Edith Stein (1891-1942), who was recently canonized, was one of the most intriguing Catholics of the twentieth century. A Jewish convert, an eminent philosopher, educator, and advocate for women, she became a Discalced Carmelite nun, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Arrested by the Nazis she died in Auschwitz in 1942. This volume highlights the extraordinary features of her spirituality -- a vision that integrated her philosophical training, her affinity for Carmelite mysticism, and her personal identification with the way of the Cross. Edith Stein provides a wonderful introduction to an extraordinary mind.

John of Ruusbroec (1293-1381) is one of the most important mystical authors in the Christian tradition. This Companion provides a comprehensive overview of Ruusbroec studies, including a survey of the mystical tradition in the Low Countries before Ruusbroec, a discussion of his life and works, the manuscript tradition, the most significant mystical-theological and literary themes, Latin translations of his work, and the widespread resonance of his thought across Europe until 1800. Finally, it offers a summary of secondary research since the nineteenth century. To complement the range of scholarly articles, this Companion also includes the first English translation of a series of Middle Dutch texts that offer deeper insight into Ruusbroec, his thought, and his mystical and literary context. Contributors include: Jos Andriessen, John Arblaster, Guido De Baere, Rob Faesen, Bernard McGinn, Hilde Noe, Kees Schepers, Loet Swart, Rik Van Nieuwenhove, and Lieve Uyttenhove.

"...these translations thus supersede former ones...if the introductions, translations, and other apparatus of the rest of the series of the same high quality, the series will be indispensable for most libraries. Library Journal Mechthild of Magdeburg: The Flowing Light of the Godhead translated and introduced by Frank Tobin preface by Margot Schmidt "I was warned against writing this book. People said: If one did not watch out, It could be burned. So I did as I used to do as a child. When I was sad, I always had to pray... At once God revealed himself to my joyless soul, held this book in his right hand and said: 'My dear One, do not be overly troubled. No one can burn the truth.'" "I do not know how to write nor can I, unless I see with the eyes of my soul and hear with the ears of my eternal spirit and feel in all the parts of my body the power of the Holy Spirit." Mechthild of Magdeburg (c.1260-c.1282/94) These quotations taken from Mechthild's sole writing, The Flowing Light of the Godhead, written over several decades, reflect both the intensity of her consciousness of God and the tension under which she wrote. As a beguine with no authority to teach n a church in which women were being increasingly marginalized, Mechthild speaks out despite warnings, convinced of the validity of her divine mission. To accomplish the task of articulating her revelations and spiritual insights, Mechthild makes use of an astonishing multiplicity of literary and rhetorical means. The more mystical passages, often lyrical in expression, show her familiarity with bride mysticism and other Christian expressions found in Meister Eckhart, as well. This is the first English translation to be based on the new critical edition of Mechthild's book. The introduction and notes are intended to provide a theological, literary and historical context for capturing the spirituality of her remarkable and independent spirit.

Jacob Boehme was born in 1575. He received little if any formal education and was apprenticed to a shoemaker at Goerlitz in Saxony. From an early age he seems to have been devoted to the study of the Bible as well as to have had a growing, inner, sense of the reality of God. Walking one day in the fields, when he was twenty-five years old, the mystery of creation was suddenly opened to him, of which he later said that "in one quarter of an hour I saw and knew more than if I had been many years at the university . . . and thereupon I turned my heart to praise God for it." As experiences of this kind came more frequently, he puzzled much as to why such knowledge should be given to him, of all men, who sought only the love of God and was quite unlearned in the ordinary sense. Some ten years later he began to record what he received, as a help to his own memory, and thus was born The Aurora, his first book, finished in 1612. From then on he found both friends and enemies of his work. Due to persecution in his hometown, Boehme later settled in Dresden, where he died in 1624. Mysterium Magnum, written by Boehme the year before he died and at a time when his powers of expression had developed to their full, is perhaps central to his work in some thirty-one or thirty-two original volumes. Taking the general form of an interpretation of Genesis, it far outstrips such apparent confines, touching among other matters upon the meaning of the New Testament and, from the first sentence, leading to the heart of the universal experience of all mystics: When we consider the visible world with its essence, and consider the life of the creatures, then we find therein the likeness of the invisible, spiritual world, which is hidden in the visible world as the soul in the body; and we see thereby that the hidden God is nigh unto all and through all, and yet wholly hidden to the visible essence. Among those who have acknowledged the spiritual stature of Boehme are Hegel, William Law, St. Martin (le Philosophe Inconnu), Dean Inge, and Nicolas Berdyaev.

