ABSTRACT
The therapist thinks, perhaps, that psychotherapy is a secular form of mysticism where, with the aid of a therapist, someone go step by step down into the depths of the self in search of meaning. But on this occasion she wishes to consider the topic of religion generally, because mysticism, like psychotherapy, is only for a small minority. Only a limited number of people can afford psychotherapy, and very few, however religious they are, have the ability to be a mystic. In the larger perspective, mysticism is a small though important religious enthusiasm. The great mistake has been to imagine that religious doctrines are statements of objective fact. Music gives one a sense of transcendence, a resonance within one’s own being; we find it in painting, in literature, and, for a great many people, even sport. In the pre-modern world, because art was mostly confined to rich men’s homes, religion was, for many, the chief source of ecstasy.
