Doświadczyć prawdziwej rzeczywistości. Prolegomena do filozofii mistyki. T. 2: Człowiek wobec doświadczenia mistycznego

Authors:

• Krzysztof Stachewicz

Abstract

Mystical experience is a total experience in both the existential and cognitive aspects, at least the mystics themselves think so. All the more, it requires clarification and explication, also - and perhaps above all - from the point of view of philosophy. It turns out, however, that mysticism and philosophy are connected more than generally both would like to admit. The philosophy of mysticism includes broad and promising spaces for exploratory research. The presented book is an attempt to synthetically review the issues and propose paths that the philosophy of mysticism can successfully follow. Putting man in mystical experience in the face of final reality is a kind of confrontation. My intentions, plans realizations, existence projects, ideas of the shape of my own life, axiological choices and preferences have to be revised in the face of what is final. Who am I? Is my self the deepest level of my existence? Am I a multitude of elements and intentions or a unity ontologically part of the whole? What is love? Freedom? Death? These are radical questions, which have the power to transform people towards creative development, but also towards destruction. The sphere of experience goes without arguments, gives directness, hence it has great creative potential in the field of transformation of human life, definitely greater than theoretical conclusiveness, poorly transmitted into the praxis of life. Experiences, premonitions, sacred or aesthetic experiences are irreplaceable in shaping attitudes and in ideological decisions. Mystical experiences reveal the spiritual dimension of the human being, a dimension that clearly differs from the psychic, as expressed by the ancient tradition in the terms psyche and pneuma. This is an important contribution to philosophical anthropology, regardless of how it will ultimately explain and locate this spiritual dimension in man. Mystical experiences remain in a fairly strong connection with the broadly understood personality crises of man, on the one hand being their catalyst, and on the other something that helps to get out of them, transform disintegration into a positive process. In general, it should be emphasized that mystical experience is not only the experience of touching the true reality, but also the essence of myself, the real „I”. After all, in such situations destruction of masks, curtains, social roles, illusions, life automatisms, habits occurs - a man faces his „naked” being. The analysis of mystical experiences occurring in non-confessional fields, their constitution between metaphysics and aesthetics, and existential aspects are the main subject of the analyzes presented in this volume. In the last chapter, somewhat closing both volumes of the book, fundamental issues related to the philosophical approach to mysticism are raised. Here, an understanding of the basic conceptual categories of mystic philosophy was proposed and the problem of the relationship of claims of mystical experience to the ultimate goal of philosophy, which is the discovery of truth, was posed.