MYSTICISM [FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS]. The term mysticism, like the term religion itself, is a problematic but indispensable one. Identifying a broad spectrum of ideas, experiences, and practices across a diversity of cultures and traditions, it is a generic term rather than the name for any particular doctrine or mode of life. The application of appropriate epithets yields terminology for specific categories of mysticism (theistic mysticism, nature mysticism, and eschatological mysticism) and for distinct cultural or doctrinal traditions (e.g., Hindu mysticism, bhakti mysticism, Jewish mysticism, merkavah mysticism). The term mysticism is also a modern one, serving the purpose of comparative study and theoretical analysis, drawing into a single arena ideas and practices otherwise isolated within their own local names and histories.

Inevitably, however, the term remains colored if not hampered by the complexity of its own history: by its original Greek etymology (meaning "silence, secrecy...