I. Greek. Mysterion--one initiated into the mysteries
(at Eleusis)
II.
The mystical experience is “a nonintellectual mode of consciousness.[
. . .] It is formless, shapeless, colorless, odorless, soundless. [. . .] It is entirely
unlike our everyday consciousness and
is wholly incommensurable with it. [. . .] [It] is destitute of any sensations at all. Nor does it contain any concepts or thoughts.” Walter T. Stace. The Teachings of the Mystics.
III. Direct knowledge of ultimate Reality can be obtained
through subjective
experience.
IV.
A sudden, inexplicable understanding of the true meaning of existence. Wordsworth’s “spots
of time” or Joyce’s “epiphany,” God
manifested in Nature--The sudden perception of the essential meaning of life.