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.

'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.

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

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"

"For years these lessons have been given to spiritual students, hundreds of whom are living demonstrations of their efficacy in healing. "Not only have the sick been healed by the practice of these teachings, but characters have been redeemed from vice and weakness, and prosperity has come to those who had never dreamed that there is a law of mind that gives fortune and freedom from debt. Therefore these teachings are not theoretical or chimerical, but proven Truth, that Truth which is more valuable than any earthly treasure that could be named, and for which no exchange would even be considered by the one who has learned and realized It." Annie Rix Militz was an early organizer of the New Thought Movement. She is best known as the founder of Home of Truth and with her sister Harriet Hale Rix, founder of the West Coast Metaphysical Bureau, a group whose aim was to study philosophies and religions.

In-depth exploration of the life and thought of Louis Massignon (1883-1962), a very influential French Islamic scholar and Christian mystic. This is a translation of an original French by an expert on Massignon's life and works, revised and augmented.

2011 Reprint of 1963 edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. 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.

Description: The current popularity of contemplative prayer is not accidental. A twenty-first-century understanding of the human condition has made us suspicious of words and the understanding we craft out of words. Theology generally offers us words that purport to give us a more precise and certain understanding of God, but the mystic has always known that our relationship to God transcends words and the kind of understanding that words produce. The theology of the mystic has always been about understanding our communion with the mystery that is God in order to fall evermore deeply in love with the Divine. That is the ultimate purpose of contemplative prayer, and the purpose of this book is to offer a philosophy and theology of contemplative prayer in the twenty-first century. Endorsements: ""Again, James Danaher shows us that the use of the mind and the search for God are not in competition, but in fact enrich and feed one another at very deep levels. How much we need this kind of integration in our culture--where so much religious talk seems divisive and compromised. Contemplative Prayer is not just about divine prayer but about the very quality of human faith and love."" -Richard Rohr, OFM author of Everything Belongs and The Naked Now ""There is often a wide gulf in academia between the mind and the spirit. Many Christian academics start in the spirit but lose something of their spirituality in the development of their mind. Jim Danaher successfully bridges that gulf in this book on contemplative prayer. Jim's insights into this marvelous discipline nourish both the mind and the spirit, bringing them together in Holy Communion with the Trinity."" -Ron Walborn Dean, Alliance Theological Seminary About the Contributor(s): James P. Danaher is Professor of Philosophy and Head of the Philosophy Department at Nyack College, Nyack, New York. He is the author of Jesus after Modernity: A Twenty-First-Century Critique of Our Modern Concept of Truth and the Truth of the Gospel (2011), Eyes That See, Ears ThatHear: Perceiving Jesus in a Postmodern Context (2006), Postmodern Christianity and the Reconstruction of the Christian Mind (2001), and over sixty articles that have appeared in a variety of philosophy and theology journals.

2011 Reprint of 1949 Third Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. JOEL S. GOLDSMITH (1892-1964), was an important teacher of practical mysticism, and devoted most of his life to the discovery and teaching of spiritual principles which he founded and called "The Infinite Way." Goldsmith self-published his most famous work, "The Infinite Way" in 1947 based on letters to patients and students. In this collection of important essays Goldsmith describes the spiritual truth as he gleaned it though over thirty years of study of the major religions and philosophies of all the ages. He assures his readers that inner peace will come as one turns to the spiritual consciousness of life, and an outer calm will follow one's human affairs as a result.

An examination of the similarities and differences between Christianity and Islam, especially in the areas of ontology, philosophy and metaphysics. The integration of the heritages of Plato and Aristotle in the Church and in Islam is explored deftly and densely. This book invites adherents of Christianity and Islam to understand more deeply their own respective traditions and on this basis to understand and respect 'the other'. Several chapters are devoted to a comparison between both Sunnite Sufi and Shi'ite Gnostic esoteric traditions, especially in the area of Qur'anic exegesis. This book will be equally challenging and rewarding for the serious reader.

The Revelations of Divine Love is a book of Christian mystical devotions written by Julian of Norwich. It is believed to be the first published book in the English language to be written by a woman. At the age of thirty, 13 May 1373, Julian was struck with a serious illness. As she prayed and prepared for death, she received a series of sixteen visions on the Passion of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Saved from the brink of death, Julian of Norwich dedicated her life to solitary prayer and the contemplation of the visions she had received. She wrote a short account of her visions probably soon after the event. About twenty or thirty years after her illness, near the end of the fourteenth century, she wrote down her visions and her understanding of them. This is the Grace Warrack translation that brought this great work the recognition it desrved.

