2014 Reprint of 1952 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. "The Revelations of St. Gertrude" form one of the classics of Catholic writing. And although they would have to be classified as "mystical literature," their message is clear and obvious, for her work discusses the secrets of Heaven in terms that all can understand. Recorded here are St. Gertrude's many conversations with Our Lord, wherein He reveals His great desire to grant mercy to souls and to reward the least good act. In the course of their conversations, He reveals wonderful spiritual "shortcuts" that will help everyone in his or her spiritual life. Moreover, the "Revelations" actually open a window onto Heaven, where we can see the specific ways in which prayer, good works and liturgical celebrations on earth have very definite effects in Heaven.

2013 Reprint of 1952 Newman Press Second Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. This is one of the great classical medieval English works of devotion. Little is known of the author except that she was a recluse who lived in a cell attached to the church of St. Julian at Norwich. In 1373 she received sixteen private revelations from the Lord, dealing with his Passion, the truths of the Faith and the advancement of her own spiritual life. The work reveals a mind that has penetrated deeply to the mysteries of the Catholic religion, both on its doctrinal and its personal sides. Julian of Norwich was a very spiritual, devout soul, deeply sensitive to the beauty of holiness and centered wholeheartedly on the love and service of God. Although the work attracted little attention when it first appeared, it has since become one of the most famous books dealing with divine communications ever written.

2014 Reprint of 1961 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. "Interior Castle" is one of the most celebrated books on mystical theology available. It is the most sublime and mature of Teresa of Avila's works and expresses the full flowering of her deep experience in guiding souls toward spiritual enlightenment. In addition to its profound content, it is a treasury of important maxims on such ascetic subjects as self-knowledge, humility, detachment and suffering. But above all, this account of a soul's progress in virtue and grace is the record of a life-of the interior life of St. Teresa of Avila, whose soul, mind and temperament hold so deep an attraction for the modern mind. In its central image, Teresa describes the soul "as a castle made of a single diamond in which there are many rooms, just as in Heaven there are many mansions. She describes the various mansions of the castle, the degrees of purgation and strife, through which the soul must pass in its quest for perfection before reaching the innermost chambers, the place of complete transfiguration and communion with God.

Perhaps the least studied of Hildegard of Bingen's writings, "Solutions to Thirty-Eight Questions" is translated in this volume into English for the first time from the original Latin.
In this work of exegesis, Hildegard (1098-1179) resolves thorny passages of Scripture, theological questions, and two issues in hagiographic texts. "Solutions to Thirty-Eight Questions" joins Hildegard's "Homilies on the Gospels," which were directed to her nuns, as evidence of the seer's exegetical writing as well as her authority as an exegete. The twelfth-century saint wrote in standard genres of exegesis--homilies and "solutiones"--and her interpretations of Scripture were widely sought, including by male audiences.

2014 Reprint of 1952 Revised Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition. "The Cloud of Unknowing" is an anonymous work of Christian mysticism written in Middle English in the latter half of the 14th century. Along with "The Cloud" were written six accompanying treaties. Chief among these is "Epistle of Privy Counsel" which is also reproduced in this text. "The Cloud" is a spiritual guide on contemplative prayer. The underlying message of this work proposes that the only way to truly "know" God is to abandon all preconceived notions and beliefs or "knowledge" about God and be courageous enough to surrender your mind and ego to the realm of "unknowingness," at which point, you begin to glimpse the true nature of God. The book counsels a young student to seek God, not through knowledge and intellection (faculty of the human mind), but through intense contemplation, motivated by love, and stripped of all thought. This is brought about by putting all thoughts and desires under a "cloud of forgetting," and thereby piercing God's cloud of unknowing with a "dart of longing love" from the heart. This form of contemplation is not directed by the intellect, but involves spiritual union with God through the heart.

Nicolas Notovitch was born into an aristocratic Jewish family, but converted to Christianity in his youth. A prolific journalist, author of twelve books (and some say spy), he travelled widely in the east, visiting India, Afghanistan and Ladakh. After a riding accident that broke his leg, Notovitch recuperated at a Tibetan monastery in Hemis. Here, he heard of a manuscript that revealed astonishing information on the sixteen 'Lost Years of Jesus' - the period between Christ's visit to the Jerusalem Temple at the age of twelve and His baptism in the Jordan, about which the bible is strangely silent. The Tibetan manuscript relates that Jesus spent this time traveling to India and Tibet to study the spiritual disciplines of the East. He then returned to Israel, via Persia, where He taught until eventual crucifixion. This account was published by Notovitch in 1887 as 'The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ'. It caused an immediate sensation, stirring passions on both sides, shaking the foundations of orthodox Christianity, and raising a storm of controversy that, after more than 125 years, has not yet abated. An exciting, thought-provoking book, and essential reading for anyone interested in the life of the historical Jesus.

