Mysticism and mystification have different intrinsic values. The post-historical world, which is encoded by apparatuses, needs to be demystified so that the emancipation of society can become a reality. Demystifying the apparatuses that transcode the future is one of the challenges in planning the future (O Mundo Codificado, 2007, p. 147). The problem is that among the innumerable technical instruments there are many transmitters and receivers of images: Here, there is nothing to be demystified. “Boredom is the demystification of the apparatus.” (Post-History, 2013, p. 121).

From the perspective of phenomenology, the aspect of the thing “consciously desired by mystics, and unconsciously by epistemologists, is our end as thinking beings” (On Doubt, 2010, pp. 74–75). Pythagorean mysticism defined music and mathematics as the two media through which religion manifests itself (The History of the Devil, 2014, p. 192). It would be necessary to understand syncretic mysticism as unifying pure mathematics and music (ibid., p. 198), although the symbolism used by mystics is different from that of mathematicians (Língua e Realidade, 2004, p. 134). The central aspect of the mysticism concept in Vilém Flusser’s work concerns language. Language does not refer to reality: it creates reality. Because languages never refer to reality, they refer to nothing. The authentic, unarticulated core of this increasing Nothingness is poetry, prayer, and mystic silence (ibid., p. 222). Epistemological scepticism, ontological nihilism, and religious mysticism reflect language’s inability to access reality (ibid., p. 32).

The mystic vision is the way in which the mind unifies the experience of separation from reality and the “I”; it is translated into language (ibid., p. 59). That is why there are some languages, like Sanskrit, that are able to express this phenomenological and epistemological dimension of mystic experience in their own categories (ibid., p. 76). Sanctity is expressed in three ways in languages: ethically, in the languages of faith; aesthetically, in mystic languages; and logically, in experimental languages (ibid., p. 77).

Original article by Rodrigo Petronio in Flusseriana