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Experience: Religious, Mystical, Human?
The eminent theologianKarl Rahner has saidthat the Christianof the future will be either a mystic (whichmeans,
someone whohas experiencedsomething), or he/she wont be a Christianat all. Rahners prophecy is accurate, not
onlyconcerningChristians but alsofor anyone whoexperiences transcendence inthese times. Inthe same way that
modernity does not accept anythingthat is unveriedby rationality, the post-modernity inwhichwe live considers
experience a privileged way of knowledge. Despite the risk of disillusionment that is inherent in experiences re-
mainingsupercial or inducedbyarticial means, it seems perfectlyclear todaythat people are nolonger accepting
ideologies, theories or doctrines that arenot rootedinexperience.
Inthe newreligious consciousness present inour post-modernage, experience is at the center, and this is a princi-
pal, perhaps even a fundamental, issue for todays theology to address. The sensibility of men and women of our
times searches for a contact withmystery throughdirect experience; it is thirsting to touchUltimate Reality andto
be incontact withit, evenif not throughthe most traditional andinstitutionalizedmeans. Inthe act of seeking and
nding, our contemporaries showa tendency to turn inward, toward the inner self. What we call God or Ultimate
Reality is not felt as something external and objective, but, onthe contrary, as something that canonly be found in
inner experience. Whenthis happens, the external elements that surroundthe experience are necessarily put ina
secondaryandrelativeposition.
Institutions, dogmatic formulas, ritual systems wont comprehendtheir signicance at its profoundest depthunless
they are experienced inthe inwardness of the self. This newconsciousness is more thanjust one perspective among
others; instead, it is actuallyrevealingitself as anewparadigm. Furthermore, it demands fromWesternChristianitya
widervisionthantheecclesiastical vision, specically, avisionof thede-institutionalizationof Christianity.
The traditional ecclesiastical structure is currently undergoing a serious crisis. Evenso, the thirst for God, for tran-
scendence, for the supernatural, for spirituality is very much alive, expressing itself in varied and concrete ways.
This searchfor Godandspiritual experience canleadsome of our contemporaries toreconnect withtrue life, a life
full of joyandmeaning, evenif this must happenthroughalternativemeans.
Still, it is important tomake some distinctions betweenterms whenwe speakof experience, andspecically of reli-
gious experience. We live in a culture of sensations, which affects our inner space. The sensations offered to us are
usually so intense, rened and persistent that they cannot enter us without being consciously apprehended, re-
ected upon, digested and assumed. This implies a risk: the risk of living permanently subject to the ux of sensa-
tions that reachour moresupercial senses, skinandsensitivity.
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This type of sensate experience brings withit the extreme difculty of looking reality straight inthe eye andtaking
on the challenges that it poses, which are tough and very often frustrating. It also can generate within us a vicious
andcompulsive behavior, stimulatingreactions andmanipulatingour capacityfor attention. Continual supercial
andimmediatelygratifyingsensations leadus toloselimits andengender adangerous volatilityinrelationships and
decisionmaking.
As it has been said many times by Zygmunt Bauman, who is justly called the prophet of post-modernity, our lives
are becoming liquid, owing non-stop in the cascade of sensations that invade it and stun it. This is true even
about the very experiences of transcendence that are often called mystical. It isnt true, however, that all experi-
ence identied as religious can be called a mystic experience. The supernatural elements existing in all men and
women render themcapable of an experience of the sacred, understood in the terms of Rudolf Ottos famous text,
The Ideaof theHoly, as terrifying(tremendum) andfascinating(fascinans), asource of bothwonderment andfear. It
is anexperienceinwhichthehumanbeingfeels takenover byamysterythat is not reducible, acategorythat is origi-
nal inall its manifestations.
Amystical experience, or anexperienceof God, is not onlyanexistential experienceof thesacred, but alsoanexperi-
ence of meaning. It is through such experience that we understand the radical meaning that gives structure to
humanlife. If we accept that denition, andif we alsoaccept the denitionof the humanbeing as a relational being
whocanonly be understoodfromthe perspective of the relational openess, the meaning of humanlife canonly be
givenandexperiencedthroughconnectionwithothers. Inother words, humanbeings canonlyfeel as such human-
throughtherevelationof anOther that invites us totheadventureof mutual knowingandof love. Interms of there-
ligious experience, this can be an experience of fusion, or feeling dissolved in the Absolute. The mystical experi-
ence, according towhat we have here described, is always anexperience of relation, of anexchange withOtherness,
withthedifferenceof theOther.
This relational status, whichis validfor truly humanexperience, is especially sowhenwe speakof mysticism. Inthe
mystical event, which happens between a human and the divine, it is not just the ego that is in action, but also the
Other, who according to his own Otherness, moves the ego to an unprecedented journey, with no previously
plannedor thought-out ways. Without apre-plannedroute, thejourneybegins andcontinues without anysecurity
other thanthe progressive discoveryof someone that is not I, but that is Other, asubject whose difference over-
whelms meas anepiphany.
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Whenwe speakof mysticism, this relationwiththe Others difference takes onvarious perspectives. We are inserted
into the process and the movement of a companion of absolute dimensions, with whomthe human being cannot
evendreamof establishingasymmetrical relationship, or bemovedbyimmediateneeds. Godis not anobject of ne-
cessity, but of desire. Godis the totally Other whose mysterious prole is foundmore deeply etchedinthe extreme
situations of humanexistenceandwhoradicallytransforms thelifeof theoneinvolvedinthat experience.
M.v.Ci.v.Bixcvxvv
Department of Theology
Pontical Catholic Universityof Riode Janeiro
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