Why did Gabriel Marcel consider human embodiment a mystery?

Gabriel Marcel categorized human embodiment as a mystery because it cannot be treated as an objective problem to be solved through standard conceptual analysis. In his philosophy, a "problem" is something external that one can detach from and analyze, whereas a "mystery" is a reality in which the questioner is directly involved and cannot separate themselves from the subject matter.1

Marcel argued that human embodiment defies the logic of "having" or ownership. Because one cannot achieve the necessary detachment to view one's own body as a mere object or instrument, it is more accurate to state, "I am my body." As soon as an individual attempts to analyze the body as an object, it ceases to be "my body" in the lived sense. Since the questioner is fundamentally involved in their own embodiment, they cannot step outside of it to gain an objective, universal solution. Consequently, embodiment remains a mystery that requires secondary reflection to recover the unity of experience that primary reflection tends to dissolve.1