Celtic spirituality is the "forgotten faith" of the West. It is essentially joyful and holistic and holds together the two human faculties of reason and intuition, taking joy in the beauty of the created world. The Celtic saints were intuitives whose feet were very firmly planted on the ground. It is their equilibrium as human beings that gives much of their appeal, and in this, as in the holiness their lives display, they are Christlike. This book by Anglican cleric Anthony Duncan examines the lives of the Celtic saints in the context of their time, along with the sacred places in the landscape that have become associated with them.

Foreword:

Brighter than the twinkling stars in the sky, and yet softer than the wool on a baby lamb, the light of God will be upon us in the next life too. Abundantly so with goodness, and much to our delight, we will hardly be grasping it entirely, unless one has been immersed into and has experienced the connecting light while fully maximized. The fear of passing away should no longer exist in our mind. Complicated thinking is all that it is. Just as simple as knowing there is love in the afterlife, that is where our heart and soul belongs. Travel to heaven in the highway of your mind. It is very safe lifting a yielding conscious to achieve exceptional knowledge within the spirit world.

Author [self] bio:

Greg Belter is an Illinois native, who since at an early age has shown serious interest in the spirit world. Visiting the hereafter is a natural occurrence for him, from the grandiose out of body experiences, to the most splendid heavenly visions each and every day. His words are golden.

2013 Reprint of 1941 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. The sequel to "The Game of Life and How to Play It," this book presents positive affirmations for success, happiness, marriage, loss, debt, interviews, projection, health, and journeys. The author writes of the familiar, practical, and everyday, and her spiritual teaching comes through clear and strong. The wisdom of Florence Scovel Shinn is as applicable today as when it was written. The affirmations she offers in her work "Your Word is Your Wand" can be carried with you throughout the day to calm and settle the soul. Here is a list of her affirmations by subject: WISDOM FAITH SUCCESS PROSPERITY HEALTH THE PATH TO PROSPERITY HAPPINESS GUIDANCE FORGIVENESS VARIOUS NEEDS DIVINE PLAN LOVE

William Law was one of the great mystics, clerics, and educators of the Church of England. Born in 1686, he was educated at Cambridge, eventually taking a teaching position there in addition to being ordained in the Church of England. He lost his position at Cambridge for being a Non-Juror (the Church of England being a state religion, clerics and others are required to swear oaths of allegiance to the monarch, and this Law could not do with regard to George I). He wrote the first work, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life', one of his best-known works, while in retirement as tutor in the Gibbon household (he was tutor to the father of the historian noted for the work on the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) in the 1720s.. He wrote the second, much shorter work, The Spirit of Love, ' in 1750s. The first is a major work of spiritual practice, rightly deserving the description as a classic' or masterpiece'. For a course we teach at my seminary, this book is on the list of spiritual classics one may choose to use for inspiration and spiritual reflection, and for good reason. Influenced by Law's readings from other mystics such as Thomas a Kempis, Johann Tauler and others, this book is full of mystic insight and practical wisdom. It was popular from the start, and remains an enduring classic of post-Reformation spirituality.

2013 Reprint of 1937 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Evelyn Underhill was an English Anglo-Catholic writer and pacifist known for her numerous works on religion and spiritual practice, in particular Christian mysticism. This book contains in an expanded form the four addresses on the Spiritual Life which were given by Underhill in 1936. The are published in response to numerous requests from listeners and in the hope that they will be found suitable for Lenten reading. The spiritual life is here considered, not as an intense form of piety peculiar to saints, but as the living heart of all religion, and therefore of vital concern to ordinary men and women. Its essence is held to consist in a growing communion with God, a growing cooperation with Him, inspiring and transforming every kind of action from the most routine to the most heroic. Essays are: What is the Spiritual Life The Spiritual Life as Communion with God The Spiritual Life as Co-operation with God Some Questions and Difficulties.

