Evelyn Underhill
Encyclopedia
Evelyn Underhill was an English
Anglo-Catholic writer and pacifist known for her numerous works on religion
and spiritual practice
, in particular Christian mysticism
.
In the English-speaking world, she was one of the most widely read writers on such matters in the first half of the twentieth century. No other book of its type—until the appearance in 1946 of Aldous Huxley
's The Perennial Philosophy
—met with success to match that of her best-known work, Mysticism, published in 1911.
and novelist, as well as being a pacifist and mystic
. An only child, her early mystical insights she described as "abrupt experiences of the peaceful, undifferentiated plane of reality—like the "still desert" of the mystic—in which there was no multiplicity nor need of explanation." The meaning of these experiences became a lifelong quest and source of private angst, provoking her to research and write.
Both her father and her husband were writers (on the law), London barrister
s and yachtsmen. She and her husband, Hubert Stuart Moore, grew up together and were married on 3 July 1907. The couple had no children. She traveled regularly within Europe, primarily Switzerland, France and Italy where she pursued her interests in art and Catholicism, visiting numerous churches and monasteries. Neither her husband (a Protestant) nor her parents shared her interest in spiritual matters.
Underhill was called simply "Mrs. Moore" by many of her friends, but was not without her detractors. She was a prolific author and published over thirty books either under her maiden name Underhill or under the pseudonym John Cordelier, as was the case for the 1912 book The Spiral Way. Initially an agnostic, she gradually began to acquire an interest in Neoplatonism
and from there became increasingly drawn to Catholic
ism against the objections of her husband, becoming eventually a prominent Anglo-Catholic. Her spiritual mentor from 1921–24 was Baron Friedrich von Hügel, who was appreciative of her writing, yet concerned with her focus on mysticism and encouraged her to adopt a much more Christocentric
view as opposed to the theistic
/intellectual one she had previously held. She described him as "the most wonderful personality. ..so saintly, truthful, sane and tolerant," (Cropper, p. 44) and she was influenced toward more charitable, down to earth activities. After his death in 1925, her writings became more focused on the Holy Spirit
and she became prominent in the Anglican Church as a lay leader of spiritual retreats, a spiritual director for hundreds of individuals, guest speaker, and radio lecturer/proponent of the power of contemplative prayer.
Underhill came of age in the Edwardian era, at the turn of the century, and like most of her contemporaries had a decided romantic bent. The enormous excitement in those days, was mysteriously compounded of the psychic, the psychological, the occult, the mystical, the medieval, the advance of science, the apotheosis of Art, the re-discovery of the feminine and an unashamedly sensuous and the most ethereally 'spiritual'. Anglicanism seemed to her out-of-key with this, her world. She sought centre of life as she and many of her generation conceived it, not in the state religion, but in experience and the heart. This age of 'the soul', was one of those periods when a sudden easing of social taboos brings on a great sense of personal emancipation and desire for an El Dorado
despised by an older, more morose and insensitive generation.
As an only child she was devoted to her parents, and later to her husband. She was fully engaged in the life of a barrister's daughter and wife - the entertainment and charitable work that entailed - and a daily regimen that included her own writing, research, worship, prayer and meditation. It was a fundamental axiom of Evelyn Underhill, that all of life was sacred - as that was what "incarnation" was about.
. She was conferred with an honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Aberdeen University and made a fellow of King's College
. She was the first woman to lecture to the clergy in the Church of England
as well as the first woman to officially conduct spiritual retreats for the Church. She was also the first woman to establish ecumenical links between churches and one of the first woman theologians to lecture in English colleges and universities, as she did frequently. Underhill was an award-winning bookbinder, studying with the most renowned masters of the time. She was schooled in the classics, well read in Western spirituality, well informed (in addition to theology) in the philosophy, psychology, and physics of her day, and acquired the prestigious post as editor of The Spectator
.
and later, Susan Howatch
, Underhill uses her narratives to explore the sacramental intersection of the physical with the spiritual. She then uses that sacramental framework very effectively to illustrate the unfolding of a human drama. Her novels are entitled The Grey World (1904), The Lost Word (1907), and The Column of Dust (1909). In her first novel, The Grey World, described by one reviewer as an extremely interesting psychological study, the hero's mystical journey begins with death, and then moves through reincarnation, beyond the grey world, and into the choice of a simple life devoted to beauty, reflecting Underhill's own serious perspective as a young woman.
The Lost Word and The Column of Dust are also concerned with the problem of living in two worlds and reflect the writer's own spiritual challenges. In the 1909 novel, her heroine encounters a rift in the solid stuff of her universe:
Underhill's novels suggest that perhaps for the mystic
, two worlds may be better than one. For her, mystical experience seems inseparable from some kind of enhancement of consciousness or expansion of perceptual and aesthetic horizons—to see things as they are, in their meanness and insignificance when viewed in opposition to the divine reality, but in their luminosity and grandeur when seen bathed in divine radiance. But at this stage the mystic's mind is subject to fear and insecurity, its powers undeveloped. The first novel takes us only to this point. Further stages demand suffering, because mysticism is more than merely vision or cultivating a latent potentiality of the soul in cosy isolation. According to Underhill's view, the subsequent pain and tension, and final loss of the private painful ego-centered life for the sake of regaining one's true self, has little to do with the first beatific vision. Her two later novels are built on the ideal of total self-surrender even to the apparent sacrifice of the vision itself, as necessary for the fullest possible integration of human life. This was for her the equivalent of working out within, the metaphorical intent of the life story of Jesus. One is reunited with the original vision—no longer as mere spectator but as part of it. This dimension of self-loss and resurrection is worked out in The Lost Word, but there is some doubt as to its general inevitability. In The Column of Dust, the heroine's physical death reinforces dramatically the mystical death to which she has already surrendered to. Two lives are better than one but only on the condition that a process of painful re-integration intervenes to re-establish unity
between Self
and Reality
.
All her characters derive their interest from the theological meaning and value which they represent and it is her ingenious handling of so much difficult symbolic material that makes her work psychologically interesting as a forerunner of such 20th century writers as Susan Howatch
, whose successful novels also embody the psychological value of religious metaphor and the traditions of Christian mysticism
. Her first novel received critical acclaim, but her last was generally derided. However her novels give remarkable insight into what we may assume was her decision to avoid what St. Augustine described as the temptation of fuga in solitudinem ("the flight into solitude"), but instead acquiescing to a loving, positive acceptance of this world. Not looking back, by this time she was already working on her magnum opus.
' pioneering study, The Varieties of Religious Experience
(1902), and his "four marks of the mystic state" (ineffability, noetic quality, transcience, and passivity). James had admitted that his own constitution shut him off almost entirely from the enjoyment of mystical states thus his treatment was purely objective. Underhill substituted (1) mysticism is practical, not theoretical, (2) mysticism is an entirely spiritual activity, (3) The business and method of mysticism is love. (4) mysticism entails a definite psychological experience. Her insistence on the psychological approach was that it was the glamorous science of the pre-war period, offering the potential key to the secrets of human advances in intelligence, creativity, and genius, and already psychological findings were being applied in theology (i.e., William Sanday
's Christologies Ancient and Modern).
She divided her subject into two parts; the first an introduction, and the second, a detailed study of the nature and development of human consciousness. In the first section, in order to free the subject from confusion and misapprehension, she approached it from the point of view of the psychologist (new science at the time), the symbolist and the theologian. To separate it from its most dubious connection she included a chapter on mysticism and magic
. At the time, and still today, the subject is associated with the occult, magic, secret rites, and fanaticism, while she knew the mystics throughout history to be the world's spiritual pioneers.
She divided her map of "the way" into five sections; the "Awakening of Self," quoting Henry Suso
(disciple of Meister Eckhart
):
Suso's description of how the abstract truth, once remembered (related to each soul's true nature and purpose), contains the power of fulfilment was the starting point of Underhill's own path. The second stage she presents as psychological "purgation of self," quoting the Theologia Germanica
(14th c. anonymous) regarding ego (Underhill's "little self") transcendence:
The third stage she titles, "Illumination," and quotes William Law:
The fourth stage she describes as the "dark night of the soul
" (which her correspondence leads us to believe she struggled with throughout her life) where one is deprived of all that has been valuable to the lower self, and quoting Mechthild of Magdeburg
:
And last she devotes a chapter to the unitive life, the sum of the mystic way:
Where Underhill struck new ground was in her insistence that this state of union produced a glorious and fruitful creativeness, so that the mystic who attains this final perfectness is the most active doer - not the reclusive dreaming lover of God.
The book ends with an extremely valuable appendix, a kind of who's who of mysticism, which shows its persistence and interconnection from century to century.
I. Life. She starts with a biography, drawn mainly from two works on his life written by fellow monastics
, Pomerius and Gerard Naghel.
