Bernard McGinn's The Presence of God series is one of the most respected histories of Christian mysticism in print today. In this new book, Bernard and Patricia McGinn draw from the series to take a closer, personal look at the mystical vision of 12 great spiritual masters living before the Reformation. What were the deep insights of these early mystics? How can we apply their wisdom to our lives today? Chapters include Hildegard of Bingen on cosmic vision, John Cassian on prayer and purity of heart, and Bernard of Clairvaux on spousal love.

How does the mind experience the sacred? What biological mechanisms are involved in mystical states and trances? Is there a neurological basis for patterns in comparative religions? Does religion have an evolutionary function? This pathbreaking work by two leading medical researchers explores the neurophysiology of religious experience. Building on an explanation of the basic structure of the brain, the authors focus on parts most relevant to human experience, emotion, and cognition. On this basis, they plot how the brain is involved in mystical experiences. Successive chapters apply this scheme to mythmaking, ritual and liturgy, meditation, near-death experiences, and theology itself. Anchored in such research, the authors also sketch the implications of their work for philosophy, science, theology, and the future of religion.

When Christianity was imposed on Native peoples in the Andes, visual images played a fundamental role, yet few scholars have written about this significant aspect. Object and Apparition proposes that Christianity took root in the region only when both Spanish colonizers and native Andeans actively envisioned the principal deities of the new religion in two- and three-dimensional forms. The book explores principal works of art involved in this process, outlines early strategies for envisioning the Christian divine, and examines later, more effective approaches. Maya Stanfield-Mazzi demonstrates that among images of the divine there was constant interplay between concrete material objects and ephemeral visions or apparitions. Three-dimensional works of art, specifically large-scale statues of Christ and the Virgin Mary, were key to envisioning the Christian divine, the author contends. She presents in-depth analysis of three surviving statues: the Virgins of Pomata and Copacabana (Lake Titicaca region) and Christ of the Earthquakes from Cusco. Two-dimensional painted images of those statues emerged later. Such paintings depicted the miracle-working potential of specific statues and thus helped to spread the statues' fame and attract devotees. ""Statue paintings"" that depict the statues enshrined on their altars also served the purpose of presenting images of local Andean divinities to believers outside church settings. Stanfield-Mazzi describes the unique features of Andean Catholicism while illustrating its connections to both Spanish and Andean cultural traditions. Based on thorough archival research combined with stunning visual analysis, Object and Apparition analyzes the range of artworks that gave visual form to Christianity in the Andes and ultimately caused the new religion to flourish.

In Wonder and Exile in the New World, Alex Nava explores the border regions between wonder and exile, particularly in relation to the New World. It traces the preoccupation with the concept of wonder in the history of the Americas, beginning with the first European encounters, goes on to investigate later representations in the Baroque age, and ultimately enters the twentieth century with the emergence of so-called magical realism. In telling the story of wonder in the New World, Nava gives special attention to the part it played in the history of violence and exile, either as a force that supported and reinforced the Conquest or as a voice of resistance and decolonization.

Focusing on the work of New World explorers, writers, and poets--and their literary descendants--Nava finds that wonder and exile have been two of the most significant metaphors within Latin American cultural, literary, and religious representations. Beginning with the period of the Conquest, especially with Cabeza de Vaca and Las Casas, continuing through the Baroque with Cervantes and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, and moving into the twentieth century with Alejo Carpentier and Miguel angel Asturias, Nava produces a historical study of Latin American narrative in which religious and theological perspectives figure prominently.

One day in 1917, while cooking dinner at home in Manhattan, Margaret Reilly (1884-1937) felt a sharp pain over her heart and claimed to see a crucifix emerging in blood on her skin. Four years later, Reilly entered the convent of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd in Peekskill, New York, where, known as Sister Mary of the Crown of Thorns, she spent most of her life gravely ill and possibly exhibiting Christ's wounds. In this portrait of Sister Thorn, Paula M. Kane scrutinizes the responses to this American stigmatic's experiences and illustrates the surprising presence of mystical phenomena in twentieth-century American Catholicism. Drawing on accounts by clerical authorities, ordinary Catholics, doctors, and journalists - as well as on medicine, anthropology, and gender studies - Kane explores American Catholic mysticism, setting it in the context of life after World War I and showing the war's impact on American Christianity. Sister Thorn's life, she reveals, marks the beginning of a transition among Catholics from a devotional, Old World piety to a newly confident role in American society.