The Christian mystics open our eyes to a world beyond this world, to the world of the spirit and of God, of whom they had a direct knowledge and experience, obtained chiefly through prayer, meditation and contemplation. The purpose of this book is to introduce the general reader to the fifteenth century English mystic, Margery Kempe of Lynn in Norfolk, as seen against her religious, social and historical background, with chapters on her spiritual and devotional life, her home town of Lynn, her encounters with the clergy, her vow of chastity, her pilgrimages, her trials for heresy and her conformity to the customs, faith and doctrines of the church of her day. As a former teacher at King's Lynn High School, Margaret Gallyon acquired a considerable knowledge of the town of Lynn and the surrounding district. It was here too that she first became interested in Margery Kempe, one of Lynn's most fascinating medieval citizens. Margaret Gallyon was educated at the Perse School, Cambridge, Norwich Teacher Training College and the Selly Oak Colleges in Birmingham. She is the author of three books on the coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England.

Laughing at the Devil is an invitation to see the world with a medieval visionary now known as Julian of Norwich, believed to be the first woman to have written a book in English. (We do not know her given name, because she became known by the name of a church that became her home.) Julian "saw our Lord scorn [the Devil's] wickedness" and noted that "he wants us to do the same." In this impassioned, analytic, and irreverent book, Amy Laura Hall emphasizes Julian's call to scorn the Devil. Julian of Norwich envisioned courage during a time of fear. Laughing at the Devil describes how a courageous woman transformed a setting of dread into hope, solidarity, and resistance.

'The Interior Castle' is a classic of Christian mysticism, written with some reluctance by its author, St Teresa of Avila. The saint spent most of her life as a Carmelite nun, and was noted for her piety and the frequency of her visions. In 1577 she was instructed by her superiors to produce a work on prayer for her sisters in the order. The result was a book of great spiritual significance, in which she wrote of her vision of the human being as a crystal globe, containing seven mansions. It is through these that the soul must make a progressive pilgrimage, to final union with God in the seventh mansion. St Teresa describes the prayers and meditations for this spiritual journey in great detail, and also warns of the obstructions and barriers that the Devil erects to prevent passage into the various mansions. Full of encouragement and advice for the modern aspirant, 'The Interior Castle' is as relevant today as when it was first written over four hundred years ago.

In Mystic Christianity-Religion, Philosophy and Science are known to be one and the same thing. There is no conflict between Science and Religion, Philosophy and Religion, or Philosophy and Science. They are all but names for the One Truth. There be but one Truth-there cannot be more than one. And so call it by the name of Religion... the name of Science... the name of Philosophy... it matters not-for the same thing is meant. There is naught but Truth. Nothing else really exists. All that is not Truth is Illusion-Maya-Nothing. And Mystic Christianity is based upon the Rock of Truth-fearing not the winds nor the storms that try out the stability of all structures of thought. Like its founder, it has always existed... always will exist... from the Beginningless Beginning... to the Endless Ending.

2012 Reprint of Original 1937 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. This is one of the most distinctly Franciscan of Bonaventure's texts. It was conceived in the wilderness of Mount Alverna where St. Francis received the stigmata. This text is meant to guide a generation of Franciscan clerics through the medium of a new scientific culture, while reminding them that Franciscan life is aimed at true devotion. In this masterpiece, Bonaventure recasts Augustinian illumination along distinctly Franciscan lines.

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.

2012 Reprint of Original 1953 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. (c)New introduction and foreword Martino Publishing. This work is the first English translation of her 13th century classic-the mystical writings of Mechthild of Magdeburg. The only complete codex of this work is in the library of Einsiedeln in Switzerland, where the translator spent three years translating the codex from a South German translation of 1344. The book is a collection of visions, revelations, thoughts and letters written in alternating prose and poetry. The variety of its contents includes practical advice on daily conduct, as well as the most sublime descriptions of high mystical experience. Her works were early translated into Latin, and were almost certainly known to Dante, whose vision of heaven, hell and purgatory went on to have a great influence in Western Literature. Her influence is traceable in the Paradiso and by some scholars she is thought to have been the Matilda in the earthly paradise. Her works remains to this day a classic text of Christian mysticis

The first fully-realized biography of Julian--theologian, anchorite, and visionary of the Middle Ages.

A groundbreaking and sometimes controversial biography that offers full tribute to the mystic Julian of Norwich. In May 1373, a thirty year-old woman living in East Anglia suffered an illness. She received visions--what she later called "sixteen showings"--revealing to her secrets of the love of God. When she fully recovered, Julian recorded and richly explored those revelations, creating what became the first English-language book written by a woman.