His childhood was spent in the village of Ruysbroeck. [page 7] At eleven he ran away to Brussels
, where he began to live with his uncle, John Hinckaert, a Canon
at the Cathedral
of St. Gudule, and a younger Canon, Francis van Coudenberg. [10] At twenty-four he was ordained
a priest and became a prebend at St. Gudule. [12] At his first mass he envisioned his mother's spirit released from Purgatory
and entering Heaven
. [15] From age 26 to 50 Ruysbroeck was a cathedral chaplain
at St. Gudule. [15] Although he "seemed a nobody to those who did not know him," he was developing a strong spiritual life, "a penetrating intellect, a fearless heart, deep knowledge of human nature, remarkable powers of expression". [17] At one point he wrote strong pamphlets and led a campaign against a heretical group, the Brethren of the Free Spirit
led by Bloemardinne, who practiced a self-indulgent "mysticality". [18-20] Later, with the two now elderly Canons, he moved into the countryside at Groenendael ("Green Valley"). [21-22] Pomerius writes that he retired not to hide his light "but that he might tend it better" [22]. Five years later their community became a Priory
under the Augustinian Canons. [23]
Many of his works were written during this period, often drawing lessons from nature. [24] He had a favorite tree under which he would sit and write what the 'Spirit' gave to him. [25] He solemnly affirmed that his works were composed under the "domination of an inspiring power," she writes. [26] Pomerius says that Ruysbroeck could enter a state of contemplation in which he appeared surrounded by radiant light. [26-27] Alongside his spiritual ascent, Naghel says, he cultivated the friendship of those around him, enriching their lives. [27-28] He also worked in the garden of the priory, and sought to help out creatures of the forest. [29-30] He moved from the senses to the transcendent without frontiers or cleavage, she writes, these being for him "but two moods within the mind of God". [30] He counseled many who came to him, including Gerard Groot of the Brothers of the Common Life. [31] His advice would plumb the "purity and direction" of the seeker's will, and love. [32] There, at Groenendael he finally "leap to a more abundant life". [34] In The Sparkling Stone Ruysbroec wrote about coming to know the love "which giveth more than one can take, and asketh more than one can pay." [34]
II. Works. Next, she gives a bibliography of his eleven admittedly authentic works, providing details concerning each work's origin, nature, and contents, as well as their place in his writings. 1. The Spiritual Tabernacle; 2. The Twelve Points of True Faith; 3. The Book of the Four Temptations; 4. The Book of the Kingdom of God's Lovers; 5. The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage; 6. The Mirror of Eternal Salvation or Book of the Blessed Sacraments; 7. The Seven Cloisters; 8. The Seven Degrees of the Ladder of Love; 9. The Book of the Sparkling Stone; 10. The Book of the Supreme Truth; 11. The Twelve Béguines.
III. Doctrine of God. Several types of mystics are described. The first (e.g., St. Teresa) deals with personal psychological experiences and emotional reactions, leaving the nature of God to existing theology. [page 52] The second (e.g., Plotinus
) has passion sprung from the vision of a philosopher; the intellect often is more active than the heart, yet like a poet such a mystic strives to sketch his vision of the Ultimate. [53] The greatest mystics (e.g., St. Augustine
) embrace at once "the infinite and the intimate" so that "God is both near and far, and the paradox of transcendent-immanent Reality is a self-evident if an inexpressible truth." Such mystics "give us by turns a subjective and psychological, an objective and metaphysical, reading of spiritual experience." Here is Ruysbroeck. [53-54]
An apostolic mystic [55] represents humanity in it quest to discern the Divine
Reality, being like "the artist extending our universe, the pioneer cutting our path, the hunter winning food for our souls." [56] Yet, although his experience is personal, his language is often drawn from tradition, [57] but the words may "enchant rather than inform the soul" so ineffable is the nature of God. [58] Ruysbroeck goes venturing "to hover over that Abyss which is 'beyong Reason,' stammering and breaking into wild poetry in the desperate attempt to seize the unseizable truth." [55] "[T]he One is 'neither This nor That'." [61]
"God as known by man" is the Absolute
One who combines and resolves the contradictory natures of time and eternity, becoming and being; who is both transcendent and immanent, abstract and personal, work and rest, the unmoved mover and movement itself. God is above the storm, yet inspires the flux. [59-60] The "omnipotent and ever-active Creator" who is "perpetually breathing forth His energetic Life in new births of being and new floods of grace." [60] Yet the soul may pierce beyond this fruitful nature to the simple essence of God. There we humans would find that "absolute and abiding Reality, which seems to man Eternal Rest, the 'Deep Quiet of the Godhead
,' the 'Abyss,' the 'Dim Silence'; and which we can taste indeed but never know. There, 'all lovers lose themselves'." [60]
The Trinity
, according the Ruysbroeck, works in living distinctions, "the fruitful nature of the Persons." [61] Yet the Trinity in itself is Unity of the Three Persons, which is the Godhead. [60-61] Beyond and within the Trinity, or the Godhead, then, is the "fathomless Abyss" [60] that is the "Simple Being of God" that is "an Eternal Rest of God and of all created things." [61]
The Father
is the unconditioned Origin, Strength and Power, of all things. [62] The Son
is the Eternal Word and Wisdom that shines forth in the world of conditions. [62] The Holy Spirit
is Love and Generosity emanating from the mutual contemplation of Father and Son
. [62] The Three Persons "exist in an eternal distinction [emphasis added] for that world of conditions wherein the human soul is immersed". [63] By the acts of the Three Persons
all created things are born; by the incarnation and crucifixion we human soul
s are adorned with love, and so to be drawn back to our Source. "This is the circling course of the Divine life-process
." [63]
But beyond and above this eternal distinction lies "the superessential world, transcending all conditions, inaccessible to thought-- 'the measureless solitude of the Godhead, where God possesses Himself in joy.' This is the ultimate world of the mystic." [63-64] There, she continues, quoting Ruysbroeck: "we can speak no more of Father, Son and Holy Spirit nor of any creature; but only of one Being, which is the very substance of the Divine Persons. There were we all one before our creation; for this is our superessence... . There the Godhead is, in simple essence, without activity; Eternal Rest, Unconditioned Dark, the Nameless Being, the Superessence of all created things, and the simple and infinite Bliss of God and of all the Saints." [64] "The simple light of this Being... embraces the unity of the Divine Persons" as well as envelopes and irradiates the ground and fruition of human souls in the Divine life-process. "And this is the union of God and the souls that love Him." [64-65]
IV. Doctrine of Humankind. For Ruysbroeck, "God is the 'Living Pattern of Creation' who has impressed His image on each soul, and in every adult spirit the character of that image must be brought from the hiddenness and realized." [66] The pattern is trinitarian; there are three properties of the human soul. First, resembling the Father, "the bare, still place to which consciousness retreats in introversion... ." [67] Second, following the Son, "the power of knowing Divine things by intuitive comprehension: man's fragmentary share in the character of the Logos, or Wisdom of God." [67-68] "The third property we call the spark of the soul. It is the inward and natural tendency of the soul towards its Source; and here do we receive the Holy Spirit, the Charity of God." [68]. So will God work within the human being; in later spiritual development we may form with God a Union, and eventually a Unity. [70-71]
The mighty force of Love is the 'very self-hood of God' in this mysterious communion. [72, 73] "As we lay hold upon the Divine Life, devour and assimilate it, so in that very act the Divine Life devours us, and knits us up into the mysical Body," she writes. "It is the nature of love," says Ruysbroeck, "ever to give and to take, to love and be loved, and these two things meet in whomsoever loves. Thus the love of Christ is both avid and generous... as He devours us, so He would feed us. If He absorbs us utterly into Himself, in return He gives us His very self again." [75-76] "Hungry love," "generous love," "stormy love" touches the human soul with its Divine creative energy and, once we become conscious of it, evokes in us an answering storm of love. "The whole of our human growth within the spiritual order is conditioned by the quality of this response; by the will, the industry, the courage, with which [we accept our] part in the Divine give-and-take." [74] As Ruysbroeck puts it:
The drama of this giving and receiving Love constitutes a single act, for God is as an "ocean which ebbs and flows" or as an "inbreathing and outbreathing". [75, 76] "Love is a unifying power, manifested in motion itself, 'an outgoing attraction, which drags us out of ourselves and calls us to be melted and naughted in the Unity'." [76]
Next, the spiritual development of the soul is addressed. [76-88] Ruysbroeck adumbrates how one may progress from the Active life, to the Interior life, to the Superessential life; these correspond to the three natural orders of Becoming, Being, and God, or to the three rôles of the Servant, the Friend, and the "hidden child" of God. [77, 85] The Active life focuses on ethics, on conforming the self's daily life to the Will of God, and takes place in the world of the senses, "by means". [78] The Interior life embraces a vision of spiritual reality, where the self's contacts with the Divine take place "without means". [78] The Superessential life transcends the intellectual plane, whereby the self does not merely behold, but rather has fruition of the Godhead in life and in love, at work and at rest, in union and in bliss. [78, 86, 87] The analogy with the traditional threefold way of Purgation, Illumination, and Union, is not exact. The Interior life of Ruysbroeck contains aspects of the traditional Union also, while the Superessential life "takes the soul to heights of fruition which few amongst even the greatest unitive mystics have attained or described." [78-79]
V, VI, VII, VIII. In her last four chapters, Evelynn Underhill continues the discussion concerning the Active life [94-114], the Interior life [115-163], and the Superessential or glorious life [164-185].
(204-270) of Alexandria and later of Rome.
