In what seems like a previous lifetime, I taught a college course titled Mystical Literature. In the first class, we were careful to talk about the fact that “mystical” is one of the most ambiguous words in the English language.

Mystical can characterize offbeat close encounters with the “paranormal,” such as déja vu, palmistry, Tarot cards or ghosts. Or it can refer to Wordsworth’s feeling of a spirit that rolls through all things in nature. A huge range of religious philosophies, or aspects of those philosophies, are described as mystical, from theosophy and Swedenborgianism to Taoism, Buddhism, Kabbalah, Sufism and Christian eschatology. In the literature course, we read texts that talked about firsthand experiences involving direct, intense encounters with God, divinity or the cosmos; to clarify the emphasis on this part of the mystical-philosophical-literary spectrum, we called it “contemplative” literature.

While allowing that all of it is “mystical,” we distinguished the experiences of spiritualists, mediums and Tarot card readings from visionary experience, defining this latter as an intense experience of reality apparently beyond, or not of, the five senses. We distinguished the core experience of cosmic union from other kinds of visionary experience such as shamanic journeys, lucid dreaming and sudden feelings of epiphany or spiritual transport during prayer or moments of beauty in nature. All may be described casually or technically as mystical, but they are very different in intensity and quality.

One unexpected aspect of mystical experience is that it’s a lot more common than you think. Once you know what to look for, you start finding it all the time in literary and autobiographical writings. At the turn of the last century, the psychiatrist R.M. Bucke published the influential book “Cosmic Consciousness” which is in part a compendium of stories and anecdotes of all kinds of people describing all kinds of mystical experiences. And if you start indirectly prodding friends and acquaintances, you start hearing strange stories often accompanied by the sentence, “I’ve never told anyone this before.”

Now, Cathy Cook’s book “Maine Mediums, Mystics and Healers” is not another “Cosmic Consciousness,” but it is a collection of statements by 20 women whose general mission is to put people in touch with territories of reality that seem beyond the bounds of everyday experience. Most of them say they are helping to open “channels,” or lines of communication with worlds our everyday consciousness normally veils us from. Most of them say they are receiving messages or information in ways they can’t explain. They all see their mission as helping people to heal; to heal from what maladies is not always specified in the statements. They all insist they themselves do not do the healing; they are facilitators of healing energies.

Many of them use the phrase “healing modalities,” which seems to refer to the many different approaches to emotional, psychological, spiritual and sometimes physical healing. The approaches include contact with spirit guides; table-tipping, in which departed relatives or friends are called upon to communicate by moving physical objects; visualizing a questioner’s internal organs. Many of the psychics talk about energy fields, chakras, the divine feminine/Mother Earth. There are Reiki practitioners, geopathic healers, astrologers, card readers, a dowser, numerologers, readers of past lives and communicators with animals, particularly pets who are said to have important wisdom to impart to their beloved owners.

Cook, of Wayne, who is the town clerk and a co-president of the historical society there, sought out the 20 women to ask each to describe what she does. The replies are in most cases roving peregrinations on each one’s understanding of her own special abilities (“tabletipologist,” “medium clairvoyant, astral travel,” “Priestess of Maat”); who are her clients; bits and pieces of philosophical reflection. There is an ambiguity to many passages that is to be expected given the ambiguity of the subject matter. There are anecdotes from healing sessions, maybe not as copious or detailed as one might hope for. Cook sometimes inserts her own personal experiences, helping to focus certain passages. Contact information is provided for each psychic, so in a way this is a source book for people seeking help from the hands-on part of the wide mystical spectrum.

“Maine Mediums, Mystics and Healers” overall conveys the psychics’ genuine interest in helping people make sense of their lives through means beyond those of our everyday five senses. All the evidence from thousands of years of testimony indicates there is clearly some there there, whatever it is. And Cathy Cook’s women are some of the intent workers trying to reveal its messages.

Cook’s other books include “Hauntings from Wayne and Beyond” and “Hauntings from Eastport and Beyond.” “Maine Mediums, Mystics and Healers” is available through local book stores and online book sellers.

Off Radar takes note of poetry and books with Maine connections the first Friday of each month. Contact Dana Wilde at dwilde.offradar@gmail.com.

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A collection of essays set in the Blue Hill peninsula captures Maine in every season