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Introduction
During the period 1994-6 I
wanted to research and write on mysticism, exploring the possibilities
of doing this via a PhD, though eventually settling on an MA
in Mysticism and Religious Experience at Canterbury. I had already
started the research for a book called Krishna,
Whitman, Nietzche, Sartre, which I had subtitled Essays
in Applied Mysticism, and I completed it half-way through
this period.
The concept of applied mysticism came from a conviction
that mysticism had been formally studied since the end of the
19th century, and that as a discipline it had matured to the
point where it could apply its findings to areas outside its
immediate remit. Applying the methods and insights of studies
in mysticism to Nietzsche or Plato, to give just two examples,
opens up new ways of thinking about them. |