A Neoplatonist
as well as a spiritual guide, Plotinus writes regarding both formal philosophy and hands-on, personal, inner experience. Underhill makes the distinction between the geographer who draws maps of the mind, and the seeker who actually travels in the realms of spirit. [page 118] She observes that usually mystics do not follow the mere maps of metaphysicians. [page 117]
In the Enneads
Plotinus presents the Divine as an unequal triune, in descending order: (a) the One
, perfection, having nothing, seeking nothing, needing nothing, yet it overflows creatively, the source of being; [121] (b) the emitted Nous or Spirit, with intelligence, wisdom, poetic intuition, the "Father and Companion" of the soul; [121-122] and, (c) the emitted Soul or Life, the vital essence of the world, which aspires to communion with the Spirit above, while also directly engaged with the physical world beneath. [123]
People "come forth from God" and will find happiness once re-united, first with the Nous, later with the One. [125] Such might be the merely logical outcome for the metaphysician, yet Plotinus the seeker also presents this return to the Divine as a series of moral purgations and a shedding of irrational delusions
, leading eventually to entry into the intuitively beautiful. [126] This intellectual and moral path toward a life aesthetic will progressively disclose an invisible source, the Nous, the forms of Beauty
. [127] Love is the prevailing inspiration, although the One is impersonal. [128] The mystic will pass through stages of purification, and of enlightenment, resulting in a shift in the center of our being, "from sense to soul, from soul to spirit," in preparation for an ultimate transformation of consciousness. [125, 127] Upon our arrival, we shall know ectasy and "no longer sing out of tune, but form a divine chorus round the One." [129]
St. Augustine
(354-430) criticizes such neoplatonism as neglecting the needs of struggling and imperfect human beings. The One of Plotinus may act as a magnet for the human soul, but it cannot be said to show mercy, nor to help or love or redeem the individual on earth. [130] Other western mystics writing on the neoplatonists mention this lack of "mutual attraction" between humanity and the unconscious, unknowable One. [130-131] In this regard Julian of Norwich
(1342–1416) would write, "Our natural will is to have God, and the good-will of God is to have us." [130]
Plotinus leaves the problem of evil unresolved, but having no place in the blissful life; here, the social ethical side of religion seems to be shorted. His philosophy does not include qualities comparable to the Gospel's divine "transfiguration of pain" through Jesus. [131] Plotinus "the self-sufficient sage" does not teach us charity, writes St. Augustine. [132]
Nonetheless, Underhill notes, Plotinus and Neoplatonism were very influential among the mystics of Christianity (and Islam). St. Augustine the Church Father was himself deeply affected by Plotinus, and through him the western Church. [133-135, 137] So, too, was Dionysius
(5th century, Syria), whose writings would also prove very influential. [133, 135] As well were, e.g., Erigena [135], Dante
[136], Ruysbroeck [136, 138], Eckhart
[138], and Boehme
[139].
Part I: 1. The Nature of Worship, 2. Ritual and Symbol, 3. Sacrament and Sacrifice, 4. The Character of Christian Worship, 5. Principles of Corporate Worship, 6. Liturgical Elements in Worship, 7. The Holy Eucharist: Its Nature, 8. The Holy Eucharist: Its Significance, 9. The Principles of Personal Worship.
Part II: 10. Jewish Worship, 11. The Beginnings of Christian Worship, 12. Catholic Worship: Western and Eastern, 13. Worship in the Reformed Churches, 14. Free Church Worship, 15. The Anglican Tradition. Conclusion.
), theism
/mysticism
, the Roman Catholic liturgy
, and human love/compassion. In her earlier writings Underhill often wrote using the terms "mysticism" and "mystics" but later began to adopt the terms "spirituality" and "saints" because she felt they were less threatening; she was often criticized for believing that the mystical life should be accessible to the average person.
Her fiction was also influenced by the literary creed expounded by her close friend Arthur Machen
, mainly his "Hieroglypics" of 1902, summarised by his biographer:
In Underhill's case the quest for psychological realism is subordinate to larger metaphysical considerations which she shared with Arthur Machen. Incorporating the Holy Grail
into their fiction (stimulated perhaps by their association with Arthur Waite
and his affiliation with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
), for Machen the Holy Grail was perhaps "the" hieroglyph, "the " crystallisation in one sacred emblem of all man's transcendental yearning, "the" gateway to vision and lasting appeasement of his discontents. For her is was the center of atonement-linked meanings as pointed out to Margaret Robinson in a letter responding to her criticism of Underhill's last novel:
Two contemporary philosophical writers dominated Underhill's thinking at the time she wrote "Mysticism": Rudolf Eucken and Henri Bergson
. While neither displayed an interest in mysticism, both seemed to their disciples to advance a spiritual explanation of the universe. Also, she describes the fashionable creed of the time as "vitalism
" and the term adequately sums up the prevailing worship of life in all its exuberance, variety and limitless possibility which pervaded pre-war culture and society. For her, Eucken and Bergson confirmed the deepest intuitions of the mystics. (Armstrong, "Evelyn Underhill")
Among the mystics, Ruysbroeck, was to her the most influential and satisfying of all the medieval mystics, and she found herself very much at one with him in the years when he was working as an unknown priest in Brussels, for she herself had also a hidden side.
One of her most significant influences and important collaborations was with the Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore
, the Indian mystic, author, and world traveler. They published a major translation of the work of Kabir
("100 Poems of Kabir") together in 1915, to which she wrote the introduction. He introduced her to the spiritual genius of India which she expressed enthusiastically in a letter:
They did not keep up their correspondence in later years, both suffered debilitating illnesses in the last year of life and died in the summer of 1941, greatly distressed by the outbreak of World War II.
Evelyn in 1921 was to all outward appearances in an assured and enviable position. She had been asked by the University of Oxford to give the first of a new series of lectures on Religion, and she was the first woman to have such an honour. She was an authority on her own subject of Mysticism and respected for her research and scholarship. Her writing was in demand, she had an interesting and notable set of friends, devoted readers, happy marriage and affectionate and loyal parents. At the same time she felt that her foundations were insecure, that her zeal for Reality was resting on a basis that was too fragile.
By 1939, she was a member of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship
, writing a number of important tracts expressing her anti-war sentiment.
After returning to the Anglican Church, and perhaps overwhelmed by her knowledge of the achievements of the mystics and their perilous heights, her ten year friendship with Catholic philosopher and writer, Baron Friedrich von Hugel
, turned into one of spiritual direction. Charles Williams wrote in his introduction to her Letters: 'The equal swaying level of devotion and scepticism (related to the church) which is, for some souls, as much the Way as continuous simple faith is to others, was a distress to her. ..She wanted to be "sure." Writing to Von Hugel of the darkness she struggled with:
In a later letter of 12 July the Baron's practical concerns for signs of strain in Evelyn's spiritual state are expressed. His comments give insight into her struggles:
Although Underhill continued to struggle to the end, craving certainty that her beatific visions were purposeful, suffering as only a pacifist can from the devastating onslaught of World War II and the Church's powerlessness to affect events, she may well have played a powerful part in the survival of her country through the influence of her words and the impact of her teachings on thousands regarding the power of prayer. Surviving the London Blitz of 1940, her health disintegrated further and she died the following year. She is buried with her husband in the churchyard extension at St John-at-Hampstead in London.
More than any other person, she was responsible for introducing the forgotten authors of medieval and Catholic spirituality to a largely Protestant audience and the lives of eastern mystics to the English speaking world. As a frequent guest on radio, her 1936 work The Spiritual Life was especially influential as transcribed from a series of broadcasts given as a sequel to those by Dom Bernard Clements on the subject of prayer. Fellow theologian Charles Williams
wrote the introduction to her published Letters in 1943, which reveal much about this prodigious woman. Upon her death, The Times
reported that on the subject of theology, she was "unmatched by any of the professional teachers of her day."
commemorates her liturgically on 15 June.
Underhill is honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA)
on June 15.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
Anglo-Catholic writer and pacifist known for her numerous works on religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
and spiritual practice
Spirituality
Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...
, in particular Christian mysticism
Christian mysticism
Christian mysticism refers to the development of mystical practices and theory within Christianity. It has often been connected to mystical theology, especially in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions...
.
In the English-speaking world, she was one of the most widely read writers on such matters in the first half of the twentieth century. No other book of its type—until the appearance in 1946 of Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...
's The Perennial Philosophy
The Perennial Philosophy
The Perennial Philosophy is a 1945 book by Aldous Huxley, published by Harper & Row in the US. It was published in the UK in 1946 by Chatto & Windus.-Social and political context:...
—met with success to match that of her best-known work, Mysticism, published in 1911.
Biography
Underhill was born in Wolverhampton. She was a poetPoet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and novelist, as well as being a pacifist and mystic
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
. An only child, her early mystical insights she described as "abrupt experiences of the peaceful, undifferentiated plane of reality—like the "still desert" of the mystic—in which there was no multiplicity nor need of explanation." The meaning of these experiences became a lifelong quest and source of private angst, provoking her to research and write.
Both her father and her husband were writers (on the law), London barrister
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
s and yachtsmen. She and her husband, Hubert Stuart Moore, grew up together and were married on 3 July 1907. The couple had no children. She traveled regularly within Europe, primarily Switzerland, France and Italy where she pursued her interests in art and Catholicism, visiting numerous churches and monasteries. Neither her husband (a Protestant) nor her parents shared her interest in spiritual matters.
Underhill was called simply "Mrs. Moore" by many of her friends, but was not without her detractors. She was a prolific author and published over thirty books either under her maiden name Underhill or under the pseudonym John Cordelier, as was the case for the 1912 book The Spiral Way. Initially an agnostic, she gradually began to acquire an interest in Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism , is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists, with its earliest contributor believed to be Plotinus, and his teacher Ammonius Saccas...
and from there became increasingly drawn to Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
ism against the objections of her husband, becoming eventually a prominent Anglo-Catholic. Her spiritual mentor from 1921–24 was Baron Friedrich von Hügel, who was appreciative of her writing, yet concerned with her focus on mysticism and encouraged her to adopt a much more Christocentric
Christocentric
Christocentric is a doctrinal term within Christianity, describing theological positions that focus more heavily on Jesus Christ, the second person of the Christian Trinity, as opposed to the Godhead / God the Father or the Holy Spirit...
view as opposed to the theistic
Theism
Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists.In a more specific sense, theism refers to a doctrine concerning the nature of a monotheistic God and God's relationship to the universe....
/intellectual one she had previously held. She described him as "the most wonderful personality. ..so saintly, truthful, sane and tolerant," (Cropper, p. 44) and she was influenced toward more charitable, down to earth activities. After his death in 1925, her writings became more focused on the Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, but understood differently in the main Abrahamic religions.While the general concept of a "Spirit" that permeates the cosmos has been used in various religions Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of...
and she became prominent in the Anglican Church as a lay leader of spiritual retreats, a spiritual director for hundreds of individuals, guest speaker, and radio lecturer/proponent of the power of contemplative prayer.
