Mysticism Sacred and Profane

by R.C. Zaehner

Book Overview

An Inquiry into some Varieties of Praeternatural Experience. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195002296
• ISBN13: 9780195002294
• Release Date: January 1961
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.

Customer Reviews

An Inquiry into some Varieties of Praeternatural Experience

In this book, first published in 1957, Professor Zaehner analyzes various typesof praeternatural experiences, ranging from the sensations produced by drugs as mescalin to the mystical states described by the Christian and Muslim mystics and the various schools of mystical thought in India. "Utilizing sacred texts, together with the psychology of Jung, the poetry of Rimbaud, the manic states of at least one of his friends, and an experience of his own with mescaline, (Zaehner) distinguishes sharply between monistic mysticism on the one hand and theistic mysticism on the other" -- Saturday Review "The distinctions which Professor Zaehner draws are valid and valuble...his learning in so many feilds, both Eastern and Western, enriches arguement." -- Times Literary Supplement Mr. Zaehner was Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at the University of Oxford and Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. Table of Contents 1. Mescaline 2. Mescaline Interpreted 3. Some Nature Mystics 4. God or Nature? (Proust and Rimbaud) 5. Madness 6. Intergration and Isolation 7. Some Hindu Approaches 8. Monism vs. Theism 9. Theism vs. Monism 10. Conclusion Appendix A. Some Recent(as of 1957) Mescaline Experiements Appendix B. The Author's Experience with Mescaline Appendix C. Transliterated Passages