I forgot to mention that the call of mysticism doesn’t require a detailed knowledge of ANE archaeology.
Around 1700 a Catholic Priest known as Francois Fenelon started down the path of mysticism. While we might find room to criticize some of the doctrine he adopted from Quietism, the point is how thoroughly mystical is the doctrine. Naturally the Church hierarchy dragged him back, but the writings of Fenelon are quite revealing as an example of others who were touched by the call of mysticism over the centuries of Church History. Quite a few “heresies” were actually forays into mysticism.
I’ll be including Fenelon’s example in the final publication of this course. Look him up in your favorite search engine because some of his writings are online.
