Cupitt, Don. _Mysticism After Modernity_ (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers,
1998). 160 pp.

Reviewed by Carl McColman, mccolman@anamchara.com, author of
_Spirituality: Where Body and Soul Encounter the Sacred_

Don Cupitt presents a lucid and stimulating argument for ways to
understand mysticism in the postmodern world. He suggests that the
modernist understanding of mysticism (in vogue from approximately 1790
to 1970) was based on a fundamental error: the idea that a mystic was a
person who had “mystical experiences,” a sort of ineffable event which
confirmed the truth of religious orthodoxy. Such ineffable experiences
are based on an assumption that “experience” can exist prior to
language, and furthermore that it is possible to have an experience
which language cannot describe. But, as Cupitt points out, this
privileging of experience over language has been rendered obsolete in
the postmodern world, a world which recognizes that no experience exists
apart from language and that ineffability is a self-contradictory
notion. In Cupitt’s words, “there is no meaningfulness and no cognition
prior to language” (p. 11).

Instead of the mystic as experiential defender of the faith, Cupitt
considers how mystics in premodern times were, in essence,
proto-deconstructionists--using the language of mystical literature to
deconstruct the ability of the religious bureaucracy to regulate the
spiritual lives of individuals. Now, in our postmodern age, we can read
the mystics as writers whose texts attack the religious
establishment--only today, we see in the mystics a profound celebration
of the “secondariness” of all things. In other words, mystical
literature allows us to consider that joy and ecstasy are possible
without resorting to ecclesial authority or any “primary” object;
rather, even in a world where everything is relative and free-floating
and fluid--in other words, where everything is “secondary”--is such
rapture possible.

Cupitt demonstrates the modern construction of mysticism by exploring
the modernist assumptions behind the words “experience,” “religious
experience,” “mysticism” and “spirituality.” “Experience” is essentially
a passive apprehension of things, arising out of the modernist
assumption that knowledge and truth is “out there” and can be
subjectively known through uninterpreted perception. “Religious
experience,” following William James, implies a specific type of
experience in which each individual soul has access to
supernaturally-inspired altered states—a notion which collapsed along
with the assumption that the supernatural exists prior to language.
Cupitt defines “mysticism” as “a tradition of devotional writing which
commonly uses the vocabulary of Plato and the neoplatonists, and is
rather consciously paradoxical.” (p. 25). He points out that, prior to
the mid-nineteenth century, “mysticism” is a term of disparagement, and
only in the psychoanalytical environment of late modernity does
mysticism take on a more fashionable identity as subjective religious
experience. “Spirituality” in the modern era has been used essentially
as a synonym for “piety,” although with the arrival of postmodernity it
is taking on more of a cultural, aesthetic dimension--less something we
do so much as something we display, a lifestyle we choose--whether it be
“charismatic” or “contemplative” or “New Age.”

Cupitt considers the theories of mysticism in modernity, showing how the
modern idea of mysticism regards it as a universal, prelinguistic
experience which can serve to validate all religious and ethical
knowledge in the same way that empirical experience validates scientific
knowledge. But in order for this view of mysticism to work, it must rely
on theological realism, semi-realism, or naturalism--in other words, it
must rely on the idea that God is “out there” coming to the mystic in
his or her cultural language or symbols, or on the idea that nature (and
especially sexuality) are adequate tools for describing the encounter
with the Divine. But, Cupitt argues, all this amounts to a “wild goose
chase,” a “distraction” in which mysticism does nothing to advance the
cause of theological realism--and yet, if mysticism relies on realism or
naturalism, then mysticism itself has been undermined in the postmodern
world just as realism and naturalism have been undermined.

