HIST-338 Lecture 30: phenomenon of mysticism
23 Nov 2020
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Document Summary
Related to all the developments described above was the phenomenon of mysticism, the reputed experience of immediate, tactile contact with god. Throughout the centuries, some believers have always claimed to have experienced something greater than the everyday general sense of god"s love. It changed their souls and thereby changed the world. It created urgencies, and could not do otherwise. What medieval people believed to have been authentic mystical experiences have peppered this book: St. bernard of clairvaux"s dreams of the virgin mary; the stigmata received by st. francis. All these experiences represented a kind of puncturing of the fabric that separates this world from the next heavenly one: the sudden irruptive presence of the divine in our lives. So the mystical experience was hardly a new idea, nor was it controversial. After all, god, being god, can by definition do anything he desires if he wants to speak to a person, he obviously can.