Ursula King's Christian Mystics tells the story of sixty men and women whose mystical devotion to God transformed the times in which they lived and still affects our present-day search for spiritual meaning. Moving from key figures of the early Christian age to the great mystics of modern times, special emphasis is given to the great high points of mysticism in the medieval, early modern and Eastern Orthodox traditions. The lives of visionaries, including Clement of Alexandria, Saint Bonaventure, Blaise Pascal and Simone Weil are studied in detail. It reveals the richly diverse expressions that mystical experience has found during two thousand years of Christian history and shows how it underpins Christian ritual and doctrine as a source of spiritual inspiration for all believers. Beautifully illustrated and written by a prominent name in the British academic world, this significant text has received high acclaim and is the only book to feature biographies of key mystics.

Enemies of the Cross examines how suffering and truth were aligned in the divisive debates of the early Reformation. Vincent Evener explores how Martin Luther, along with his first intra-Reformation critics, offered "true" suffering as a crucible that would allow believers to distinguish the truth or falsehood of doctrine, teachers, and their own experiences. To use suffering in this way, however, reformers also needed to teach Christians to recognize false suffering and the false teachers who hid under its mantle. This book contends that these arguments, which became an enduring part of the Lutheran and radical traditions, were nourished by the reception of a daring late-medieval mystical tradition - the post-Eckhartian - which depicted annihilation of the self as the way to union with God. The first intra-Reformation dissenters, Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt and Thomas Muntzer, have frequently been depicted as champions of medieval mystical views over and against the non-mystical Luther. Evener counters this depiction by showing how Luther, Karlstadt, and Muntzer developed their shared mystical tradition in diverse directions, while remaining united in the conviction that sinful self-assertion prevented human beings from receiving truth and living in union with God. He argues that Luther, Karlstadt, and Muntzer each represented a different form of ecclesial-political dissent shaped by a mystical understanding of how Christians were united to God through the destruction of self-assertion. Enemies of the Cross draws on seldom-used sources and proposes new concepts of "revaluation" and "relocation" to describe how Protestants and radicals brought medieval mystical teachings into new frameworks that rejected spiritual hierarchy.

In the nineteenth century a new type of mystic emerged in Catholic Europe. While cases of stigmatisation had been reported since the thirteenth century, this era witnessed the development of the 'stigmatic': young women who attracted widespread interest thanks to the appearance of physical stigmata. To understand the popularity of these stigmatics we need to regard them as the 'saints' and religious 'celebrities' of their time. With their 'miraculous' bodies, they fit contemporary popular ideas (if not necessarily those of the Church) of what sanctity was. As knowledge about them spread via modern media and their fame became marketable, they developed into religious 'celebrities'.

