Smith-Katz - On Mysticism

8/2/2019 Smith-Katz - On Mysticism

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Journal of the American Academy of ReligionLV1/4

On Mysticism

Two cntical discussions of my work on mysticism have appeared in recentissues of this journal Such interest is a high form of scholarly compliment, andI thank Professors Smith and King, especially since my position fundamentallychallenges their own The purpose of this reply is to indicate their seriousmisreading of my views and, hence, the irrelevance of theirs.

Reply to Huston Smith

Huston Smith's essay, "Is There a Perennial Philosophy" 55/3: 553-566,attempts to deflect my criticism of "the perennial philosophy" and to sketch his

own defense of that position Both maneuvers turn on his insistence that1

ammistaken to concentrate on the admitted differences between reports of mysticalexpenences as the evidentiary base for my conclusions about the pluralisticnature of such expenence Instead, Smith urges that we should "not appea l toexperience at all . " but rather concentrate our attention upon "doctrines[that] denve from metaphysical intuitions . that the perennial philosophyappeals [to] To discern the truth ofa metaphysical axiom one need not have an'expen ence' " (554) The basic "metaphysical axiom" assumed by Smith is aputative Oneness at the heart of things, which he honorably admits is "arnvedat . . more deductively than inductively" (560) Thus having posited the Unity

of things, the One in which all things have a common ongin and destiny, it is asimple, even logically necessary, matter to arnve at the perenniahst conclusionSmith cham pions Though logically consistent, this entire hermeneutical pro-cedure is wholly uninformative and thoroughlypnonstic It is, in reality, agrand tautology. Nothing can count against it Non-disconfirmable premisesand postulates are paraded as explanatory keys to reality while, in fact, thedetails of reality are ignored w ith alarming casualness. Yes, Smith adm its thatthe evidence appears plunform, the testimonies do seemingly vary, the exper-iences as reported are not identical or equivalent,butalways the awesomebut these differences are just on the surface of things We (they) know thingsare really One W ith all assurance, Smithknows, through a "metaphysical intu-ition" (554), how things must be And so they will be. Evidence be damnedSmith's essay makes it hard to ignore the unreflective dogmatism of perenniahstphilosophy W hile appe anng to participate in the give and take of academicdebate and to adopt accepted canons of falsifiabihry, argument, and evidence,

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752 journal of the American Academyof Religion

Smith's position is actually one of pontifical certainty premised upona non-debatable transcendental axiom aboutthe putative metaphysical unityof things

rooted in The AbsoluteBy contrast, my approach, my "method," is inductive, phenomenological,

open to debate and disconfirmation. Every generalization growsout of a closereading of the onginal mystical sources. Indeed, my entire projectof re-concep-tualizing the study of mysticism grew out of such intimate reading. How toaccount for the nch, variegated data-base thrownup by a study of comparativemystical sources was the inspiration for my efforts.

Let me turn to some of the more significant confusionsin Smith's critique1. I offered a logical argument that the traditional Jamesian and Stacean

typologies, which include paradoxicahtyand ineffability as the 'marks' ofauthentic mystical expenence, unwittingly entailthe impossibility of "makingany intelligible claimfor any mystical proposition," includingthe compara-bility of such experiences Smith replies' "Genuine paradox... can precipitatea noetic crisis generating things not justto think about but to worry about" Ofineffability he writes' "Far from saying nothing, it too (in mystical context)makes a major claim: the claim that, poised on the nm of human opportunity,the human mind can under exceptional conditions . see things too momen-tous to be fitted into any language which on the whole serves quotidian ends"(557) This is true but irrelevant. My point was that you cannot compare thecontent of two mystical expenences that both claimto be paradoxical and inef-fable, beyond noting that bo th make this claim Claimsfor paradoxicahty andineffability make it impossible to report the mystical expenence itself. There-fore, they logically cancel out any and all companson of one experience toanother and hence the framing of cross-cultural mystical typologies basedonthe presence of these "marks." Nothingin Smith's essay contradicts this philo-sophical argument Moreover,the vague generalities Smith suggestsin no sensesupport perenmahst claims,for it is impossibleand I state this categoncallyto demonstrate that two reports, both of which claim to be paradoxical and

ineffable, can be said to indicate the existence, the reality, of that Oneness,TheOne, wh ich perenmalists affirm. Such reports indicate only thatthe content oftheir expenence, whatever it be, even if it be of the One, is unavailable forexamination, companson, or judgments, metaphysicalor otherwise. (See Katz,1978 54-56 )

