SOURCE: A review of Hindu Mysticism: Six Lectures on the Development of Indian Mysticism, in Mind, Vol. XXXVI, No. 144, October, 1927, p. 520.

In the following essay, a review of Hindu Mysticism, Thomas finds in that mysticism an erotic quality usually lacking in its Christian counterpart.

The religions of India have suffered at the hands of Western exponents even more than its philosophies, and yet there is no doubt that a rich field awaits the psychologist who will put aside the prejudices both of the missionary and the atheist. No single Indian word appears to correspond to the term mysticism, but Dr. Dasgupta makes it clear [in Hindu Mysticism: Six Lectures on the Development of Indian Mysticism] that Indian religions have developed the same phenomenon. It is "the belief that God is realised through ecstatic communion with him". He then widens this definition by describing the goal as the realisation...