The first decades of the 20th century are marked by an awakening interest in mysticism manifesting it-self in different social and cultural domains, literature, art and science. As a form of experience as well as a mode of thought and discourse, mysticism is inquired into and evaluated in its diverse variations, across confessional and cultural boundaries. Against the background of the contemporary discursive field which is characterized by the tensions between tendencies of cultural critique on the one hand and movements of renewal on the other hand, the present article singles out two major actors emerging from the complex entanglement of interrelated voices of the period: Ernst Troeltsch and Max Scheler. The ideas of both thinkers were nourished by the repertory of contemporary cultural knowledge while, in their turn, they had a considerable impact on the latter and contributed decisively to what was con-sequently understood by ‘mysticism’. By retracing these two positions, the article shows how knowledge of mysticism is closely related to and tied up with forms of knowledge constituted by soci-ety as well as with the interests of actors who claim such a knowledge of mysticism.