Bertrand’s Reviews > Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927–1939 > Status Update

While it is appropriate to use the word mysticism when speaking of"joy before death" and its practice, this implies no more than an affective resemblance between this practice and those of the religions of Asia or Europe. There is no reason to link any presuppositions concerning an alleged deeper reality with a joy that has no object other than immediate life.