2 Smith takes the concluding remarksof my essay as a "concession" tothose who have affirmed the explanatory meaningfulness of cross-culturaltypologies. But my remarks are anything but a "con cessio n." Smith citesmyremarks incorrectly and out of context He wntes (557), "Katz . . closes his

essay with a plea for further fundamental epistemological research intothe con-ditions of mystical expenence . in order to lay bare the [presumably generic)skeleton of such expenence " What 1 wrote was, "further fundamental episte-mological research intothe conditions of mystical expenen ce has to be under-taken in order to lay bare the skeleton of such expenence in so far as this ispossible." There is nothing here about such expenence being "presumably


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Responses and Rejoinders 753

generic," which is Smith's phrase, not mine My statement is a straightforwardrequest for further investigation of the nature of mystical experience, "in so far

as this is possible," and offers no judgment about the specific issue of cross-cultural typologieswhich I clearly addressed earlier in the paper Thus, toaccuse me, as Smith does, of not "delivering on these charges" is sheer folly.The pamal sentence Smith quotes comes at the end of a summarizing para-graph, which I now repeat to indicate its obvious meaning

Our investigation suggests what it suggestsa wide variety of mysticalexpenences which are, at least in respect of some determinative aspects,culturally and ideologically grounded Yet having argued for this posi-tion, we are aware that two things have to continue to be done: (1) fur-ther careful, expert, study of specific mystical traditions has to beundertaken to uncover what their charactenstics are and especially howthey relate to the larger theological milieu out of which they emerge, and(2) further fundamental epistemological research into the conditions ofmystical experience has to be undertaken in order to lay bare the skele-ton of such experience in so far as this is possible This latter enterpriseis especially important and, yet, is all the more neglected. (66)

3. Smith makes the following, inaccurate, cntical remark- "W hen I listen

to Katz I don't hear him speaking for himself only, or even (if this pertains, I'mnot sure for Judaism) I hear him speaking for an important thrust in contem-porary philosophy, indeed the leading thr ust " He descnbes this "thrust" asthe "view [that] not even religion is to be judged by us relation to non-humanreality perhaps God for a starter? Nothing outside of socio-histoncal contextsmay be legitimated or (are we to assume7) even meaningfully pondered" (559)Smith labels this view, which he assigns to me, "holism " But this accusa-tionfor Smith means it as a senous and disabihtating objectionis whollyerroneous In fact, to avoid just such a reductionist misrepresentation I explic-itly state

Despite the stnct limitation being placed on the justificatory value ofmystical expenence, it isnot being argued either that mystical exper-iences do not happen, or that what they claim may not be true, only thatthere can be no grounds for deciding this question, I e of showing thatthey are true even if they are, in fact, true Moreover, even this dis-claimer requires the further declaration that, though no philosophicalargument is capable of proving the veracity of mystical expenence, onewould be both dogmatic and imprudent to decidea pnon that mysticalclaims are mumbo-jumbo, especially given the wide vanety of suchclaims by men of genius and/or intense religious sensitivity over thecentunes as well as across all cultural divisions Nor does it seems rea-sonable to reduce these multiple and vanegated claims to mere pro-jected 'psychological states' which are solely the product of intenorstates of consciousness (22-23 )


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754 Journal of the American Academyof Religion

Moreover, Smith misses the essential point holding a contextuahst thesis ofthe sort I espouse isnot necessarily reductionist, and neither necessanly, nor in

my specific case, denies the possible existence of transcendental realities orReality Rather, my viewand it is important that it be understood is thatwhile such transcendental realities or Reality may well exist, it (or He, She or It)can only be known by us in the way such metaphysical realia become availableto us given the sorts of beings we are This claim, which Sm ith's tendentiousremarks do not refute, is in no way equivalent to the "holism" he describes andincorrectly imputes to me Furtherm ore, Katz speaks only for Katz, whateverinfluences have come to bear upon him I can only be fairly held responsiblefor what I say. To speak of "Katz and Co Ltd" as Smith does (559-560) is notthe language or approach of scholarly debate.

4 The observations Smith makes about relativism (560) point to animportant issue But just because one does not likethis possible implication of acontextuahst reading, one cannot simply legislate it away W e need to wrestlewith the data before us, to explain them, not explain them away W e may, byway of analogy, note the distasteful fact that people starve to death W e maynot like this fact, but this is the reality we have to cope with, not least if wesincerely desire to help those wh o are hungry. W ishing it were otherwise orobjecting a pnon to the undesirabihty of this fact and its consequences is hardlyrelevant So too with the nch matena l generated by the mystical traditions ofthe world It may not conform to our neat, well-organized,a pnon theology, butthis does not give us a license to override it At some point reality must beallowed to count.

