Mysticism and Alienation

“There are…forms of mysticism [e.g.  those of Meister Eckhart and Hegel] which make alienation and deep-identity mutually dependent: the absolute must alienate itself in limited, instantial forms so that it may steadily reduce and overcome their alienation, and in so doing truly possess and enjoy and recognize itself …I should go further in thinking that a fully developed working mysticism demands a developed other-worldly cosmology, in which numerous states of being are postulated which mediate between the extremes of alienation, characteristic of this world and the extreme of unity characteristic of a mystical ecstasy”  (The Logic of Mysticism, Ascent to the Absolute, p. 182).