Underhill came of age in the Edwardian era, at the turn of the century, and like most of her contemporaries had a decided romantic bent. The enormous excitement in those days, was mysteriously compounded of the psychic, the psychological, the occult, the mystical, the medieval, the advance of science, the apotheosis of Art, the re-discovery of the feminine and an unashamedly sensuous and the most ethereally 'spiritual'. Anglicanism seemed to her out-of-key with this, her world. She sought centre of life as she and many of her generation conceived it, not in the state religion, but in experience and the heart. This age of 'the soul', was one of those periods when a sudden easing of social taboos brings on a great sense of personal emancipation and desire for an El Dorado
El Dorado
El Dorado is the name of a Muisca tribal chief who covered himself with gold dust and, as an initiation rite, dived into a highland lake.Later it became the name of a legendary "Lost City of Gold" that has fascinated – and so far eluded – explorers since the days of the Spanish Conquistadors...
despised by an older, more morose and insensitive generation.
As an only child she was devoted to her parents, and later to her husband. She was fully engaged in the life of a barrister's daughter and wife - the entertainment and charitable work that entailed - and a daily regimen that included her own writing, research, worship, prayer and meditation. It was a fundamental axiom of Evelyn Underhill, that all of life was sacred - as that was what "incarnation" was about.
Education
Underhill was educated at home, except for three years at a private school in Folkestone, and subsequently read history and botany at King's College LondonKing's College London
King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...
. She was conferred with an honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Aberdeen University and made a fellow of King's College
King's College London
King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...
. She was the first woman to lecture to the clergy in the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
as well as the first woman to officially conduct spiritual retreats for the Church. She was also the first woman to establish ecumenical links between churches and one of the first woman theologians to lecture in English colleges and universities, as she did frequently. Underhill was an award-winning bookbinder, studying with the most renowned masters of the time. She was schooled in the classics, well read in Western spirituality, well informed (in addition to theology) in the philosophy, psychology, and physics of her day, and acquired the prestigious post as editor of The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
.
Early work
Before undertaking many of her better known expository works on mysticism, she first published a small book of satirical poems on legal dilemmas, The Bar-Lamb's Ballad Book, which received a favorable welcome. Underhill then wrote three highly unconventional though profoundly spiritual novels. Like Charles WilliamsCharles Williams (UK writer)
Charles Walter Stansby Williams was a British poet, novelist, theologian, literary critic, and member of the Inklings.- Biography :...
and later, Susan Howatch
Susan Howatch
Susan Howatch is an English author. Her writing career has been distinguished by family saga-type novels which describe the lives of related characters for long periods of time...
, Underhill uses her narratives to explore the sacramental intersection of the physical with the spiritual. She then uses that sacramental framework very effectively to illustrate the unfolding of a human drama. Her novels are entitled The Grey World (1904), The Lost Word (1907), and The Column of Dust (1909). In her first novel, The Grey World, described by one reviewer as an extremely interesting psychological study, the hero's mystical journey begins with death, and then moves through reincarnation, beyond the grey world, and into the choice of a simple life devoted to beauty, reflecting Underhill's own serious perspective as a young woman.
"It seems so much easier in these days to live morally than to live beautifully. Lots of us manage to exist for years without ever sinning against society, but we sin against loveliness every hour of the day."
The Lost Word and The Column of Dust are also concerned with the problem of living in two worlds and reflect the writer's own spiritual challenges. In the 1909 novel, her heroine encounters a rift in the solid stuff of her universe:
She had seen, abruptly, the insecurity of those defences which protect our illusions and ward off the horrors of truth. She had found a little hole in the wall of appearances; and peeping through, had caught a glimpse of that seething pot of spiritual forces whence, now and then, a bubble rises to the surface of things. .
Underhill's novels suggest that perhaps for the mystic
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
, two worlds may be better than one. For her, mystical experience seems inseparable from some kind of enhancement of consciousness or expansion of perceptual and aesthetic horizons—to see things as they are, in their meanness and insignificance when viewed in opposition to the divine reality, but in their luminosity and grandeur when seen bathed in divine radiance. But at this stage the mystic's mind is subject to fear and insecurity, its powers undeveloped. The first novel takes us only to this point. Further stages demand suffering, because mysticism is more than merely vision or cultivating a latent potentiality of the soul in cosy isolation. According to Underhill's view, the subsequent pain and tension, and final loss of the private painful ego-centered life for the sake of regaining one's true self, has little to do with the first beatific vision. Her two later novels are built on the ideal of total self-surrender even to the apparent sacrifice of the vision itself, as necessary for the fullest possible integration of human life. This was for her the equivalent of working out within, the metaphorical intent of the life story of Jesus. One is reunited with the original vision—no longer as mere spectator but as part of it. This dimension of self-loss and resurrection is worked out in The Lost Word, but there is some doubt as to its general inevitability. In The Column of Dust, the heroine's physical death reinforces dramatically the mystical death to which she has already surrendered to. Two lives are better than one but only on the condition that a process of painful re-integration intervenes to re-establish unity
Henosis
Henosis is the word for "oneness," "union," or "unity" in classical Greek, and is spelled identically in modern Greek where "Enosis" is particulary connected with the modern political "Unity" movement to unify Greece and Cyprus....
between Self
Self
The self is an individual person as the object of his or her own reflective consciousness. The self has been studied extensively by philosophers and psychologists and is central to many world religions.-Philosophy:...
and Reality
Reality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
.
All her characters derive their interest from the theological meaning and value which they represent and it is her ingenious handling of so much difficult symbolic material that makes her work psychologically interesting as a forerunner of such 20th century writers as Susan Howatch
Susan Howatch
Susan Howatch is an English author. Her writing career has been distinguished by family saga-type novels which describe the lives of related characters for long periods of time...
, whose successful novels also embody the psychological value of religious metaphor and the traditions of Christian mysticism
Christian mysticism
Christian mysticism refers to the development of mystical practices and theory within Christianity. It has often been connected to mystical theology, especially in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions...
. Her first novel received critical acclaim, but her last was generally derided. However her novels give remarkable insight into what we may assume was her decision to avoid what St. Augustine described as the temptation of fuga in solitudinem ("the flight into solitude"), but instead acquiescing to a loving, positive acceptance of this world. Not looking back, by this time she was already working on her magnum opus.
Mysticism (1911)
Underhill's greatest book, Mysticism: A Study of the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness, was published in 1911, and is distinguished by the very qualities which make it inappropriate as a straightforward textbook. The spirit of the book is romantic, engaged, and theoretical rather than historical or scientific. Underhill has little use for theoretical explanations and the traditional religious experience, formal classifications or analysis. She dismisses William JamesWilliam James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
' pioneering study, The Varieties of Religious Experience
The Varieties of Religious Experience
The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature is a book by the Harvard University psychologist and philosopher William James that comprises his edited Gifford Lectures on "Natural Theology" delivered at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland between 1901 and 1902.These lectures...
(1902), and his "four marks of the mystic state" (ineffability, noetic quality, transcience, and passivity). James had admitted that his own constitution shut him off almost entirely from the enjoyment of mystical states thus his treatment was purely objective. Underhill substituted (1) mysticism is practical, not theoretical, (2) mysticism is an entirely spiritual activity, (3) The business and method of mysticism is love. (4) mysticism entails a definite psychological experience. Her insistence on the psychological approach was that it was the glamorous science of the pre-war period, offering the potential key to the secrets of human advances in intelligence, creativity, and genius, and already psychological findings were being applied in theology (i.e., William Sanday
William Sanday
William Sanday was born in Holme Pierrepont, Nottinghamshire, England to William Sanday and Elizabeth Mann. He was a British theologian and biblical scholar...
's Christologies Ancient and Modern).
She divided her subject into two parts; the first an introduction, and the second, a detailed study of the nature and development of human consciousness. In the first section, in order to free the subject from confusion and misapprehension, she approached it from the point of view of the psychologist (new science at the time), the symbolist and the theologian. To separate it from its most dubious connection she included a chapter on mysticism and magic
Magic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
. At the time, and still today, the subject is associated with the occult, magic, secret rites, and fanaticism, while she knew the mystics throughout history to be the world's spiritual pioneers.
She divided her map of "the way" into five sections; the "Awakening of Self," quoting Henry Suso
Henry Suso
Henry Suso was a German mystic, born at Überlingen on Lake Constance on March 21, c. 1300; he died at Ulm, January 25, 1366; declared Blessed in 1831 by Gregory XVI, who assigned his feast in the Dominican Order to March 2...
(disciple of Meister Eckhart
Meister Eckhart
Eckhart von Hochheim O.P. , commonly known as Meister Eckhart, was a German theologian, philosopher and mystic, born near Gotha, in the Landgraviate of Thuringia in the Holy Roman Empire. Meister is German for "Master", referring to the academic title Magister in theologia he obtained in Paris...
):
"That which the Servitor saw had no form neither any manner of being; yet he had of it a joy such as he might have known in the seeing of shapes and substances of all joyful things. His heart was hungry, yet satisfied, his soul was full of contentment and joy: his prayers and his hopes were fulfilled." (Cropper p. 46)
Suso's description of how the abstract truth, once remembered (related to each soul's true nature and purpose), contains the power of fulfilment was the starting point of Underhill's own path. The second stage she presents as psychological "purgation of self," quoting the Theologia Germanica
Theologia Germanica
Theologia Germanica, also known as Theologia Deutsch or Teutsch, is a mystical treatise believed to have been written in the mid 14th century by an anonymous author, usually associated with the Friends of God. According to the introduction of the Theologia the author was a priest and a member of...
