Four elements of mysticism

When I teach a class on mysticism (like I’m currently doing through the Emory University Center for Lifelong Learning), I point out to my students that mysticism involves more than just a pure experience of God, or union, or transcendence, or whatever. First of all, it also involves the struggle to put that pure experience into words — a struggle I alluded to in my first sentence here. Does mysticism involve God, or some other spirit, or the “higher self” or merely an altered state of consciousness? Many mystics report that their experience is ineffable — beyond words — and yet they struggle to at least partially capture it in verbal ways. After the initial effort to ground mystical experience in language comes the attempt to interpret such experience: to understand it in context of religion, or philosophy, or morality, or community values. What does it mean to have an experience of union with God? What difference does it make? Why should I care? Should I try to have my own mystical experience? Why or why not? How can I tell if a mystical experience is authentic or genuine? How can I discern the difference between a true encounter with God and a hallucination? Does such a distinction even matter? Finally, this entire cluster of experience/language/meaning gets handed on to others. This can involve teaching, training, formation, and can be geared toward individuals with a specific religious commitment (priests, ministers, monks and nuns, trained spiritual directors) or toward the general laity. Either way, passing on the wisdom of mysticism is important for tilling the good earth so that the movement of the Spirit can erupt in new and fresh ways in generations to come.