ABSTRACT
This difficulty with the word ‘mysticism’, though perhaps not peculiar to English, is nevertheless not present in all languages. German for instance has two expressions: ‘der Mystizismus’, which refers to occult pursuits of all kinds, including those responsible for the Oxford Dictionary’s bracketed designation and ‘die Mystik’, which is reserved for man’s bona fide experiences of the divine or the ultimate reality, or at least for experiences genuinely believed, by those who have had them, to have penetrated into that dimension.
