J. N. Findlay’s Rational Mysticism
Sanford L. Drob
Religions September 25, 2026 DOI: 10.3390/rel17101123 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Mysticism |
| Key points | Argues that Findlay held mystical insight to be rationally analyzable, and reconstructs two routes to the "mystical pole of the cosmos": a transcendental deduction of a "firmament of values" culminating in the Platonic/Plotinian One or Good, and an argument that philosophical perplexities are resolved by positing a higher world culminating in an all-embracing "absolute" equated with the divine, whose value-actualization in our world constitutes an "ascent to the absolute" and part of "the life of God." |
Abstract
The philosopher John Niemeyer Findlay (1903–1987) held that the insights of mystical experience can be philosophically analyzed and articulated in rational form. Findlay provided two routes to the “mystical pole of the cosmos.” In the first, he appealed to the related notions of impersonality and impartiality to transcendentally deduce a “firmament of values,” which coalesce into an apical point, the Platonic/Plotinian One or Good. In the second, he again appealed to impersonality/impartiality to argue that the philosophical perplexities of our earthly existence, including the antinomies of space and time, the problem of “other minds,” and the difficulties of ethics and axiology, can be resolved through the positing of a higher world, complementary to and interdependent with our own, where the distinctions between universal and particular, mind and matter, and individual minds, attenuate and eventually dissolve. This higher world culminates in a unique and all-embracing “absolute” that embodies a pure and necessary love and zeal for the highest values, which Findlay equates with the divine. Our world, with its attendant chance, destruction, and evil, is the arena within which these values are actualized, and this actualization completes an “ascent to the absolute” and is an essential component of “the life of God.”
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on mysticism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The mystical mind: probing the biology of religious experience | 2000 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Religious and Mystical Experiences as Artifacts of Temporal Lobe Function: A General Hypothesis | 1983 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Problem of Pure Consciousness: Mysticism and Philosophy | 1993 | Edited collection of essays | |
| Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century | 2020 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mysticism and schizophrenia: A phenomenological exploration of the structure of consciousness in the schizophrenia spectrum disorders. | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |