Issues

Issues2022-09-01T23:06:36-05:00

Latest Issue

May-June issue: Saints Alive! Celebrating the Church Triumphant

Sample Content from Our Latest Issue

Table of Contents

Sample Article

“To the Heart of Ecstatic Surrender”: Mysticism in St. John of the Cross’s “Dark Night of the Soul”

Mystical experiences transport the nun, the friar, and even the non-ascetic to an encounter with the divine. St. John of the Cross in his poem, “Dark Night of the Soul”, composed in the sixteenth-century, likely between 1577 and 1579, relates a mystical encounter with God that brings him to the heart of ecstatic surrender.  The Carmelite friar’s poetic narrative contains a multitude of elements that can be identified with mysticism in the context of its psychologic study. American philosopher William James in his twentieth-century work, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature, concluded that Catholic mystical experiences, and mystical experiences generally, are “infinitely varied” and “represent nothing objectively distinct”.  Even
after proposing several potential conditions or features that may constitute a mystical experience, William James ultimately conceded to the great degree of arbitrariness that colors these extraordinary events. His study did however advance a number of constructive principles that seem to manifest across mystical experiences, such as the phenomenon of “oneness” between the mystic and God as well as the acute loss of the mystic’s senses—especially spatial disorientation. William James argues, likewise, that repeatedly entering into deeply reverential and devotional states may increase the likelihood of mystical events. These ideas and concepts appear in miraculous fashion in “Dark Night of the Soul”.

Read more…

By |May 13th, 2025|0 Comments
Read More

All Issues

Copyright © St. Austin Review. All Rights Reserved. | Login | Site Design by Kickstart Media
Go to Top