Does Mystical Mean Ineffable?

You hear it all the time: you can't talk about genuine spiritual experiences, because they are ineffable, beyond the limits of language altogether. While it is understandable why a person might feel this way, the equation of mysticism with the ineffable has in actuality hindered acceptance of the spiritual in the modern and post-modern worlds, which tend to only regard some form of the "effable" as real. But the problem is not that it is impossible to communicate mystical insight, but that the language to contain it is still emerging, and not immediately accessible to many people. All experience is "effable;" and anything that can be experienced can indeed be communicated—though of course we cannot mistake fingers pointing to the moon for the moon itself. Here is the crucial challenge to the still-fledgling integral community: to develop the language as we develop the ideas, collectively naming the face of tomorrow, moment by moment.