Ecstatic Confessions: The Heart of Mysticism

Martin Buber Library

by Martin Buber, Paul Mendes-Flohr (Editor)

Available for the first time in paperback, Ecstatic Confessions is Martin Buber's unique, personal gathering of the testimonies of mystics throughout the centuries expressing their encounters with the divine. It features the author's seminal introduction to mysticism, "Ecstasy and Confession," which probes the nature of what Buber terms the "most inward of all experiences.... God's highest gift." Buber sifted through texts from oriental, pagan, Gnostic, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim sources down the centuries to cull those moving records that manage to convey some quality of an experience that is essentially beyond the power of words to capture. Ecstatic Confessions orchestrates these reports from the edge of human experience into a revealing look at the nature of the ecstatic experience itself and the tension arising from the mystic's compelling need to give witness to an event that can never truly be verbalized.

Genres: Philosophy, Mysticism, Religion, Nonfiction, Spirituality

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1921

About the author

Martin Buber was an Austrian-born Jewish philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a religious existentialism centered on the distinction between the I-Thou relationship and the I-It relationship.

Buber came from a family of observant Jews, but broke with Jewish custom to pursue secular studies in philosophy. In 1902, Buber became the editor of the weekly Die Welt, the central organ of the Zionist movement, although he later withdrew from organizational work in Zionism. In 1923 Buber wrote his famous essay on existence, Ich und Du (later translated into English as I and Thou), and in 1925 he began translating the Hebrew Bible into the German language.

In 1930 Buber became an honorary professor at the University of Frankfurt am Main, and resigned in protest from his professorship immediately after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. He then founded the Central Office for Jewish Adult Education, which became an increasingly important body as the German government forbade Jews to attend public education. In 1938, Buber left Germany and settled in Jerusalem, in the British Mandate of Palestine, receiving a professorship at Hebrew University and lecturing in anthropology and introductory sociology.

Reviews

[Luca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unica pecca: la mancanza dei testi di Nag Hammadi. Anche se, credo, alla stesura del libro non fossero ancora stati riportati alla luce.
Inoltre, un po’ più di mistica ebraica sarebbe stata gradita🥺 ma anche le suore pazze garbano.

[Seekers of Unity · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mendes-Flohr’s intro was great, situation Buber and this work of his in the context of philosophy and literature of mysticism, his own and the Germany of his day. Buber’s intro was stunning, he talk about mysticism for a few pages and about how it cannot be spoken, and then climaxes right at the end with, ‘Yet the mystic is not a silent stammered…’ and goes on to lay on the myth of the mystic. Beautiful.

If you like books like this you'll love my project:
http://youtube.com/c/seekersofunity?s...

[Eye Summers · Rating 4 out of 5]

decent read. interesting scope and limiting by design. was hoping for more of an "anthology of mysticism"-type vibe but that is not really that type of book either. still worthwhile.

it is a short read but i read slowly & it seemed to drag on for such a short book. there seems to be some overlap to w/ the Catholic confessions. some of them seem repetitive & typical. its interdisciplinary but some chapters have really short entries by one or two religious figures.

glad i read i stumbled upon it at the library looking for a Rumi book & i hope to read "I & Thou."