S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 8 - 1 S p r i n g 2 0 2 2 4 7 Jaroslava Vydrová Just as excentricity does not permit an unequivocal fixing of one’s own position (that is, it demands such a fixing, but constantly rescinds it again in a continual annulment of its own thesis), it is also not given to the human to know ‘where’ he and the reality corresponding to his excentricity stand. If he wants to choose once and for all, there is nothing left for him but to make a leap of faith. This experience, though deeply individual, as a vertical experience has its own dynamics, interpersonal and trans-personal dimension, it is expressed in a specific language (e.g. , in religious and secular literature, visual arts), which mediates this lived experience of the “inexpressible” in a specific poetics [6] and it can also be transferable and transformative in this form. Whereas, for example, mystical experiences are among the rare and exceptional. The direction of such experiences can be divergent, towards immanence and towards transcendence, too [7]. One can therefore also speak here of the fragility or precariousness of this experience, which can manifest itself in deception, a subversion into horizontality or closedness, idolatry, pride, or self-love. As Plessner points out, the dynamic form of man’s life and realization as an excentric positionality, vis-à-vis his own contingency and opacity, invites him to attest, reassess, and always re-express who he is. 4 Conclusion In the first part of the text, we focused on the interpretive framework that Helmuth Plessner uses for the question of who man is, and which represents the third anthropological principle of the utopian standpoint. In the second part, we focused on the structure of such experience, on that how it is lived. In the first respect, the non-reductiveness of such an approach was shown, in the second, the variety and diversity of the forms of experience. Religious experience here is not merely an extended hand of culture but a specific and necessary response of a human being to contingency and nothingness. This opens up to her or him a realm of transcendence. However, the forms of spirituality are both manifold and surprising because they are based on the configuration of experience, the situation in which one finds oneself, and therefore this project may be relevant today for a person living in a changing globalized society, coping with multiculturalism, postmodernism, atheism [8] or consumerism (also religious one), technological progress and new civilizational threats (armed conflicts, pandemics), which bring factors of vulnerability, confusion, uncertainty and chaos to the imbalanced equilibrium of man. Although the representatives of philosophical anthropology did not put the topic of spirituality at the center of their interest, the religious dimension of man was not overlooked, and it is possible to find in their works – of which we have chosen Helmuth Plessner’s project – insights into the situation of a man who is open to transcendence and can be addressed and transformed or deepened in his experience. Further development of these themes could be seen in the intersections with generative phenomenology and hermeneutics [9], with which can be found in Plessner himself several convergence points [10]. At the same time, this theme offers an opportunity to reflect on the deeper meaning of the role of philosophy itself and the extension of the boundaries of philosophical discourse – including into areas such as spiritual experience.
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