http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~janzb/mysticism/

What are the roots of Western Mysticism? Why should we bother to ask? Why does mysticalmichael9 intend to spend the next forty years seeking the answer?

"Western" would be a wider study than "Christian," for which I cannot recommend a finer work than Olivier Clement's The Roots of Christian Mysticism. This is simply a "must-have" book that provides good material for study and spiritual reading.

Phil,

More people are reading them, and the trickle is turning into a stream. They are part and parcel of Christ in a simpler time when faith could become unshakeable. Today we question everything, which might be a better way in many respects.

I suppose that the reason I will be pouring over musty ancient and midieval texts for the rest of my life is the nostalgia for certainty. These elder brothers and sisters who performed the early experiments in Christian consciousness lacked the conciet and self-sufficiency of the scientific world view. They were humble, we are proud.

I can't get away from the Greeks, since almost every Christian theologian has read them. It might be interesting to search out a few mystics with relatively little Greek influence. Western history is all "footnotes to Plato," and I can't find a way around that.

Some western mystics combined Greek, Hebrew, Christian and Muslim sources harmoniously. After the renaissance
this was no longer possible. Holy Moses!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guide_for_the_Perplexed
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Morrow_Lindbergh
http://charleslindbergh.com/anne/timeline.asp


Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote Gifts fron the Sea while reading Plotinus, and many current athors make reference to him. Must be a reason, methinks...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plotinus

David Hawkins has calibrated Plotinus at 730, which is even higher than Theresa of Avila (my personal favorite) at 715!!!

Thanks for the book, I'm sure I'll read that one!

caritas,

mm <*)))))><

A representative list of Western mystics with links to Celtic Spirituality and "101 mystics" blog:

http://www.anamchara.com/

I suppose that the reason I will be pouring over musty ancient and midieval texts for the rest of my life is the nostalgia for certainty. These elder brothers and sisters who performed the early experiments in Christian consciousness lacked the conciet and self-sufficiency of the scientific world view. They were humble, we are proud.

That seems like a worthy effort, MM. Every once in a while I will catch a rare program on TV that will go into the details of how different peoples in different times sometimes had a totally different view or paradigm of life. We so often forget context. But without context, without knowing how people in history (especially the ones who leave interest writings) viewed things, we have no hope of really understanding their writings and life.

It may have been in James Burke's excellent "Connection" TV series in which he pointed out that, until relatively modern times, people viewed life as going in cycles because that's how they saw things and primarily experienced things. Today we live in a world of "progress" where we expect things to be getting better. We expect things to be quite different tomorrow than they were yesterday. This, apparently, is a totally new and modern phenomenon.

So surely our modern views can only be understood if we take the time to get an idea that indeed there are and were different ways of viewing the world. We soon discover that our modern view is, perhaps to quote a postmodernist, "just another view�nothing necessarily inherently better about it". And if they were to say such a thing, and if they were to go on and illustrate just how and why such a statement would be relevant, interesting, and educational, then the postmodernism critique would have done what it was supposed to be doing in the first place.

Personally, I think we live in a society that is absolutely geared to driving us all to an early grave. If it wasn't for improved medicine, I think it would do just that. Or to put that another way, if we had our current modern medicine and lived according to some older ways of thinking and being, we might commonly live until we were 110!

This topic might make for an interesting thread. But perhaps this is too specialized an area of knowledge. Perhaps someone out there can recommend a good book.

I love Connections! James Burke is AWESOME!!!
They had tapes at the library and I... Oh, nevermind!

Some anal editor at wikipedia can't handle
A.W. Tozer. That's ok, the world is not yet ready
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiden_Wilson_Tozer

Someone keeps improving this wikipage:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_mysticism

Most of these folks believed in Intelligent Design

Another very good list. One could spend a lifetime...

http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/...rsby/mys/whoswho.htm

The was a very interesting Wiki link regarding Tozer. I had never heard of him before. Have you read any of his books? If so, which one would you recommend as the best?

Five works by Tozer in my audio library. The Pursuit of God, The Divine Conquest,Root of the Righteous, That Incredible Christian and Men who met God )in that order) My_fellow_chicagoan@windycity.com

Thanks, MM.

http://www.contemplativeprayer.net

You are most welcome! Here is a modern story rooted in antiquity...

caritas, mm <*)))))><