Radical Wisdom: A Feminist Mystical Theology (review)

This is a brave and timely book, daring to take up a question that has plagued psychologists, anthropologists, historians, and theologians for decades. Is there something uniquely different about women's experience in contrast to that of men? Further, is it possible to talk about women's experience in any universal sense, encompassing the historical and cultural diversity in which women participate? While Lanzetta is aware of the complexity of such questions and attempts no facile solutions to them, she instinctively sees something similar in all (at least Western) women's experience of grappling with what she calls their "soul wound," the damage to the female psyche caused by the evils of patriarchy. Thus she justifies using the mystical experiences of medieval mystics, notably Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Avila, as helpful exemplars for what contemporary women experience today.

This resonates with my own experience. In my work on Julian of Norwich I was surprised by the conjunction between her treatment of sin and that of Valerie Saiving, who objected to the western tradition's focus on pride as the root of all sin, suggesting that women's temptation is grounded rather in negation of the self, the polar opposite of pride ("The Human Situation: A Feminine View," Journal of Religion 40 [1960]). Six hundred years earlier, Julian too bypassed an explication of pride as the root of all evil (an odd thing to do in her day) and focused instead on despair as the sin that most plagues God's lovers. She writes: "You know well that you are a wretch, a sinner and also unfaithful. . . . It is our enemy who wants to retard us with his false suggestions of fear about our wretchedness. . . . For it is his purpose to make us so depressed and so sad in this matter that we should forget the blessed contemplation of our everlasting friend" (Showings, Long Text, ch. 76). Lack of self-worth makes one feel unworthy in God's eyes, and thus remain distant from God. Added to the fact that Julian understood "sin" more as something we suffer from than something we are totally responsible for, her description reflects well what Lanzetta describes as women's "soul wound."

Lanzetta claims that the oppression women suffer materially and socially leaves a deeper wound on their spirit; and that even when the former is remedied, "there continues to exist a spiritual wound that requires recognition, healing, and transformation." It is a "soul fracture" which "blocks women's ability to claim and name themselves as subjects in their own right apart from structures of consciousness that oppress them." Women internalize the misogyny directed against them, viewing themselves as "temptresses to be feared," unable to live up to the ideal of "immaculate virgins of divine purity and beauty" (10). Lanzetta believes that the healing of the soul wound is possible only through mystical experience. Her book is an effort to link the insights of feminism with the mystical tradition, influenced as well by her experience as spiritual director to women.

Part One handles the theory and historical background by means of which Lanzetta sets her agenda and defines her terms. The first chapter introduces via feminina as a spiritual path unique to women, which parallels and combines to some extent the classic via positiva (kataphatic contemplation) and via negativa (apophatic contemplation). Lanzetta focuses on the negative path, particularly the experience of the "unsaying of woman," described as "a mystical path that enters into and moves through a woman's "nothingness"—that is, what diminishes, injures, humiliates, or shames her—to a positive affirmation of her dignity and worth. By negating all that falsely defines her, a woman steps outside the symbolic order of culture, religion, and God, giving up and subverting her capacity to be...