Mysticism And The Experience Of Love

Mysticism is all about love. Mystics love God and want to get in touch with Him. To this end, they follow a tortuous path through the intimacy of their own souls, driven by desire. The Lord may not be the easiest of lovers, but this does not prevent them from longing for Him. In fact, his perceived absence, physical and even mental, makes their love burn all the fiercer. And this burning love is far from thoughtless. The difficulty of loving God is precisely one of the main reasons why mystics have always felt the need to reflect profoundly upon their relationship with Him. The mystical canon testifies in various ways to its authors' extensive and diversified thinking on their intense spiritual love lives. And these reflections all have their elaborate, subtle theories of love. It is from this perspective that the contributions to this volume approach several important works in the Christian mystical tradition, from the Seven Ways of Minne by Beatrice of Nazareth, via Novalis's Hymns to the Night, to the "Prologue" by Simone Weil. These writings are examined for their specific theoretical schemes and backgrounds. At the same time, the question is also dealt with how the theory and the experience of love relate to one another in these texts. Investigations of the reflections on this topic by modern thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre and Michel Foucault round off this exploration of mysticism and its love theories.

We are all mystics, if we take the word mysticism to mean union or communion with ultimate reality. So writes John S. Dunne in this in-depth examination of mysticism.

Now in a fully corrected edition, one of the true spiritual classics of the twentieth century. Published for the first time with an index and Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar’s afterword, this new English publication of Meditations on the Tarot is the landmark edition of one of the most important works of esoteric Christianity. Written anonymously and published posthumously, as was the author’s wish, the intention of this work is for the reader to find a relationship with the author in the spiritual dimensions of existence. The author wanted not to be thought of as a personality who lived from 1900 to 1973, but as a friend who is communicating with us from beyond the boundaries of ordinary life. Using the 22 major arcana of the tarot deck as a means to explore some of humanity’s most penetrating spiritual questions, Meditations on the Tarot has attracted an unprecedented range of praise from across the spiritual spectrum.

The Inner Eye of Love offers a contemporary theology of mysticism that locates it at the very center of authentic religious experience. It provides as well a practical guide for meditation even as it maps out the oceanic experience toward which meditation points.

In September of 1976 a group of some fifty scholars and practising mystics gathered at the University of Calgary. The chief objective of the Conference was to ponder and assess the nature of mysticism in its Eastern, Western and North American Indian forms. The method the Conference followed was somewhat unusual in that it aimed at a dialogue between the practising mystics and the scholars. What this book presents to the reader is not the outcome of the dialogue, but the personal statements and papers from which the dialogue began. Of course there is a degree to which the dialogue is already present, in that the papers of the scholars were written with the statements of the mystics in hand. Among some of the philosophers present, a set of more formal comments on each others presentations was recorded and these have been included.

African American Philosophy and African American Philosophers have played a central role in understanding and also shaping what it means to be black in America. Some of their conclusions were reactions to the mistreatment they received from the majority population, but other of their conclusions were extensions and/or novel positions taken with a view through past perceptual lenses. Yet, with the mass exodus of black students from HBCU’s after the civil rights era, many of the important figures and their inquiries have been little or poorly studied. The significance of this work is found in its attempt to grapple with one such seminal figure, his memory of his ancestors, and the education he received from Morehouse College (in the Atlanta University Center), all of which formed the roots of the ideas he later produced. Howard Thurman, former Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University, and mentor to figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr., left quite a large ideological footprint; however, just as others of his milieu, his ideas have been largely overlooked. Thurman’s deep-rooted knowledge of black culture, particularly black religious ideas as they existed during the period of African enslavement in the United States and as they were exhibited in the Negro Spirituals, shaped his thinking and allowed him to produce a body of work grounded in the musings and traditions of his ancestors. This volume investigates, forms an analysis, and even critiques Thurman’s work such that others can benefit from the profundity of his thoughts while also taking note of their relevance for today’s philosophers concerned with humanity.