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The Varieties of Mystical Experience
Oct. 31st, 2024 09:23 amA review by Elvia Wilk of the philosopher Simon Critchley's most recent book, Mysticism, which has just moved up to number 1 on my TBR list.
On the basis of Wilk's review and an extract from the book in The Paris Review, it appears that Critchley pays attention not only to well-known mystics (such as Meister Eckhart, Bernard of Clairvaux, Teresa of Ávila, and Julian of Norwich) but also to less familiar (to me, anyway) persons such as Henry Suso, who "identified himself and Christ as female"; Madame Guyon, "whose Bible commentary ... about how anyone can commune with God landed her in jail"; and Christina the Astonishing, who "flew around, suckled her own breasts, then hung herself from the gallows and survived."
Critchley writes, "Skepticism is not an instinctual or default response for me. If someone tells me something, I am inclined to believe it, no matter how strange it sounds. Maybe I’m just gullible, particularly when it comes to profound experiences that I have never really had, or never had in the way that I would really like."
On the basis of Wilk's review and an extract from the book in The Paris Review, it appears that Critchley pays attention not only to well-known mystics (such as Meister Eckhart, Bernard of Clairvaux, Teresa of Ávila, and Julian of Norwich) but also to less familiar (to me, anyway) persons such as Henry Suso, who "identified himself and Christ as female"; Madame Guyon, "whose Bible commentary ... about how anyone can commune with God landed her in jail"; and Christina the Astonishing, who "flew around, suckled her own breasts, then hung herself from the gallows and survived."
Critchley writes, "Skepticism is not an instinctual or default response for me. If someone tells me something, I am inclined to believe it, no matter how strange it sounds. Maybe I’m just gullible, particularly when it comes to profound experiences that I have never really had, or never had in the way that I would really like."
