurs works on interpretation theory42 In a series of lectures Ricoeur argues that reading a text consists of the tension and in terplay beshytween two parts variously portrayed as code and message meaning and event langue and parole In each case the message is imbedded in the code but the code exists only through the message Which is more real The

42 Paul Ricoeur Interpretation Theory Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth TX

Texas Christian University Press 1976)


unique message is what I am saying now the grammar (structure code) is virtual or assumed Therefore the message is more real But the language will remain long after the message is gone therefore the code is more real Is the message unique It relies on the reference to the structure of previous messages for its meaning and therefore does not seem to be unique yet it is a new message with a sense of its own not reducible to the other messages nor generatable from them and therefore does seem to be unique

Ricoeurs point is that even though the message (meaning) is imbedshyded in a structure the message (event) is still unique For example a novelshyist may write a novel and that novel will follow the conventions of novel writing Is the novel reducible to its implied references No it is unique But could the message be understood without its implied references No These implied references point to other instances within a genre (we unshyderstand novels from having experienced other novels) to other writing outside the genre (the novel differs from the factual report and the reader can become disoriented if that boundary blurs) and to experience apart from writing (the novel makes sense ifitrings true to experience)

What is the experience of the novel Is it reducible to the sensory inputs of reading No because we could imagine experiencing the same novel through different senses-hearing for instance-or through different media such as drama Understanding the novel is not reducible to the senshysations involved in reading Reading the novel is an irreducible act of unshyderstanding That understanding may not be complete but it exists apart from the sensation of the means of transmission of the novel

Is the understanding of the novel only an intellectual act No there may be strong emotional components to it Ifyou see yourself in a novel that does not necessarily mean that you simply agree with concepts contained therein It means that a character or situation reflects your experience in all its rational pre-rational and non-rational diversity Understanding is not reducible to knowledge about the novel nor is it reducible to proposishytions about the novel Understanding catches us up in our totality

How does this apply to the mystical experience One might argue that the mystical experience whether visionary or not is totally unique and does not have a literature Or if it has a literature it comes after the fact as an attempt to rationalize the experience In Ninian Smarts schematization whether there is auto- or hetero-interpretation there is always some degree of ramification43 In other words all mystical experience is phenomenologshyically the same it is the later interpretation that makes the difference

But how can this be defended It seems to be no more than an assumpshytion While there are problems with the contextualist model there are also problems with the primitive experience or essentialist model It is not

43 Smart Interpretation and Mystical Experience p 78-91


true that all mystics report the same thing although there are similarities To decide that the experiences are all the same is itself a philosophical decishysion not derivable from the evidence alone A contextualist will always be able to see mediation and context an essentialist will always be able to see the primitive experience Simply asserting one or the other will not solve the issue

I believe that it is possible both to understand that the experience hapshypens within a tradition and to regard it as unique While it is not true that all mystical experiences happen within a tradition that encourages the exshyperience most do While it is not true that all mystics have experiences that are part of their religious or cultural heritage most do And very few have experiences that actually contradict their heritage St Pauls experience notwithstanding Even in his case one could argue that the vision exshytended rather than negated his Jewish heritage This is a hallmark of mysshytical experience that the edges of orthodoxy are pushed but this is not necessarily a contradiction of orthodoxy It could be a deepening or grounding oforthodoxy

Changing from the metaphor of sensation to the metaphor of undershystanding a text is the first step in breaking the impasse The metaphor of sensation is a useful one and should not be thrown out however it is a parshytial one The danger has been that we have forgotten that it is just a metashyphor So this second metaphor should be put in tension with the first

How is mysticism like reading a novel There is the obvious parallel beshytween the understanding that characterizes both It is immediate and at the best of times it can take over I am not suggesting that reading a novel is a form of mystical insight this is just a metaphor But a good novel can create a new consciousness It is an event The reader can become lost in a new world The mystic typically is called back to the experience as the reader is called back to a good book Both find new things all the time For both the understanding is one of opening new possibilities when before all possibilities were stagnant or non-existent The mystical experience like the novel is new unique and exciting

And yet it exists in a context It works only because the mystic or the reader is ready for the experience It works because the mystic has come to terms with his or her existence and found that existence to be lacking This may be a conscious realization or something that is only realized when the experience highlights life as it is and as it could be The novel and the mystical experience then might be something that has had a long preparashytion or it might take the person by surprise

Of course reading the novel is not an act of pure consciousness Metashyphors can only be pushed so far Nevertheless the very act of setting up an alternate metaphor to the sensation image highlights the fact that these are only metaphors that open up some ways of understanding but close off


others The problem for both Katz and most of his critics is that they forget the metaphor Is the mystical experience really primitive or is it really conshystructed This is a false dichotomy brought on by the metaphor of sensashytion Like the novel the mystical experience can be both

