title: On putting a cloud in a bottle: psychoanalytic perspectives on mysticism.
abstract: This essay addresses the psychoanalytic understanding of mystical phenomena and mystical ecstatic states. The study of mystical phenomena is a core area of interest in the ongoing dialogue between psychoanalysis and religion. Mystical phenomena and states are discussed in this essay, with particular reference to descriptions found in an anonymous medieval tract, The Cloud of Unknowing. Some common psychoanalytic views of mystical phenomena are discussed and criticized, and an effort is made to formulate an approach to the understanding of these extraordinary mental and spiritual states that is both more congruent with accounts of authentic mystics and more consistent with psychoanalytic principles.
authors.affiliation: Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3802, USA. william.meissner@bc.edu
authors.forename: W W
authors.initials: WW
authors.lastname: Meissner
mesh_terms: D003469:Culture; D006801:Humans; D009228:Mysticism; D011573:Psychoanalytic Interpretation; D012067:Religion