jeff@rlgvax.UUCP (Jeffrey Kegler) (08/22/83)
I turned to the Oxford English Dictionary for a definition of mysticism, but
the OED seems to regard the word as little more than a term of abuse, which is
how the subject came up in this newsgroup.
However, I think I remember Hegel's definition, and based on it has considered
myself a mystic for some time. Hegel defined mysticism as belief that life
was mysterious, in the sense there are things which are not knowable by us.
Hegel, for those not familiar with him, shared with Socrates the belief that
everything can be known by us, at least in principle, and therefore was
anti-mystic.
It might be useful to compare mysticism with occultism (called oggy-boggyism
in some circles) and nihilism. The occultist believes there is hidden
knowledge, which may be ferreted out by various means depending on the
occultist. If he believes that by these means he has access to all knowledge,
he is not a mystic. The nihilist believes that nothing is knowable, for
example, that there is no net, no article and no reader, at least not to any
degree of certainty. This position is of course, irrefutable, but it also
will never be a serious philosophical position, for the simple reason that
there is very little reason to discuss philosophy with persons whose existence
is completely doubtful, especially when you cannot be sure you are discussing
it at all, anyway. To undertake discussion with others on a philosophical
basis, the nihilist has to relax his position, or at least, partake in it as a
joke.
While I consider myself a mystic, I am neither an occultist (because I do not
think I have access to any knowledge hidden from the rest of you) or a
nihilist (because I chose to assume I can know some things, in however
distorted a form).
If one considers the only means of knowledge to be logic and sense perception,
you must be a mystic, because Godel showed that any logical system complex
enough to include multiplication must contain truths which cannot be known.
Mysticism and faith are far from identical, contrary to some of the discussion
quoted in this net. In fact, because logic and observation alone do not
suffice to discover all truth, it is the non-mystic who must have faith. A
mystic need not believe anything, and therefore has no need for faith. A
non-mystic needs some means outside logic to discover much of knowledge, and
therefore will have to resort to faith.
The Oxford English Dictionary to the contrary notwithstanding, the mystic need
not trust emotions or intuitions as a source of knowledge, while as I have
shown the non-mystic is going to need something to decide logically
undecidable questions. I consider myself to be a scientist as well as a
mystic, and do not rely on emotion or intuition as means of knowledge because
they seem even more fallible than the senses. But there is no scientific
evidence to exclude the possibility that emotion or intuition may discover
things which the senses cannot, and certainly where verification is possible,
or where an intuition accords with your best rational judgement, it cannot do
any harm. Scientists (Kekule and Cantor) have used mystic intuitions with
success in their work. Faith has done science considerable harm, and I cannot
think of any scientist who has based his work on faith, though there may have
been some. On the other hand, the first scientists, the Pythagoreans were
thorough mystics.
Jeffrey Kegler, CCI Office Systems Division
...{allegra,seismo,mcnc,lime,we13,brl-bmd}!rlgvax!jeff