How does one become a mystic? Padre Pio's early correspondence reveals a real apprenticeship, a process of learning to use language to express his spiritual interpretation of pain and relief. In a similar way, secular philosophers like Wittgenstein and Nietzsche used writing to grapple with the anguish of war or the consequences of sudden enlightenment.
Semiotics offers a framework to understand how, through writing, the mystic – both religious and philosophical – make their own bodies a plane of expression of spiritual or interior values. Thus, mysticism survives in secularized culture in its original form as philosophical inquiry.
Francesco Galofaro
Mystik Literatur Sprachphilosophie Pater Pio Mysticism Literature Philosophy of language Padre Pio