Bringing us back to what we already know
“(the mystics’) strategies interrupt the spontaneous, unselfconscious flow of our ongoing ‘mental’ activity forcing us to re-evaluate our place in the world and our attitude to it. They will use language in unusual and provocative ways and, by means of carefully selected images and metaphors, suggest new ways of seeing and acting. By sometimes shocking and surprising us, these authors will bring us back to what we knew already but were unable to express in words. Through it we shall return to where we began and see something for the first time.”
Peter Tyler, The Return to the Mystical (links to Amazon)
I’ll have more to say about this book in future posts, but for now this quote helps to capture the essence of answer to the question “why mysticism?”
Also, interestingly, Tyler uses the same header for one section in his introduction as I use in my book Christianity 2020: “Why Wittgenstein?” In my opinion, it’s critical for anyone who is of a logical frame of mind to read Wittgenstein’s work to understand the logical necessity of mysticism.