As an alternative, Cupit considers the idea that, at least in Europe,
most Christian mystics wrote in reaction to the consolidation of
dogmatic theology and absolute papal authority that was epitomized by
Urban VIII’s Bull _Unum Sanctum_ in 1302: “We declare, state, define,
and pronounce that it is altogether necessary to salvation for every
human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff.” Cupitt argues that
“the mystic is a religious anarchist and utopian, who speaks for an
ancient tradition of protest against religious alienation.” (p. 56).
Furthermore, since the idea that pure thought precedes language is no
longer tenable (consider, for example, how a deaf child needs to learn
sign language in order to exhibit normal intellectual development), the
idea that “mystical experience” exists somehow beyond language is
equally invalid. Thus, Cupitt argues that mysticism is not a matter of
experience put imperfectly into words, but is rather in itself simply a
kind of writing--a writing intended to produce religious happiness, not
by appealing to some supralingual experience, but simply in itself.

How does mystical writing produce religious happiness? Using John of the
Cross’ “Cancion de la subida del Monte Carmelo” as an example, Cupitt
shows how the mystic declared the possibility of transformation and
union in divine love, but hidden under the imagery of human illicit
eroticism. Why illicit eroticism? Because within John’s world--the world
of Catholic objective reality--divine union is a deferred pleasure,
attainable only through compliance with the dictates of the church. John
subverts that world-view by suggesting (but never directly saying) that
religious happiness is available directly, bypassing the officially
approved channels of religious obedience.

Cupitt argues that mystical writing is essentially political in nature.
Against the masculine, authoritarian, legalistic culture of dogmatic
theology, the theology of the mystic is erotic, feminine, poetic, and
subversive. He suggests that one reason why so few mystical writers have
emerged in the twentieth century is because, with the declining power of
the church as a force for regulating and controlling the lives of
individuals, there is a declining need for the “alternative” viewpoint
of the mystic. But examples exist, from George Fox in the seventeenth
century to Thomas Merton in the twentieth, of mystics who clearly
articulate a political dimension in their writings. And so the future of
mysticism may involve the tools of this literary tradition being used
not to subvert dogmatic theology, but to subvert other forms of social
control, such as capitalism. He considers the paradoxical and playful
mysticism of Eckhart to explore the idea that mysticism was the
forerunner of deconstruction and radical theology. He goes on to say
that “mystical writing always attempts to deconstruct those orthodox
doctrines (about God and the soul, etc.) that stand in the way of
religious happiness; and mystical writing also seeks to find ways of
bypassing the officially controlled channels of salvation.” (p. 109)

But how do mystics articulate this subversive, deconstructive religious
happiness? Cupitt thinks the greatest mystical achievement lies in what
he calls the “meltdown,” where both God and the self are both united (in
an erotic fashion) and dissolved into the other. This, of course, goes
beyond the pale of orthodoxy, so the greatest mystics are the ones with
the greatest command of language--like Eckhart or John of the
Cross--able to couch subversive notions in carefully-crafted writing
that appears, at least on the surface, to fall within the bounds of
dogmatic acceptability.
In the end, mysticism leads to secondariness--to a world without the
authority of the church or the authority of the state, without a reified
God who exists as some sort of timeless supercop who will judge us when
we die. Without all these fixed absolutes, all things are in flux, all
things flow, everything comes and goes. Happiness arises out of
recognition that we do not have to rely on an external authority to make
us “good,” nor do we need to defer life or wellbeing to some distant
point after we die.

Cupitt sees two competing forms of postmodernity: “right postmodernism,”
or attempts to reclaim the modern or even the premodern world
(exemplified by religious fundamentalism), and “left postmodernism,”
which delights in the flux and impermanence and secondariness of all
things. Cupitt bluntly states his support for the left, and argues that
mysticism after modernity rejoices in the flux and the flow and the lack
of any fixed absolute, be it God or whatever.

While the argument of this short book may feel threatening (or at the
least, absurd) to anyone whose thought is grounded in the modernist
notion of mysticism-as-supralingual experience, _Mysticism After
Modernity_ should prove invaluable to those concerned about the
relevance and ongoing survival of the mystical tradition in the
post-Derrida world we now inhabit.


Blackwell Publishers, UK