And what mortal person is it who is able To ascend on high, To ride on wheels, To descend below, To search out the inhabited world, To walk on the dry land, To gaze at His splendor, To dwell with His crown, To be transformed by His glory, To recite praise, To combine letters, To recite their names, To have a vision of what is above, To have a vision of what is below,To know the explanation of...
Reviewed by: Magic and Mysticism: An Introduction to Western Esotericism Michael D. Bailey Arthur Versluis . Magic and Mysticism: An Introduction to Western Esotericism. Lanham, Md.: Roman and Littlefield, 2007. Pp. vii + 179. The field of Western esoteric studies, Arthur Versluis declares in this brief survey, is still in its infancy. One of the central scholarly tasks is to define what...
Abstract In modern usage, “mysticism” refers to mystical experience and to practices, discourse, institutions, and traditions associated therewith. The term “mystical experience” enjoys a great variety of meanings, retaining some of that variety among philosophers. There is no choice but to stipulate meaning for the purposes of this article. A wide definition of “mystical experience” will be...
AbstractParts of Julian's Showings are examined for their didactic quality, and her work is briefly compared to that of Mechthild and Hildegard. The commentary of Tobin, Chervin and others is alluded to, and it is concluded that Julian is an exemplary teacher.
How does the popular correspond to the grand terms of the title? Are not mysticism and spirituality something very exclusive, reserved for a few individuals? No they are not, as this presentation of both the author's own studies and the research of others will provide a different picture of these two concepts. Mysticism and spirituality are notions that are very difficult to define....
Book Reviews / Pneuma 31 (2009) 105-160 133 Anthony J. Steinbock, Phenomenology and Mysticism: The Verticality of Religious Experience (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007). 328 pp. $44.95 cloth. Th e phenomenological philosopher Anthony Steinbock has written an incredibly rich book about the phenomenology of mystical experience in the Abrahamic traditions, a book that will certainly be...
INTRODUCTION That there is something “mystical” about Hegel's philosophy is a familiar claim. In the years following Hegel's death it was a commonplace. In an 1840 essay on Meister Eckhart, the Danish philosopher Hans Martensen remarked that Hegel (as well as Schelling) had “demanded that philosophical thought rejuvenate itself in the immediate knowledge of God and divine things found in...
Abstract This essay outlines the way Gary D. DeAngelis employs the DDJ in a course on comparative mysticisms. Beginning with Ninian Smart's definition of mystical experience as a “state of consciousness where one ‘acquires a fundamental insight into the nature of reality,'” DeAngelis leads students into a discussion of how the DDJ responds to two basic questions: “What is the nature of ultimate...
Since Georges Vajda's classic study, La Théologie ascétique de Baḣya ibn Paqūda, appeared in 1947, very few scholars have devoted book-length works to the thought of Baḣya. Diana Lobel's A Sufi-Jewish Dialogue represents the first widely available to English-reading audiences, and this would be enough to make it a remarkable contribution. But it is the breadth and depth of Lobel's exploration...