Love’s Deepest Abyss: A Contemplative Ecology of Darkness
Journal of Contemplative Studies July 23, 2025 DOI: 10.57010/ilyg6107 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Mysticism |
| Keywords | Mystical darkness Self-annihilation Contemplative ecology |
| Key points | Argues that the concept of the abyss, drawn from medieval mysticism, offers a way to engage with profound loss and rekindle love for what is precious, forming part of a "contemplative ecology of darkness." |
Abstract
“Love’s deepest abyss is her most beautiful form,” so claims Hadewijch of Antwerp, the great medieval Flemish mystic. This strange and alluring idea, shared by many of the apophatic tradition, reflects the sense that the abyssal (sometimes conceived of as a void, a desert, or darkness) is essential to the work of love, and that love can only be known by relinquishing the narrow conception of the self and becoming lost in the depths. The idea of the abyss has reemerged in our own time as part of a painful grammar of loss: a way of engaging and responding to social, political, cultural, environmental, spiritual, and personal losses too deep to name but impossible to ignore. It has also become critical to the work of reimagining the immense value of what we are losing, rekindling our capacity to love what is most precious to us, and helping us recover a sense of a shared life with all sentient beings (something often referred to in the Christian mystical tradition simply as “the common life”). And it has become part of an emerging “contemplative ecology of darkness”—a radical spiritual practice that can help us learn again how to behold ourselves and other living beings as part of a larger whole.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on mysticism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The mystical mind: probing the biology of religious experience | 2000 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Religious and Mystical Experiences as Artifacts of Temporal Lobe Function: A General Hypothesis | 1983 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Problem of Pure Consciousness: Mysticism and Philosophy | 1993 | Edited collection of essays | |
| Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century | 2020 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mysticism and schizophrenia: A phenomenological exploration of the structure of consciousness in the schizophrenia spectrum disorders. | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |