The nature of religious experience: Mysticism

Ed Miller regards mystical experience as 'the pursuit of a transcendent, unitive experience with absolute reality' and offers the following summary:

• Transcendent: not localisable in space or time
• Ineffable: not expressible in any language
• Noetic: conveying illumination, truth
• Ecstatic: filling the soul with bliss, peace
• Unitive: uniting the soul with reality

Religious mystics speak of a mystical ascent

• There is effectively a ladder or staircase; the first steps are in the mundane world, but with regular practice and divine assistance, the individual can transcend their own reality and make an ascent of this ladder to gain unity with the ultimate reality
• It is often described as a journey from darkness to light

Transcendent…