Apophasis and Envisioning the Invisible

In this monograph, two of the most complicated theoretical topics confronting the scholar of mysticism (apophasis and infinity) are tackled. Writing about apophasis presents a unique dilemma as the term itself connotes the inability of language to name the namelessness of ultimate reality. Yet, the apophatic is a gesture of speaking-not, which entails saying the unsayable, as opposed to not speaking, which is the reticence appropriate to silence. The exploration of infinity presents an equally daunting demand as the intellect embarking on this path is summoned to circumscribe the uncircumscribable. Just as communicating the incommunicable is an endless enterprise of speaking the unspeakable, so mapping infinity is an unremitting pursuit of delimiting the limitless. The two subjects thus intersect at the vanishing point where the human mind reaches its limit by confronting the limitlessness that can be described only as indescribable.