Jacob Boehme was born in 1575. He received little if any formal education and was apprenticed to a shoemaker at Goerlitz in Saxony. From an early age he seems to have been devoted to the study of the Bible as well as to have had a growing, inner, sense of the reality of God. Walking one day in the fields, when he was twenty-five years old, the mystery of creation was suddenly opened to him, of which he later said that "in one quarter of an hour I saw and knew more than if I had been many years at the university . . . and thereupon I turned my heart to praise God for it." As experiences of this kind came more frequently, he puzzled much as to why such knowledge should be given to him, of all men, who sought only the love of God and was quite unlearned in the ordinary sense. Some ten years later he began to record what he received, as a help to his own memory, and thus was born The Aurora, his first book, finished in 1612. From then on he found both friends and enemies of his work. Due to persecution in his hometown, Boehme later settled in Dresden, where he died in 1624. Mysterium Magnum, written by Boehme the year before he died and at a time when his powers of expression had developed to their full, is perhaps central to his work in some thirty-one or thirty-two original volumes. Taking the general form of an interpretation of Genesis, it far outstrips such apparent confines, touching among other matters upon the meaning of the New Testament and, from the first sentence, leading to the heart of the universal experience of all mystics: When we consider the visible world with its essence, and consider the life of the creatures, then we find therein the likeness of the invisible, spiritual world, which is hidden in the visible world as the soul in the body; and we see thereby that the hidden God is nigh unto all and through all, and yet wholly hidden to the visible essence. Among those who have acknowledged the spiritual stature of Boehme are Hegel, William Law, St. Martin (le Philosophe Inconnu), Dean Inge, and Nicolas Berdyaev.

If the western world knows anything about Zen Buddhism, it is down to the efforts of one remarkable man, D.T. Suzuki. The twenty-seven-year-old Japanese scholar first visited the west in 1897, and over the course of the next seventy years became the world's leading authority on Zen. His radical and penetrating insights earned him many disciples, from Carl Jung to Allen Ginsberg, from Thomas Merton to John Cage. In Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist Suzuki compares the teachings of the great Christian mystic Meister Eckhart with the spiritual wisdom of Shin and Zen Buddhism. By juxtaposing cultures that seem to be radically opposed, Suzuki raises one of the fundamental questions of human experience: at the limits of our understanding is there an experience that is universal to all humanity? Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist is a book that challenges and inspires; it will benefit readers of all religions who seek to understand something of the nature of spiritual life.

Routledge is now re-issuing this prestigious series of 204 volumes originally published between 1910 and 1965. The titles include works by key figures such asC.G. Jung, Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, Otto Rank, James Hillman, Erich Fromm, Karen Horney and Susan Isaacs. Each volume is available on its own, as part of a themed mini-set, or as part of a specially-priced 204-volume set. A brochure listing each title in the "International Library of Psychology" series is available upon request.

This innovative critical volume brings the study of Margery Kempe into the twenty-first century. Structured around four categories of 'encounter' - textual, internal, external and performative - the volume offers a capacious exploration of The Book of Margery Kempe, characterised by multiple complementary and dissonant approaches. It employs a multiplicity of scholarly and critical lenses, including the intertextual history of medieval women's literary culture, medical humanities, history of science, digital humanities, literary criticism, oral history, the global Middle Ages, archival research and creative re-imagining. Revealing several new discoveries about Margery Kempe and her Book in its global contexts, and offering multiple ways of reading the Book in the modern world, it will be an essential companion for years to come. -- .

St Symeon was the most important teacher of mystical experience of God in the Orthodox Church. This book seeks to place the teaching of the discourses in their proper context, both among Symeon's other writings and with regard to his sources in the Tradition. Included is a sketch of Symeon's life and times, together with an extensive discussion of this thought, particularly against its background in the ascetical, mystical and theological literature of the Christian East prior to the 10th century.

Moments of Our Nights and Days is a companion book to Saying Goodbye, a resource book for funerals, also published by Wild Goose Publications. Ruth Burgess is the author of several other worship resource books for the various seasons and festivals, including Candles and Conifers, Hay and Stardust, Eggs and Ashes, Fire and Bread, Bare Feet and Buttercups and Acorns and Archangels.

This innovative critical volume brings the study of Margery Kempe into the twenty-first century. Structured around four categories of 'encounter' - textual, internal, external and performative - the volume offers a capacious exploration of The Book of Margery Kempe, characterised by multiple complementary and dissonant approaches. It employs a multiplicity of scholarly and critical lenses, including the intertextual history of medieval women's literary culture, medical humanities, history of science, digital humanities, literary criticism, oral history, the global Middle Ages, archival research and creative re-imagining. Revealing several new discoveries about Margery Kempe and her Book in its global contexts, and offering multiple ways of reading the Book in the modern world, it will be an essential companion for years to come. -- .

