What is a mystic, what is mysticism, what is the mystical?

Many of us have sense that there is something mystical, or at least mysterious, underpinning things, some countercultural force that defies explanation but survives even in our 24/7 social-media drenched, junked up internet world of money, career and self promotion.

Philosophy, along much modern science and many formal religions, poo-poos the mystical - relegating it to the woo-woo, of interest only to the less sophisticated, the superstitious - or the deluded.

Yet our guest Simon Critchely is a Professor of Philosophy. He came to the Bureau to suggest that modern philosophy has got it wrong, that mystical experiences offer a practical way to deepen the sense of our lives, whether through mainstream spiritual connection, by taking part in mind-altering experiences  - or just by opening to the mystical in ordinary life.   We hear about some of the extraordinary mystics of the past, talk about how the arts can point to the mystic, and digress into ecstasy,  sex, drugs and rock and roll, Jesus’s foreskin, William Blake, the covid pandemic, Nick Cave and Wim Wenders,

More on Simon and the book On Mysticism, the Experience of Ecstasy     #counterculture #mysticism #nickcave #philosophy #mysticalexperience #relics #saints #heretics #consciousness #truth #madness