Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill

First published: 1911

Edition(s) used:Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man’s Spiritual Consciousness. New York: Dutton, 1961

Genre(s): Nonfiction

Subgenre(s): History; mysticism; spiritual treatise

Core issue(s): Awakening; contemplation; conversion; illumination; mysticism; purgation; recollection; self-abandonment; silence; simplicity; soul; union with God

Overview

Evelyn Underhill begins Mysticism with the awakening of the self to a consciousness of Divine Reality. This experience, usually abrupt and well recognized, is accompanied by feelings of intense joy. She suggests that it is an intense form of “conversion” or “sanctification.” It is usually a crisis experience. She cites the example of Saint Francis of Assisi, who went into the church of San Damiano to pray and, “having been smitten by unwonted visitations, found himself another man than he who had gone in.” Some people like George Fox, founder of the Quakers, however, have a more gradual experience. In awakening, the person surrenders totally to God, and a passionate love for God, for the Absolute, is born.

As Underhill says, “the business and method of Mysticism is Love.” According to “An Epistle of Discretion” (probably by the same anonymous author as The Cloud of Unknowing, first transcribed in the late fourteenth century), God “may not be known by reason, [God] may not be gotten by thought, nor concluded by understanding; but [God] may be loved and chosen with the true lovely will of thine heart.” As John of Ruysbroeck put it, “where intelligence must rest without, love and desire can enter in.”

The process of purification, purgation, begins. The soul, meeting God, realizes its sinfulness, its willfulness. Catherine of Genoa’s first response to her vision of God’s unmeasured love was “No more world! no more sin!” The first steps are contrition and repentance. According to Richard of Saint Victor, though, the “essence of purgation is self-simplification.” The perpetual process of purification has both negative and positive sides. The first is detachment, the stripping away or purging of all that is superfluous, illusionary, or distracting. It is the essence of the “evangelical counsels”: poverty, chastity, and obedience. Many, though not all, of the great mystics have been members of religious orders or have adopted monastic practices, at least during this period of their lives. Underhill defines poverty as “a breaking down of [humanity’s] inveterate habit of trying to rest in, or take seriously, things which are ’less than God’: i.e., which do not possess the character of reality.”

The more positive or active side is mortification, the changing of one’s character, the forming of new habits. It is a dying and finding new life. According to fourteenth century mystic John Tauler, “this dying has many degrees, and so has this life. A man might die a thousand deaths in one day and find at once a joyful life corresponding to each of them.” Asceticism for the mystics is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Another fourteenth century mystic, Henry Suso, practiced extreme mortification for sixteen years, and then “on a certain Whitsun Day a heavenly messenger appeared to him, and ordered him in God’s name to continue no more.” He ceased at once “and threw all the instruments of his sufferings . . . into a river.” Catherine of Genoa went through a penitential period of four years, constantly haunted by a sense of sin, and then in an instant it seemed as though her sins were cast into the sea and she was free. In modern terms, their attitude toward spiritual disciplines was simply “No pain, no gain.” Their goal was freedom from the world, freedom from self-will.

Interspersed with purgation is illumination, God’s revelations of the divine. Some called it Ludus Amoris, the game of love that God plays with the seeking soul. The mystic is consoled by glimpses of the Divine Reality. Though a sense of self remains, and thus a distance from God, the soul is treated to moments of transcendence, rapture, ecstasy. Some experience a total oneness with nature. Others hear voices or celestial music, see visions, feel heat or stabbing joy, write automatically. This is not the unitive state, because the self remains separate and intact and the moments of illumination are measured.

This state is not to be sought for its ecstasies or clutched as though it could be selfishly preserved. Underhill is careful to note that true mystics seek God alone, not spiritual thrills. She criticizes the early eighteenth century French mystic Madame Guyon (whose doctrines of Quietism were considered heretical by the Roman Catholic Church) as “basking like a pious tabby cat in the beams of the Uncreated Light.” The purpose of illumination is to call the soul onward in its quest. Quoting John of Ruysbroeck: “Here there begins an eternal hunger, which shall never more be satisfied. It is the inward craving and hankering of the affective power and created spirit after an Uncreated Good.”

The pious soul is now tuned to recollection, quiet, and contemplation, topics to which Underhill devotes several chapters. This is the mystic’s education of the faculty of concentration, the power of spiritual attention. This is where the mystic ascends the ladder toward heaven, practices “degrees of prayer.” This is not petition but the yearning of the soul for God. Recollection begins in meditation and develops into interior silence or simplicity. This melts into true Quiet. This deepens into ordinary contemplation and then into the contemplation proper, which is passive union with God. The “personality is not lost: only its hard edge is gone,” says Underhill.

However, as the mystic travels toward union, he or she must cross the desert, that period of blankness and stagnation known as the dark night of the soul, so named by John of the Cross. All consolations are withdrawn. Often the person is assailed by slanders and trials without, doubts and temptations within. It is the final purgation of selfhood, “self-naughting.” The aspiring soul must struggle on, usually on the basis of naked faith and sheer will. All sense of God’s presence is gone. A sense of one’s hopeless and helpless imperfection weighs heavily, and there is complete emotional exhaustion, spiritual aridity. Sometimes death seems preferable to struggle. The goal is total surrender and utter humility. Those who persevere may obtain union with God, the unitive life. Underhill underscores the “may” because it is a gift from God’s grace, not the result of a person’s work or willing. The mystics teach that the lessons of the way are just as valuable as the attainment; thus the soul who strives and does not attain union is also blessed.

Union is often described under the metaphor of spiritual marriage between the soul and God. Richard of Saint Victor described the result: “When the soul is plunged in the fire of divine love, like iron, it first loses its blackness, and then growing to white heat, it becomes like unto the fires itself. And lastly, it grows liquid, and losing its nature is transmuted into an utterly different quality of being.” The result is not passive exaltation but energetic action. Joan of Arc led the armies of France. Catherine of Genoa administered hospitals; Catherine of Siena became a peacemaker between warring states; Teresa of Ávila reformed her order. Francis of Assisi became God’s troubadour. Many mystics wrote of their insights and counseled those in need of spiritual nurture. They led productive lives of balanced wholeness.

One of the most attractive features of the book is an appendix that gives the history of mysticism in outline form, citing all the great mystics, their dates, relationships to one another, and their principal ideas. The high points of mysticism were in the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. A bibliography follows with a listing of the major works by each mystic of note. Another feature of this book that appeals to the student is the outline at the beginning of each chapter. These allow the reader to follow the continuity of Underhill’s argument and then to read more deeply in the sections with special appeal or to find parts one has previously read. Since this is a rather massive book, the help is welcome.

Christian Themes

Underhill’s Mysticism identifies five distinct stages through which the mystical life develops as the soul finds its way to union with God: awakening, in which one makes a commitment to seek God with all of the heart; purgation, in which one, realizing one’s own finitude and imperfections, seeks to become detached from all sensible things through discipline and mortification; illumination, in which God gives the soul various “consolations” as encouragement—voices, visions, trances; the dark night of the soul, in which all sense of God’s presence vanishes and the mystic must struggle on toward the goal of faith; and finally union, in which the soul is united with God.

Underhill’s interest in Mysticism is in the philosophical basis for mysticism, an understanding of the universe as constituted on two levels: that of the physical senses and that of the spiritual realm. She does not analyze or critique at any length, however, the Neoplatonism on which most understandings of mysticism have been based. Her interest is more psychological than philosophical or theological. In looking at the psychological aspects of the mystical life, Underhill notes with the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing that “By love [God] may be gotten and holden, but by thought . . . never.” Throughout she stresses the psychological maturity and balance that has characterized the great Christian mystics.

Sources for Further Study

Cropper, Margaret. Life of Evelyn Underhill: An Intimate Portrait of the Groundbreaking Author of “Mysticism.” 1958. With a new foreword by Dana Greene and an introduction by Emilie Griffin. Woodstock, Vt.: SkyLight Paths, 2003. A reissue of an absorbing spiritual biography by an early biographer and friend of Underhill. This detailed account of Underhill’s life remains an excellent introduction to her work.

Greene, Dana. Evelyn Underhill: Artist of the Infinite Life. 1990. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998. Greene is well read in Underhill’s works, has done extensive research and interviews, and knew Underhill personally. Thus, this thorough biography goes beyond life facts to include Underhill’s mentors, environment, milieu, and passions. Includes a bibliography and index.

Griffin, Emilie. Introduction to Evelyn Underhill: Essential Writings. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2003. A very well-written, authoritative, and concise summary of Underhill’s life and achievements. An excellent introduction.

Underhill, Evelyn. The Letters of Evelyn Underhill. Edited with an introduction by Charles Williams. Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, 1989. Underhill’s letters reveal the pervasiveness of her spiritual preoccupations.