(14th c. anonymous) regarding ego (Underhill's "little self") transcendence:
"We must cast all things from us and strip ourselves of them and refrain from claiming anything for our own."
The third stage she titles, "Illumination," and quotes William Law:
"Everything in ...nature, is descended out that which is eternal, and stands as a. ..visible outbirth of it, so when we know how to separate out the grossness, death, and darkness. ..from it, we find. ..it in its eternal state."
The fourth stage she describes as the "dark night of the soul
Dark Night of the Soul
Dark Night of the Soul is a treatise by Saint John of the Cross containing a commentary explaining his poem of the same name.-Poem and treatise by Saint John of the Cross:...
" (which her correspondence leads us to believe she struggled with throughout her life) where one is deprived of all that has been valuable to the lower self, and quoting Mechthild of Magdeburg
Mechthild of Magdeburg
Mechthild of Magdeburg , a Beguine, was a medieval mystic, whose book Das fließende Licht der Gottheit described her visions of God....
:
"...since Thou hast taken from me all that I had of Thee, yet of Thy grace leave me the gift which every dog has by nature: that of being true to Thee in my distress, when I am deprived of all consolation. This I desire more fervently than Thy heavenly Kingdom."
And last she devotes a chapter to the unitive life, the sum of the mystic way:
"When love has carried us above all things into the Divine Dark, there we are transformed by the Eternal Word Who is the image of the Father; and as the air is penetrated by the sun, thus we receive in peace the Incomprehensible Light, enfolding us, and penetrating us.' (Ruysbroech)
Where Underhill struck new ground was in her insistence that this state of union produced a glorious and fruitful creativeness, so that the mystic who attains this final perfectness is the most active doer - not the reclusive dreaming lover of God.
We are all the kindred of the mystics. ..Strange and far away from us though they seem, they are not cut off from us by some impassable abyss. They belong to us; the giants, the heroes of our race. As the achievement of genius belongs not to itself only but also to the society that brought it forth;...the supernal accomplishment of the mystics is ours also. ..our guarantee of the end to which immanent love, the hidden steersman. ..is moving. ..us on the path toward the Real. They come back to us from an encounter with life's most august secret. ..filled with amazing tidings which they can hardly tell. We, longing for some assurance. ..urge them to pass on their revelation. ..the old demand of the dim-sighted and incredulous. ..But they cannot. ..only fragments of the Symbolic Vision. According to their strength and passion, these lovers of the Absolute. ..have not shrunk from the suffering. ..Beauty and agony have called. ..have awakened a heroic response. For them the winter is over. ..Life new, unquenchable and lovely comes to meet them with the dawn."(Cropper, p.47)
The book ends with an extremely valuable appendix, a kind of who's who of mysticism, which shows its persistence and interconnection from century to century.
Ruysbroeck (1914)
A work on the fourteenth century Flemish mystic, Jan van Ruusbroec or Ruysbroeck (1293–1381), published in London in 1914. She had discussed him from several different perspectives during the course of her earlier book on Mysticism in 1911.I. Life. She starts with a biography, drawn mainly from two works on his life written by fellow monastics
Monk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
, Pomerius and Gerard Naghel.
His childhood was spent in the village of Ruysbroeck. [page 7] At eleven he ran away to Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, where he began to live with his uncle, John Hinckaert, a Canon
Canon (priest)
A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....
at the Cathedral
Cathedral
A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop...
of St. Gudule, and a younger Canon, Francis van Coudenberg. [10] At twenty-four he was ordained
Ordination
In general religious use, ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart as clergy to perform various religious rites and ceremonies. The process and ceremonies of ordination itself varies by religion and denomination. One who is in preparation for, or who is...
a priest and became a prebend at St. Gudule. [12] At his first mass he envisioned his mother's spirit released from Purgatory
Purgatory
Purgatory is the condition or process of purification or temporary punishment in which, it is believed, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for Heaven...
and entering Heaven
Heaven
Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...
. [15] From age 26 to 50 Ruysbroeck was a cathedral chaplain
Chaplain
Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...
at St. Gudule. [15] Although he "seemed a nobody to those who did not know him," he was developing a strong spiritual life, "a penetrating intellect, a fearless heart, deep knowledge of human nature, remarkable powers of expression". [17] At one point he wrote strong pamphlets and led a campaign against a heretical group, the Brethren of the Free Spirit
Brethren of the Free Spirit
The Brothers, or Brethren of the Free Spirit, was a lay Christian movement which flourished in northern Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries. Antinomian and individualist in outlook, it came into conflict with the Catholic Church and was declared heretical by Pope Clement V at the Council of...
led by Bloemardinne, who practiced a self-indulgent "mysticality". [18-20] Later, with the two now elderly Canons, he moved into the countryside at Groenendael ("Green Valley"). [21-22] Pomerius writes that he retired not to hide his light "but that he might tend it better" [22]. Five years later their community became a Priory
Priory
A priory is a house of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. Priories may be houses of mendicant friars or religious sisters , or monasteries of monks or nuns .The Benedictines and their offshoots , the Premonstratensians, and the...
under the Augustinian Canons. [23]
Many of his works were written during this period, often drawing lessons from nature. [24] He had a favorite tree under which he would sit and write what the 'Spirit' gave to him. [25] He solemnly affirmed that his works were composed under the "domination of an inspiring power," she writes. [26] Pomerius says that Ruysbroeck could enter a state of contemplation in which he appeared surrounded by radiant light. [26-27] Alongside his spiritual ascent, Naghel says, he cultivated the friendship of those around him, enriching their lives. [27-28] He also worked in the garden of the priory, and sought to help out creatures of the forest. [29-30] He moved from the senses to the transcendent without frontiers or cleavage, she writes, these being for him "but two moods within the mind of God". [30] He counseled many who came to him, including Gerard Groot of the Brothers of the Common Life. [31] His advice would plumb the "purity and direction" of the seeker's will, and love. [32] There, at Groenendael he finally "leap to a more abundant life". [34] In The Sparkling Stone Ruysbroec wrote about coming to know the love "which giveth more than one can take, and asketh more than one can pay." [34]
II. Works. Next, she gives a bibliography of his eleven admittedly authentic works, providing details concerning each work's origin, nature, and contents, as well as their place in his writings. 1. The Spiritual Tabernacle; 2. The Twelve Points of True Faith; 3. The Book of the Four Temptations; 4. The Book of the Kingdom of God's Lovers; 5. The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage; 6. The Mirror of Eternal Salvation or Book of the Blessed Sacraments; 7. The Seven Cloisters; 8. The Seven Degrees of the Ladder of Love; 9. The Book of the Sparkling Stone; 10. The Book of the Supreme Truth; 11. The Twelve Béguines.
III. Doctrine of God. Several types of mystics are described. The first (e.g., St. Teresa) deals with personal psychological experiences and emotional reactions, leaving the nature of God to existing theology. [page 52] The second (e.g., Plotinus
Plotinus
Plotinus was a major philosopher of the ancient world. In his system of theory there are the three principles: the One, the Intellect, and the Soul. His teacher was Ammonius Saccas and he is of the Platonic tradition...
) has passion sprung from the vision of a philosopher; the intellect often is more active than the heart, yet like a poet such a mystic strives to sketch his vision of the Ultimate. [53] The greatest mystics (e.g., St. Augustine
St. Augustine
-People:* Augustine of Hippo or Augustine of Hippo , father of the Latin church* Augustine of Canterbury , first Archbishop of Canterbury* Augustine Webster, an English Catholic martyr.-Places:*St. Augustine, Florida, United States...
) embrace at once "the infinite and the intimate" so that "God is both near and far, and the paradox of transcendent-immanent Reality is a self-evident if an inexpressible truth." Such mystics "give us by turns a subjective and psychological, an objective and metaphysical, reading of spiritual experience." Here is Ruysbroeck. [53-54]
An apostolic mystic [55] represents humanity in it quest to discern the Divine
Divinity
Divinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power or deity, or its attributes or manifestations in...
Reality, being like "the artist extending our universe, the pioneer cutting our path, the hunter winning food for our souls." [56] Yet, although his experience is personal, his language is often drawn from tradition, [57] but the words may "enchant rather than inform the soul" so ineffable is the nature of God. [58] Ruysbroeck goes venturing "to hover over that Abyss which is 'beyong Reason,' stammering and breaking into wild poetry in the desperate attempt to seize the unseizable truth." [55] "[T]he One is 'neither This nor That'." [61]
"God as known by man" is the Absolute
Absolute (philosophy)
The Absolute is the concept of an unconditional reality which transcends limited, conditional, everyday existence. It is sometimes used as an alternate term for "God" or "the Divine", especially, but by no means exclusively, by those who feel that the term "God" lends itself too easily to...
One who combines and resolves the contradictory natures of time and eternity, becoming and being; who is both transcendent and immanent, abstract and personal, work and rest, the unmoved mover and movement itself. God is above the storm, yet inspires the flux. [59-60] The "omnipotent and ever-active Creator" who is "perpetually breathing forth His energetic Life in new births of being and new floods of grace." [60] Yet the soul may pierce beyond this fruitful nature to the simple essence of God. There we humans would find that "absolute and abiding Reality, which seems to man Eternal Rest, the 'Deep Quiet of the Godhead
Godhead (Christianity)
Godhead is a Middle English variant of the word godhood, and denotes the Divine Nature or Substance of the Christian God, or the Trinity. Within some traditions such as Mormonism, the term is used as a nontrinitarian substitute for the term Trinity, denoting the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit not as...
,' the 'Abyss,' the 'Dim Silence'; and which we can taste indeed but never know. There, 'all lovers lose themselves'." [60]
The Trinity
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...
