ERNESTO LACLAUof something belonging to the general structure of all possible experience. Naming God
is impossible, we said, because, being the absolutetranscendens, He is beyond all positive
determination. If we radicalize the logical implications of this impossibility, we see that
even the assumption that God is an entity, even the assumption of Oneness—if Oneness
is conceived as the unicity of an entity—is already an undue interpretation, because it is
to attribute a content to that which is beyond any possible content. If we remain within
the realm of discourse, of therepresentable, the ‘‘sublime’’—the ‘‘numinous,’’ as Rudolph
Otto calls it—is that which is radically not representable. So unless we espouse the ratio-
nalistic assumption that there is nothing in experience that cannot be translated into a
positive representational content, this impossibility—as the limit of all representation—
will not be simply a logical impossibility but an experiential one. A long tradition has
given a name to it: the experience of finitude. Finitude involves the experience of fullness,
of the sublime, as that which is radically lacking—and is, in that sense, a necessary beyond.
Let us remember the way in which Lacan describes the imaginary identification that takes
place at the mirror stage: it presupposes a constitutive lack; it is the primary identification
that functions as a matrix for all subsequent secondary ones—so the life of the individual
will be a vain search for a fullness of which he or she will be systematically deprived. The
object that would bring about such an ultimate fullness is the beyond that the mystic
claims he or she is directly experiencing. As such, it is something that accompaniesall
possible experience. The historical importance of mystical discourse is that, by radicalizing
that ‘‘beyond,’’ it has shown the essential finitude that is constitutive of all experience; its
historical limit has been, in most cases, its having surrendered to the temptation of giving
a positive content to that ‘‘beyond’’—the positive content being dictated not by mystical
experience itself but by the religious persuasion of the mystic. This can be seen most
clearly in the argument that God shows Himself in everything that exists. If the argument
is taken in all its implications, we should conclude that actions that we would call immoral
express God as much as all the others. This is a conclusion that has been accepted by
some extreme mystical sects: insofar as I live in God, I am beyond all moral limitations.
But in most cases the mystic accepts conventional religious morality. It is clear, however,
that the latter is dictated not by the mystical experience but by the positive religion to
which the mystic belongs.
Let us move to the other side of what we have called the double impossibility of
structuring mystical discourse: representation of the ‘‘beyond’’ through a chain of equiva-
lences. As we have said earlier, the condition of this form of representation of the Absolute
is that the equivalence does not collapse into unity (for in that case we would be dealing
with adirectrepresentation and the dimension of ‘‘beyond’’ would be lost). To arrive at
atrueequivalence, the differential particularity of its terms must be weakened, but not
entirely lost. What are the effects of that remaining particularity? The main one is to put
limits on those links that can become part of the equivalential chain. Let us suppose, for
instance, that we have in a relation of equivalencechastity, daily prayer,andcharity.If the
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