retrospectively once a more broadly organized science had been created; we
find in them a calculating approach to theory, but without organized research
or a mathematical technique, and without the social supports that later upheld
these. The “calculators” had a narrower base—the interest in currently fash-
ionable disputes around the nominalist movement. As the intensity of this
argument faded, their creativity rather abruptly came to an end.Growth of Independent Mysticism
At this time when the specialized philosophy of the arts subjects was separating
from theology, there was a corresponding tendency for theology to break free
of philosophy into mysticism. We must be careful to distinguish this mysticism
from fideism, as well as from transcendentally oriented metaphysics in general.
It is not helpful to refer to every assertion that faith is superior to reasoning
as “mysticism,” or to make the term equivalent to “mysteries.” A religion does
not necessarily call for mysticism as a direct experience by individuals. The
path to what is considered “salvation” could consist entirely of scripturally
prescribed rituals; even when these are carried out not just collectively but
individually in the form of personal prayer, the internal experience does not
necessarily have to be interpreted as a direct vision of God; it could just as
well be “soul-searching” to examine one’s faith and moral commitments.
Mystical experience cuts in a different direction, an immediate experience of
the divine in which one loses self and the ordinary world, including scripture
and ritual. Mysticism tends to come in conflict with the church hierarchy and
with a ritually oriented community. For this reason, mysticism creates disci-
pline problems for a centralized church, manifested on the doctrinal front in
heresy disputes. Mysticism flourishes best where religion is organized by inde-
pendent entrepreneurs, whether these are individuals, ad hoc movements like
the Sufis, or independent monasteries of the sort found in Ch’an Buddhism.
All religious rituals and symbols, however, tend to give glimpses of this
kind of direct experience, which the church organization can acknowledge and
call on for legitimation. Medieval Christianity always included some aspects
of mysticism in this sense. The emphasis on direct religious experience was
strengthened when there was opposition to rational philosophy and academic
life. Thus Saint Bernard was sometimes regarded as a mystic, although his
emphasis on religious experience is tightly connected to moral attitudes and
exercises; similarly Saint Francis remained doctrinally orthodox, and his move-
ment—like Bernard’s, oriented toward activism more than contemplation—re-
mained part of the conventional church. From here it was not much of a step
to integrate the idea of mystical experience into a fully academic philosophy.
Hugh and his followers at St. Victor in the generations following Bernard
494 •^ Intellectual Communities: Western Paths