Metaphors as Knowledge in Mystical Writings

Abstract

Writers anchored in the Christian mystical tradition generally present their spiritual experience as loaded with cognitive content bearing on things divine. The nature of this mystical knowledge, the way they receive it, and its effect on their existence can be fruitfully approached only by elucidating the way their language and discourse make use of metaphors. Accordingly, starting with references to the early modern period, this article investigates a set of classical mystical metaphors so as to gain insight into the unique mode of metaphorical cognition, highlight the epistemological status proper to mystical experience, and distinguish the latter from other theological cognitive modes. Metaphors borrowed from daily life endow the mystical experience—of which the object is described as being beyond senses and reason—with a perceptible, comprehensible, and communicable configuration. At the same time, metaphors should not be regarded as being merely an approximate expression of an ineffable experience. Through the “gestalt” or structure of a metaphor, mystical experience locates itself and develops in spacetime, thus laying out the path of the spiritual journey. The way various metaphors naturally associate allows the expression, intensity, and self-understanding of spiritual experience to “grow” from one image to another. Thanks to the metaphorical operation, mystics are able to describe their journey and give spiritual direction, providing disciples and readers with concrete directions for reforming and renewing their lives. Furthermore, the connection that metaphor establishes between everyday routines and things divine allows for a two-way exchange of meanings: the objects or events met in daily life are “sanctified” as they become metaphors that convey spiritual understanding and allow an ever-growing number of people to “seek and find God in all things”.