Mysticism

Description

Mysticism
by Simon Critchley

ISBN: 9781681378244
Softcover, new

Brief Description:
A probing, inspiring exploration of mysticism not as religious practice but
as a mode of experience and way of life by one of the most provocative
philosophical thinkers of our time. Why mysticism? Evelyn Underhill defined
mysticism as “experience in its most intense form,” and in his new book the
philosopher Simon Critchley poses a simple question to the reader: Wouldn’t
you like to taste this intensity? Wouldn’t you like to be lifted up and out
of yourself into a sheer feeling of aliveness, both your life and those of
the creatures that surround you? If so, it might be well worthwhile trying
to learn what is meant by mysticism and how it can shift, elevate, and
deepen the sense of our lives. Mysticism is not primarily a theoretical
issue. It’s not a question of religious belief but of felt experience and
daily practice. A rough and ready definition of mysticism is that it is a
way of systematically freeing yourself of your standard habits, your usual
fancies and imaginings so as to see what is there and stand with what is
there ecstatically. Mysticism is the practical possibility of the
achievement of a fluid openness between thought and existence. This is a
book about trying to get outside oneself, to lose oneself, while knowing
that the self is not something that can ever be fully lost. It is also a
book about Julian of Norwich, Anne Carson, Annie Dillard, and T. S. Eliot,
and how writing and poetry can help to show us the way there. It is a book
full of learning, puzzlement, pleasure, and wonder. It opens the door to
mysticism not as something unworldly and unimaginable, but as a way of
life. Mysticism as activism: start now.