Peter Costello
Dazzling Darkness: The Lives and Afterlives of the Christian Mystics,
by James Harpur
(Hurst Books, £25.00 / €30.00)
Though these are for many “the times that try men’s souls” – the phrase of an American patriot of a time long past – interest and concern with the extended tradition of Christian mysticism has not declined in the present day, but is still very much alive.
This book is a revealing yet accessible survey of that tradition. The author is a poet and novelist of some distinction. But the book was inspired not so much by any kind of mere academic or literary interest, as by a special kind of experience of the author himself, as he explains in the opening pages.
“The inspiration for this book occurred a few decades ago when, during a protracted period of physical debilitation, I was obliged to lie on my back in bed for long stretches of time.
“As a solace I started reading a range of spiritual works, from T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets and George Herbert’s poems to Thomas à Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ and the Dhammapada.
“At the same time, I began to pray and meditate—not in any structured way, but informally and intuitively. Over the weeks my meditations became more profound and peaceful, leaving me with a sense of calm and a new perspective on my anxieties. This process deepened and deepened until one morning I experienced an “implosion of light,” which I have described in a poem like this:
“A drowning in radiance / As if a holy presence had descended / And found an emptiness it had to flood, / There was no me, no thought, no body / Just new-born helplessness.
“But the sense of pervasive grace left me with an extraordinary residue of ‘love’, a feeling of utter humility and compassion for people around me and for the natural world. As someone who in his youth was typically selfish and self-interested, I was amazed to feel this love almost oozing out of me and all sense of my usual daily anxieties, resentment, jealousy, ambitiousness, and so on, removed.
“…As a consequence of this I became avid to find out whether what had seemed to me to be a unique experience had been shared by others, and if so, how they had described it.”
This reading, reflecting and writing on the mystics also became the mainstay of my poetry and has never stopped”
Harpur then began an extended exploration of the tradition of Christian mysticism, both Western and Orthodox, of which this book is the result.
“I started reading compulsively about the lives and teachings of the Christian (and other) mystics in a quest to find kinship and even possibly a route back to the blissful at-one-ment I had experienced. This reading, reflecting and writing on the mystics also became the mainstay of my poetry and has never stopped.
“This book, then, began as a highly-motivated personal quest rather than as an intellectual pursuit. It is not intended for professional theologians or academics but fellow pilgrims in search of “ultimate truth,” curious to explore how the divine has manifested itself in the lives of certain individuals.”
However, he also took to heart what the Anglo-Catholic historian Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941), herself a mystical person, had written.
“In reading the mystics … we must be careful not to cut them out of their backgrounds and try to judge them by spiritual standards alone. They are human beings immersed in the stream of human history; children of their own time, their own Church, as well as children of Eternal Love. Like other human beings, that is to say, they have their social and their individual aspects; and we shall not obtain a true idea of them unless both be kept in mind.”
So with that personal insight and that caution from an inspired writer, what does the book achieve? It is mercifully free from the special language of theologians as well as mere academics.
Forward
He makes a start with the seeds of mysticism in the experiences of Jesus (though curiously Jesus himself was not mystically inclined, he observes), the Apostles and the early Christian writers.
But the tradition really came to life in the desert wastes of Western Egypt after the third century. Here in Ireland, with the emphasis laid on our island’s connections with Rome, the earlier connections with Alexandria and the Thebais have been neglected. Here, however, they provided a sort stepping stone by which others moved forward
He deals in their place with Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Francis de Sales, Pascal, and Thérèsa of Lisieux – these will all be familiar names to Catholic readers.
But he also includes St Gregory of Palamas, Boehme, George Fox, and Bunyan who may be less familiar. But he does not neglect poets such as Blake, Herbert and Traherne. So in his sixteen chapters covers the long range of time from those desert fathers in Egypt down as he notes the era of Vietnam. The evocation of Teilhard de Chardin brings the readers into an era of more all-embracing cosmic ideas, still under exploration.
On inquiry it seems this was not so much a matter of neglect, as lack of space”
One is struck though that the emphasis is on Western Europe for the most part. Is there any such thing as African mysticism, that is to say a mystical tradition among Christians south of the Sahara, the saints of Ethiopia especially? Americans too, aside from the transcendentalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, are largely absent; but somehow mysticism does not seem to consort well with the American character.
The one major figure missing that struck me was Emmanuel Swedenborg. But on inquiry it seems this was not so much a matter of neglect, as lack of space. In dealing with the main streams of mystical experience, adding the Swedish sage, as well as some others, would have vastly extended the book.
Admiration
As I say, James Harper wished to create an accessible book dealing with the most profound experiences which Christians have had. All the people that have been much admired over the centuries are here, but they are set in an historical context that connects them all into a living tradition, and opens it out to the understanding of those who have not themselves had such experiences.
Inspired by personal experiences, James Harpur’s book is a notable achievement. Though written in an uncomplicated style, its eighteen-page bibliography reveals just how deeply the author has immersed himself not only in the writings of the mystics, but also of their historians and critics. For the general reader seeking to know more about the great mystics of the Christian tradition this book will be richly rewarding.