From Mystical-Cognitive Experience to Mystical Epistemology: Hildegard of Bingen

Georgina RABASSÓ

Original title: De la experiencia místico-cognoscitiva a la epistemología mística: Hildegarda de Bingen

Published in Mulier aut Femina. Idealism or reality of women in the Middle Ages

Keywords: 12th Century, Experience, Feminine mysticism, Metaphysics of the senses, Rationality.

Hildegard of Bingen habitually wrote from the perspective of her visionary gift, but on occasions she also reflected on the latter. The majority of her works were written with reference to a specific mystical-cognitive experience; but she also analyses this and develops, in various passages, a mystical epistemology. At the base of her epistemology are the «interior» senses, which she locates in the soul. «Interior» vision and hearing are linked to reason and memory, through which she carries out an original intellectual activity: the auditory contemplation of truth. Thus, starting from her mystical-cognitive experience, Hildegard arrives at the formulation of a theory of mystical epistemology. Subsequently she extrapolates from this a personal hermeneutic understanding which allows her to reveal new «mysteries» of the scriptures, essential matter for the faithful, and hitherto unexplained by either the sages or the doctores, despite their erudition.

Nicholas of Cusa: Look and Mystic

Maria Simone Marinho NOGUEIRA

Original title: Nicolau de Cusa: Olhar e Mística

Published in Mystic and Millenarianism in Middle Ages

Keywords: Experience, Look, Love, Mystic, Reflection.

Assuming that De visione dei is a mystical text and that the mystic, both in its generic and ultimate interpretations, is an experience of the divine, we think it is possible to show that, at the mentioned publication, Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) presents a mystical experience, understood as the reflection about the subject. Therefore, the sensible experience proposed by him, and explained in the Preface of De visione dei, unites the simplicity of a visual experience with the highest and most profound speculation that human beings can do: reflect in a manner that you can experience your relationship with the divine.