Why should anyone prefer this hermeneutical account to either the esshysentialist or the contextualist account Mainly because it avoids the probshylems of either pole of the debate it gives an account that recognizes the sigshynificance of the uniqueness of the mystics understanding while at the same time recognizing what most mystics would claim about themselves that they are rooted in a tradition Robert Forman44 critiques both sides (which he calls perennialism and constructivism) and proposes a solution which incorporates forgetting I believe my hermeneutical account inshycorporates his answer as I will try to show in the next section

4 Structure and uniqueness

While it is true that many mystics have experiences where elements of culshyture or doctrine are present the more interesting structural connections happen in absence rather than presence Some writers have pointed out that there is a great deal of negativity involved in mysticism While not wantshying to be committed to Derridas entire project we could also draw on his notion of absence 45 The meaning of a text comes not because of the presshyence of certain elements but due to their absence In the case of mysticism perhaps it is not the fact that the mystic makes specific references to a dogma or tradition that is important but that the mystics experience exists in the negation of his or her other experiences

But that only goes so far The mystic after all is not the objective obshyserver of his or her own experiences We hardly expect the mystic to comshypare the present experience with absent experiences and thereby begin to understand The understanding is immediate not inferential even though this immediacy does not necessarily imply total understanding What is abshysent then Robert Forman and Michael Stoeber both give us a hint

Forman46 points out that the mystical pure consciousness is the process of forgetting While he uses sensory analogies (perhaps unavoidably) he also uses doctrinal examples Eckhart talks of letting go of all notions of

44 Robert Forman Of Deserts and Doors Methodology of the Study of Mysticism Sophia 32 (1993) 31-44

45 I am aware that Derrida has rejected the idea that deconstruction is a kind of apophatic theshyology The best treatment of the negativity in theology and deconstruction that avoids the route of apophatic theology but affirms the relevance of deconstruction for theology is It Hart The Trespass ofthe Sign (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1989)

46 Forman The Construction of Mystical Experience Faith and Phiwsophy p 254-67 and Forman Of Deserts and Doors p 31-44


God (going as far in one place as saying that he must be rid of God in order to see God) A famous Zen Buddhist aphorism is If you see the Buddha on the road kill him Examples of this type offorgetting could be compounded from StJohn of the CrossJacob Boehme and many other mystics

Now is this forgetting an attempt to negate ones knowledge Is the mysshytic yearning for a time before knowledge Is pure experience something that happens in the denial of experience or in the transcendence ofexperishyence I would contend that the mystics knowledge is part of the necessary path that brings him or her to the place where that knowledge can be given up It is a Hegelian Aujhelntng the simultaneous transcending and destrucshytion of a state which recognizes that state was necessary for the higher one to take place There is plenty of evidence that mystics travel a path-the dark night of the soul the eight-fold path-to mystical insight Of course not everyone who has a mystical experience has followed this path Nevershytheless it seems clear that the experience of most mystics was necessary in order to arrive at the place where mystical experience can happen This is contextualized experience necessary for understanding but which does not reduce to doctrine or tradition And recognition of this contextualizashytion is important both for the mystic and for the later interpreter

This can be put in another way for some mystics The path the mystic takes to enlightenment is often one of struggle with the seeming contradictions of received theology tradition or culture The mystic (from the perspective of Western theology for the moment) cannot make coherent the love of God with the evil in the world or the oneness of God with the fragmentation of creation This problem becomes an all-consuming existential issue The anshyswer if it comes (and there are no guarantees) comes as the solution to this problem Some mysticism can be seen as a kind of existential release to an irshyresolvable dilemma Because of the high stakes this is not simply Arshychimedes intellectual Eureka upon realizing how to determine the mass of Hieros crown The problem has taken over the persons very being and therefore so does the answer It is understanding-perhaps understanding that defies ready communication-but understanding nonetheless And this understanding is multifaceted emotional intellectual volitional

While this is not an explanation of the mystical experience it is a contexshytualization It does help both the mystic and the scholar to understand the path that led to the experience The understanding is unique yet situated

Michael Stoeber47 seems to be sympathetic to this as well Although he seems caught up in the sensory analogy (along with an unfortunate tendshyency to regard mystical experience as a kind of information processing-a computer metaphor that does more harm than good) his critique of the

47 Stoeber Constructivist Epistemologies ofMysticism p 107-16

94 Studies in Religion Scielces Religieuses 241 1995

constructivist pOSItIOn (represented by John Hick48 rather than Steven Katz) amounts to a revision rather than a rejection While he sees serious problems with Hicks extreme constructivism he is also uneasy with the esshysentialist position on mysticism His answer is an experiential-constructivist position that understands mystical experience in terms ofa diversity of both experiences and interpretations 49 As he put it though mystics do not necshyessarily experience that which they expect they can only experience that which they are prepared for or that which they can assimilate 50

This fits well with my position The mystic is placed in the position to have an experience and will have the experience his or her background alshylows Katz made this point in the original essay51 Stoeber wants to argue that the experience can outstrip interpretation52 which I can also accept as long as a distinction is made between interpretation and understanding (perhaps along Heideggers lines) Interpretations change over time as mystics receive new insight and struggle with their own metaphors for exshypressing that insight (Jacob Boehme is a good example of this developshyment) But the insight is still irreducibly understanding not sensation a point Stoeber obscures by his continual use of sense metaphors

