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Christian Mysticism

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Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion

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Introduction: Mysticism as a Psychological Phenomenon and in Christian Context

Mysticism is a psychospiritual process that exists in relation to the rational, intellectual process and is a psychospiritual phenomenon, a human and divine phenomenon. It is the same process but is experienced differently by each individual person and expressed variously within each religious tradition or outside of all traditions. The intrapsychic mystical process and experience is phenomenologically the same, while psychic contents being processed and religious and social manifestations vary by cultures through time. We as persons experience the mystical process universally, but each of us experiences it in a uniquely individual way spiritually and psychologically, and the mystical right brain interacts with our intellectual left brain in our consciousness.

Carl Gustav Jung’s theory of Individuation – of spiritual development across the life cycle from ego emergence to ego transcendence toward the...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Religion, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

    Peggy Kay

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  1. Peggy Kay
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Correspondence to Peggy Kay .

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  1. Rhinebeck, New York, USA

    David A. Leeming

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Kay, P. (2016). Christian Mysticism. In: Leeming, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27771-9_9262-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27771-9_9262-5

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