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Title: Mystical Texts as Disclosures of Mystagogical Worlds - Hermeneutics and the Question of Religious Language
Author(s): OFILADA MINA, M.
Journal: Studies in Spirituality
Volume: 14    Date: 2004   
Pages: 335-354
DOI: 10.2143/SIS.14.0.505201

Abstract :
This introductory and exploratory article, which combines philosophy and literature in the study of a source for spirituality (the mystical texts) intends to establish the hermeneutics of mystical texts as a model for hermeneutics in general. At the same time, it highlights the importance of the notion of religious traditions, appropriation, reading, etc. centering itself on the notion of experience as mediation. This would lead us to a better understanding of mystagogy, and mystagogical language, as the culmination of the mystical experience especially in the presence of the spiritual or mystical texts and the worlds that these disclose. The elaboration of the principles of such a type of hermeneutics goes beyond the limits of this essay. However, it has succeded in emphasizing the paradigmatic nature of the hermeneutics of mystical texts. Consequently these same texts are accepted as a source for spirituality in its pretensions to be a part of the academy.

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