“mystical experience” will be more in the spirit of how it figures in general culture, and a
narrow definition will echo a meaning common among philosophers.
1. Mystical Experience
1.1 The Wide Sense of “Mystical Experience”
In the wide sense, let us say that a “mystical experience” is:
A (purportedly:) super sense-perceptual or sub sense-perceptual experience granting
acquaintance of realities or states of affairs that are of a kind not accessible by way of
sense perception, somatosensory modalities, or standard introspection.
end p.138
(1) A super sense-perceptual experience includes perception-like content of a kind not
appropriate to sense perception, somatosensory modalities (including the means for
sensing pain and body temperature, and internally sensing body, limb, organ, and visceral
positions and states), or standard introspection. Some mystics have referred to a
“spiritual” sense or senses, corresponding to the perceptual senses, appropriate to a
nonphysical realm. A super sense-perceptual mode of experience may accompany sense
perception (see “extrovertive” experience, section 3.1). For example, a person can have a
super sense-perceptual experience while watching a setting sun. The inclusion of the
supersensory mode is what makes the experience mystical.
(2) A sub sense-perceptual experience is either devoid of phenomenological content
altogether, or nearly so (see “pure conscious events,” sections 5 and 6), or consists of
phenomenological content appropriate to sense perception, but lacking in the
conceptualization typical of attentive sense perception (see below on “unconstructed
experiences”).
(3) “Realities” includes beings, such as God, as well as abstract “objects,” such as the
Absolute. “Acquaintance” of realities means the subject is aware of the presence of (one
or more) realities.
(4) “States of affairs” includes, for example, the impermanence of all reality and that God
is the ground of the self. “Acquaintance” of states of affairs can come in two forms. In
one, a subject is aware of the presence of (one or more) realities on which (one or more)
states of affairs supervene. An example would be an awareness of God (a reality)
affording an awareness of one's utter dependence on God (a state of affairs). In its second
form, “acquaintance” of states of affairs involves an insight directly, without supervening
on acquaintance of any reality. An example would be coming to “see” the impermanence
of all that exists following an experience that eliminates all phenomenological content.
(5) Mystical experience is alleged to be “noetic,” involving knowledge of what a subject
apprehends (James 1958).
(6) Parasensual experiences such as religious visions and auditions fail to make an
experience mystical. The definition also excludes anomalous experiences such as out-of-