CRITCHLEY CAN’T HELP BUT ASK: Does writing a book on “the weirdest and most dubious dimension of religious life” mean that he, an avowed atheist, is “deliberately contradicting” himself? Maybe, but again, contradictions are welcome here, as is doubt—a crucial step on any mystical journey. When Julian of Norwich received a rapid succession of vivid visions in 1373, her first reaction was to doubt herself, like most people would. Was she insane? She spent the rest of her life interpreting the images, and in her examination she moved from doubt to belief to divine love.
There’s no need for debates about “intellectual belief in the existence of God as some kind of metaphysical postulate which can be affirmed or disputed” in order to truly engage with mysticism. But obviously God is not irrelevant. It is “not just a question” of God’s existence—but it’s not not. It seems to me that belief in an actually existing God is only necessary to take mysticism seriously if you understand the divine in that very particular way—as opposed to believing in a more expansive interpretation that might include the feeling of earthly love, immersion in nature, dancing all night, doing drugs, or, like Critchley, having a sacred experience with art.
When considering my divine, I return to the most deceptively simple of Julian’s visions, in which she holds a mysterious thing “no bigger than a hazelnut” in the palm of her hand and recognizes in its littleness the eternity and enormity of God’s love. Or I return to the image Critchley invokes from a passage by Annie Dillard in Holy the Firm: “the corner where eternity clips time.” Mysticism for today, as ever, requires attention to the infinite universe outside of us and the quantum universe within us, the fundamental and wondrous unknowability of life, matter, and—most of all—the self.
Critchley is wading through the muck of the impossible questions of existence, and does not pretend to find a clear philosophical path out. There is, he declares, “a certain savagery in [his] approach.” If so, I find it akin to the savagery of the enthusiastic fan, which especially shines in the final chapters where he nerds out about post-punk music—he thinks music is the best art form for losing oneself. Critchley’s Mysticism “will make no sense to the skeptical or the plain-minded. But this book is not for them.” As with most mystical writing, whether you buy it is up to you. Either the writer is an obnoxious hack who can’t or won’t articulate what they’re saying, or someone with bombastic knowledge earnestly trying to articulate it by any means necessary. “One either feels mystical speech is saying something utterly important that cannot be said any other way, or one does not. There is no middle ground.” Either you like the winding, backtracking, switch-backing, self-contradicting, self-searching style, or you don’t. Either you believe they want to hide or you believe they want to share. Do I believe that Critchley wants to share? Absolutely. {read}