Perhaps the distinguishing characteristic of Eastern Christian mysticism is its apophatic quality. Similar to Far Eastern mysticism, Eastern Christian mysticism insists that the highest union, the infused union in which God speaks to us directly about himself, is not achieved in any conceptual knowledge, but in an immediate, experimental knowledge wherein he opens himself to us. We can never come to this knowledge through any mere rational concept, through any discursive method of our own. God, purely and simply and in his transcendence, reveals himself to us when and how he wishes to do so.
— George A. Maloney, Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh