ABSTRACT

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries secular French scholars started re-engaging with religious ideas, particularly mystical ones. Mysticism in the French Tradition introduces key philosophical undercurrents and trajectories in French thought that underpin and arise from this engagement, as well as considering earlier French contributions to the development of mysticism. Filling a gap in the literature, the book offers critical reflections on French scholarship in terms of its engagement with its mystical and apophatic dimensions. A multiplicity of factors converge to shape these encounters with mystical theology: feminist, devotional and philosophical treatments as well as literary, historical, and artistic approaches. The essays draw these into conversation. Bringing together an international and interdisciplinary range of contributions from both new and established scholars, this book provides access to the melting pot out of which the mystical tradition in France erupted in the twenty-first century, and from which it continues to challenge theology today.

chapter |14 pages

Introduction

Acting and Enacting: Mystical Theology and its Reception in France

part 1|104 pages

Forgotten and Remembered

chapter 1|20 pages

With Mind and Heart

Maurice Blondel and the Mystic Life

chapter 2|22 pages

An Eruption of Mystical Life in Feminist Action

Mysticism and Confidence after Bergson

chapter 3|22 pages

On the Matter of God

Conversations in the Khora

chapter 4|20 pages

The Overflowing Self

The Phenomenology of Possession in Biblical and Indian Mysticism

chapter 5|18 pages

Phenomenology and Theology

An Essay on Borders

part 2|86 pages

Distinction, Union and Devotion

chapter 6|28 pages

The Pious Jackal and the Pseudo-Woman

Doctrines of Deification in Late Medieval France

chapter 7|20 pages

A French Mystic's Perspective on the Crisis of Mysticism

Jean-Joseph Surin (1600–1665)

chapter 8|16 pages

From Late Medieval to Early Modern

Assessing the Mystical Theology of Pierre de Bérulle (1575–1629)

chapter 9|20 pages

Mystical Eucharistics

Abhishiktananda and Teilhard de Chardin

part 3|82 pages

Words and Images in Action

chapter 11|22 pages

Mysticism in Captivity

Élie Neau, French Protestant Galley Slave

chapter 12|14 pages

Jean Sulivan and the Mystical Moment

chapter 13|30 pages

The Rapture of Art and the Art of Rapture

Ernest Pignon-Ernest's Installation Extases and the Evocation of Ecstasy