, according the Ruysbroeck, works in living distinctions, "the fruitful nature of the Persons." [61] Yet the Trinity in itself is Unity of the Three Persons, which is the Godhead. [60-61] Beyond and within the Trinity, or the Godhead, then, is the "fathomless Abyss" [60] that is the "Simple Being of God" that is "an Eternal Rest of God and of all created things." [61]
The Father
God the Father
God the Father is a gendered title given to God in many monotheistic religions, particularly patriarchal, Abrahamic ones. In Judaism, God is called Father because he is the creator, life-giver, law-giver, and protector...
is the unconditioned Origin, Strength and Power, of all things. [62] The Son
God the Son
God the Son is the second person of the Trinity in Christian theology. The doctrine of the Trinity identifies Jesus of Nazareth as God the Son, united in essence but distinct in person with regard to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit...
is the Eternal Word and Wisdom that shines forth in the world of conditions. [62] The Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, but understood differently in the main Abrahamic religions.While the general concept of a "Spirit" that permeates the cosmos has been used in various religions Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of...
is Love and Generosity emanating from the mutual contemplation of Father and Son
Perichoresis
Perichoresis is a term in Christian theology first found within the Church Fathers but now reinvigorated among contemporary figures such as C. Baxter Kruger, Jurgen Moltmann, Miroslav Volf and John Zizioulas, amongst others. The term first appears in Gregory of Nazianzus but was explored more...
. [62] The Three Persons "exist in an eternal distinction [emphasis added] for that world of conditions wherein the human soul is immersed". [63] By the acts of the Three Persons
Social trinity
Social Trinity is an interpretation of the Christian doctrine of the trinity. Its central idea is that the trinity consists of three persons whose unity consists of a loving relationship...
all created things are born; by the incarnation and crucifixion we human soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
s are adorned with love, and so to be drawn back to our Source. "This is the circling course of the Divine life-process
Economy (Eastern Orthodox Church)
In the Eastern Orthodox and Greek-Catholic Churches and in the teaching of the Church Fathers which undergirds the theology of those Churches, economy or oeconomy has several meanings...
." [63]
But beyond and above this eternal distinction lies "the superessential world, transcending all conditions, inaccessible to thought-- 'the measureless solitude of the Godhead, where God possesses Himself in joy.' This is the ultimate world of the mystic." [63-64] There, she continues, quoting Ruysbroeck: "we can speak no more of Father, Son and Holy Spirit nor of any creature; but only of one Being, which is the very substance of the Divine Persons. There were we all one before our creation; for this is our superessence... . There the Godhead is, in simple essence, without activity; Eternal Rest, Unconditioned Dark, the Nameless Being, the Superessence of all created things, and the simple and infinite Bliss of God and of all the Saints." [64] "The simple light of this Being... embraces the unity of the Divine Persons" as well as envelopes and irradiates the ground and fruition of human souls in the Divine life-process. "And this is the union of God and the souls that love Him." [64-65]
IV. Doctrine of Humankind. For Ruysbroeck, "God is the 'Living Pattern of Creation' who has impressed His image on each soul, and in every adult spirit the character of that image must be brought from the hiddenness and realized." [66] The pattern is trinitarian; there are three properties of the human soul. First, resembling the Father, "the bare, still place to which consciousness retreats in introversion... ." [67] Second, following the Son, "the power of knowing Divine things by intuitive comprehension: man's fragmentary share in the character of the Logos, or Wisdom of God." [67-68] "The third property we call the spark of the soul. It is the inward and natural tendency of the soul towards its Source; and here do we receive the Holy Spirit, the Charity of God." [68]. So will God work within the human being; in later spiritual development we may form with God a Union, and eventually a Unity. [70-71]
The mighty force of Love is the 'very self-hood of God' in this mysterious communion. [72, 73] "As we lay hold upon the Divine Life, devour and assimilate it, so in that very act the Divine Life devours us, and knits us up into the mysical Body," she writes. "It is the nature of love," says Ruysbroeck, "ever to give and to take, to love and be loved, and these two things meet in whomsoever loves. Thus the love of Christ is both avid and generous... as He devours us, so He would feed us. If He absorbs us utterly into Himself, in return He gives us His very self again." [75-76] "Hungry love," "generous love," "stormy love" touches the human soul with its Divine creative energy and, once we become conscious of it, evokes in us an answering storm of love. "The whole of our human growth within the spiritual order is conditioned by the quality of this response; by the will, the industry, the courage, with which [we accept our] part in the Divine give-and-take." [74] As Ruysbroeck puts it:
"That measureless Love which is God Himself, dwells in the pure deeps of our spirit, like a burning brazier of coal. And it throws forth brilliant and fiery sparks which stir and enkindle heart and senses, will and desire, and all the powers of the soul, with a fire of love; a storm, a rage, a measureless fury of love. These be the weapons with which we fight against the terrible and immense Love of God, who would consume all loving spirits and swallow them in Himself. Love arms us with its own gifts, and clarifies our reason, and commands, counsels and advises us to oppose Him, to fight against Him, and to maintain against Him our right to love, so long as we may." [74-75]
The drama of this giving and receiving Love constitutes a single act, for God is as an "ocean which ebbs and flows" or as an "inbreathing and outbreathing". [75, 76] "Love is a unifying power, manifested in motion itself, 'an outgoing attraction, which drags us out of ourselves and calls us to be melted and naughted in the Unity'." [76]
Next, the spiritual development of the soul is addressed. [76-88] Ruysbroeck adumbrates how one may progress from the Active life, to the Interior life, to the Superessential life; these correspond to the three natural orders of Becoming, Being, and God, or to the three rôles of the Servant, the Friend, and the "hidden child" of God. [77, 85] The Active life focuses on ethics, on conforming the self's daily life to the Will of God, and takes place in the world of the senses, "by means". [78] The Interior life embraces a vision of spiritual reality, where the self's contacts with the Divine take place "without means". [78] The Superessential life transcends the intellectual plane, whereby the self does not merely behold, but rather has fruition of the Godhead in life and in love, at work and at rest, in union and in bliss. [78, 86, 87] The analogy with the traditional threefold way of Purgation, Illumination, and Union, is not exact. The Interior life of Ruysbroeck contains aspects of the traditional Union also, while the Superessential life "takes the soul to heights of fruition which few amongst even the greatest unitive mystics have attained or described." [78-79]
V, VI, VII, VIII. In her last four chapters, Evelynn Underhill continues the discussion concerning the Active life [94-114], the Interior life [115-163], and the Superessential or glorious life [164-185].
"The Mysticism of Plotinus" (1919)
An essay originally published in The Quarterly Review (1919), and later collected in The Essentials of Mysticism and other essays (London: J.M.Dent 1920) at 116-140. Underhill here addresses PlotinusPlotinus
Plotinus was a major philosopher of the ancient world. In his system of theory there are the three principles: the One, the Intellect, and the Soul. His teacher was Ammonius Saccas and he is of the Platonic tradition...
(204-270) of Alexandria and later of Rome.
A Neoplatonist
Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism , is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists, with its earliest contributor believed to be Plotinus, and his teacher Ammonius Saccas...
as well as a spiritual guide, Plotinus writes regarding both formal philosophy and hands-on, personal, inner experience. Underhill makes the distinction between the geographer who draws maps of the mind, and the seeker who actually travels in the realms of spirit. [page 118] She observes that usually mystics do not follow the mere maps of metaphysicians. [page 117]
In the Enneads
Enneads
The Six Enneads, sometimes abbreviated to The Enneads or Enneads , is the collection of writings of Plotinus, edited and compiled by his student Porphyry . Plotinus was a student of Ammonius Saccas and they were founders of Neoplatonism...
Plotinus presents the Divine as an unequal triune, in descending order: (a) the One
Absolute (philosophy)
The Absolute is the concept of an unconditional reality which transcends limited, conditional, everyday existence. It is sometimes used as an alternate term for "God" or "the Divine", especially, but by no means exclusively, by those who feel that the term "God" lends itself too easily to...
, perfection, having nothing, seeking nothing, needing nothing, yet it overflows creatively, the source of being; [121] (b) the emitted Nous or Spirit, with intelligence, wisdom, poetic intuition, the "Father and Companion" of the soul; [121-122] and, (c) the emitted Soul or Life, the vital essence of the world, which aspires to communion with the Spirit above, while also directly engaged with the physical world beneath. [123]
People "come forth from God" and will find happiness once re-united, first with the Nous, later with the One. [125] Such might be the merely logical outcome for the metaphysician, yet Plotinus the seeker also presents this return to the Divine as a series of moral purgations and a shedding of irrational delusions
Irrationality
Irrationality is cognition, thinking, talking or acting without inclusion of rationality. It is more specifically described as an action or opinion given through inadequate reasoning, emotional distress, or cognitive deficiency...
, leading eventually to entry into the intuitively beautiful. [126] This intellectual and moral path toward a life aesthetic will progressively disclose an invisible source, the Nous, the forms of Beauty
Beauty
Beauty is a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning, or satisfaction. Beauty is studied as part of aesthetics, sociology, social psychology, and culture...
. [127] Love is the prevailing inspiration, although the One is impersonal. [128] The mystic will pass through stages of purification, and of enlightenment, resulting in a shift in the center of our being, "from sense to soul, from soul to spirit," in preparation for an ultimate transformation of consciousness. [125, 127] Upon our arrival, we shall know ectasy and "no longer sing out of tune, but form a divine chorus round the One." [129]
St. Augustine
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
(354-430) criticizes such neoplatonism as neglecting the needs of struggling and imperfect human beings. The One of Plotinus may act as a magnet for the human soul, but it cannot be said to show mercy, nor to help or love or redeem the individual on earth. [130] Other western mystics writing on the neoplatonists mention this lack of "mutual attraction" between humanity and the unconscious, unknowable One. [130-131] In this regard Julian of Norwich
Julian of Norwich
Julian of Norwich is regarded as one of the most important English mystics. She is venerated in the Anglican and Lutheran churches, but has never been canonized, or officially beatified, by the Catholic Church, probably because so little is known of her life aside from her writings, including the...