This last remark can bnng the reply to Smith to a conclusion His ownstatement of "The Perennial Philosophy Defended," which takes up the secondhalf of his essay, is wholly circular It is actually the playing out of the syllo-gism- "The Absolute is One, therefore all is really One, thus all is One " Thistheological deduction is hardly persuasive for anyone who is not already a truebeliever

Reply to Sallie King

Salhe King (56 /2 257-279) misreads m e in an exactly opposite directionfrom Huston Sm ith W hile he indicts me for paying too much atrention toexpenence, King accuses me of "reducing mystical expenence to doctrine"(260) But King's cnticism is mistaken I donot reduce expenence to doctrine,but rather offer the theory that experience is "mediated"{not reduced) by one'spn or training, doctnnal education, and the like. In examining the error of pre -vious students of mysticism who too sharply distinguish 'theory' from 'expen-

ence' (as King apparently still does) I wrote:[The] 'mediated' aspect of all our expenence seems an inescapable fea-ture of any epistemological inquiry, including the inquiry into mysti-cism, which has to be properly acknowledged if our investigation ofexpenence, including mystical expenence , is to get very far Yet this


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feature of expenence has somehow been overlooked or underplayed byevery major investigator of mystical expenence whose work is known to

me. A proper evaluation of this fact leads to the recognition that inorder to understand mysticism it isnot just a question of studying thereports of the mystic after the experiential event but of acknowledgingthat the expenence itself as well as the form in which it is reported isshaped by concepts which the mystic bnngs to, and which shape, hisexperience. To flesh this out, straightforwardly, what is being argued isthat, for example, the Hindu mystic does not have an expenence ofxwhich he then descnbes in the, to him, familiar language and symbolsof Hinduism, but rather he has a Hindu expenence,1 e. his expenence

is not an unmediated expenence ofx

but is itself the, at least partially,pre-formed anticipated Hindu expenence of Brahman Again, theChristian mystic does not expenence some unidentified reality, whichhe then conveniently lables God, but rather has the at least partiallyprefigured C hns tian expenences of God, or Jesus, or the like (26)

Note, I do not reduce, the Hindu or Chnstian or other expenence to doctnne,nor do I deny the reality of the experience. Rather I seek a more app ropn ate,more accurate, understanding of what suchexperience actually is like. Thus, Ispeak of investigating "theconditions of experience in general and the specific

conditions of religious/mystical expenence in particular" (32)The truism that King belaborsthat there is a gap between words and

expenence is obviously true of all words and all expenences. But to acknowl-edge this does not give one license to bypass the subtle, but undeniable, factthat words, "theones," "pre-understandings," etc. color what every expen-encesave those on the most brutish, infantile, and sensate levelsis like. Putanother way, the mystic, as other mature expenencers, has "educated," medi-ated, forms of expenence. This does not mean that I give "primacy to tradi-tion" as King charges (261) but rather that in a sophisticated way I

acknowledge the nch and fecund mixture of tradition and expenence in expen-ence. I repeatedly show this reality in my essay(s) through an abundant andvaned collection of onginal reports. Interestingly, perhaps even curiously, Kingeither agrees with the specific exegeses I offer of mystical materials (see, e g, p262 of her article), or altogether ignores the data that I present She nowhereoffers a different exegesis of the specific matenals on which I base my conclu-sions about the mediated nature of mystical experience. Rather, her objectionto my position is based on an undefended and oversimplified reassertion of thetheory-experience distinction, a dichotomy which cannot be maintained as wewill show below

To expose the logical and methodological weaknesses of specific assertionsthat King makes, as well as the indefensibility of her position generally, let metake her arguments one at a time

1 First, her use of Thomas Merton as evidence of the commonality ofcross-cultural mystical expenence is conceptually innocent Merton, it should


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756 Journal of the American Academy ofReligion

be remembered, was a modern liberal looking for exactly the 'universality' hefound In contrast, traditional mystics were very critical of mystics in other

traditions and the claims they made, Sankara made scathing denunciations ofthe Buddhists, while even mystics of a certain tradition are often very hard onother mystics with in that same tradition with whom they differed Abulafia w asseverely criticised by other and later Kabbahsts.

