Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to define a hermeneutical approach to mystical discourse which utilizes and extends existing methods for the interpretation of mystical texts. Drawing on the many disciplines that have been developed within the humanities, this study carefully defines the common context and content of mystical discourse that makes possible a fresh employment of contemporary hermeneutical disciplines to its many genre, while not focusing on one particular genre or text of mystical discourse or limiting the discussion to a single sacred tradition. Chapter one is an overview of the relationship between hermeneutics as it has been shaped by the human sciences and an understanding of religious discourse and texts as these have been conveyed within religious communities. Chapter two examines mystical literature as a unique form of discourse included within the broader study of five forms of religious literature. Chapter three approaches mystical discourse as the literary embodiment of mystical experience and details the particular attributes and multiple genres through which it is represented. In chapter four a multi-dimensional model is constructed and used heuristically to examine the current state of hermeneutics as a basis for subsequent investigations. Chapter five applies the same heuristic model to representations of the trans-rational and trans-temporal modes of being claimed by mystics for mystical experience. Chapter six constructs a hermeneutic of mystical discourse with particular emphasis upon four critical considerations: First, the issue of participation in mystical "scala" as the personal narrative of spiritual journey, second, the hermeneutics of praxis as a theory of tacit knowledge, third, the hierarchies of developmental structuralism as a conceptual tool and hermeneutical instrument, and fourth, the archetypal structures of sacred tradition as symbolic of the synchronous pattern of human being. Finally, chapter seven concludes the study with an exemplum utilizing these methods in the interpretation of a fable from the Mathnawi, the primary mystical text of the thirteenth century Persian mystic, Jelaluddin Rumi. The purpose is to give a concise example of the application of the hermeneutical model based upon the heuristic model developed throughout this inquiry