Far from denying the importance of reading a text within the cultural arena out of which it emerged, this chapter explores the possibility of a contextual reading that nevertheless remains attuned to those characteristics of mysticism which exceed the borders of the text. By charting the historical trajectory of the academic study of mysticism up through the imaginative insights of contemporary scholars, I highlight the importance of adopting a hermeneutic for interpreting mystical literature which fosters an intimate relationality between the language of the text and the experience of the scholar. Following the lead of Jeffery Kripal’s Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom, this chapter upholds Elliot Wolfson’s “mystical hermeneutic” as a representation of how an affect-based interpretation of mystical texts might operate. Taking Kripal’s analysis of Wolfson’s book Through a Speculum That Shines as my foundation, I demonstrate how the hermeneutic of Wolfson’s later work, Language, Eros, Being, further reveals a methodological process by which the echo of experience can once more be heard.