The Mystical Philosophy of Karl Jaspers

I. The Loss of Selfhood

[…] it is impossible for man to lose [T]ranscendence without ceasing to be man.1

Who am I? What does it mean to exist? These are questions which every one of us faces. Everybody, at some point (if not continually), questions what it means to be who they are. These questions may only arise at points of tragedy, but they are always there bubbling away under the surface. This question is not the straightforward question of what your name is, your occupation, etc. (although it is sometimes taken to be). Rather the issue of selfhood is something altogether deeper, it is a question about the deepest nature of humankind. Not simply who we are in terms of our superficial identity, but what it means to be human, and what it means to BE at all. In fact, it is not too far to say, as will be a theme argued in this book, that everything one does, whether directly conscious of it or not, stems from the issue of selfhood, and our will to self; that is, our will to be fulfilled. This will to selfhood or fulfilment can be seen as the will to be complete, to be happy, to have achieved our goals. It is a will to unity – a unified sense of who we are, and of what the world is. Whether it be a hedonistic seeking of fulfilment through pleasure, or an intellectual seeking through objective knowledge, at the deepest level these are both attempts at seeking fulfilment.

How is it that we define who we are? Are we the names which we are given, our memories, our projections of the future? The question of who I am seemingly goes deeper than any of these things which appear as me or appear to me. There is seemingly something beneath all the various definitions which I may give to myself. No matter how much I may try to identify myself with the stories of the self, with my relationships, my occupation, my likes and dislikes, there is always something more. There is a deeper aspect of who I am, of my being. The attempts at fulfilment always seem to fail me, no matter what I achieve I am not complete; there is never anything in time that I can reach which seems to complete my being. They only seem to be fleeting experiences confined to space and time. If we are to seek fulfilment, and to become complete, we must seemingly approach and investigate the possibility of a deeper aspect of the self. We must investigate into the origin of the self itself, to aim at something deeper and less superficial. The question here is whether there is some aspect of the self, which is beyond space and time, which can offer us fulfilment. Is there the possibility of a transcendent aspect of the self?

The issue of selfhood is therefore intrinsically linked with the issue of Transcendence.2 What it means for the self to have a transcendent aspect, and to have an authentic relationship to this aspect will be explored throughout this book. This is an issue which has seemingly been neglected in the modern secularised Western society of today. When speaking of Transcendence and the nature of reality, we are inevitably pointed to the notion of God. But the notion of God has been largely removed from Western society, and seemingly from people’s lives, and with this, since they are inextricably bound together, the removal of the issue of Transcendence. But what is at question here is not whether such a thing as God exists or not, for as we shall see that question is ultimately misleading. Rather, the issue concerns the possibility of selfhood and a deeper nature of being. The issue of selfhood is intrinsically linked to the issue of Transcendence, since the possibility of there being anything at all is at the same time the very possibility of my being. Here lies the possibility of an authentic relationship with Self and transcendence, and the possibility of authentic fulfilment, which resides in spiritual fulfilment; knowledge of Transcendence is at the same time knowledge of the Self and vice versa.3 And it is this possibility of truly knowing the Self, as ultimately being One with Transcendence, and knowing one’s deepest being as being the same as reality itself, which has seemingly been removed in modern society and with it the possibility of an authentic relationship to our Transcendence and to our authentic Self.4

One of the main ills of modern Western society is this loss of authentic selfhood, and an authentic relationship to Transcendence. It could be said that this is always an illness of society, and indeed of the self, but it is exacerbated in modern secularised capitalistic and individualistic society. This is reflected in the state of mental health with the increase of anxiety and depression. We see the will to find a solution in the booming wellbeing industry. Mindfulness and yoga, methods which are originally about connecting with Transcendence, are now huge industries. This shows the yearning and the seeking for Transcendence as still being present. And while these industries clearly offer an insight into authenticity, and help with mental wellbeing, they are often disconnected from the notion of Transcendence itself. Sometimes they are used to benefit working patterns, or as consumerist ideals. For instance, mindfulness is embraced by many companies, an idea which is sometimes termed ‘‘corporate mindfulness.’’ And while there is nothing inherently wrong with this, according to Ronald Purser, who is himself an ordained Zen Buddhist teacher, what is happening in this version of ‘‘mcmindfulness,’’ is not the awakening of individuals to the possibility of their ultimate and authentic Selves, rather ‘‘it is usually being refashioned into a banal, therapeutic, self-help technique’’ that can simply become the possibility of increasing workload, and reinforcing the very delusion that mindfulness aims to deal with.5 A cynical person may see it simply as a capitalist tool to get more out of the workforce. Another question concerning the prevalence of mindfulness and yoga, which stem from Eastern philosophy, is whether there in fact needs to be a turn eastwards, or whether this connection to authenticity, which is clearly found within meditation and yoga can in fact be found closer to home through Christianity. This will be addressed in this book through an examination of Christian mysticism.