Renate Wind has composed a well-researched and searching biography of Dorothee Soelle (19292003), who became a true religious provocateur and one of the most prolific and widely read theologians of the postwar period. Born in Germany and educated at the University of Cologne, Soelle turned from literary studies to theology, concentrating on rethinking Christian convictions in light of World War II and the Holocaust. A poet and activist as well as theologian, after her arrival at Union Theological Seminary in 1974, where she assumed the post previously held by Paul Tillich, Soelle became a leading voice for the liberation of women and against militarism, especially the Vietnam War. Her person, work, travels, and the times themselves combined to make her a pioneer and leader in the most exciting developments of the period: political theology, feminist theology, and liberation theology. Among her influential works were Christ the Representative (1967), Suffering (1975), To Work and to Love (1984), Theology for Skeptics (1994), and The Silent Cry (2001). Winds short and insightful biography is informed by extensive interviews with Soelles friends and family, especially her husband, Fulbert Steffensky, by use of the familys archives, and by Winds extensive knowledge of contemporary theology, political history, and the contemporary church.

Integrating patristics and early Jewish mysticism, this book examines Gregory of Nyssa's tabernacle imagery, as found in Life of Moses 2. 170-201. Previous scholarship has often focused on Gregory's interpretation of the darkness on Mount Sinai as divine incomprehensibility. However, true to Exodus, Gregory continues with Moses's vision of the tabernacle 'not made with hands' received within that darkness. This innovative methodology of heuristic comparison doesn't strive to prove influence, but to use heavenly ascent texts as a foil, in order to shed new light on Gregory's imagery. Ann Conway-Jones presents a well-rounded, nuanced understanding of Gregory's exegesis, in which mysticism, theology, and politics are intertwined. Heavenly ascent texts use descriptions of religious experience to claim authoritative knowledge. For Gregory, the high point of Moses's ascent into the darkness of Mount Sinai is the mystery of Christian doctrine. The heavenly tabernacle is a type of the heavenly Christ. This mystery is beyond intellectual comprehension, it can only be grasped by faith; and only the select few, destined for positions of responsibility, should even attempt to do so.

In 1981, six children in the small village of Medjugorje claimed that Our Lady had appeared to them. Since then millions of pilgrims have traveled from across the world to pray in this special place. In conversation with Finbar O'Leary, Vicka, one of the six, tells of her special relationship with Our Lady and relays many of the messages which she says the `Queen of Peace' has given to her. Vicka also discusses her own sufferings and the journeys on which Our Lady has brought her.

An in-depth study of nouvelle theologie and the ressourcement movement. Hans Boersma argues that a return to mystery was the movement's deepest motivation. He sets out the context for the early development of the movement prior to Vatican II and provides detailed analysis of its characteristic elements and thinkers.

The call to repentance is central to the message of early Christianity. While this is undeniable, the precise meaning of the concept of repentance for early Christians has rarely been investigated to any great extent, beyond studies of the rise of penitential discipline. In this study, the rich variety of meanings and applications of the concept of repentance are examined, with a particular focus on the writings of several ascetic theologians of the fifth to seventh centuries: SS Mark the Monk, Barsanuphius and John of Gaza, and John Climacus. These theologians provide some of the most sustained and detailed elaborations of the concept of repentance in late antiquity. They predominantly see repentance as a positive, comprehensive idea that serves to frame the whole of Christian life, not simply one or more of its parts. While the modern dominant understanding of repentance as a moment of sorrowful regret over past misdeeds, or as equivalent to penitential discipline, is present to a degree, such definitions by no means exhaust the concept for them. The path of repentance is depicted as stretching from an initial about-face completed in baptism, through the living out of the baptismal gift by keeping the Gospel commandments, culminating in the idea of intercessory repentance for others, after the likeness of Christ's innocent suffering for the world. While this overarching role for repentance in Christian life is clearest in ascetic works, these are not explored in isolation, and attention is also paid to the concept of repentance in Scripture, the early church, apocalyptic texts, and canonical material. This not only permits the elaboration of the views of the ascetics in their larger context, but further allows for an overall re-assessment of the often misunderstood, if not overlooked, place of repentance in early Christian theology.

