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The Cambridge companion to Christian mysticism . Edited by Amy Hollywood and Patricia Z. Beckman . (Cambridge Companions to Religion.) Pp. xii + 390 incl. 5 figs. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , 2012. £65 (cloth), £19·99 (paper). 978 0 521 86365 0 ; 978 0 521 68227 5
Reviews
'The reason why no mystics ever saw themselves as "practising mysticism" was that they saw themselves rather more simply as practising Christianity.' Denys Turner's observation (The Oxford companion to Christian thought, Oxford 2000, 460) underlines the difficulties involved in any study of this notoriously elusive concept. The editors of this excellent volume are fully alive to these difficulties: as Amy Hollywood points out in her introduction, 'in the very process of describing mysticism as marked by inwardness, transcendence, and ineffability, the very outward and communal practices supposedly antithetical to it are also described - Bible reading, hymn singing, communal exhortations, and engagement with the natural world' (p. 7 n. 11). Nor need one stop there: Hollywood's own contribution contains some fascinating reflections on the use of psalmody in Benedictine monasticism. But if monastic psalmody is to be included, why not (say) black spirituals and Pentecostal praise, the intensely affective settings of Pietist spiritual texts in the vocal music of J. S. Bach, the hymns...