This volume provides a contemporary overview of texts, images, phenomena and personalities of Christian mysticism during the Western Middle Ages. The material is primarily approached from literary, history of mentality and psychology of religion perspectives. Basic knowledge is communicated through critical analysis and is also made accessible through a glossary. Although this work clearly focuses on German mysticism, developments in other European countries are presented in a comparative manner.

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.

The early Christian monks of Egypt, Syria, and Palestine were the spiritual heroes of their age--fleeing the security of civilization for the desert, where they sought God in lives of prayer, contemplation, and radical simplicity. This book is a portable collection of their teachings, and those of their contemplative contemporaries, ranging from the fourth through the eleventh centuries. It is arranged to the traditional model of three ascending "books" "Praktikos" (practice), "Theoretikos" (theory), and "Gnosis" (knowledge). Each book consists of 100 "sentences"--aphorisms or thoughts. Each sentence is intended to be read and meditated upon for an entire day--just as the monks themselves might have done as they went about their work.

The Soul as Virgin Wife presents the first book-length study to give a detailed account of the theological and mystical teachings written by women themselves, especially by those known as beguines, which have been especially neglected. Hollywood explicates the difference between the erotic and imagistic mysticism, arguing that Mechthild, Porete, and Eckhart challenge the sexual ideologies prevalent in their culture and claim a union without distinction between the soul and the divine. The beguines' emphasis in the later Middle Ages on spiritual poverty has long been recognized as an important influence on subsequent German and Flemish mystical writers, in particular the great German Dominican preacher and apophatic theologian Meister Eckhart. In The Soul as Virgin Wife, Amy Hollywood presents the first book-length study to give a detailed textual account of these debts. Through an analysis of Magdeburg's The Flowing Light of the Godhead, Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls, and the Latin commentaries and vernacular sermons of Eckhart, Hollywood uncovers the intricate web of influence and divergence between the beguinal spiritualities and Eckhart.

A treatment of thinking about the "mystical way" in spirituality. Drawing on academic research, Melvyn Matthews looks for a balanced view of the spiritual life which is open to everyone, not just a contemplative elite or those who have had particularly extraordinary experiences or visions of God. The study is based on the Bible, as well as on popular figures such as Thomas Merton and Teresa of Avila.

Responding to our modern disillusionment with any claims to absolute truth regarding morality or reality, this book offers a conceptual approach for discussing absolutes without denying either the relevance of divergent religious and philosophical teachings or the evidence supporting postmodern and poststructuralist critiques. Case studies of mysticism within Advaita-Vedānta Hinduism, Mādhyamika Buddhism, and Nicene Christianity demonstrate the value of this approach and offer many fresh insights into the metaphysical presuppositions of these religions as well as into the nature and value of mystical experience. Like Douglas Hofstadter's Gōdel, Escher, Bach, this book finds ultimate reality to be rationally graspable only as an eternal fugue of pattern and paradox. Yet it does not so much counter other philosophical views as provide a conceptual tool for understanding and classifying incommensurable views.

The great German mystic Meister Eckhart remains one of the most fascinating figures in Western thought. Revived interest in Eckhart's mysticism has been matched, and even surpassed, by the study of the women mystics of the late13th century. This book argues that Eckhart's thought cannot be fully be understood until it is viewed against the background of the breakthroughs made by the women mystics who preceded him.

This sweeping study of mysticism by Jess Hollenback considers the writings and experiences of a broad range of traditional religious mystics, including Teresa of Avila, Black Elk, and Gopi Krishna. It also makes use of a new category of sources that more traditional scholars have almost entirely ignored, namely, the autobiographies and writings of contemporary clairvoyants, mediums, and out-of-body travelers. This study contributes to the current debate about the contextuality of mysticism by presenting evidence that not only are the mystic's interpretations of and responses to experiences culturally and historically conditioned, but historical context and cultural environment decisively shape both the perceptual and affective content of the mystic's experience as well.

Hollenback also explores the linkage between the mystic's practice of recollection and the onset of other unusual or supernormal manifestations such as photisms, the ability to see auras, telepathic sensitivity, clairvoyance, and out-of-body experiences. He demonstrates that these extraordinary phenomena can actually deepen our understanding of mysticism in unexpected ways.

