The article is devoted to the analysis of the novel «Beloved» by the 1993 Nobel Prize winner in Literature Toni Morrison regarding the author's use of elements of mysticism. A brief review of the literature allows us to determine the degree of development of the problem of using a substitute language to represent and study the traumatic experience associated with slavery and racial discrimination. This issue is considered within the framework of the theory of trauma and the concept of collective memory. The author of the article proposes and analyzes a hypothesis concerning the origin and semantics of the mystical in T. Morrison's novel «Beloved». The focus is on the ways of expressing the consequences and experiencing the traumatic experience of the heroine of the novel. For T. Morrison, the elements of the mystical become the main pictorial means for conveying what cannot be expressed by conventional artistic means, in logical language. In addition, the study of the nature of the mystical allows us to reveal the uniqueness of T. Morrison's artistic method and the functions of a substitute figurative language. In this regard, the question is raised about T. Morrison's contribution to the creation of the canon of African-American writing, which differs from the dominant Anglo-Saxon literary tradition.