Document Type : Original Article

Author

• Fatemeh Golbabaee

Ph.D. Candidate in Persian language and literature, Allameh Tabataba'i university, Tehran. Iran.

Abstract

Mysticism and psychology, both centered on the dynamics of inner human experience, offer substantial potential for interdisciplinary studies, as their shared conceptual foundations allow each field to extend and enrich its analytical scope. This study, through an analogical approach, examines selected ideas of Ibn Arabi, the most prominent figure of Islamic theoretical mysticism, and compares them with some specific components of Jacques Lacan’s theories, a major psychoanalytic theorist of the twentieth century. The analysis demonstrates that Lacan’s definitions of the Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic exhibit notable conceptual and structural affinities with Ibn Arabi’s perspectives. For both theorists, the Real refers to a dimension beyond language and outside the reach of direct cognition; Ibn Arabi conceives the absolute as ultimately unknowable, and Lacan likewise understands meaning as perpetually deferred and inaccessible in its fullness. Both thinkers also describe the Imaginary as an intermediate realm that mediates between reality and symbolic representation, and the Symbolic functions as a network of signification that constantly refers to further signifiers without ever reaching an ultimate essence. These convergences suggest a meaningful conceptual bridge between the two intellectual frameworks and open pathways for further interdisciplinary research at the intersection of mysticism and psychology.

Keywords

• Ibn Arabi
• Jacques Lacan
• Theoretical Mysticism
• Psychology