Overview

Mysticism is about existential ecstasy - an experience of heightening one's senses and self into a sheer feeling of aliveness. Mystical experiences offer us a practical way to open our thoughts and deepen the sense of our lives, whether through a mainstream connection to God or by taking part in mind-altering experiences. Here, Simon Critchley explores the history and practice of mysticism, from its origins in Eastern and Western religion, through its association with esoteric and occult knowledge, and up to the ecstatic modernism of T.S. Eliot and others. Through a discussion of the lives of famous mystics, like Julian of Norwich and Jesus Christ, Critchley reveals how embracing the spectrum of mystical experience can refresh our thinking and help us live deeper and freer lives. Philosophical and playful, analytical and inventive, On Mysticism is a definitive account of humanity's quest to understand the divine, and a call to thinkers everywhere to broaden our minds to life larger than our selves.

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9781800816947

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Reviews

Insightful and imaginative ... remarkable ... [Critchley] hopes to instil a healthy dose of mystical weirdness in mainstream philosophy * Times Literary Supplement * A meandering delight, as quietly soul-nourishing as it is brain-stretching... Critchley is a generous enthusiast, as unpretentious as he is distinguished....For all his readability, he is a serious academic. You have to pay careful attention. But it pays off: this book is a real intellectual adventure * Financial Times * Philosopher Simon Critchley's painstaking attempt to explore transcendent experience provides a fascinating overview of Christianity's great outliers -- 'Book of the Day' * Guardian * A joyous book ... [an] engaging study of mysticism [that's] well worth reading * Scotsman * Ambitious * Washington Post * [A] playful and profound new study of mysticism ... A lucid, genial guide -- Brian Dillon * 4Columns * Interesting and intelligent ... Witty and fresh ... A significant and courageous invitation to think again about the kinds of thinking that matter; the kinds of thinking that keep us awake -- Rowan Williams * New Statesman * Highly original and enjoyable ... Critchley is determined to strip himself of both scepticism and irony in order to plainly ask how we can all increase our daily ""capacity for belief and for joy."" * BookForum * Critchley, who respects mystics not just as visionaries but as excellent writers, argues that they can show us sad moderns how to pass out of yourself and into some wider unity * UnHerd * What [On Mysticism] does more than anything is to turn us back to the original writing and images and our own thinking. Simon Critchley should be thanked for that. He is a writer but the best kind of teacher too * Bookmunch * Exceptional and riveting to read ... On Mysticism takes seriously a subject most secular philosophers have dismissed out of hand * buzz * Critchley's inquiry spans centuries and sensibilities; it is ancient and fiercely contemporary; it is practical and existential; it is high and low ... He questions and reiterates, plumbing deeper into the great beating heart of the world ... Critchley's offer to the reader is simple: Wouldn't you like to feel the transfigurative power of self-annihilation? The rapturous ecstasy of love? Wouldn't you like to glimpse the ravishing far-near * Chicago Review of Books *

Author Information

Simon Critchley has written over twenty books, including studies of Greek tragedy, David Bowie, football, suicide, Shakespeare, how philosophers die, and a novella. He is the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York and a Director of the Onassis Foundation. As co-editor of The Stone at The New York Times, Critchley showed that philosophy plays a vital role in the public realm.

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