| Summary: | The word mysticism means the opposite of religious "fact". It means the opposite of what is observable and positive, so that we could reduce mysticism to an occult tradition that we are able to discover and communicate. But in this case, does secrecy protect the tracks of an initiation or does it conceal, or dissimulate, a deviation, a drift, that the community cannot tolerate officially? what distinguishes a mystic of a madman, of an enthusiast? how to produce a sort of authorized tradition in order to justify its existence "beside" the discourses of exegesis? The French Jesuit Jean-Joseph Surin (1600-1665) will serve as a model case to answer these questions. We will observe the manner in which, unwilling to break away with his obedience to the Society of Jesus, he finds some ways to disseminate his mystical science, despite the censorship authorities. We will describe the effects of this assumed contradiction: if the legitimacy of discourse depends, according to Surin, on the Church only, and on none other point of view, what is the « true » meaning, then, of this damnation that Surin, out of any theological « truth », claims to experience?
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