Kontemplacja i poznanie per raptum. Tomaszowe źródła rozumienia istoty doświadczenia mistycznego

The aim of the article is to present the problem of contemplation and knowledge per raptum in St. Thomas Aquinas’s account. Both of these methods of cognizing seem to be an inspiration for the twentieth-century and contemporary Thomists to build the concept of mystical experience. Mystical experience is defined differently in various thomistic interpretations. However, we are primarily interested in the recognition of M. Gogacz, who understood the mystical experience as a sudden, unexpected and unearned experience of God by the human potential intellect. Although Thomas himself was not concerned with the mystical experience as such, but the analysis of selected texts allows us to accept the thesis that mystical experience, which was shared by the great mystics (St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross) contains some elements of Thomistic contemplation, and above all, the cognition per raptum.