What Is Mysticism?

The religious experience model of mysticism arose in the 19th century. It was made very influential by classic books like Rudolph Otto's The Idea of the Holy and William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience. In practice, authors who talk of mysticism in the modern period usually mean some combination of one or more of these three concepts: direct contact with the divine, an esoteric tradition which teaches techniques for such contact, and a kind of religious experience.