Sociocultural and anthropological contexts in definitions of mystical experience

The article is dedicated to the study of approaches to the definition of the epistemological meaning of mystical experience. A researcher cannot confidently assert that a mystical experience took place if they do not know whether a mystical experience is the result of interaction with some transcendent reality. Since neither empirical nor logical verification of statements conveying mystical experience is possible, the only means of verification is the “background knowledge” of tradition that legitimized the individual experience of the mystical. The definition of the determinants of this knowledge is the subject of many years of discussions between essentialists and constructivists. The former speak about the essential constants of mystical experience, which in different traditions are transmitted by different symbols, but are an expression of the same thing - superreality. The latter, arguing that the content of discourse about mystical experience cannot be studied separately from the religious and cultural tradition, as well as from language, deny the single essence of mystical experience. Based on the analysis of the arguments of essentialists and constructivists, the article proposes to consider anthropological (associated with transformations of personality or consciousness) and sociocultural contexts as forming the content of mystical experience. At the same time, mystical experience is presented as the result of a specific activity - aimed at something that is considered a supernatural (transcendent) reality by the subject of experience and the tradition in which this subject is included. The researcher notices changes in the activity of an individual who states about own experiences of the transcendent reality, and has a reason to speak about the acquisition of a specific experience by the individual. Leaving out of the field of research judgments about the supernatural source of mystical experience and other similar statements as subjective explanations of mystical experience on the part of its bearers, the researcher can consider mystical experience as an anthropological phenomenon, i.e., the result of a specific human activity. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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