^{page 293 note 1} Wainwright, William J., Mysticism: A Study of its Nature, Cognitive Value and Moral Implications (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981).Google Scholar All parenthetical references are to this work.

^{page 293 note 2} Stace, Walter T., Mysticism and Philosophy (London: Macmillan, 1960).Google Scholar

^{page 293 note 3} Bucke, Richard M., Cosmic Consciousness: A Study of the Evolution of the Human Mind (Philadelphia: Innis, 1901).Google ScholarJames, William, The Varieties of Religious Experience, a Study in Human Nature (New York: Longmans Green, 1902).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^{page 293 note 4} The term mysticism is derived from the Greek verb muŌ, meaning to close the eyes. For the Greeks, the paradigm example of to mustika, the hidden things, were the secret ritual acts celebrated at Eleusis and elsewhere. The connection between this meaning and the usage of the term in current scholarly studies of religious experience is tenuous, but clear with a little thought. See Bouyer, Louis, ‘Mysticism, an Essay on the History of the Word’, recently reprinted in Understanding Mysticism, ed. Woods, Richard (New York: Image Books, 1980), pp. 42–55.Google Scholar

^{page 294 note 1} Notably Garside, Bruce, ‘Language and the Interpretation of Mystical Experience’, International journal for Philosophy of Religion, III (1972) 93–102CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Katz, Steven, ‘Language, Epistemology and Mysticism’ in Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, ed. Katz, Steven (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 22–74.Google Scholar

^{page 295 note 1} The best example of an attempt to do this is Zaehner's, R. C.Mysticism Sacred and Profane (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1961).Google Scholar

^{page 296 note 1} Wainwright's discussion of sense experience from the viewpoint of its phenomenological and apparent object (23–5) is especially valuable. It is important to note that none of this applies in any way to monistic mystical experience, although Wainwright does not point this out.

^{page 296 note 2} There remains a substantial ambiguity in Wainwright's use of the term ‘noetic’. If he means by ‘noetic experience’ any experience which communicates to the experiencer a piece of information not previously known or available in another way, then this would appear to mean that pain-experiences also are noetic. In this sense, monistic mystical experiences are noetic – but not cognitive. But if Wainwright means by ‘noetic experience’ an experience which possesses an intentional object, then neither pain-experiences nor monistic mystical experiences are noetic.

^{page 297 note 1} This is not to say that the object of theistic mystical experience actually exists independently of the experiencer.

^{page 297 note 2} On this view theistic mystical experience and numinous experience become much more closely linked than Wainwright is willing to allow. We would rather regard theistic mystical experience and numinous experience as points on a continuum, differing only in degree, and, for reasons which should become clear, would reject Wainwright's attempt to classify them as completely different types of experience.

^{page 298 note 1} See 121–3. Wainwright argues that the ‘object’ of monistic mystical experience may be known in much the same way that the self is known through self-awareness. However, he fails to see that to accept this analogy is to give up any analogy with sense experience.

^{page 298 note 2} Where this intimate link is perceived as an identity between experiencer and material universe, it seems to us that this category shades over into the monistic category already discussed, and is subject to the same objections.

^{page 299 note 1} It will not escape notice that the threefold classification arrived at here is similar to Zaehner's. We eschew the sectarian venom which often marred Zaehner's work, but in every other way we remain indebted to him.

^{page 300 note 1} See footnote I, p. 298.