Don Cuppitt argues that extensive modern literature about mysticism has rested on a mistake-the belief that their can be meaningful experience prior to language. The mystics have been perceived as first having had profound experiences that they then put into words.

However, in postmodern thought experience doesnot give meaning to language; on the contrary, language gives meaning to experience. And when the mystics are seen as having been primarily writers, our understanding of them is revolutionized.