"Mysticism"
Lecture by Simon Critchley, Professor of Philosophy, New School for Social Research, New York
"I spent all of 2021 writing a book on mysticism, which was to some extent provoked by experiences that many people underwent during the pandemic. The book is finished in first draft, and in addition to trying to define this central but peculiar dimension of religious experience I will try and give an overview of my approach to mysticism with some illustrations, probably from Julian or Norwich, Meister Eckhart and others."

Simon Critchley is Hans Jonas Professor at the New School for Social Research. His books include Very Little…Almost Nothing (1997), Infinitely Demanding (2007), The Book of Dead Philosophers (2009) and The Faith of the Faithless (2012). Recent works include a novella, Memory Theatre, a booklength essay, Notes on Suicide and studies of David Bowie and Football and ApplyDegger (Onassis, 2020). His most recent books are Tragedy, The Greeks and Us (Pantheon, 2019) and Bald (Yale, 2021). He was series moderator of ‘The Stone’, a philosophy column in The New York Times and coeditor of The Stone Reader (2016) and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Onassis Foundation. He is also 50% of an obscure musical combo called Critchley & Simmons.