mysticismn.

1722 Ess. Life Late Learned & Pious Francis Lee (MS Gonville & Caius Coll., Cambr. Add. MS 725/752) Pref. Not to mention ye new Edition also since Publish'd by Dr Nichols, who I presume might have an Equal Aversion to Mysticism as to Popery.

1724 A. Collins Disc. Grounds Christian Relig. ii. 242 Just as remote from the real literal sense of Hoseah as the mysticism of the allegorists,and..altogether as obscure to the understanding.

1763 W. Warburton Doctr. Grace iii. ii, in Wks. (1788) IV. 706 With an incredible appetite devouring the trash dropt from every species of Mysticism.

1763 J. Wesley Jrnl. 28 Aug. (1827) III. 140 The same poison of Mysticism has..extinguished the last spark of life.

1825 S. T. Coleridge Aids Refl. 381 The grounding of any theory or belief on accidents and anomalies of individual sensations or fancies, and the use of peculiar terms invented or perverted from their ordinary significations, for the purpose of expressing these idiosyncracies, and pretended facts of interior consciousness, I name Mysticism.

1838 W. H. Prescott Hist. Reign Ferdinand & Isabella I. i. viii. 302 An acute and subtile perception was often clouded by mysticism and abstraction.

1855 M. Pattison in Oxf. Ess. 258 That deluge of crude speculation and vague mysticism which pervades the philosophical and religious literature of the day.

1899 T. C. Allbutt et al. Syst. Med. VIII. 120 The terrorism, revivalism, mysticism, or self-concentration which sometimes pose as religion.

1926 W. Lewis Art of being Ruled iii. ii. 75 Russian society for fifty years before the revolution was painfully confused, dragged this way and that by its liberalism and mysticism.

1992 Times Lit. Suppl. 28 Feb. 27/1 This is a world of mysticism, possession, visions, out-of-body experiences, changes in consciousness and trances.

1736 H. Coventry Lett. Philemon to Hydaspes Conv. i. ii. 59 How much nobler a Field of Exercise..are the seraphic Entertainments of Mysticism and Extasy than the mean and ordinary Practice of a mere earthly and common Virtue!

1765 A. Maclaine tr. J. L. von Mosheim Eccl. Hist. Cent. xvii. ii. i. i. §51 This female apostle of Mysticism [sc. Madame Guyon] derived all her ideas of religion from the feelings of her own heart.

1793 J. Thelwall Peripatetic III. 15 Superstition's self Could turn warm Nature's fine-vibrating throb To dreams of antic Mysticism.

1839 H. Hallam Introd. Lit. Europe IV. iii. 229 The scepticism of Malebranche is merely ancillary to his mysticism.

1845 S. Austin tr. L. von Ranke Hist. Reformation in Germany III. 95 He was not only susceptible of the sublimest mysticism, but his whole soul was steeped in it.

1890 Guardian 25 June 1030 He makes no attempt to show..that the Mysticism of Swedenborg is the only alternative to the Agnosticism of Professor Huxley.

1899 W. R. Inge Christian Mysticism ii. 44 The Gospel of St. John..is the charter of Christian Mysticism.

1915 W. S. Maugham Of Human Bondage lxxxviii. 462 He was a man of unusual character, mystical after the fashion of a time that had no leaning to mysticism.

1940 J. B. Collins (title) Christian mysticism in the Elizabethan Age with its background in mystical methodology.

1990 Independent 29 Sept. 15/8 There is a particular dislike, among many fundamentalists, of Sufism or Islamic Mysticism—a movement which has emphasised the importance of religious experience over and against legalism and formal orthodoxy.