Aubrey holds a Ph.D. in English and has published many articles on mystical literature. In this essay, Aubrey discusses different ways in which mystical experience has been defined and classified.

When the modern reader approaches medieval mysticism for the first time, he or she may be more than a little bewildered by the language and patterns of thought of the period, and particularly by the mystical experiences themselves. These by definition are not everyday experiences and do not come under the category of things that can be explained solely by the rational intellect. Many questions arise: What is mystical experience? Is it an objective or a subjective phenomenon? How is it to be evaluated?

The problem is compounded by the fact that one cannot duplicate a mystical experience by reading someone else's account of it. At best one might receive a certain aesthetic pleasure from the...