Walt Whitman’s mysticism

You’re right to pause on Underhill’s claim—calling Whitman a “typical mystic” is provocative, and also… kind of right, but only if we stretch what “typical” means. Whitman is absolutely mystical in Leaves of Grass, yet he’s a very American, this-worldly, body-affirming outlier.

Let me break it down cleanly.

1. Is there strong evidence of mysticism in

Leaves of Grass

?

Yes—very strong. Whitman consistently displays what scholars call unitive experience:

• dissolution of the ego

• direct, non-mediated knowledge

• identity of self with cosmos

• sanctification of the ordinary

• experience prior to doctrine

That is classic mysticism, even if it doesn’t look like cloisters and negation.

2. Whitman poems that most clearly point to mysticism

🔹

“Song of Myself”

(especially sections 1–6, 21–24, 31, 48–52)

This is the core mystical text.

Key moments:

• Ego dissolution: “I celebrate myself” → self expands to all beings

• Cosmic identity: “I am large, I contain multitudes”

• Immediacy: “You shall no longer take things at second or third hand”

This poem reads like a mystical autobiography.

🔹

“I Sing the Body Electric”

Radical mystical move: the body itself as a locus of divinity.

“If anything is sacred the human body is sacred”

This is anti-ascetic mysticism—more Tantra than monasticism.

🔹

“Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking”

A mystical awakening triggered by loss and nature:

• The sea as primal teacher

• The word “death” revealed like a mantra

• Initiatory sorrow → deeper consciousness

Very close to mystical “dark night” imagery.

🔹

“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”

Time collapses—another classic mystical marker.

“What is it then between us?

What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?”

This is eternity breaking into time, experienced directly.

🔹

“When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”

Rejection of mediated knowledge in favor of direct experience:

“Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air…”

That phrase alone—mystical moist night-air—is not accidental.

🔹

“A Noiseless Patient Spider”

Often read psychologically, but it’s also mystical:

• The soul flinging filaments to connect with the Infinite

• Longing for union

3. What

kind

of mystic is Whitman?

This is where he’s unique.

He is

not

:

• a Christian contemplative mystic (like John of the Cross)

• a Neoplatonic ascetic

• a theistic devotional mystic

• a systematic philosopher

He

is

best categorized as:

🌿

Immanent, democratic, ecstatic, monistic mystic

More precisely:

• Immanent mysticism – God/divinity in the world, not beyond it

• Monistic – all distinctions ultimately dissolve into one reality

• Erotic & bodily – the body is a revelation, not an obstacle

• Democratic – everyone has access; no elite initiates

• Anti-clerical / anti-dogmatic – experience before belief

If you want analogues:

• Closer to Spinoza than to Augustine

• Shares DNA with Advaita Vedanta, minus metaphysics

• Echoes Sufism, but without Allah-language

• Very close to Emerson, but more embodied and ecstatic

You might call him a “cosmic realist” or a “mystic of the open road.”

Underhill herself later admits Whitman lacks:

• discipline

• interior method

• purgative stages

—but that doesn’t disqualify him. It just means he’s visionary rather than methodical.

4. Famous Whitman quotes that are unmistakably mystical

Here are some of the strongest:

✨ Unitive consciousness

“I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,

And you must not be abased to the other.”

That’s pure non-duality.

✨ Direct knowledge

“You shall no longer take things at second or third hand…

Nor look through the eyes of the dead…

You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.”

This is mystical epistemology.

✨ Identity with all beings

“For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”

Classic mystical oneness.

✨ Body as sacrament

“Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch.”

That’s radical immanence.

✨ Eternity now

“I am not contained between my hat and boots.”

Short, playful, and deeply mystical.

5. So was Whitman a “typical mystic”?

He’s typical in experience, but atypical in expression.

If traditional mystics say:

Withdraw from the world to find God

Whitman says:

Plunge into the world and discover it already divine

That makes him:

• America’s first great homegrown mystic

• A poet of unearned grace

• A mystic without monastery, vows, or silence

If you’d like, I can:

• compare Whitman directly with Underhill’s stages of mysticism

• place him beside Rumi, Kabir, or Emerson

• or analyze one passage line-by-line for mystical structure

Just say the word.