The life of the black religious servant Ursula de Jesus (1604-1666) has remained one of the best-kept historical secrets of the New World. This English language translation of the diary she began in 1650 allows us to hear the voice of the former slave turned spiritualist.

Born into slavery in Lima, Peru, Ursula entered a convent at the age of thirteen to serve a nun, and spent the next twenty-eight years as one of hundreds of slaves whose exhausting daily work afforded little time to contemplate religious matters. After surviving a potentially fatal accident, she chose a spiritual path, though remained a slave until one of the nuns purchased her freedom. Ursula began to see visions and communicate more frequently with God. Dead souls eager to diminish their stay in Purgatory approached her, and it was then that she assumed the role of intercessor on their behalf.

Ursula's diary conveys the innuendos of convent life, but above all it offers a direct experience of baroque Catholic spirituality from the perspective of a woman of color. Nancy E. van Deusen selected approximately fifty pages from Ursula's diary to appear here as Ursula wrote them, in Spanish. Van Deusen's introduction situates Ursula's text within the milieu of medieval and early modern female spirituality, addresses the complexities of racial inequality, and explores the power of the written word. "

Enlightening biography of an early feminist and religious entrepreneur who championed ""the innate spirituality of women."" Emma Curtis Hopkins led a life of extraordinary diversity and achievement. Here at last is a study that salutes her remarkable life as it explores the route by which she melded spiritual healing, metaphysical idealism, and exotic philosophies into multiple careers of unsurpassed dynamic. As a charismatic teacher, Hopkins instructed or ordained every prominent New Thought leader who founded a major denomination of the movement's churches. Her considerable talents as a mystic and noted author reached fruition with the publication of High Mysticism in 1923. Furthermore, her ideas on healing and prosperity took root in both secular and religious orgahizations, touching millions around the globe to this day. The long-forgotten Hopkins is now given her due in a book that allows her to triumph in the roles she so ably mastered in life: mentor and mystic, healer and feminist, missionary and biblical prophet, writer and editor.

St John of the Cross is the supreme poet of the mystical tradition in Christianity. His poems are the most concise and beautiful expression of the experience of the love of God in Western literature. They are also the inspiration for his great prose works, which are extended commentaries on the poems. Many of these stem from his imprisonment in Toledo in 1577-78, from which he made a dramatic escape, taking refuge in a "discalced" (barefoot) Carmelite convent, where he apparently dictated poems from a notebook he had managed to bring out of prison. John was a man of his time and loved the courtly and popular literature of his age. The poems reflect this in their imagery and metre. Others draw their inspiration from the "Song of Songs" in the Bible. His images of human love and nature make his poems readily accessible on the level of literature. But the "divine" intention is always there, and this is the quality Kathleen Jones has sought to bring out in her translation, "Consideration of rhyme and metre have been treated as secondary to the importance of precise theological expression, and of conveying something of the lyricism and spiritual power of the original".

God has healed in the past and wants to heal now. But though they pray in faith, go to healing meetings, and strive to have enough faith, many are not healed as they would wish to be. "When God Doesn't Heal Now" examines the myths about healing that are built on partial truths and looks at the profound relationship between prayer, healing, and the sovereignty of God. This guide offers a balanced look at teachings on healing, faith healers, and ways to bring biblical clarity to beliefs that often foster guilt, defeat, and despair when believers are not immediately healed. "When God Doesn't Heal Now" is an encouraging book which affirms the biblical truth that God is our healer.

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

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.

Jane Leade (1624-1704) is probably the most prolific woman writer and most important female religious leader in late seventeenth-century England, yet, she still remains relatively unknown. By exploring her life and works as a prophetess and mystic, this books opens a fascinating window into the world of a remarkable woman living in a remarkable age. Born in Norfolk into a gentry family, Jane Leade enjoyed a comfortable childhood, married a distant cousin, who was a merchant, and had four children. However, she found herself totally destitute in London when he died, his fortune having been lost abroad. As a widow, she proclaimed herself to be a `Bride of Christ', and eventually became a prolific author and a respected blind, elderly leader of a religious group of well-educated men and women, known as the Philadelphian Society. The structure of this book is informed by the chronological events that happened during her life and is complemented by examining some of the material she published, including her visions of the Virgin Wisdom, or Sophia. She started writing in 1670, but published prolifically in the 1680s and 1690s, and this material offers a fascinating glimpse into the mind of an extraordinary woman. Believing herself to be living in the `End Times' she expected Sophia would return with the second coming of Christ. The Philadelphian Society grew under her charge, until they were buffeted by mobs in London. Jane Leade died in her eighty-first year and is buried in the non-conformist cemetery, Bunhill Fields, in London. By contextualising her and drawing out the nature of her devotions this new book draws attention to her as a figure in her own right. Previous studies have tended to reduce her to one example within a certain tradition, but as this work clearly demonstrates she was in fact a much more complicated character who did not conform to any one particular tradition.

In this first volume of the highly-acclaimed Presence of God series, Bernard McGinn explores the origins of Christian mysticism, from early Jewish apocalyptic writings to pre-Christian Greek contemplative thought; the New Testament witnesses; early Greek Patristic thought; and the contribution of early monastic practice. In Part 2, McGinn discusses Western Christian mysticism proper, with special attention to Augustine of Hippo. Of special interest is the now-influential appendix, which reviews various theoretical approaches to mysticism.

Merton defines Christian mysticism, especially as expressed by the Spanish Carmelite St. John of the Cross, and he offers the contemplative experience as an answer to the irreligion and barbarism of our times. "For those...curious about mysticism...this is an excellent book" (Catholic World).

These pages capture a thousand years of medieval women's visionary writing, from late antiquity to the 15th century. Written by hermits, recluses, wives, mothers, wandering teachers, founders of religious communities, and reformers, the selections reveal how medieval women felt about their lives, the kind of education they received, how they perceived the religion of their time, and why ascetic life attracted them.

This is the extraordinary story of Knight and Lomas's fourteen year quest to uncover the secret teachings buried beneath Roslin Chapel near Edinburgh. Their quest ends with extraordinary revelations about early human history - the origins of Christianity, of Freemasonry and of science. They show that all were charged with a belief in a secret cosmic code, linking, for example, the Exodus from Egypt, the founding of Solomon's Temple and the Star of Bethlehem. This book reveals for the first time why there were such high expectations of a Messiah at the time of the birth of Jesus Christ. The Book of Hiram will change everything you thought you knew about both the Bible and Freemasonry.

The present volume contains the procectings of a conference of" Writing and the Mystical Experience in the Religions of the Book" held at the Sorbonne in 1994. Though this theme is examined within the Christian and Islamic traditions, most of the contributions touch on this phenomenon in Jewish mysticism in the various stages of its historical development from the Midrash an d Merkabah right down to Luryanis Qabbalah and appear a lang site. Theoretical and methodoligical essays phenomenological studies of particular rituals connected with the mystical experience both in the Jewish and non-Jewish context. Of particular significance are the articles dealing with comparative aspects between Christian, Jewish and Muslim rituals such as baptism or the visitation of tombs.