Drawing on Julian's own writings, Frykholm's biography paints a vivid picture of the 14th century and this remarkable woman's place in it. Through plague, church corruption, economic devastation, and great personal loss, she presciently addressed her culture's greatest fears and anxieties. Ultimately, Julian's life is shrouded in mystery, and yet she has become a significant figure in contemporary spirituality today.
"Frykholm...has audaciously done something many people would have said was not possible: written Julian's] biography. Frykholm has combined a careful reading of Julian's writings (at times scrupulous, at times midrashic, but at all times attentive) with a deep immersion in the scholarship of 14th-century England to offer an informed and absorbing...account of Julian's life."
-Lauren F. Winner, "Books & Culture"
" Frykhom's] narrative, which she calls 'an act of empathetic imagination, ' crackles with life."
-"The Denver Post"
"A sympathetic and realistic portrayal of a saint who, as it turns out, is both holy (that is, set apart) and as complicated as you and me....It reads with the energy of a novel and the insight of a spiritual classic."
-Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, "Christianity Today"

2010 Reprint of 1963 edition. Selected and with an introduction and notes by A.W. Tozer. The purpose of this book is to bring together in one convenient volume some of the best devotional verse the English language affords, and thus to make available to present day Christians a rich spiritual heritage which the greater number of them for various reasons do not now enjoy. Includes works by Isaac Watts, Oliver Wendell Holmes, F.W. Faber, Milman, Shirley, Wesley, Rossetti, Gerhardt, Pollock, Tate, Brady, Tersteegen, Ware, Nicolai, Bonar and others. Tozer served 44 years of ministry, associated with the Christian and Missionary Alliance, a Protestant evangelical denomination; 33 of those years were served as a pastor in a number of churches. He is the author of dozens of books, two of which, The Pursuit of God and The Knowledge of the Holy, are considered classics. His books impress on the reader the possibility and necessity for a deeper relationship with God.

In 1998, John Randolph Price experienced a mystical revelation from which came specific steps to higher consciousness - a ladder to climb to a new dimension where the illusions of sickness, scarcity and discord are shattered and a world of wholeness, abundance and right relations is revealed. He was also given a glimpse of the future as we move into the third millennium, and how lasting peace will finally come to Earth. This is the story of that revelation.

Faithful Christians have often wondered what salvation means and how we come to be saved. Traditional theories of atonement for sin have rested on the importance of Christ's sacrifice as the means of human salvation. This theology implies that it is somehow natural, particularly for women, to imitate Christ's suffering through sacrifice that has become increasingly oppressive.

Jane McAvoy has constructed a feminist theology of atonement that draws on the insights of six medieval women mystics -- Julian of Norwich, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Hildegard of Bingen, Margery Kempe, Hadewijch of Brabant, and Catherine of Siena -- whose early Christian writings reveal alternatives to a theology of oppression. For them, salvation meant experiencing the death and resurrection of Christ not as life-denying, but as a life-affirming celebration of God's Iove for us through the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ. From these women we are given a sensuous, experiential, graceful theology -- one that leads to a satisfied life.

2011 Reprint of 1956 Edition Translated by Michael Day at The Newman Press. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. "Introduction to the Devout Life" is the most popular Catholic "self-help" book of all time. First published in the early 17th century, it has proven its value as a daily spiritual guide and helpful reference for living an authentic Christian life. Written specifically for laymen, it began as letters from Saint Francis to a married woman who was seeking holiness amidst the distractions of her life of wealth and status. It contains treasures of wisdom for every reader, from eager beginner to lifelong Christian. Devout life does not require withdrawal from the world. This was the central insight of Saint Francis de Sales, a 16th-century priest whose "Introduction to the Devout Life" has not gone out of print in almost four centuries. Francis served the church at a dangerous time in a dangerous place: during the Reformation, in Calvinist areas of France, when celebrating mass was punishable by death. He was a popular minister and a prolific letter writer whose correspondence was cherished for its clear and direct instruction in the ways of piety. The book collects passages from many of those letters, organized as one message addressed to the allegorical character Philothea (which means "lover of God"). The book includes long sections about prayer, temptation, and how to maintain and renew devotion to God. But it is most distinguished by its discussion of how to live a holy life in the secular world. Each chapter (such as "How to Combine Due Care for a Good Reputation with Humility") is frank, uncannily modern, and precise. --Michael Joseph Gross