Mysticism

Rating:
Summary: Blessed Evelyn!
Review: Evelyn Underhill is that most wonderful of combinations: a remarkably thorough student of mysticism, an intensely religious woman who had mystical tendencies herself, and a beautiful writer who can evoke the wonder of the mystical vision by the similes and metaphors she uses. An earlier reviewer thinkes her prose is "impenetrable." A strange evaluation, in my judgment, of a writer who is both poetic and pellucid. Here's a typical (and splendid!) example of her wordcraft: "By false desires and false thoughts man has built up for himself a false universe: as a mollusc, by the deliberate and persistent absorption of lime and rejection of all else, can build up for itself a hard shell which shuts it from the external world, and only represents in a distorted and unrecognisable form the ocean from which it was obtained. This hard and wholly unnutritious shell, this one-sided secretion of the surface-consciousness, makes as it were a little cave of illusion for each separate soul." (pp. 198-99)

It must be admitted that some parts of Underhill's classic haven't aged as well as others. Her chapters on mysticism and vitalism and mysticism and psychology, for example, are dated (especially the former). But her analysis in the second part of the book of the soul's journey to God, beginning with purgation and continuing through to mystical unification, still remains one of the best single treatments going. Underhill has a masterful grasp of western (Christian and, to a lesser extent, Jewish and Moslem) mysticism, and reading her just for the quotes from the great spiritual masters would be a delight in itself.

Don't sell her short. Doing so deprives you of the great pleasure of her company.

Rating:
Summary: Blessed Evelyn!
Review: Evelyn Underhill is that most wonderful of combinations: a remarkably thorough student of mysticism, an intensely religious woman who had mystical tendencies herself, and a beautiful writer who can evoke the wonder of the mystical vision by the similes and metaphors she uses. An earlier reviewer thinkes her prose is "impenetrable." A strange evaluation, in my judgment, of a writer who is both poetic and pellucid. Here's a typical (and splendid!) example of her wordcraft: "By false desires and false thoughts man has built up for himself a false universe: as a mollusc, by the deliberate and persistent absorption of lime and rejection of all else, can build up for itself a hard shell which shuts it from the external world, and only represents in a distorted and unrecognisable form the ocean from which it was obtained. This hard and wholly unnutritious shell, this one-sided secretion of the surface-consciousness, makes as it were a little cave of illusion for each separate soul." (pp. 198-99)

It must be admitted that some parts of Underhill's classic haven't aged as well as others. Her chapters on mysticism and vitalism and mysticism and psychology, for example, are dated (especially the former). But her analysis in the second part of the book of the soul's journey to God, beginning with purgation and continuing through to mystical unification, still remains one of the best single treatments going. Underhill has a masterful grasp of western (Christian and, to a lesser extent, Jewish and Moslem) mysticism, and reading her just for the quotes from the great spiritual masters would be a delight in itself.

Don't sell her short. Doing so deprives you of the great pleasure of her company.

Rating:
Summary: 90 years later, still THE essential book on mysticism
Review: I read Underhill's magisterial "Mysticism" the summer after I graduated from high school, and I've been a student/devotee of the western contemplative tradition ever since. Underhill's accessible if British-formal prose provides a wonderful, elegant stage on which the majesty and depth of the interior life can be celebrated. The book neatly divides into two halves: the first examines mysticism from theological, psychological, and philosophical perspectives; the second takes the reader on a tour of the process of mystical growth over the lifespan, looking at such key life passages and transitions as conversion, self-purification, illumination, the "dark night," and union. What emerges is a developmental map for adult spiritual growth, which is a tremendous corrective to many of the silly notions floating around in our society, such as the idea that one single "born again" experience is all that is necessary to achieve total spiritual attainment. What I especially love about Underhill is her evident enthusiasm and passion for her subject matter. Without ever saying it in so many words, she reveals in her writing that mysticism is more than a dry subject for disinterested study; it is a living, breathing tradition, that demands engagement and participation from those who would explore it. Ultimately, mysticism is not found in a book, but in the lived process of relating to the Divine. It's ironic that this message needs to be passed down in books, and yet, Underhill's wonderful study of the subject does just that. This was written in 1911, and shows some marks of age; for example, the chapter on "Vitalism" refers to a philosophical fad of her day that seems almost totally irrelevant a century later. Even so, I have a house full of books on this topic, ranging from the scholarly (Bernard McGinn) to the popular (Thomas Merton) to the just plain silly (Keith Harary's and Pamela Weintraub's "Mystical Experiences in 30 Days"), and I have yet to find a single volume that provides a better, more useful, and more potentially transformative introduction to the contemplative life than this book.

Rating:
Summary: Mysticism: The Nature and Development of Spiritual Conscious
Review: In our world of dry, specialist scholars, Evelyn Underhill's "Mysticism..." shines like a spotlight in a room full of bic lighters. Living at the turn of the century, Underhill writes in a kind of "19th century, highly educated yet romantic" style that has virtually disappeared in the 20th century. Her knowledge of History and Christian Theology is encyclopedic and definitely up to the scope her title suggests. In terms of scholarly achievment, she is a giant.

