I think that when we talk of mysticism that it is useful to have an understanding of what is meant by a mystical experience. What follows I lifted from a book on the topic written by a Religious Studies professor who has also become a psychoanalyst.
"...unitive modes are analogous to colored filters that each admit only a certain color of light and register others only as a darkness and brightness. They selectively interfere with the perception of reality in fashions similar to the projection af transferences -highlighting, skewering, and repressing different aspects of reality, all at the same time."
"...'concentrative meditations' or self hypnotic techniques ...resultant experiences...cause unitive experiences to undergo riefication [a re-ideation of reality]...In place of a unitive appreciation of the perceptible world, dissociated unitive experiencing proceeds despite the perceptible world...Unavailable for reflective integration with the general reality sense, the ideas become transcendent, world denying truths...Mystical traditions [frequently] extend the reification beyond the moments of unitive experiencing into mystical theology or philosophy that derogates physical reality to lessor or greater extents. " [reification - the conversion of an abstract concept into something concrete; a viewing of the abstract as concrete.]
"Unitive modes...The Solitary Mode presents the self as a passive subject amid an affect of serenity, tranquility, peace and comfort...being timeless, boundless, and the only existent thing."
"The Self-Trancendent Mode adopts the perspective of the not self, from which to view the self as an object...Since no one [can't be]..subjective, the...objective perspective of the mode is imaginary...It is a realistic speculation regarding perspective on self of a not-self."
"The Incorporation Mode presents a self image that encompasses the whole of reality...a bodily self-image is realistic, but the incorporation of all reality within it is fantastic...[admitting and denying] the knowledge that reality consists of a great many different phenomena."
"The Inclusion Mode is realistic in its presentation of a self-image that is limited to the bodily self. It locates the bodily self within a unified cosmos...a positive, hospitable place."
"The Identification Mode presents external phenomena - people, animals, and things - as identical with the bodily self. The equation of all with other both knows and denies the otherness of others. The logical impossibility...isolates or abstracts the aspect of another self that can realistically be adopted as one's own, namely, an identity."
"The Rational Mode presents the self in relationship to external phenomena...is capable of being completely realistic."
"The Chronological Mode presents external phenomena as having unilinear temporal extensions, commencing in the past, and in some cases, extending also into the future. The idea that phenomena have temporal extensions is realistic, but the specific ideas and visual fantasies of particular experiences are typically imaginative."
"The Energic Mode presents all phenomena as manifestations of a universal energy...In its imagination of matter as energy, [it]...is inherently fantastic...However...metaphor[ically] it is potentially, completely realistic."
"The Vitality Mode presents external phenomena as infused with a transcendent but immanent vitality. In its reification of vitality, [it]...is inherently fantastic...However...metaphor[ically] it is potentially, completely realistic."
"The Loving Mode imagines self as the recipient of loves loving presence. In its reification of love [it]...is inherently fantastic...However...metaphor[ically] it is potentially, completely realistic."
"The Omniscient Mode presents as identical with an intelligent and emotional personality whose knowledge and range of concerns are universal because...[it] is universal...it is one in number."
"Due to the transcendence of the omniscient personality...[of the Omniscient Mode, it] is neither provable nor refutable. It is beyond the capacity for reality-testing to evaluate."
"The Omnipresent Mode presents external reality as the location of an omnipresent, divine, or holy power. Due to the transcendence of the omnipresent power...It is beyond the capacity for reality-testing to evaluate."
"The Mode of INeriour Kealogue involves intrapsychic affects and thoughts that seem subjectively to communicate the feelings and ideas of a personality other than ego. The..experience is subjectively recognized as an imagination. Due to the transcendence of the (alleged) personality whose feelings and ideas are communicated...[it]is neither provable nor refutable...the dialogue may be (within limits) completely realistic."
Merkur: Psychoanalytical Mystics p20-22
