Phenomenology and Mysticism

<p>Exploring the first-person narratives of three figures from the Christian Jewish and Islamic mystical traditions--St. Teresa of Avila Rabbi Dov Baer and Rūzbihān Baqlī--Anthony J. Steinbock provides a complete phenomenology of mysticism based in the Abrahamic religious traditions. He relates a broad range of religious experiences or verticality to philosophical problems of evidence selfhood and otherness. From this philosophical description of vertical experience Steinbock develops a social and cultural critique in terms of idolatry--as pride secularism and fundamentalism--and suggests that contemporary understandings of human experience must come from a fuller more open view of religious experience.</p>