William Earle, Phenomenology of Mysticism

Thomas Landes
10/22/08
Phenomenology of Mysticism
Dr. Davis
Contemporary Philosophy

In order to break down a phenomenology of mysticism, the mystical experience is to be seen as being the same experience across all cultures, from ancient Greece to modern Christianity. The mystical experiences which are being considered range from, the alteration of time (making and eternity fit into an hour), a pure white light which is found in darkness (a Tibetan Buddhist concept of ego loss ), or really anything which contradicts reason. Even though these concepts arguably create completely different feelings and serve completely different purposes, it is through Phenomenology that we can reduce these to the essence of what is Absolute reality. Now if they are more or less the same experience then are Mystics just playing around with language to demonstrate a poetic that negates reason? William Earle excerpts an effort to show that it is more than simple word play across cultures but of an experience to demonstrate an individual perception of absolute reality.
William Earle, early on in his method sets out to make his approach to be independent of mystic terms. He first lays bare the essence of mysticism to be “the experience of identity of the soul and God” and he translates it to be “the experience of the identity of myself with Absolute Reality.” By doing this he throws out all questions as to what the soul is, what God is and what the relation between soul and God are in a mystic sense and merely attempts to define what myself, Absolute Reality, and the relation of the two are.
Here we start with an epoche of what myself (also to be considered in the epoche as being the same as I or Ego,) should embody. Myself when used as a reflection toward experience should bracket out anything to do with physical, biological or logical associations if it is to be considered a Mystic experience. To take the I or Ego phenomenologically we should only take it to be of itself, for it is within itself that it experiences the Mystical experience with the Absolute Reality. So in order to get to this non objective formation of a phenomenological myself we are to see it out of any context that objectifies myself such as thinking about, drawing a conclusion about, placing in temporality and spatiality, and we are to see it with the context of I Myself.
Now I feel as though this separating of the myself from the thinking about myself, explains very well the relationship of the mystic experience with the common experience. If it is for the fact that there is a mystic experience that is not perceived from outside of the Ego then the common experience would not be possible, unless the mystic experience could be observed through thinking about myself (or outside of the Ego, as laid down previously). So the terms of the mystics although are irrational (such as an eternity in a minute, pure white light in darkness, etc…) this irrationality is the only way to explain what it is that is experienced, for I myself is experienced only during the mystical experience.
In the process of defining what myself is, William Earle determines its existence in relation with temporality and spatiality. The example of the I myself in a room, and even though the I myself perceives itself in a spatial room does not mean that the I is in itself is spatial. So for the simple fact that the I exists in a “body” which takes up mass, does not mean that the I is in fact spatial (I feel this is a good example of what the meaning of soul is to be since in fact I myself is the soul from our original definition of the essence of mysticism. Soul, at least in the Christian sense of the word is what is carried beyond after the body has failed, giving us yet another separation between thinking about myself and I myself.) The question of the I myself and its relation with temporality, comes into definition through what William Earle describes as the “flux and flow of the world.” The flux would be that each moment is different from the next which is different from the previous even though the I myself did not necessarily move/change because of the ability for it to remember, and predict. So the Ego exists in temporality and not spatiality (this relation with time will later be explain how a mystics ability to alter time is a possibility through the relationship with absolute reality).
Absolute reality in a much easier light than Myself, because we only have two terms which are of themselves not at a need to be bracketed out in a Husserl fashion as extensively. William Earle explains it as what is infinite cannot be finite, what is true cannot be false and so what is in reality cannot be outside of reality, and vise versa. This is explained in what William Earle explains as the ontological argument of all contributions of this argument summarized as “I can conceive of an absolutely perfect Being; since existence is a perfection, such a Being must necessarily exist as I conceive it. That is, it is not a mere hypothesis that God exists, or suggestion that needs additional support.” If we agree that there is an absolute reality, which is what holds all reality together and gives us the ability to communicate, interact, rationalize, etc…, then there is by necessity an absolute reality. The list of what exists in reality is infinite whether it is possible or not, impossibilities are still present in reality. This infinite definition of Absolute Reality, is what defines itself with in what the mystics call God but only transcendental to absolute reality.
What makes the Mystic experience possible is this defining of something philosophically known as being finite, such as I myself and making it infinite, such as the soul. The way in which the Mystical experience takes the finitude of the single absolute reality and turning it into a transcendental infinitude known as God. These together make the Mystical experience differ from the common experience for the mere fact that it is impossible to have the concept of soul and God separate, as phenomenologically defined.
I think that there is more to the Mystical experience than a mere experience that isn’t the common one, as William Earle laid forth, and to a certain extent is different within most religions. The goals behind such experiences may be the same whether they be the ego loss for a Tibetan causing a euphoric white light and the Goal for a Christian to be in touch with God, both want to achieve a comfort but the experience in itself is not the same. If the average man were to seek ego loss he would have an experience of much agony in the process, but if he were to strive to find his relation with the Christian God he would experience much despair. What William Earle defines as the essence may be the same for all Mystic experience, but differ greatly in the process at which the Mystic experiences.







Phenomenology of Mysticism, William Earle, p. 97
Experience of the sacred readings in the phenomenology of religion
Hanover, N.H. : University Press of New England, c1992
x, 294 p. ; 23 cm