The New Mysticism

The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear, is a dead man. – Albert Einstein

For millennia, mystics’ explorations of reality were considered a religious quest. This changed during the Victorian era, when researchers began redefining mystical experiences as psychological phenomena.

No longer strictly religious, mystical experiences came to be seen as grounded in anomalous perceptions, involving experiences or events that provide a breakthrough from our everyday view of reality to another more insightful level.

Keith Hill proposes that anomalous experiences lie at the heart of the new mysticism. In this illuminating study, he examines the historical and cultural developments that have contributed to a radical shift in mystical practice. He also weighs what is required for the fostering of what Einstein called “mystical wonderment” to be sustained.

Keith Hill is a New Zealand writer whose work explores the boundaries between mysticism, history, science, religion and psychology. He is a three-time winner of the Ahston Wylie Award, New Zealand's premiere prize for spiritual writing.