OK, this is fair enough, at least if you extend a broadly like amount of credence or skepticism when the question is posed in terms of "some bald guy sitting on top of a mountain never speaking, eating, or sleeping whose disciples praise him for his utter renunciation of all things".
> > One approach might be to use less loaded
> > terminology. If we wree to talk in more
> > practice-oriented oriented terms, like
> > "Asceticism", or "Renunciate" rather
> > than "Mysticism" and "Mystic", we might
> > have fewer cross purposes.
>
> I pretty much agree. I agree that "failed" mystic is
> a loaded term.
"Failed" isn't loaded, it's "already went off at half cock". "Mystic" is loaded, because it has the senses of "experience of the transcendent", and of a "absorption into ultimate reality as a _goal_", each of which is almost at right angles to what I suspect we actually mean in such discussions, to wit a particular type of religious or personal practice. Well OK, probably we actually mean all three, in varying proportions, but recognising the distinction might help clarify things.
> "Travelling a mystic path" is the more
> useful game term, because it implies that the
> character sheet may have unusual magic on it,
> representing mystical insights.
I think a "mystic in the third sense" would (often) have those, yes. A "mystic in the second sense" might just have a number telling you how close he is to "absorption into ultimate reality", or some personally significant state en route (enlightenment, or whatever). (Obviously you can be a mystic in both these senses at once, don't get me wrong.) A "mystic in the first sense" though is just any character you like with a sufficiently deep religious experience.
Cheers,
Alex.
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