Existential Boredom and Imaginative Transcendence: Phenomenological Confluence Between Ibn ‘Arabī and Evagrius of Pontus

Ibn ʿArabī, a twelfth-century Muslim mystic, speaks of “boredom” (malal) as a setting in which transcendence is only attempted through intellectual means. He makes clear how the divine realm would be misunderstood, if not attained by using the imagination. Through a phenomenological approach, using Husserl and Tymieniecka, I argue that our intellectual ingrowness in this world is so great that moving beyond it (in transcendence) crumbles our current world view, which has, in turn, such a devastating effect on our personal identity that we would rather choose the “boring” world we know than the full truth of divine reality. I corroborate this interpretation by a comparison with acedia, a notion of the fourth-century Christian mystic Evagrius of Pontus. I end my chapter by exploring new vocabulary to express this experience by invoking the psychiatric term existential feelings.