And yet her skill as an academic is not even close to my favorite thing about this book. What is? Her prose! Her writing is simply the most beautifully brilliant I've ever read on the subject. She writes in a way that is not only poetic, but is also clear and illuminating. Here's an example from page 252: "It must never be forgotten that all apparently one-sided descriptions of Illumination-more, all experiences of it-are governed by temperment. 'That Light whose smile kindles the Universe' is ever the same; but the self through whom it passes, and by whom we must receive its reports, has already submitted to the moulding influences of environment and heredity, Church and State. The very language of which that self avails itself in its struggle for expression, links it with half a hundred philosophies and creeds."

A treasure for anyone looking for inspiring text, but who's tired of the overly sentimental and often non-discerning "new age" dribble of our time, and a must for any serious student of the subject.

Rating:
Summary: The Greening of Evelyn Underhill
Review: There have been some fine reviews already shared here applauding and outlining the importance of Underhill's masterwork on Mysticism. I couldn't agree more!

I disagree, however, with the suggestion that Underhill's section on Vitalism is outdated -- in fact such statements would seem to be themselves out of touch with modern times. The chapter on Vitalism offers a fascinating treatise on the root connection between mysticism and environmentalism. According to Underhill, Vitalism focuses on:

Freedom--Spontaneity -- the principle of a free spontaneous and creative life as the essence of reality--
The World of Becoming--Reality as dynamic--Life as incessant change
The mystic consciousness of reality two-fold--Being and Becoming--Transcendence and Immanence--
At its highest Vitalism may be conceived as "the universe flowering into deity"

These ideas are at the heart of modern day philosophical and ethical studies in eco-spirituality, ecosophy and deep ecology, as well as earth-based spirituality. Scientifically they inform and help to understand the Gaia Hypothesis (a scientific theory of the earth itself as a living organism). In terms of artistic creativity, to name just a couple of examples, the precepts of Vitalism are the heartbeat of modern earth works, and of the flowering of zen haiku and other contemporary nature poetry.

Underhill does not use such terms as eco-spirituality, etc, but her far reaching intellect, so profoundly alive in her essay on Vitalism, prepares the reader to make incredible leaps into all kinds of aesthetic, scientific and spiritual intersections that are so important today in understanding the new earth sciences, and in providing inspiration for environmental art, spirituality and the greening of ethical philosophies.

Rating:
Summary: The best thing about this book is the appendix
Review: This 1911 work is a classic in mystical literature. Underhill's book contains a number of treasures from mostly Christian mystical writers.

But it is most particularly a useful read for a practitioner of mysticism, in that her estimation of mysticism often demonstrates exactly what one should avoid. Her celebration of sanctimony and mystical positivism provide good examples of attitudes that will surely result in an ineffective mystical practice. Evelyn Underhill joins many other writers of her time (and ours) in failing to appreciate the profundity of a successful mystical surrender: letting go of Everything, the ability to not be sure of anything. I would recommend the book to the serious practitioner, you may be embarrassed for her by much of what you read, but may thereby avoid embarrassing yourself by discovering and rooting out your own hidden stockpile of these same triumphalistic attitudes.

By carefully reading Underhill's sometimes tedious book and her understandable (and quite forgivable: may she rest in peace) misperceptions of the mystical landscape, one may at some point suddenly grasp why the successful mystic tries to always keep at least one foot safely secured in the floor-less chasm of complete ignorance.

Raymond Sigrist Apophaticmysticism.com

Rating:
Summary: Employing Evelyn Underhill "Mysticism" in your practice
Review: This 1911 work is a classic in mystical literature. Underhill's book contains a number of treasures from mostly Christian mystical writers.

But it is most particularly a useful read for a practitioner of mysticism, in that her estimation of mysticism often demonstrates exactly what one should avoid. Her celebration of sanctimony and mystical positivism provide good examples of attitudes that will surely result in an ineffective mystical practice. Evelyn Underhill joins many other writers of her time (and ours) in failing to appreciate the profundity of a successful mystical surrender: letting go of Everything, the ability to not be sure of anything. I would recommend the book to the serious practitioner, you may be embarrassed for her by much of what you read, but may thereby avoid embarrassing yourself by discovering and rooting out your own hidden stockpile of these same triumphalistic attitudes.

By carefully reading Underhill's sometimes tedious book and her understandable (and quite forgivable: may she rest in peace) misperceptions of the mystical landscape, one may at some point suddenly grasp why the successful mystic tries to always keep at least one foot safely secured in the floor-less chasm of complete ignorance.

Raymond Sigrist Apophaticmysticism.com

Rating:
Summary: The best thing about this book is the appendix
Review: Underhill's purple prose is impenetrable. The blowsy sentences run on and on and say next to thing about the beliefs and practices of the various saints under discussion. She does not make a logical, analytic point in her book. She apparently cannot distinguish between degrees of mysticism or define types of mysticism, such as mysticism which is excessively rooted in religious dogma and mysticism which goes beyond all religious dogmas. The best thing about the book was the appendix, which concisely listed the names of influential saints and the mystics as well as translations of their major works and biographies about them. Go directly to the appendix, buy the original sources, and don't waste your time on Underhill's babbling.