The term ''mysticism'' has never been consistently defined or employed, either in religious traditions or in academic discourse. The essays in this volume offer ways of defining what mysticism is, as well as methods for grappling with its complexity in a classroom.
This volume addresses the diverse literature surrounding mysticism in four interrelated parts. The first part includes essays on the tradition and context of mysticism, devoted to drawing out and examining the mystical element in many religious traditions. The second part engages traditions and religio-cultural strands in which ''mysticism'' is linked to other terms, such as shamanism, esotericism, and Gnosticism. The volume's third part focuses on methodological strategies for defining ''mysticism, '' with respect to varying social spaces. The final essays show how contemporary social issues and movements have impacted the meaning, study, and pedagogy of mysticism.
Teaching Mysticism presents pedagogical reflections on how best to communicate mysticism from a variety of institutional spaces. It surveys the broad range of meanings of mysticism, its utilization in the traditions, the theories and methods that have been used to understand it, and provides critical insight into the resulting controversies.

Before etching Jerusalem William Blake wrote about creating 'the grandest poem that this world contains.'
Blake's avowed intention in constructing the work was to move readers from a solely rational way of being (called Ulro) to one that is highly imaginative (called Eden/Eternity), with each word chosen to suit 'the mouth of a true Orator.' Rational interpretation is of limited use when reading this multifaceted epic and its non-linear structure presents a perennial challenge for readers.
Susanne Sklar engages with the interpretive challenges of Jerusalem by considering it as a piece of visionary theatre --an imaginative performance in which characters, settings, and imagery are not confined by mundane space and time-- allowing readers to find coherence within its complexities. With his characters, Blake's readers can participate imaginatively in what Blake calls 'the Divine Body, the Saviour's Kingdom, ' a way of being in which all things interconnect: spiritually, ecologically, socially, and erotically.
Imaginatively engaging with Jerusalem involves close textual reading and analysis. The first part of this book discusses the notion of visionary theatre, and the theological, literary, and historical antecedents of Jerusalem's imagery, characters, and settings. Particular attention is paid to the theological context of Blake's Jesus ('the Divine Body'), and Jerusalem, the heroine of his poem. This prepares the ground for a scene-by-scene commentary of the entire illuminated work. Jerusalem tells the story of Albion's fall, many rescue attempts, escalating violence and oppression, and a surprising apocalypse --in which all living things, awakening, are transfigured in ferocious forgiveness.

Francis of Assisi's reported reception of the stigmata on Mount La Verna in 1224 is often considered to be the first account of an individual receiving the five wounds of Christ. The thirteenth-century appearance of this miracle, however, is not as unexpected as it first seems. Interpretations of Galatians 6:17-I bear the stigmata of the Lord Jesus Christ in my body-had been circulating in biblical commentaries since late antiquity. These works explained stigmata as wounds that martyrs, like the apostle Paul, received in their attempt to spread Christianity in the face of resistance. By the seventh century, stigmata were described as marks of Christ that priests received invisibly at their ordination. In the eleventh century, monks and nuns were perceived as bearing the stigmata in so far as they lived a life of renunciation out of love for Christ. By the later Middle Ages, women (such as Catherine of Siena) were described as having stigmata more frequently than were men. With the religious upheavals of the sixteenth century, the way stigmata were defined reflected the diverse perceptions of Christianity held by Catholics and Protestants.

David Brown argues for the importance of experience of God as mediated through place in all its variety. He explores the various ways in which such experiences once formed an essential element in making religion integral to human life, and argues for their reinstatement at the centre of theological discussions about the existence of God. In effect, the discussion continues the theme of Brown's two much-praised earlier volumes, Tradition and Imagination and Discipleship and Imagination, in its advocacy of the need for Christian theology to take much more seriously its relationship with the various wider cultures in which it has been set. In its challenge to conventional philosophy of religion, the book will be of interest to theologians and philosophers, and also to historians of art and culture generally.