This hermeneutical account can I think be applied to individual mystishycal experiences profitably It would dissolve the impasse between the conshytextualist and the essentialist position and enable us to get on with addressshying the accounts of mystics It would take seriously mystics as mystics rather than as closet theologians or psychotics yet it would also take seriously the self-perception of many mystics to be part of a tradition that the mystical exshyperience confirms and grounds

A last word is this hermeneutical metaphor necessarily true for all mystishycism I do not think so I have no desire to give a totalizing account to give a new essence of mysticism to require that mystics must live up to myacshycount or they are not mystics I give a narrative a metaphor that I believe makes sense of much mystical experience There will always be some who will appeal to a personal mystical experience and on that basis claim that my account is wrong or irrelevant that the hermeneutic metaphor is also only partial This partiality is of course something I admit The prerogashytive of the mystic is to break through the totalization of rational or nonshyrational accounts whether essentialist contextualist or hermeneutical For a scholar to deny that would be hybris

48 John Hick An Interpretation oReligion (London Macmillan 1989) 49 Stoeber Constructivist Epistemologies of Mysticism p 108 50 Ibid p 113 51 Katz Language Epistemology and Mysticism p 59 52 Stoeber Constructivist Epistemologies of Mysticism p 114


While Steven Katz was not the first to apply universal hermeneutics to mysticism he certainly gave its most eloquent expression and has been the focus of most of the subsequent debate In his essay Language Epistemolshyogy and Mysticism4 he argues that there is no pure mystical experience at the core of the various interpretations at least no core that is available eishyther to the mystic or to the later interpreter

If a measure of the success of a philosophical article is how much attenshytion it commands Katzs article is a winner Relatively little of the attention has been positive however A host of writers have attacked Katz on a variety of points Gary Kessler and Norman Prigge5 Peter Byrne6 James Robertshyson Price m1 J W Forgie8 Huston Smith9 Donald Evans10 Sallie B Kingll Robert Forman12 Jonathan Shear13 Michael Stoeber14 Nelson Pike15 have all argued against various aspects or implications of Katzs pro

4 Steven Katz Language Epistemology and Mysticism in S Katz ed Mysticism and Philosaphical Analysis (Oxford Oxford University Press 1978) p 22-74 For further work by Katz on this see also The Conservative Character of Mystical Experience in S Katz ed Mysticism and Religious Traditions (Oxford Oxford University Press 1983) and S Katz Mysticism and LanifUage (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992)

5 Gary Kessler and Norman Prigge Is Mystical Experience Everywhere the Same Sophia 21 (1982) 39-55

6 Peter Byrne Mysticism Identity and Realism A Debate Reviewed Internalionaljournal ofthePhilosaphy ofReligian 16 (1984) 23744

7 James Robertson Price The Objectivity of Mystical Truth Claims Thomsl 49 (1985) 81-98

8 J W Forgie Hyper-Kantianism in Recent Discussions of Mystical Experience Religious Studies21 (1985) 205-18

9 Huston Smith Is There a Perennial Philosophy journal of the American Academy of Relishygian55 (1897) 553-66

10 Donald Evans Can Philosophers Limit -hat Mystics Can Do A Critique of Steven Katz Religious Studus 25 (1988) 53-60

II Sallie King Two Epistemological Models for the Interpretation of Mysticism journal of the American Academy ofReligion 61 (1988) 257-79

12 Robert Forman The Construction of Mystical Experience Faith and Philosaphy 5 (1988) 254-67 and Robert Forman Paramartha and Modern Constructivists on Mystishycism Epistemological Monomorphism versus Duomorphism Philosaphy East and West 39 (1989) 393418

13 Jonathan Shear Mystical Experience Hermeneutics and Rationality International Philosaphical Quarterly 30 (1990) 391-40 I

14 Michael Stoeber Constructivist Epistemologies of Mysticism A Critique and a Revishysion Religious Studies 28 (1991) 107-16

15 Nelson Pike Steven Katz on Christian Mysticism in Mystic Unian An Essay in the Pheshynomenology ofMysticism (Ithaca NY Cornell University Press 1992) p 194-207 For other discussions of Katz see also J Gill Mysticism and Mediation Faith and Philosophy 1 (1984) 111-21 GraceJantzen Mysticism and Experience Religious Studus 25 (1988) 295-315 Bernard McGinn The Foundations of Mysticism (New York Crossroad 1991) p 321-24 A Perovich Mysticism and the Philosophy of Science Journal ofReligion 65 (1985) 63-82 and Wayne Proudfoot ReligiottsExperience (Berkeley CA University of Calishyfornia Press 1985) p 122-54
































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Documents

Janz, B. - Mysticism & Understanding - Steven Katz and His Critics