(1342–1416) would write, "Our natural will is to have God, and the good-will of God is to have us." [130]
Plotinus leaves the problem of evil unresolved, but having no place in the blissful life; here, the social ethical side of religion seems to be shorted. His philosophy does not include qualities comparable to the Gospel's divine "transfiguration of pain" through Jesus. [131] Plotinus "the self-sufficient sage" does not teach us charity, writes St. Augustine. [132]
Nonetheless, Underhill notes, Plotinus and Neoplatonism were very influential among the mystics of Christianity (and Islam). St. Augustine the Church Father was himself deeply affected by Plotinus, and through him the western Church. [133-135, 137] So, too, was Dionysius
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, also known as Pseudo-Denys, was a Christian theologian and philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century, the author of the Corpus Areopagiticum . The author is identified as "Dionysos" in the corpus, which later incorrectly came to be attributed to Dionysius...
(5th century, Syria), whose writings would also prove very influential. [133, 135] As well were, e.g., Erigena [135], Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
[136], Ruysbroeck [136, 138], Eckhart
Meister Eckhart
Eckhart von Hochheim O.P. , commonly known as Meister Eckhart, was a German theologian, philosopher and mystic, born near Gotha, in the Landgraviate of Thuringia in the Holy Roman Empire. Meister is German for "Master", referring to the academic title Magister in theologia he obtained in Paris...
[138], and Boehme
Jakob Böhme
Jakob Böhme was a German Christian mystic and theologian. He is considered an original thinker within the Lutheran tradition...
[139].
Worship (1936)
The chapter headings give an indication of its contents.Part I: 1. The Nature of Worship, 2. Ritual and Symbol, 3. Sacrament and Sacrifice, 4. The Character of Christian Worship, 5. Principles of Corporate Worship, 6. Liturgical Elements in Worship, 7. The Holy Eucharist: Its Nature, 8. The Holy Eucharist: Its Significance, 9. The Principles of Personal Worship.
Part II: 10. Jewish Worship, 11. The Beginnings of Christian Worship, 12. Catholic Worship: Western and Eastern, 13. Worship in the Reformed Churches, 14. Free Church Worship, 15. The Anglican Tradition. Conclusion.
Influences
Underhill's life was greatly affected by her husband's resistance to her joining the Catholic Church to which she was powerfully drawn. At first she believed it to only be a delay in her decision, but it proved lifelong. He was, however, a writer himself and was supportive of her writing both before and after their marriage in 1907, though he did not share her spiritual affinities. Her fiction was written in the six years between 1903–1909 and represents her four major interests of that general period: philosophy (neoplatonismNeoplatonism
Neoplatonism , is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists, with its earliest contributor believed to be Plotinus, and his teacher Ammonius Saccas...
), theism
Theism
Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists.In a more specific sense, theism refers to a doctrine concerning the nature of a monotheistic God and God's relationship to the universe....
/mysticism
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
, the Roman Catholic liturgy
Liturgy
Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...
, and human love/compassion. In her earlier writings Underhill often wrote using the terms "mysticism" and "mystics" but later began to adopt the terms "spirituality" and "saints" because she felt they were less threatening; she was often criticized for believing that the mystical life should be accessible to the average person.
Her fiction was also influenced by the literary creed expounded by her close friend Arthur Machen
Arthur Machen
Arthur Machen was a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His novella The Great God Pan has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror...
, mainly his "Hieroglypics" of 1902, summarised by his biographer:
There are certain truths about the universe and its constitution - as distinct from the particular things in it that come before our observation - which cannot be grasped by human reason or expressed in precise words: but they can be apprehended by some people at least, in a semi-mystical experience, called ecstasy, and a work of art is great insofar as this experience is caught and expressed in it. Because, however, the truths concerned transcend a language attuned to the description of material objects, the expression can only be through hieroglyphics, and it is of such hieroglyphics that literature consists.
In Underhill's case the quest for psychological realism is subordinate to larger metaphysical considerations which she shared with Arthur Machen. Incorporating the Holy Grail
Holy Grail
The Holy Grail is a sacred object figuring in literature and certain Christian traditions, most often identified with the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers...
into their fiction (stimulated perhaps by their association with Arthur Waite
Arthur Edward Waite
Arthur Edward Waite was a scholarly mystic who wrote extensively on occult and esoteric matters, and was the co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. As his biographer, R.A...
and his affiliation with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was a magical order active in Great Britain during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which practiced theurgy and spiritual development...
), for Machen the Holy Grail was perhaps "the" hieroglyph, "the " crystallisation in one sacred emblem of all man's transcendental yearning, "the" gateway to vision and lasting appeasement of his discontents. For her is was the center of atonement-linked meanings as pointed out to Margaret Robinson in a letter responding to her criticism of Underhill's last novel:
"Don't marvel at your own temerity in criticising. Why should you? Of course, this thing wasn't written for you - I never write for anyone at all, except in letters of direction! But, I take leave to think the doctrine contained in it is one you'll have to assimilate sooner or later and which won't do you any harm. It's not "mine" you know. You will find it all in Eckhart. .. They all know, as Richard of St Victor said, , that the Fire of Love "burns." We have not fulfilled our destiny when we have sat down at a safe distance from it, purring like overfed cats, 'suffering is the ancient law of love' - and its highest pleasure into the bargain, oddly enough. ... A sponge cake and milk religion is neither true to this world nor to the next. As for the Christ being too august a word for our little hardships - I think it is truer that it is "so" august as to give our little hardships a tincture of Royalty once we try them up into it. I don't think a Pattern which was 'meek & lowly' is likely to fail of application to very humble and ordinary things. For most of us don't get a chance "but" the humble and ordinary: and He came that we might all have life more abundantly, according to our measure. There that's all!
Two contemporary philosophical writers dominated Underhill's thinking at the time she wrote "Mysticism": Rudolf Eucken and Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize...
. While neither displayed an interest in mysticism, both seemed to their disciples to advance a spiritual explanation of the universe. Also, she describes the fashionable creed of the time as "vitalism
Vitalism
Vitalism, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is#a doctrine that the functions of a living organism are due to a vital principle distinct from biochemical reactions...
" and the term adequately sums up the prevailing worship of life in all its exuberance, variety and limitless possibility which pervaded pre-war culture and society. For her, Eucken and Bergson confirmed the deepest intuitions of the mystics. (Armstrong, "Evelyn Underhill")
Among the mystics, Ruysbroeck, was to her the most influential and satisfying of all the medieval mystics, and she found herself very much at one with him in the years when he was working as an unknown priest in Brussels, for she herself had also a hidden side.
"His career which covers the greater part of the fourteenth century, that golden age of Christian Mysticism, seems to exhibit within the circle of a single personality, and carry up to a higher term than ever before, all the best attainments of the Middle Ages in the realm of Eternal life. The central doctrine of the Divine Fatherhood, and of the soul's power to become the Son of God, it is this raised to the nth degree of intensity. ..and demonstrated with the exactitude of the mathematician, and the passion of a poet, which Ruysbroeck gives us. ..the ninth and tenth chapters of "The Sparkling Stone" the high water mark of mystical literature. Nowhere else do we find such a combination of soaring vision with the most delicate and intimate psychological analysis. The old Mystic sitting under his tree, seems here to be gazing at and reporting to us the final secrets of that Eternal World. .." (Cropper, p. 57)
One of her most significant influences and important collaborations was with the Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
, the Indian mystic, author, and world traveler. They published a major translation of the work of Kabir
Kabir
Kabīr was a mystic poet and saint of India, whose writings have greatly influenced the Bhakti movement...
("100 Poems of Kabir") together in 1915, to which she wrote the introduction. He introduced her to the spiritual genius of India which she expressed enthusiastically in a letter:
This is the first time I have had the privilege of being with one who is a Master in the things I care so much about but know so little of as yet: & I understand now something of what your writers mean when they insist on the necessity and value of the personal teacher and the fact that he gives something which the learner cannot get in any other way. It has been like hearing the language of which I barely know the alphabet, spoken perfectly.(Letters)
They did not keep up their correspondence in later years, both suffered debilitating illnesses in the last year of life and died in the summer of 1941, greatly distressed by the outbreak of World War II.
Evelyn in 1921 was to all outward appearances in an assured and enviable position. She had been asked by the University of Oxford to give the first of a new series of lectures on Religion, and she was the first woman to have such an honour. She was an authority on her own subject of Mysticism and respected for her research and scholarship. Her writing was in demand, she had an interesting and notable set of friends, devoted readers, happy marriage and affectionate and loyal parents. At the same time she felt that her foundations were insecure, that her zeal for Reality was resting on a basis that was too fragile.
By 1939, she was a member of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship
Anglican Pacifist Fellowship
The Anglican Pacifist Fellowship is a body of people within the Anglican Communion who reject war as a means of solving international disputes, and believe that peace and justice should be sought through non-violent means .-Origins and early history:...
, writing a number of important tracts expressing her anti-war sentiment.
After returning to the Anglican Church, and perhaps overwhelmed by her knowledge of the achievements of the mystics and their perilous heights, her ten year friendship with Catholic philosopher and writer, Baron Friedrich von Hugel
Friedrich von Hügel
Friedrich von Hügel was an influential Austrian Roman Catholic layman, religious writer, Modernist theologian and Christian apologist....