There is thus the need to retrieve the possibility of selfhood within modern society, which necessarily means a recovering of the notion of Transcendence. However, what is needed is not the notion of God which has seemingly been rejected by most people. It is not the traditional and dominant onto-theological God, which is defined in terms of objective being and knowledge. Rather, there needs to be the highlighting of the transcendent possibility of the Self which does not need recourse to this traditional idea. What is required is a seemingly fresh approach to Transcendence, which not only stresses the transcendent nature of Transcendence, which places Transcendence beyond us, but also highlights the intimate relationship of the Self with Transcendence. Indeed, as will be argued, this approach must ultimately highlight the possibility for humankind to experience and realise itself in union with the divine.6 It must ultimately highlight the authentic identity of the Self as being One with Transcendence. The relationship of the Self to Transcendence is not simply an objective knowledge of, and belief in, Transcendence, for as we shall see there is no such knowledge, but it must be an existential and experiential relationship. One of the aims of this book is to re-imagine mysticism for the modern age, and this will be done through shining a new light on it from the lens of Karl Jaspers.

II. Karl Jaspers and Existential Philosophy

This book will focus on the approach of Karl Jaspers (1883–1968) and his development of the notion of the Encompassing as means to addressing the removal of God in modern society, and his notion of Existenz as the possibility of authentic selfhood. For Jaspers, the question of selfhood cannot be separated from the issue of Transcendence. Indeed, for him, the philosophical terms of Transcendence and Existenz are more commonly known by their mythical terms of God and the soul.7 In this book I will examine how Jaspers places the possibility of an authentic relationship to Transcendence at the heart of his philosophy and sees this possibility as central to human fulfilment. Jaspers’ philosophy can be viewed as an attempt to retrieve the possibility of human fulfilment and an authentic relationship to Transcendence, in a modernity which has, he argues, removed this possibility from general consciousness through modernity’s emphasis on empiricism and philosophical materialism. What Jaspers wishes to recover is the intimacy between humankind and Transcendence. If there is to be the possibility of transcendent fulfilment, or realisation of selfhood, it cannot be that Transcendence is something which is separate from humankind. Rather, what is at the heart of Jaspers’ approach to Transcendence is the possibility of some type of experience or awareness of the transcendent. Indeed, the Self must be understood in relation to Transcendence, and this entails an intimacy between the two.

In this book I follow and develop upon an argument made by Ingolf Dalferth that ‘‘Jaspers’ view of [T]ranscendence grows out [of] a long tradition of mystic experience and thought in the West (Meister Eckhart, Nicolaus of Cusa) and the East (Buddhism).’’8 As Dalferth highlights, and which will be studied in depth in this book, Jaspers follows thinkers such as Meister Eckhart and Nicolaus Cusanus by existentially reworking the contrast between a changing temporal world of Immanence and an unchanging eternal world of Transcendence. Throughout the book I use the ontological definition of Immanence, which is used by Jaspers, to refer to the finite and the realm of the mundane. However, I also, like Jaspers, argue that this notion of Immanence comes to be transformed to not only represent the finite, but that paradoxically Transcendence comes to manifest itself through this realm of Immanence. And it is this paradoxical unity of Immanence and Transcendence, which Jaspers terms ‘‘Immanent Transcendence,’’ that Jaspers wishes to retrieve through his work and thus enable an authentic relationship to Transcendence as Existenz.

This book not only examines Jaspers’ approach to Transcendence and selfhood but analyses this approach in relation to Christian mysticism; specifically, the mystical thought of Meister Eckhart and Nicolaus Cusanus. In examining the relationship between Jaspers and these thinkers, we can see whether Jaspers’ philosophy can be viewed as mystical, and his contribution to the mystical traditions can be examined. Another benefit of examining this relationship is that through these thinkers we can see Jaspers’ philosophical influences and come in fact to understand the aims and structure of Jaspers’ thought more clearly. We will argue that when looked at through the lens of the mystical traditions Jaspers’ philosophy can be viewed in a new light – as a modern mystical philosophy which attempts to reclaim an authentic relationship to Transcendence outside of the theological constraints of other mystical philosophies. This relationship which Jaspers attempts to retrieve the possibility of is not simply that of a relationship with Transcendence as Other, rather he highlights the very possibility of realising one’s identity with Transcendence or reality itself. This book will show how Jaspers’ philosophy of Existenz can be viewed as an existential reworking of the mystical approach towards God and mystical union. What Jaspers attempts to provide is a mysticism for the modern age, which considers the rationalism, the scientism and the materialism of modernity, and which is not hankered down with the metaphysical and conceptual baggage of traditional belief systems.

Jaspers’ philosophy has largely been neglected in the Anglo-American world in favour of his contemporaries. I will briefly here look at some of the contemporaries that were closest to his thought, how he relates to their thought, and what makes Jaspers’ philosophy unique. The thinkers I here choose are those who have been labelled ‘‘Existentialist’’ and who have consequences for theology: Martin Heidegger, Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann and Paul Tillich.