Vanneste, in his titled-article, "Is the Mysticism of Pseudo-Dionysius Genuine?"

Padre Martiny, Doctor Lugenbill, Greetings!

I just read an article by a Jesuit, one of those thinking "soldiers for Catholicism" here of the usual intellectual keen penetration, this Jesuit Jan Vanneste, in his titled-article, "Is the Mysticism of Pseudo-Dionysius Genuine?" which article appeared in a Google Scholar search. This Padre speaks to me about something that-- when I read St. Denys-- I disconnect=> I know that Denys would have us to take-away-from (APHAIROO in Greek DA uses some 20+ times, and the root of APOPHASIS ("denial" "not asserting a proposition") which occurs in DA/CD only five times. Vanneste argues that  L E S S  from genuine or plausible mystical experience-- personally "owned"-- but rather a rational defense from "baptized Christian" perspective of such mysticism derived from (Plotinian, Iamblican, Proklan) Neoplatonism AND the language of the Hellenic Mystery Cults. Vanneste DOES NOT argue that Denys never really was a mystic, only that his defense is in line with these essentially Greek-culture postulates.

I have agree-- to a point I shall try to present-- that I rather agree with Vanneste; when Denys wants me to feel ecstatic about Infinities-- as unknowable-- I register "zero" on empathetic co-experience; indeed "zero" in math is related to what I understand much about infinities, that is infinity analogous to a mystical experience first-known as 1/0, 0/0, "sideways-eight" of all types taught in high-school algebra. There is a body of work by a math-guy Cantor, who says that in the "transfinite"/infinities there are only two numbers, "ALEPH," first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and "c" which is like "ALEPH" taken to any power/exponential. My EMOTIONAL reaction to thinking about such infinities is rather a dud, certainly nothing mystical.

Nevertheless, still in near-total agreement with Jesuit Vanneste, who argues that "down-there-deep" there are hints of genuine mysticism in Denys rather hides away under the Platonic-with-some-Aristotelian apologia for mysticism per-se. Yet Vanneste does not mention any of these hints. This beckons me to describe linkages to felt-beyond-reason mysteries in DA=> in reporting these linkages I shall methinks have to report other-- mostly more modern-- linkages-literary and "philosophical"=>

{Martin Heidegger-- "that old Nazi who can hardly be forgiven for his destrutive politics," and Sigmund Freud of-off-beat human insight-- speak of the UNHEIMLICH/"uncanny"/Greek-DEINOS/"awful" as embedded in the human HEIMLICH/"homely"/canny; more into this trend of thought, I am aware that the student or admirer of Freidrich Schleiermacher  Rudolf Otto (DAS HEILIGE author) finds the fuel of REAL religious experience to be  a sense of MYSTERIUM TREMENDUM ET FASCINENS- trembling and fascination-riveting mystery. This seems to link cognitively to also-VERSTEHEN-PHILOSOPH Max Weber in notions that such emotionally charged experiences are of CHARISMA-- a factor that gets hidden away by "routinization of charisma."} SO=>

I am led to believe-- a mysticism mine-- that the common I daresay uniform tendency of folk is to have a "deep down" of strangeness, an-unspoken, a-mystery/mysticism-not-politically-correct-to-discuss yet real, just not public or politic. THIS STRANGENESS OF THE OTHER AND MINE IS MYSTERIUM TREMENDUM, FASCINENS.

{In such a way I am reminded of Roland Barthes CAMERA LUCIDA,  a semiotic study of photography having dual aspect-- the "business-as-usual" of (pop) culture, no-surprises, called STUDIUM; this "normality who-cares" at times-- and only deeply personal rapture-- the PUNCTUM, that which "cuts and stabs us as gut-felt."}

STRANGENES #1=> Dionysius graps me sometimes with gut-words like EROOS (occurring 50X in the Corpus-Dionysiacum), lust yearning not even mentioned in the New Testament-- and rarely in the Septuagint; this word and ERASTOS (occurring 14X), and verb forms ERAOO (10X), EROOTAOO (5X)  and adjective EROOTIKOS (11X, including adverb variants with -OOS), THAT IS WITH ALL DENOTATIONS OF THE "EROTIC" NINETY TIMES, COMPARED TO MORE-CHRISTIANIZED AGAPEE (8X) AND COGNATE AGAPEETOS (11X) AND ADVERB AGAPEETOS (2X) AND VERB AGAPAOO (13X), WITH SUM FOR AGAPEEs 34X; this means that DA uses the "hot-word"EROO-" ALMOST THREE TIMES MORE FREQUENTLY THAN AGAPEEs.

STRANGENESS #2=> Diionysius uses the term EKSTASIS-- a word with two edges, good as bliss, bad as madness/insanity/psychosis and words for "hangover" relating to TRUE experilences of the-Godly.

STRANGENESS, other=> WAR POLEMOS as always bringing unified peace (DN 949A), also POLIMEOO (DN 953A); what "smoothss" this (+)-value to war is the notion of equilibrium, as a Godly teleology.

{In other words, "at the front of discourse," Denys is presenting-- as Jesuit Vanneste suggests-- a rational and "intellectualzed" presemtation that MAY NOT refer to an owned mysticism in the sense of the modern "interpersonalism" (Marcel), but in the strangeness that lives in the charisma of every "soul," we can find a "passing-strange" element speaking to an inner UNHEIMLICH of his HEIMLILCH philosophical presentation.It is worded in CD as Routinized discourse about what seems absent in the text, BUT THERE IS A REAL PUNCTURE PUNCTUM RE WHICH HERMENEUTIK CAN "REACH" TENTATIVELY, OR WITH ARTFUL APPROXIMATION.}

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