2. King objects (263) that my position calls into question what Asian (andother religions) say about themselves True enough. But this is what scholar-ship, as compared to confessionalism or theological pronouncements fromwithin a tradition, is about. This reflectiveness about doctrinal and confes-sional claims is what comprises academic self-consciousness; any and all her-

meneutical sophistication requires noth ing less W ould King likewise object ifI held views of astrology that differed from those of the medievals or the Rea-gans7 What if I held a non-or antiorthodox interpretation of medieval Catholicpractices regarding relics, or of the Inquisition, or of witchcraft, or of ancientfertility cults, or modem "idolatries" such as Scientology or Rajneesh-ism7

Surely, the study of religion cannot be limited by the view that only believerscan discuss their tradition, whatever that tradition be

3 King's objection that my position "reduces experience to doctrine" failsto recognize that saying, for example, that X meets the "God of Israel" becausehe or she is a Jew, or Y experiencesnirvana because he or she is a Buddhistdoes not reduce the "God of Israel" ornirvana to a doctrine The "God ofIsrael," and nirvana are. not solely or ultimately doctrines. I argue that X or Yhave real experiences; but these expenences, as all experiences, are specificThe claim that "X has a specific, mediated, expenence" is altogether differentfrom King's assertion that "X has no expenence only doctrine."

4 King places a great deal of emphasis on the example of coffee dnnk ingin support of her sharp theory-experience disjunction (264-5) I do not disa-gree that drinking coffee is different from "descnb ing that taste " But whowould7 To say that expenence is mediated is not to say that there is no differ-ence between descnption and expenence But again the issue is far more com-plex than King allows. For even the actual expenences of eating and dnnk ingtranscend King's und erstanding of them Consider this fact Upon smellingbacon, or, even more on being told he or she has eaten bacon, an Orthodox Jewwill almost always feel nauseous or vomit. The pleasure of those m illions ofbacon eaters who "look forward" to eating bacon each morning, and who enjoyit when served, are at the opposite end of the gastronomic pole from OrthodoxJews in a similar situation. Indeed, despite her protestations, King eventuallyagrees with this She writes "In the end though dnnkin g coffee is a med iated

experience, that mediation is a relatively insignificant e lement of the expenenceitself" (265) But I do not assign percentages to med iation. I only claim theexperience is mediated. Likewise, King admits that "listening to music is anexperience wh ich is shaped by one's musical training Clearly a trained andexpenenced Japanese hears things in classical koto music that an untrainedAmerican does not. The expenence is different for the two persons, moreover,


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in the very sense that the meaning and value of the expenence is different forthem" (265) 1 could not agree more But King confuses the issue by conclud-

ing that, nonetheless, "the expenence of listening to that music [cannot] bereduced to that training ." W hoever said it could?5 King continually attributes my "m ethod" to a W ittgensteinian influ-

ence, what she often calls a "W ittgensteinian model." This is a mistake. Theroots of my thinking on the nature and conditions of expenence are Kantian,not Wittgensteinian

6 Lastly, King takes me to task for an "excessive reliance upon the literal,referential function of language" (267), and she goes on. "For the mystic 'God'need not necessanly be 'God ' 'Brahman' cannot be 'Brahman,' andnirvana" is

certainly notnirvana

(268) This position is logically preposterous If non e ofthese terms is to be taken m some sense "literally," and "referentially," thenthey cannot be used meaningfully at all. The poetic and transformative modesof religious language to which King calls attention, of course, exist but they donot exhaust the meaning of religious discourse nor do they replace the 'literal'and 'referential' sense upon which the transformative and poetic are parasitic.If all religious language is only poetic and transformative, what can King meanwhen she wntes that for example "in mystical expenence the self is undergoingtransformation?" Does this statement not refer to something? W hen Kingasserts that "evidence of the claim tha t mystical expenences entail radical trans-

formation in the self-sense is found in St Paul's 'no t I, but C hnst in me,' inHallaj's impassioned declarations that he was God, in his widespread talk ofdying to the self, in Zen master Hakuin's Great Death, and talk in Hinduismand Buddhism of realizing the true self (Atman, Buddha nature, onginalmind)" (274) is she only being poetic and transformative7 If so how are we tounderstand her insistence that "1 do not mean to imply that these terms allreduce to the same meaning, far from it'** (274)?

I do not comment on the second half of King's essay, which does not dealdirectly with my work.

In conclusion, let me repeat that my interest and approach grow out of thedata provided by the mystics and mystical traditions themselves If that datacannot be conveniently assimilated to chenshed beliefs, then we have to give upthose beliefs Scholarship dem and s noth ing less

Steven T. KatzCornell University

1 have to admit that "Katz & Co , Ltd " was a flippant heading and apolo-gize if it seemed to imply disrespect Katz alleges that under the pretext ofacademic debate I damn evidence in favor of pontificating dogmatically becauseI know the way things must be, and that1 do so in contrast to Katz himself wh o(a) opens his generalizations to debate and disconfirmation, (b) reads textsclosely, intimately, carefully, and expertly, and (c) wrestles with data to explain

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Smith-Katz - On Mysticism

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