The Human Being in Exposure to Mystery: Phenomenological Foundations of a Mystical Anthropology

Mystical experience is not an exceptional event but the clearest expression of the human condition, according to a philosophical dialogue between contemporary Spanish thinkers and the sixteenth-century Castilian mystical tradition. Drawing on Juan Martín Velasco, Miguel García-Baró, and Teresa of Ávila, the article argues that human beings are fundamentally subjects in exposure to Mystery, receiving themselves through a transcendent call to truth and goodness. The mystical and philosophical attitudes converge in their shared openness to reality and ethical orientation toward truth and the Good. This synthesis redefines the human as constituted by relation, receptivity, and responsibility, offering a renewed anthropology that addresses contemporary nihilism and spiritual disorientation.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This article develops a phenomenological foundation of mystical anthropology through a dialogue between contemporary Spanish philosophy and the sixteenth-century Castilian mystical tradition. Taking Juan Martín Velasco, Miguel García-Baró, and Teresa of Ávila as its main interlocutors, it explores the anthropological structure of the encounter with Mystery as an essential possibility of human existence. The study identifies the human being as a subject in exposure to Mystery—an existence that receives itself through a transcendent call to truth and goodness. The analysis shows that the mystical attitude converges with the philosophical one in their shared openness to the real and their ethical orientation toward truth and the Good. Both reveal that the human being is constituted by relation, receptivity, and responsibility. This synthesis redefines mystical experience not as an exceptional event, but as the most lucid manifestation of the human condition, offering a renewed anthropology capable of addressing contemporary nihilism and spiritual disorientation, understood as the loss of ultimate meaning and the weakening of desire that characterize many contemporary forms of human experience.