Lacan and meditation: From the symbolic to the postsymbolic?

Abstract

Language is at the core of Lacanian theory. It is the advent of language and the ‘law of the father’ which leads from the presymbolic full jouissance to the subject’s partial jouissance – a state which always entails division, permanent lack and alienation. I argue that Lacanians should take more seriously into account a type of religious or secular spirituality which aims, via meditative techniques, at bracketing or suspending language and thinking for short or long periods of time. When this is achieved alienation and permanent lack seem to subside. In such cases should we speak of a postsymbolic spiritual jouissance? Questions about meditation and the symbolic are crucial given that, due to widespread individualisation, meditative practices are expanding rapidly in late modernity.