First Published in 2002. This book is about the way medieval authors wrote about union with God and how they used language that refers to the senses to articulate their ideas about how a person can be one with God. Rudy argues that such explicit concepts of the spiritual senses are not sharply distinct from the ideas implicit in broader usage of sensory language in theological writings. These ideas are significant in the history of Christian mysticism, because language that refers to the senses bears directly on several ideas that are central to ideas about union with God.

This book investigates the striking movement towards a discourse of 'bodily' language used to discuss the relationship between the human person and god which takes place in the twelfth century and after. It considers how this discourse reflects broader changes in the concept of the human and of God.
Focusing on the mystical writings of Bernard of Clairvaux and Hadewijch of Brabant, the author shows how each exploits the language of taste and touch to articulate the possibility of the mystical experience itself, the immediacy of union with God.
This is a comprehensive and clearly written work on the relations between the mystical, the bodily and religious language that have been at the centre of recent debates.