Scholars of mysticism face a troubling impasse. Decades of critique have made many researchers reluctant to search for universal models, leading them to adopt what amounts to a “perspective from nowhere.” At the same time, there is little doubt among these same scholars that the phenomena described by mystical traditions are real and historically grounded. The question is how to move forward. Dr. Arjun Nair, Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Southern California, leads a project that offers a way through.
Letting the Traditions Speak
Nair and his team propose something that sounds simple but is methodologically radical: let premodern mystics speak in their own vocabularies, through carefully chosen texts, translations, distillations, and summaries. Beginning with Sufi theorists, the project examines how these thinkers approached topics at the heart of mysticism — consciousness, being, presence, God, union, freedom, gender, ethics, prayer, experience — and finds that their perspectives consistently push readers past the parameters that currently define and limit scholarship on mysticism. In the second year, having established the methodology with Sufi sources, the team will bring in contributors from other traditions. Mysticism, in Nair’s framing, is most useful as a broad rubric that allows scholars to develop tradition-specific perspectives while also giving them a shared point of focus for cross-traditional discussion.
Texts, Translations, and a Conference
Project outcomes include two curated collections of essays and annotated translations, a book by Nair, and a culminating conference. The work could show that the way past the current impasse in mystical studies is not more theory imposed from outside, but a return to the sources themselves — approached with enough patience and rigor to let them change how scholars think.