Abstract
Interest in mysticism is present in the writings of the Phenomenological School of Philosophy, which was founded by Edmund Husserl. Edith Stein and Gerda Walther, for example, are phenomenologists who investigate mysticism. The former is better known for this kind of investigation, but it should be remarked that the only book dedicated to the topic was written by the latter. Walther connects mysticism with telepathy, but she also distinguishes the objects of the two experiences. In mysticism Walther claims that the object of investigation is the exceptional and direct encounter with God. To describe this encounter, Walther, like Stein, examines the human being, ultimately comparing it to a lamp. Through this image, Walther allows us to grasp what it is like to experience the live presence of God that invades our being. This type of mystical experience can be found in all religions, thereby demonstrating that it is a real possibility given by God to human beings.
Translated by Antonio Calcagno.
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Notes
- 1.
Gerda Walther, Phänomenologie der Mystik (Olten: Walter Verlag, 1955).
- 2.
I treat the connection of phenomenology to psychology in my book: Angela Ales Bello, Il senso dell’umano: Fenomenologia, Psicologia, Psicopatologia (Rome: Castelvecchi, 2016).
- 3.
Heraclitus Fragment, as cited by Husserl in his Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, trans. by David Carr (Evanston, IL; Northwestern University Press), Sect. 49.
- 4.
Angela Ales Bello, Fenomenologia dell’essere umano: Lineamenti di una filosofia al femminile [The Phenomenology of the Human Person: An Outline for a Philosophy by Woman] (Rome: Città Nuova, 1992).
- 5.
See the work of the group of Italian feminist philosophers at the University of Verona called Diotima as well as the work of University of Rome philosopher Francesca Brezzi.
- 6.
I have often returned to this argument and I have synthesized these tendencies in my latest book: Angela Ales Bello, Tutto colpa di Eva. Antropologia e religione dal femminismo alla gender theory [It’s All Eve’s Fault: Anthropology and Feminism from Feminism to Gender Theory] (Roma: Castelvecchi, 2017).
- 7.
I treat this theme in one of my first books, Fenomenologia dell’essere umano. Lineamenti di una filosofia al femminile (Rome: Città Nuova, 1992).
- 8.
Edmund Husserl, “Entwurf eines Briefes als Antwort gedacht an Frl. Walther” [“Thought Sketch for a Response Letter to Miss Walther”] (Ms. trans. A.V.21, p. 7.).
- 9.
See Angela Ales Bello, The Sense of Things: Toward a Phenomenological Realism, trans. by Antonio Calcagno (Analecta Husserliana No. 118) (Dordrecht: Springer, 2015), Sect. 5.2.1.
- 10.
Angela Ales Bello, The Divine in Husserl and Other Explorations, trans. by Antonio Calcagno (Analecta Husserliana No. 98) (Dordrecht: Springer, 2009).
- 11.
Gerda Walther, Phänomenologie der Mystik, 24–25.
- 12.
See Sect. 39 of Edmund Husserl’s Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and a Phenomenological Philosophy, Vol. 2, trans. by R. Rojcewicz (Dordrecht: Springer, 1990).
- 13.
Edith Stein, Der Aufbau der menschlichen Person. Vorlesungen zur philosophischen Anthropologie, newly ed. by B. Beckmann-Zöller (Edith Stein Gesamtausgabe Vol. 14) (Freiburg: Herder, 2004), 116.
- 14.
Edith Stein, Der Aufbau der menschlichen Person, 116.
- 15.
Angela Ales Bello, Hyle, Body, Life: Phenomenological Archaeology of the Sacred (Analecta Husserliana No. 57) (Dordrecht: Springer, 1998), 63–74.
- 16.
Angela Ales Bello, Hyle, Body, Life: Phenomenological Archaeology of the Sacred, 63–74.
- 17.
Angela Ales Bello, Hyle, Body, Life: Phenomenological Archaeology of the Sacred, 206.
- 18.
Edith Stein, The Science of the Cross, trans. by Josephine Koeppel, OCD (The Collected Works of Edith Stein No. 6) (Washington, DC: ICS Publications), 187.
- 19.
Edith Stein, The Science of the Cross, 188.
- 20.
Edith Stein, The Science of the Cross, 195.
- 21.
Edith Stein, The Science of the Cross, 197.
- 22.
Gerda Walther, Phänomenologie der Mystik, Chaps. 8–10.
- 23.
Gerda Walther, Phänomenologie der Mystik, Chap. 2.
- 24.
For a more detailed description of the oil lamp metaphor see my Fenomenologia dell’essere umano. Lineamenti di una filosofia al femminile as well as my book with Marina Pia Pellegrino, Edith Stein–Gerda Walther, Incontri possibili. Empatia, Telepatia, Comunità, Mistica, ed. by Angela Ales Bello and Marina Pia Pellegrino (Rome: Castelvecchi, 2014). See also Marina Pia Pellegrino’s chapter in this book (Chap. 3).
- 25.
Gerda Walther, Phänomenologie der Mystik, Chap. 12.
- 26.
Gerda Walther, Phänomenologie der Mystik, Chap. 4.
- 27.
Gerda Walther, Phänomenologie der Mystik, Chap. 12.
- 28.
Gerda Walther, Phänomenologie der Mystik, 139.
- 29.
Gerda Walther, Phänomenologie der Mystik, 138.
- 30.
Gerda Walther, Phänomenologie der Mystik, 143.
- 31.
Gerda Walther, Phänomenologie der Mystik, 183–184.
- 32.
Gerda Walther, Phänomenologie der Mystik, 262.
- 33.
Edith Stein, Finite and Eternal Being, trans. by Kurt Reinhardt (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 2002).
- 34.
Gerda Walther, Phänomenologie der Mystik, 272.
- 35.
Gerda Walther, Phänomenologie der Mystik, 277.
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Ales Bello, A. (2018). The Sense of Mystical Experience According to Gerda Walther. In: Calcagno, A. (eds) Gerda Walther’s Phenomenology of Sociality, Psychology, and Religion. Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97592-4_10
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