MYSTICISM

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does mysticism mean? 

• MYSTICISM (noun)
  The noun MYSTICISM has 2 senses:

1. a religion based on mystical communion with an ultimate reality

2. obscure or irrational thought

  Familiarity information: MYSTICISM used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MYSTICISM (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A religion based on mystical communion with an ultimate reality

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

mysticism; religious mysticism

Hypernyms ("mysticism" is a kind of...):

faith; religion; religious belief (a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "mysticism"):

quietism (a form of religious mysticism requiring withdrawal from all human effort and passive contemplation of God)

Sufism (Islamic mysticism)

Derivation:

mystic; mystical (relating to or characteristic of mysticism)

mystical (relating to or resembling mysticism)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Obscure or irrational thought

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("mysticism" is a kind of...):

cerebration; intellection; mentation; thinking; thought; thought process (the process of using your mind to consider something carefully)

Derivation:

mystic (relating to or resembling mysticism)

mystical (relating to or characteristic of mysticism)

mystical (relating to or resembling mysticism)

 Context examples 

"His mysticism, you understand that?" Martin flashed out.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

His young mind hungered for plain facts of life, after the long course of speculation and of mysticism on which he had been trained.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Maeterlinck's followers rallied around the standard of mysticism.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

First he had attacked the literature of mysticism, and had done it exceeding well; and, next, he had successfully supplied the very literature he had exposited, thus proving himself to be that rare genius, a critic and a creator in one.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

It was a deliberate attack on the mysticism of the Maeterlinck school—an attack from the citadel of positive science upon the wonder- dreamers, but an attack nevertheless that retained much of beauty and wonder of the sort compatible with ascertained fact.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)