The mythopoetic experience of reality
Ilia P. Shiryakov
Izvestiya of Saratov University. Philosophy. Psychology. Pedagogy September 22, 2026 DOI: 10.18500/1819-7671-2026-26-3-287-292 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that mythopoetic experience presents reality as an undivided onto-social unity, distinct from transcendent mystical experience and from the esoteric's dual transcendent-immanent variations. Proposes that this immanent experience can nonetheless involve dissolution of the self through stages of diminishment when encountering the Other, comparable to the diminishment felt before the totality of the divine, nature, or nation described by Fichte. |
Abstract
Introduction. The article examines the mythopoetic experience of feeling reality, posing the question of what reality is within the mythopoetic worldview, and comparing it to mystical and other types of experience in answering the question of the reality. Theoretical analysis. Key properties of the mythopoetic worldview, and of reality as an indistinguishable bundle of the ontological, social, and divine are described. The following definitions are given: the definition of the mystical as the experience of transcendent reality, and of the esoteric as having both transcendent and immanent variations, in view of its proximity to mythopoetics. An explanation of inexpressibility of mystical experience as nonconceptual, devoid of ‘subject-object’ relations is provided and it is compared to the experience of human diminishment before the ‘totality’ of the divine, nature or even one’s own nation (according to G. Fichte). Conclusion. Starting from mythopoetic experience that shows us a certain onto-social unity, an undivided reality, comparing it with the experience of transcendental mysticism and the double esoteric “message from an intermediary”, we return to mythopoetic experience as an experience of immanent reality, but capable also of experiencing the dissolution of a man in this reality, while going through different stages of diminution of the self when meeting with the Other.