Phenomenology and Mysticism: The Verticality of Religious Experience

INTRODUCTION: Vertical Givenness in Human Experience

1 INTRODUCTION Vertical Givenness in Human Experience Phenomenology and Mysticism gives an account of a specific dimension of human experience and its own evidence that is traditionally expunged from philosophical treatment. To give such an account, we have to operate with a substantially broader view of experience and evidence than we customarily admit into our inventory. For example, we usually think that what counts as evidence or what can be experienced are empirical or even intellectual objects. The spheres of experience and evidence that are more robust than just those of objects, I call vertical givenness, or “verticality.” Sensitivity to vertical givenness is not accomplished by constructing a metaphysics or by applying either theological convictions or ethical belief systems to the experiences, but by taking a phenomenological approach to these different kinds of givenness, that is, by evaluating what is actually given in human experience, thereby expanding our notion of evidence. This expansion, which is grounded in experience, opens us to the religious , moral, and ecological spheres of existence, even though the quality of these kinds of experiences is fundamentally different from the ways in which objects are presented in perception or in judgments. Because the religious, moral, and ecological dimensions are given (though given in their own unique ways), they are susceptible to critical, philosophical thinking. In addition to describing phenomenologically the givenness of verticality , I explicate the philosophical implications of vertical givenness. I do this by articulating its evidential force and its modifications in the religious sphere, by contrasting vertical presence with the movement of “withdrawal” and forgetfulness, by suggesting what vertical evidence means for the individuation of the person, and finally, by critically examining the process of de-spiritualization that deforms or reverses verticality , a process I term, here, idolatry. This is the task of personal and cultural critique. Ultimately, if our society and ecosystems are in disarray and in turmoil, it is because our relations to the vertical dimensions of experience are in disarray and in turmoil. Phenomenology and Mysticism 2 In this Introduction, I show how phenomenology as a philosophical approach is appropriate to this task of Phenomenology and Mysticism and explain what I mean by vertical givenness as well as the kinds of vertical givenness. Although there are several forms of verticality, this work concentrates on just one kind of vertical givenness, what I term epiphany, and its countervailing movements of idolatry. It is this mode of givenness, epiphany, that articulates the structure of this work, not the presupposition of a being called “God.” Phenomenology and Mysticism treats the dimension of human experience that is opened up by this kind of givenness and is therefore devoted to a phenomenology of religious experience. While I name other modes of vertical givenness pertaining to the moral and ecological spheres, I reserve them for future work. Givenness and Experience By taking experience as a touchstone for reflection, I am concerned not merely with what is there in experience, but with how this “what” appears to us. Phenomenologists, for example, have traditionally expressed this “how” of the appearance under the general title of “givenness” or “modes of givenness.” Experience means the way or mode in which something is given to us. Among all philosophical attitudes, it has been the virtue of phenomenological philosophy to call into question the naïveté that structures our everyday life, our “taking it for granted,” by carrying out a shift in perspective. It accomplishes this by holding in abeyance or “bracketing ” the assumptions pertaining to life as we live it and by suspending the prejudices concerning the being of things; it does this in an effort to expose how their meanings arise and to understand the structures of those meaningful experiences. The central issue in phenomenology is neither the subject nor the object, but givenness.1 I find “givenness” a particularly suitable expression for describing experience because it takes us beyond a subject-object dichotomy often attributed to Western philosophical thought insofar as givenness is not necessarily attached to the appearing of an object over against a subject. We are involved in the very course of our experiences. We hardly notice them when they flow on concordantly without disruption or when 3 everything works harmoniously. These concordant experiences are “normal .” One lives “normally” in everyday experience in the sense that one survives the disappointments caused by the rupture of meaning, the discordances , the atypicalities and unfamiliar sensible and...