Philosophy of Mysticism

At a time when so many volumes are available on the subject of mysticism, this work of Watkin remains one of the most respected treatises on the subject. Many modern writers confine their treatment of mysticism to its psychological aspect, for they regard mystical experience as a wholly subjective state, devoid of objective validity or intellectual significance.

Watkin in this book, however, feels it is impossible to divorce cognition from experience. It is true that the categories of discursive reason are inadequate to render the knowledge content of mystical experience. Nevertheless they can render something of the truth apprehended by the mystic. Otherwise we should possess no mystical literature. All other forms of experience are employed as data for the construction of philosophies necessarily stated in terms of discursive reason.

The highest form of human experience, that of the mystic, must therefore provide most valuable data to metaphysics. The author has, therefore, endeavoured in this book to state the metaphysic implicit in mystical experience, a philosophy of mysticism.