A unique feature of this book is its in-depth analysis of "empowerment," an important phenomenon ignored by most scholars of mysticism. Empowerment is a peculiar enhancement of the imagination, thoughts, and desires that frequently accompanies mystical states of consciousness. Hollenback shows its cross-cultural persistence, its role in constructing the perceptual and existential environments within which the mystic dwells, and its linkage to the fundamental contextuality of mystical experience.

This is a selection from the writings of the 12th century Benedictine mystic, who wrote books on prayer, theology, poetry, music, natural history, the human body, health as well as one play. It includes commentary which places Hildegard's work in its social and historical context and the new translations bring it all vividly to life.

This study shows how Osuna uses mystical symbolism and allegory in his own writing and in the methods of meditation and contemplation he teaches.

* What is the standard view of history is completely wrong? * What if science and writing developed from an advanced prehistoric civilisation in the British Isles? * What is written evidence in the Dead Sea Scrolls records megalithic history and provides the plans for a machine that could rebuild civilisation following a global catastrophe? * And what if Jesus and his brother James were practitioners of megalithic astronomy? In URIEL'S MACHINE Knight & Lomas offer powerful new evidence that our planet was hit by seven mountain-sized lumps of comet, creating a series of giant waves that ripped across the globe. Putting together the latest findings of leading geologists with their own sensational new archaeological discoveries, they show how a civilisation emerged and was able to build an international network of sophisticated astronomical observatories which provided accurate calendars, could measure the diameter of the planet and accurately predict comet impact years in advance.

The revelation that this is the true purpose of the great megalithic sites in Western Europe, built long before the Egyptian pyramids.

Truth waits for eyes unclouded by longing.' Lao-Tzu (poet and philosopher) In this collection of short, contemplative, enlightening reflections, spiritual teacher and Quaker Christopher Goodchild, inspired by his own experiences, guides you through his spiritual and philosophical journey to his truest and most peaceful self. Written from a 'soul' perspective, the book reveals how, by looking beyond vulnerability to see innate strength, and searching beyond pain and turmoil to find peace and serenity, anyone can affirm their true humanity despite the hardships and distractions of modern life. Christopher's compassionate route through difficulties, doubt, grief and fear is marked with dynamic tenderness and an artful embrace of abundant sources of wisdom. Spirituality, psychology and philosophy are seamlessly woven together in an inclusive Quaker context, led by the common values of love and forgiveness. In a world increasingly weighed down with the baggage of the self, this book will speak to anyone searching for a more clear-sighted, meaningful presence in the eternal universe.

Guyon's theology and spiritual writing opened new doors to people from all walks of life who yearned for spiritual joy and wisdom. These new translations include her popular "A Short and Easy Method of Prayer," as well as her biblical commentary on the Song of Songs, where poetic imagery comes to life with its refreshing sense of God's desire to join with all humanity. Guyon always writes of the pure love of God, like a human kiss, that leads to the fulfilling union with the divine. "The Complete Madame Guyon" also presents examples of her passionate poetry, some of which has never before been translated into English. Guyon expresses the range of feelings involved with living in a relationship with God and her ideas about the real involvement of the divine within the human heart. Nancy James's historical introduction explains the events of Guyon's life first as an aristocratic wife and mother of five, and later as a widow traveling around Europe as an author, who ended up incarcerated in the Bastille by the direct order of Louis XIV. Guyon suffered ten years of incarceration, along with accusations of heresy. Cleared of all of charges at the end of her life, in all of her writing Madame Guyon testified to the goodness and holiness of God.

"Thanks to Nancy James's scholarly labors, Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Mothe, more widely known as Madame Guyon (1648-1717) will hopefully become a household word, at least among students of mysticism. By no means an uncontroversial thinker, twice imprisoned for her allegedly heretical ideas, and defended by one bishop (Fenelon) and attacked by another (Bossuet), Madame Guyon's ideas, especially her concept of self-annihilation in the soul's union with God, will likely arouse challenge, even today. We owe Dr. James an enormous debt for her translation of Madame Guyon's works and popularization of her ideas. Through Dr. James's work we can gain insights into not only mystical theology but also seventeenth-century French secular and ecclesiastical politics."
-- Dr. Peter C. Phan, The Ignacio Ellacuria Chair of Catholic Social Thought, Theology Department, Georgetown University