Mysticism and Reform, 1400–1750 by Sara S. Poor and Nigel Smith (review)

This distinctive volume features a rich variety of global mysticisms, and the vexed life of the practice within Protestantism. Editors, Sara S. Poor and Nigel Smith, curate a smooth itinerary for this eclectic voyage beginning with Euan K. Cameron's 'Ways of Knowing in the Pre- and Post-Reformation Worlds', a concise choice which places readers on the same page, as it were. Alana King's 'Gelassenheit and Confessionalization: Valentin Weigel Reads Meister Eckhart' briefly addresses Lutherian contradictions before unfolding Weigel's role which 'would give Eckhart such a prominent place', to provide a template for reading much of Weigel's own 'controversial work' and spiritual interrogations. From here on, the featured contributions of female mystics in the post-Reformation period read as historically de rigeur.

Kees Scheper's contribution focuses on the Arnhem Mystical Sermons and the 'sudden re-emergence of mystical spirituality' that occurred in Arnhem and Cologne during the sixteenth century. In examining this 'Renaissance', she highlights the harmonious life and book culture of the Arnhem convent of St Agnes and delves into significant texts and activities of so-called 'the Arnhem sisters', as well as those of the men of Cologne's Charterhouse. Scheper reveals some of the lesser-known women of the seventeenth century's mystical treasury, as does Kirsten M. Christensen in the following chapter. Christensen investigates how spiritual communion is expressed in the writings of the sisters of St Agnes, and in particular, those of Maria van Hout (d. 1547). Only Maria's voice is available in the dialogue between her and her confessor, thus emphasising the notion that for 'those who have reached mystical union, the Eucharistic presence of the Lord is constantly available and is accessible outside Mass and without priestly mediation'. Christensen argues Maria offered 'a gentle corrective to her confessor and like-minded clergy', thus revealing how Maria found independence within Arnhem's more restrictive Augustinian Order.

Treatment of feminine participants in the practice of mysticism in this period continues in Arthur F. Marotti's thorough essay that centres on Gertrude More's Spiritual Exercises and the relationship she had with her biographer, Augustine Baker. Next, Genelle C. Gertz addresses the unprecedented numbers of 'radical Protestant women' of exceptional vision who were active within the context of English, post-Civil Wars, Quaker mysticism. Gertz's essay compares periods of prophecy and the early Quakers' 'reinvention' of the Holy Spirit through their mystical knowledge, and notes the key figures.

In her essay, Sarah Apetrei links 'both Protestant and Counter-Reformation mystical traditions in English writing after the Restoration, and to an enduring controversy over the catholicity and authority of what was known disparagingly as "mystical divinity"' to explore the benefits and detriments of the traditions' interactions in the context of seventeenth-century England. The approach to religious ecstasy found in Catholic liturgist John Austin's Devotions in the Ancient Way of Offices (1668) is the subject of Alison Shell's contribution. Shell further acquaints the reader with the 'original' or 'private' psalm's role, since the earliest days of Christianity and its influence on the poets of the Imagist movement, revealing how this 'medieval form of worship … anticipates the metrical and mental unshacklings of modernism'.

In his chapter, Franz M. Eybl examines Catherina Regina von Greiffenberg's 'radical use of language unmatched in Baroque German literature' through her poems and includes the original German. Comparisons between her poetic voice and that of thirteenth-century Sufi poet, Jalāl adDīn Rumi, are irresistible. In 'Sister Marcella, Marie Christine Sauer (d. 1752), and the Chronicle of the Sisters at Ephrata', Bethany Wiggin paints the portrait of the 'Ephrata monastic community of celibate men and women' that was founded by German mystic, Conrad Beissel, in the 1730s, and is now maintained as a museum. While not exactly 'tabloid', this history is fraught...