, turned into one of spiritual direction. Charles Williams wrote in his introduction to her Letters: 'The equal swaying level of devotion and scepticism (related to the church) which is, for some souls, as much the Way as continuous simple faith is to others, was a distress to her. ..She wanted to be "sure." Writing to Von Hugel of the darkness she struggled with:
What ought I to do?...being naturally self-indulgent and at present unfortunately professionally very prosperous and petted, nothing will get done unless I make a Rule. Neither intellectual work nor religion give me any real discipline because I have a strong attachment to both. ..it is useless advising anything people could notice or that would look pious. That is beyond me. In my lucid moments I see only too clearly that the only possible end of this road is complete, unconditional self-consecration, and for this I have not the nerve, the character or the depth. There has been some sort of mistake. My soul is too small for it and yet it is at bottom the only thing that I really want. It feels sometimes as if, whilst still a jumble of conflicting impulses and violent faults I were being pushed from behind towards an edge I dare not jump over."
In a later letter of 12 July the Baron's practical concerns for signs of strain in Evelyn's spiritual state are expressed. His comments give insight into her struggles:
"I do not at all like this craving for absolute certainty that this or that experience of yours, is what it seems to yourself. And I am assuredly not going to declare that I am absolutely certain of the final and evidential worth of any of those experiences. They are not articles of faith. .. You are at times tempted to scepticism and so you long to have some, if only one direct personal experience which shall be beyond the reach of all reasonable doubt. But such an escape. ..would ...possibly be a most dangerous one, and would only weaken you, or shrivel you, or puff you up. By all means. ..believe them, if and when they humble and yet brace you, to be probably from God. But do not build your faith upon them; do not make them an end when they exist only to be a means. ..I am not sure that God does want a marked preponderance of this or that work or virtue in our life - that would feed still further your natural temperament, already too vehement. (Cropper biography)
Although Underhill continued to struggle to the end, craving certainty that her beatific visions were purposeful, suffering as only a pacifist can from the devastating onslaught of World War II and the Church's powerlessness to affect events, she may well have played a powerful part in the survival of her country through the influence of her words and the impact of her teachings on thousands regarding the power of prayer. Surviving the London Blitz of 1940, her health disintegrated further and she died the following year. She is buried with her husband in the churchyard extension at St John-at-Hampstead in London.
More than any other person, she was responsible for introducing the forgotten authors of medieval and Catholic spirituality to a largely Protestant audience and the lives of eastern mystics to the English speaking world. As a frequent guest on radio, her 1936 work The Spiritual Life was especially influential as transcribed from a series of broadcasts given as a sequel to those by Dom Bernard Clements on the subject of prayer. Fellow theologian Charles Williams
Charles Williams (UK writer)
Charles Walter Stansby Williams was a British poet, novelist, theologian, literary critic, and member of the Inklings.- Biography :...
wrote the introduction to her published Letters in 1943, which reveal much about this prodigious woman. Upon her death, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
reported that on the subject of theology, she was "unmatched by any of the professional teachers of her day."
Veneration
Since 2000 the Church of EnglandChurch of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
commemorates her liturgically on 15 June.
Underhill is honored with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA)
Calendar of saints (Episcopal Church in the United States of America)
The veneration of saints in the Episcopal Church is a continuation of an ancient tradition from the early Church which honors important people of the Christian faith. The usage of the term "saint" is similar to Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Those in the Anglo-Catholic tradition may...
on June 15.
See also
- Friedrich von HügelFriedrich von HügelFriedrich von Hügel was an influential Austrian Roman Catholic layman, religious writer, Modernist theologian and Christian apologist....
- Arthur MachenArthur MachenArthur Machen was a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His novella The Great God Pan has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror...
- Rudolf Christoph EuckenRudolf Christoph EuckenRudolf Christoph Eucken was a German philosopher, and the winner of the 1908 Nobel Prize for Literature.-Early life:...
- Henri BergsonHenri BergsonHenri-Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize...
- John of the CrossJohn of the CrossJohn of the Cross , born Juan de Yepes Álvarez, was a major figure of the Counter-Reformation, a Spanish mystic, Catholic saint, Carmelite friar and priest, born at Fontiveros, Old Castile....
- John of Ruysbroeck
- PlotinusPlotinusPlotinus was a major philosopher of the ancient world. In his system of theory there are the three principles: the One, the Intellect, and the Soul. His teacher was Ammonius Saccas and he is of the Platonic tradition...
Poetry
Novels
- The Grey World (1904). Reprint Kessinger Publishing, 1942: ISBN 0-7661-0158-4. Online
- The Lost Word (1907).
- The Column of Dust (1909). Online
Religion (non-fiction)
- The Miracles of Our Lady Saint Mary: Brought Out of Divers Tongues and Newly Set Forth in English (1906) Online
- Mysticism: A Study of the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness (1911); 12th edition reprinted by Dutton 1961; reprint 1999 (ISBN 1-85168-196-5); see also online edition, at Wikisource.
- The Path of Eternal Wisdom. A mystical commentary on the Way of the Cross (1912).
- "Introduction" to her edition of the anonymous The Cloud of UnknowingThe Cloud of UnknowingThe Cloud of Unknowing is an anonymous work of Christian mysticism written in Middle English in the latter half of the 14th century. The text is a spiritual guide on contemplative prayer in the late Middle Ages.Manuscripts of the work are today at British Library and Cambridge University Library...
(c.1370) from British Museum manuscript [here entitled A Book of Contemplation the which is called the Cloud of Unknowing, in the which a Soul is oned with God] (London: John M. Walkins 1912); reprinted as Cloud of Unknowing (1998) [her "Introduction" at 5-37]; 2007: ISBN 1-60506-228-6; see her text at Google books. - The Spiral Way. Being a meditation on the fifteen mysteries of the soul's ascent (1912).
- The Mystic Way. A psychological study of Christian origins (1914). Online
- Practical Mysticism. A Little Book for Normal People (1914); reprint 1942 (ISBN 0-7661-0141-X); reprinted by Vintage Books, New York 2003 [with Abba (1940)]: ISBN 0-375-72570-9; see text at Wikisource.
- Ruysbroeck (London: Bell 1915). Online
- "Introduction" to Songs of KabirKabirKabīr was a mystic poet and saint of India, whose writings have greatly influenced the Bhakti movement...
(1915) transl. by Rabindranath TagoreRabindranath TagoreRabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
; reprint 1977 Samuel Weiser (ISBN 0-87728-271-4), text at 5-43. - The Essentials of Mysticism and other essays (1920); reprint 1999 (ISBN 1-85168-195-7).
- The Life of the Spirit and the Life of Today (1920). Online
- The Mystics of the Church (1925).
- Concerning the Inner Life (1927); reprint 1999 (ISBN 1-85168-194-9). Online
- Man and the Supernatural. A study in theism (1927).
- The House of the Soul (1929).
- The Light of Christ (1932).
- The Golden Sequence. A fourfold study of the spiritual life (1933).
- The School of Charity. Meditations on the Christian Creed (1934); reprinted by Longmans, London 1954 [with M.of S. (1938)].
- Worship (1936).
- The Spiritual Life (1936); reprint 1999 (ISBN 1-85168-197-3); see also online edition.
- The Mystery of Sacrifice. A study on the liturgy (1938); reprinted by Longmans, London 1954 [with S.of C. (1934)].
- Abba. A meditation on the Lord's PrayerLord's PrayerThe Lord's Prayer is a central prayer in Christianity. In the New Testament of the Christian Bible, it appears in two forms: in the Gospel of Matthew as part of the discourse on ostentation in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Gospel of Luke, which records Jesus being approached by "one of his...
(1940); reprint 2003 [with Practical Mysticism (1914)]. - The Letters of Evelyn Underhill (1943), as edited by Charles WilliamsCharles Williams (UK writer)Charles Walter Stansby Williams was a British poet, novelist, theologian, literary critic, and member of the Inklings.- Biography :...
; reprint Christian Classics 1989: ISBN 0-87061-172-0. - Shrines and Cities of France and Italy (1949), as edited by Lucy Menzies.
- Fragments from an inner life. Notebooks of Evelyn Underhill (1993), as edited by Dana Greene.
Anthologies
- Fruits of the Spirit (1942) edited by R. L. Roberts; reprint 1982, ISBN 0-8192-1314-4
- Collected Papers of Evelyn Underhill (1946) edited by L. Menzies and introduced by L. Barkway.
- Lent with Evelyn Underhill (1964) edited by G. P. Mellick Belshaw.
- An Anthology of the Love of God. From the writings of Evelyn Underhill (1976) edited by L. Barkway and L. Menzies.
- The Ways of the Spirit (1990) edited by G. A. Brame; reprint 1993, ISBN 0-8245-1232-4
- Evelyn Underhill. Modern guide to the ancient quest for the Holy (1988) edited and introduced by D. Greene.
- Evelyn Underhill. Essential writings (2003) edited by E. Griffin.
- Radiance: A Spiritual Memoir (2004) edited by Bernard Bangley, ISBN 1-55725-355-2
Studies and commentaries
- Margaret Cropper, The Life of Evelyn Underhill (New York 1958).
- Christopher J. R. Armstrong, Evelyn Underhil (1875–1941). An introduction to her life and writings (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1976).
- Michael Ramsey and A. M. Allchin, Evelyn Underhill. Two centenary essays (Oxford 1977).
- Annice Callahan, Evelyn Underhill: Spirituality for daily living (University Press of America 1997).
- Dana Greene, Evelyn Underhill. Artist of the infinite life (University of Notre Dame 1998).
External links
- The Evelyn Underhill Association
- Evelyn Underhill bio and writing at the Christian Classics Ethereal LibraryChristian Classics Ethereal LibraryThe Christian Classics Ethereal Library is a digital library that provides free electronic copies of Christian scripture and literature texts....
- Evelyn Underhill free audio books at LibriVox.org