Tertium Organum

farther
side, the 
'more' with which in religious experience we feel ourselves connected is on its 
hither 
side the subconscious continuation of our conscious life. . . . 
The conscious person is continuous with a wider self. . . . The further limits of our 
being plunge, it seems to me, into an altogether other dimension of existence from 
the sensible and merely 'understandable' world. Name it the mystical region, or the 
supernatural region, whichever you choose ... we belong to it in a more intimate 
sense than that in which we belong to the visible world, for we belong in the most 
intimate sense wherever our ideals belong. . . . [The communion with this unseen 
world is a real process with real results. All the roots of religious life and its centre 
we must seek in mystical states of consciousness.]* 
* William James, 
The Varieties of Religious Experience, 
New York, Longmans 
Green, 1917. 

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What then is mysticism? 
Returning to the terminology established in the preceding chapters, we 
may say that mystical states of consciousness are connected with 
cognition 
under conditions of expanded consciousness. 
Until quite recent times scientific psychology refused to recognize the 
reality of mystical experience and considered all mystical states to be 
pathological,
unhealthy conditions of ordinary consciousness. A great many
positivist psychologists still hold to this opinion, mixing together in one lump
real mystical states, pseudo-mystical perversions of the ordinary state, purely 
psychopathic states and more or less conscious deceit. 
Naturally, this does not assist a right understanding of the question. 
Therefore, before proceeding further, we must establish the means by which 
we can single out real mystical states. 
Professor James gives certain criteria for distinguishing mystical states: 
inexpressibility in words, intuitiveness, involuntary quality and so on. But he 
points out himself that all these characteristics belong also to 
ordinary
emotional states. 
And he does not define exactly what constitutes the 
difference between mystical states and emotional states which are actually 
very close to them in their character. 
If we regard mystical states as cognition by expanded consciousness, we 
can advance quite definite criteria for discerning them and picking them out 
of the general mass of psychological experience. 
1 Mystical states give 
knowledge 
WHICH NOTHING ELSE CAN GIVE
. 
2 Mystical states give knowledge of the 
real world
with all its attributes. 
3 The mystical states of men belonging to different ages and different 
peoples show astonishing similarity, and at times complete identity. 
4 The results of mystical experience are 
totally illogical
from our ordinary 
point of view. They are 
super-logical,
i.e. 
TERTIUM ORGANUM
, 
WHICH IS PRECISELY THE KEY TO MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE, is fully 
applicable to them. 
The latter is especially important - the 
illogicality
of the results of mystical 
experience made science repudiate them. Now we have established that 
illogically 
(from our point of view) is the condition necessary for knowing
the truth or the real world. This does not mean that everything illogical is true 
or real, but it certainly means that everything true and real is, from our point 
of view, 
illogical. 
We have established the fact that with our logic it is impossible to 

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approach truth, and we have also established the possibility