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.

Part oracle, part meditation book, and part Aladdin's cave of Middle Eastern myth and sacred story, Desert Wisdom offers a fresh way to hear the ancient visionary voices of the Middle East that generated three (or more) of the world's great religions.
Renowned Sufi scholar and teacher Neil Douglas-Klotz, author of The Sufi Book of Life and Prayers of the Cosmos, has revisioned his acclaimed 1995 classic for the 21st century. Praised by scientists, poets and mystics alike for its ecological approach to "hearing" the native wisdom of the Middle East on its own terms, Desert Wisdom takes us on a journey from ancient Egypt throughout the Middle East to Sufi poets like Rumi and Hafiz. In between, we spend time hearing Genesis the way a storyteller might have told it and sit at the feet of the Aramaic-speaking prophet, Yeshua of Nazareth. Through it all, Desert Wisdom presents us with ancient wisdom about life's biggest questions like:

"Why am I here? Who am I? And how do I love?"

Here is the clearest possible exposition of the life and teachings of the diminutive Carmelite Friar whose influence has been so very profound. This book argues that St John of the Cross as a multifaceted, 'myriad minded man' is an Outstanding Christian Thinker. Within this book we shall encounter many facets of his genius for living the spiritual life: John as mystic, artist, theologian, psychologist and initiator of dialogue with other faiths, concluding that John can best be understood for Christians today as a 'practical theologian' par excellence who offers clear and practical help to contemporary Christians in their journey to encounter with the Living Lord. John is the inheritor of the medieval tradition and he is our contemporary. Like John's leap onto the city walls of Toledo, high above the perilous cliffs of the Tajo, so, the saint says, the Christian life must be a similar leap of faith 'in darkness and unknown' as we take a deep breath, place our trust in God and let go into the full clear air alone at last and in terrifying wonder of God's loving embrace. Series Editor: Brian Davies OP, Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University, New York. This series offers a range of authoritative studies on people and movements who have made an outstanding contribution to Christian thought and understanding. The series ranges across the full spectrum of Christian thought, to include Catholic and Protestant thinkers, to cover East and West, historical and contemporary figures.

Originally published in 1975, Experience of the Inner Worlds is a classic magical textbook of the Western Mystery Tradition. Covering a wide range of topics within a Christian-oriented Qabalistic framework, Gareth Knight explains the difference between magic and mysticism, natural and revealed religion, monism and theism. He also covers the practicalities, examining methods of inner plane communication, contact with the Masters, the 'consciousness' approach of Carl Jung, the vision of Dante and the archetypal power of the Hebrew alphabet - all within the context of the Qabalistic Tree of Life. The book also contains powerful visualisation exercises and examples of communication with angelic and elemental contacts. While this book can be used as a course of self-instruction, it is also an important modern reference book of magical theory and practice, and has been used for decades by students of Western Qabalah and magic.

Jakob Boehme (1575-1624) was one of those remarkable teachers, like Meister Eckhart, who pushed language to its limits to describe an experience that happens above and beyond rational thought. He was a Bohemian shoemaker who, in response to the overwhelming visionary experiences he began to undergo as a teenager, wrote a series of theosophical treatises that explored the relationship between the One and the many, existence and nonexistence, the inner process of divine emanation toward self-consciousness, the relationship of good and evil, and the personal and cosmic urge toward reintegration. Some hear in him resonances with alchemy, kabbalah, and Platonism. His influence is seen in the Quakers, the German Romantics, Pietism, various American utopian experiments, and in the European mystics who came after him. The great scholar of mysticism Evelyn Underhill called him "one of the most astonishing cases in history of a natural genius for the transcendent."
Michael Birkel and Jeff Bach's translation liberates Boehme into modern English. Previous editions have tended toward the academic, or have been couched in intentionally archaic language reminiscent of the King James Bible. This collection includes five essential texts, among them "Life Beyond the Senses," Boehme's explanation of the relationship between God and the soul.

Called in a special way to listen to God's whispers, the mystics amplify not only what it means to be baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ 'and to having the Trinity living in them 'but also what is deepest in the human spirit. Mystics experience themselves as an infinite question to which only God is the answer; as an immense longing that only Love can quench; as a nothing in the face of the No-Thing. They are God's fools, troubadours 'the great artists and poets of the interior life whose learned ignorance" articulates the art of loving God, neighbor, self, the Church, and the world.

