An Introduction to Mysticism
Article by:
The explicable requires the inexplicable. Experience requires the inexperiencable. The obvious requires the mystical. — Buckminster Fuller, 1975
An infinite search for the ultimate meaning. Mysticism – the seeking of divine truths, of higher power, of greater understanding – is a quest to transform the human experience unbound to limitations of time and geography. Throughout history and across cultures, seekers of transcendental moments have deployed various traditions and practices in pursuit of spiritual enlightenment, intensely searching for insight that will unite the earthly experience with an order beyond the mundane. Occurring as they do in the conscience, these intense but fleeting moments are beholden as portals to an ongoing journey of understanding, rather than an end point.
That elusive crystal clear flash, where everything seems to coalesce into sense, is somewhere in the experience of contemporary art, too. In the making, the seeing, the thinking. It might be the unplottable point at which these threads cross. It may not happen often. It is probably what keeps us looking.
Our third issue looks to the constellation of practices that may take any of us – mystic or otherwise – to a place where the mysteries of the universe are momentarily unravelled.
Join Elise Bonato (USA/AUS), Bridget Currie (SPN/AUS), Celia Dottore (SA), Bella Hone-Saunders (SA), Lars Bang Larsen (DEN), Brad Lay (SA), Jessie Lumb (SA) and Craig Middleton (SA) as they sail into the mystic.