Absolute Essence of the Suffering Mystic: The Visions of Elisabeth of Schönau

The practices of the suffering mystic provide an opposition to the theory that religion is the alienation of the individual from the self. In this article, I argue that the spiritual autobiography of Elisabeth of Schönau affords us the opportunity to challenge notions of religious self-alienation. By examining the self-inflicted suffering described in Elisabeth’s visions, I propose that imitations of the Passion of Christ illustrate a practice that allowed the mystic to (re)gain what I call the “absolute essence” of the self—the rejection of any sort of self-alienation, a place where the subject and object are one. As interest in the Passion grew in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the narratives of Elisabeth’s mystical experiences appropriately demonstrate how self-mortification was a means to self-representation.