The artist uses a medium outside himself to effect his own personal approach to the ecstatic state of ideal beauty as well as to inspire the appreciators of his artistic production. The mystic uses no external medium whatever, but makes his approach to the source he finds inside himself. Although the mystic, if he be blessed with intellectual talents or artistic gifts, can project his ecstatic experience into an intellectual or artistic production when he chooses, he is not obliged to do so. He has this internal method of transmitting his experience to others through mental telepathy. Hence mysticism is on a higher level than art. Nevertheless, art, being much easier for most people to comprehend and appreciate, necessarily makes a wider appeal and reaches hundreds of thousands where mysticism reaches only a few.
-- Notebooks Category 14: The Arts in Culture > Chapter 3 : Art Experience and Mysticism > # 12
-- Perspectives > Chapter 14: The Arts in Culture > # 45
