READING MYSTICAL WRITING

Mystical writers have long been in a special category for the Christian Church. In their role as reporters of direct contact with the divine, they have necessarily been highly regarded, in so far as they help to validate the central mysteries of the faith. Yet they are also often seen as challenging the proper understanding of those mysteries, hence as constituting a threat to the theology and political structure of the Church. Since the Church is a hierarchic institution which as such has a vested and conservative interest in its own continuity, this negative view is inevitable and in a sense valid. Mystical writing fuses subjective experience and expression with absolute declarations as to the nature of truth; however submissive it may be in fact, it is thus heady and potentially uncontrollable, always in a position to lay powerful claims to an authority which lies outside and above ecclesiastical institutions, even to deny the authority which inheres in those institutions. Mystical writing – an individual's report of a moment or moments of mediation between heaven and earth – is also by its nature complex; it has always been difficult even for those ecclesiastics who are well disposed to mysticism to determine what is being said, and then to decide whether it is consistent with orthodoxy. Thus it is not surprising that while there are many examples of successful relationships between visionaries and the ecclesiastical establishments of their time (St Catherine of Siena, St Bridget of Sweden), there are also cases in which the relationship has been difficult (John Ruusbroec, Meister Eckhart), or disastrous (Marguerite Porete).