Practical Mysticism
A 1914 handbook arguing that contemplative experience needs no doctrine, monastery or belief, written for readers who assumed mysticism was for other people.
Underhill’s 1914 handbook for what she called the practical person, arguing that contemplative experience is available without doctrine, monastery or belief, and offering a set of exercises for attention. Written on the eve of the First World War and addressed to readers who assumed mysticism was not for them, which is still most of its audience.
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Maria Popova
In Practical Mysticism (public library | public domain) — her century-old field guide to mystical experience without religion, the product of “ordinary contemplation” springing from the very essence of human nature, available to all — the English poet, novelist, mystic, and peace activist Evelyn Underhill (December 6, 1875–June 15, 1941) explores how we arrive at that revelation of reality, that elusive knowledge of the deepest truth at the heart of which is self-knowledge.
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