In "Soundings in the Christian Mystical Tradition" Harvey Egan draws on fifty years of reading and teaching the mystics to sketch the varieties and passion of the mystical life across more than two millennia. Through their stories and words Egan reveals that al were conscious of the paradox of human identity 'supremely and unsurpassably manifested in the God-Man 'that the genuinely human is disclosed only through surrender to God and that the search for God cannot bypass the genuinely human.

"Harvey D. Egan, SJ, is the author of numerous works on Christian mysticism and the thought of Karl Rahner. He is currently professor of systematic and mystical theology at Boston College.""

"Eternal greatness! You made yourself low and small to make mankind great." While in an ecstatic trance, St. Catherine of Siena dictated The Dialogue. In this intense and searching work, she offers up petitions to God, filling her conversation with instruction on discernment, true and false spiritual emotion, obedience and truth, and revealing her famous image of Christ as the Bridge. Catherine's brilliant insights into the nature of the spiritual life have motivated Christians for centuries to unite a life of prayer with a life of action. "This have I told you, my sweetest daughter, that you might know the perfection of this union-producing state, when the eye of the intellect is ravished by the fire of my charity, in which it receives supernatural light. With this light the souls in the state of union love me, because love follows the intellect, and the more it knows the more it can love." (from the book)

In reading Marthe Robin and the Foyers of Charity you will learn about the early life and mission of Marthe Robin, and how she gradually became paralysed and was confined to bed. The book also has details of how she received the stigmata in 1930, and began to live Christ's passion every week, as well as how she met Fr Georges Finet and they founded the First Foyer in l936. Marthe Robin and the Foyers of Charity also has fascinating details of the witness of some of the 100,000 visitors she received over 50 years, including what prominent figures thought of her. These include Jean Guitton, Marcel Clement, Fr Marie-Dominque Philippe OP, the founder of the Community of St John, and Fr Jacques Ravanel, the immediate successor of Fr Finet as the head of the Foyer movement, and Marthe's first postulator. There are now 75 Foyer communities throughout the world, and their work involves a priest, the Father of the Foyer, giving 5 day retreats in silence, during which the members of the community look after the needs of the retreatants and pray for them. If you want to learn about the life of this amazing French mystic, then Marthe Robin and the Foyers of Charity is the perfect introduction.

Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900), one of the greatest philosophers of the nineteenth century, was the founder of a tradition of Russian spirituality that brought together philosophy, mysticism, and theology with a powerful social message. A Platonist and a gnostic visionary, as well as a close friend of Dostoevsky, Solovyov was also a prophet who was granted three visions of Sophia, Divine Wisdom. A poet and a profoundly Christian metaphysicist, his works include The Justification of the Good; War, Progress, and the End of History; and The Meaning of Love. This unique, timely book - the first in-depth, full-length portrait of Soloviev as a mystic to appear in English - is the rich fruit of Dr. Allen's lifelong interest in the cultural and spiritual achievements, the mysticism, and the esoteric work of the Russian people during Tsarist times leading up to the twentieth century.

Heaven and hell are from the human race. All who have ever been born men from the beginning of creation, and are deceased, are either in heaven or in hell. The Last Judgment must be where all are together; therefore in the spiritual world, and not on the earth. The Last Judgment exists when the end of the church is; and the end of the church is when there is no faith, because there is no charity. All the things which are predicted in the Apocalypse are at this day fulfilled. The Last Judgment has been accomplished. Babylon and its destruction. The former heaven and its abolition. The state of the world and of the church hereafter. The subject of the Last Judgment is continued, principally that it may be known what the state of the world and the church was before the Last Judgment, and what the state of the world and the church has become since; also, how the Last Judgment was accomplished upon the Reformed.

The pearlers we meet in this book were early monks of Syria, Mesopotamia (Iraq), and Persia (Iran), They saw themselves as pearl-divers and pearl-merchants searching, through asceticism and prayer, for the precious pearls of mystical experience. Their quest led them into the wilderness, to a state of silent solitude in remote caves and hermitages. Working from Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum and the Vatican Library, and from the Greek monastery of Saint Catherine in the wilderness of Sinai and the Coptic monastery of the Syrians (Der es-Suriani) in the Egyptian desert, Brian E. Colless has produced a volume which draws modern readers into this little known world.

St. John of the Cross was considered to be one of the greatest Spanish poets. Collected here are twenty of his amazing poems including The Dark Night, A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ, Love's Living Flame, By the Waters of Babylon, and many others.