Conway, Michael A.
(2016)
With Mind and Heart: Maurice Blondel and the Mystic Life.
In:
Mysticism in the French Tradition Eruptions from France.
Taylor & Francis.
ISBN 9781472439390
Abstract
For the greater part of the nineteenth century in France, discussing mysticism, the mystic, or
the mystical was treacherous or foolhardy; best avoided. On the side of religion, this position
was secured through the condemnation of Fénelon at the dusk of the great century of saints,
which, to use the felicitous expression of André Bord, would end by ‘beheading religion.’
On the university side, the rise of a reductive positivism heavily critiqued, and all but
drowned out, any general interest in religion, and, specifically, in mysticism. To give you
some idea of this, here are two observations from the Grand Dictionnaire universel du XIXe
siécle (1874): ‘Mysticism engenders ecstasy and magic, the source of crimes and of madness’
(Géruzez); ‘All the powers of mysticism conspire to make people stupid’ (Proudhon). Not
only that, but the rising discipline of psychology relegated, for the most part, all mystical
experience to the domain of psychopathology, more specifically, to hysteria. There were, of
course, exceptions, but these were marginal to mainstream university thinking. The dawn,
however, of a new century would see this position change, so that right from the beginning
we see an extraordinary interest in, and discussion of, mysticism and the mystical; and this,
somewhat ironically, at the heart of the university that was by now radically secular.
| Item Type: |
Book Section
|
| Keywords: |
Mind; Heart; Maurice Blondel; Mystic Life; |
| Academic Unit: |
St Patrick's College, Maynooth > Faculty of Theology |
| Item ID: |
7805 |
| Depositing User: |
Michael A. Conway
|
| Date Deposited: |
23 Jan 2017 17:36 |
| Publisher: |
Taylor & Francis |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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