Mysticism as a Category of Inquiry in the Philosophies of Ernst Troeltsch and William James

This chapter explores the category of ‘mysticism’ understood in terms of a spiritual ‘type’ as thematised by Ernst Troeltsch, in the light of Troeltsch’s reading of William James, and in contradistinction from Troeltsch’s two more well-known ‘church’ and ‘sect’ types.¹ Compared to the church-sect distinction that appears (initially anyway) to undergird the whole of Troeltsch’s 1912 The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, Troeltsch’s discussion of the mystic-type has received little attention. And the attention it has received has often been quite negative. Indeed, in the words of one sociologist sympathetic to Troeltsch’s discussion, the mystic-type has been ‘maligned’ and ‘maledicted’, while the sect and church types that Troeltsch developed in conversation with Max Weber have proven enduring and sociologically valuable.²