Reproduction of the original: The Mystical Element of Religion by Baron Friedrich von Hugel

Hügel's The Mystical Element of Religion features a critical but largely appreciative philosophy of mysticism. The author's "three elements of religion" are his most enduring contribution to theological thinking. The human soul, the movements of western civilization, and the phenomena of religion itself he characterized by these three elements: the historical/institutional element, the intellectual/speculative element, and the mystical/experiential element. This typology provided for him an understanding of the balance, tension, and 'friction' that exists in religious thinking and in the complexity of reality and existence. It was an organizing paradigm that remained central to his project. The effort to hold these sometimes disparate dimensions together was structurally and theologically dominant throughout his writing. The main subject of Hügel's study are the life and teaching of Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510), the Italian Roman Catholic saint and mystic, admired for her work among the sick and the poor and remembered because of various writings describing both these actions and her mystical experiences. Contents: The Three Chief Forces of Western Civilization The Three Elements of Religion Catherine Fiesca Adorna's Life, up to her Conversion; and the Chief Peculiarities predominant throughout her Convert Years Catherine's Life from 1473 to 1506, and its Main Changes and Growth Catherine's Last Four Years, 1506-1510 Catherine's Doctrine Catherine's Remains and Cultus Battista Vernazza's Life Psycho-physical and Temperamental Questions The Main Literary Sources of Catherine's Conceptions Catherine's Less Ultimate This-World Doctrines The After-Life Problems and Doctrines The First Three Ultimate Questions The Two Final Problems: Mysticism and Pantheism, the Immanence of God, And Spiritual Personality, Human and Divine Back Through Asceticism, Social Religion, and the Scientific Habit of Mind, to the Mystical Element of Religion

Friedrich von Hügel's 'The Mystical Element of Religion' is a seminal work in the field of religious studies, exploring the spiritual dimensions of faith in a nuanced and scholarly manner. Divided into two volumes, the book delves deep into the mystical aspects of various religious traditions, from Christianity to Hinduism, providing a comparative analysis of the mystical experiences and practices found within these belief systems. Von Hügel's writing style is erudite and insightful, drawing on a wide range of sources to support his arguments. As a prominent Catholic theologian and philosopher, Friedrich von Hügel's own background and scholarly pursuits undoubtedly influenced his decision to write 'The Mystical Element of Religion'. His academic expertise in the field of theology, coupled with his personal interest in mysticism, led him to undertake this comprehensive exploration of the mystical aspects of religion. Von Hügel's unique perspective and deep knowledge make him a credible authority on the subject. I highly recommend 'The Mystical Element of Religion' to anyone interested in delving into the spiritual and mystical dimensions of faith. Von Hügel's thorough analysis and insightful commentary make this book a valuable resource for scholars and students of religion alike.

ÊAmongst the apparent enigmas of life, amongst the seemingly most radical and abiding of interior antinomies and conflicts experienced by the human race and by individuals, there is one which everything tends to make us feel and see with an ever-increasing keenness and clearness. More and more we want a strong and interior, a lasting yet voluntary bond of union between our own successive states of mind, and between what is abiding in ourselves and what is permanent within our fellow-men; and more and more we seem to see that mere Reasoning, Logic, Abstraction,Ñall that appears as the necessary instrument and expression of the Universal and Abiding,Ñdoes not move or win the will, either in ourselves or in others; and that what does thus move and win it, is Instinct, Intuition, Feeling, the Concrete and Contingent, all that seems to be of its very nature individual and evanescent. Reasoning appears but capable, at best, of co-ordinating, unifying, explaining the material furnished to it by experience of all kinds; at worst, of explaining it away; at best, of stimulating the purveyance of a fresh supply of such experience; at worst, of stopping such purveyance as much as may be. And yet the Reasoning would appear to be the transferable part in the process, but not to move; and the experience alone to have the moving power, but not to be transmissible. Experience indeed and its resultant feeling are always, in the first instance, coloured and conditioned by every kind of individual many-sided circumstances of time and place, of race and age and sex, of education and temperament, of antecedent and environment. And it is this very particular combination, just this one, so conditioned and combined, coming upon me just at this moment and on this spot, just at this stage of my reach or growth, at this turning of my way, that carries with it this particular power to touch or startle, to stimulate or convince. It is just precisely through the but imperfectly analyzable, indeed but dimly perceived, individual connotation of general terms; it is by the fringe of feeling, woven out of the past doings and impressions, workings and circumstances, physical, mental, moral, of my race and family and of my own individual life; it is by the apparently slight, apparently far away, accompaniment of a perfectly individual music to the spoken or sung text of the common speech of man, that I am, it would seem, really moved and won. And this fringe of feeling, this impression, is, strictly speaking, not merely untransferable, but also unrepeatable; it is unique even for the same mind: it never was before, it never will be again. Heraclitus, if we understand that old Physicist in our own modern, deeply subjective, largely sentimental way, would appear to be exactly right: you cannot twice step into the same stream, since never for two moments do the waters remain identical; you yourself cannot twice step the same man into the same river, for you have meanwhile changed as truly as itself has done, _____ ___: all things and states, outward and inward, appear indeed in flux: only each moment seems to bring, to each individual, for that one moment, his power to move and to convince.

Between the Politics of Mysticism and the Mysticism of Politics traces the dialectic of 'the mystical' and the political' from both a theological and an historical perspective. It presents the dialectic as a hermeneutic for the rise of the new ecclesial communities within the Roman Catholic Tradition and suggests it as the framework by which a trajectory for Christian holiness might emerge in the 21st century.

The written word is one of the defining elements of Christian experience. As vigorous in the 1st century as it is in the 21st, Christian literature has had a significant function in history, and teachers and students need to be reminded of this powerful literary legacy. Covering 2,000 years, The Encyclopedia of Christian Literature is the first encyclopedia devoted to Christian writers and books. In addition to an overview of the Christian literature, this two-volume set also includes 40 essays on the principal genres of Christian literature and more than 400 bio-bibliographical essays describing the principal writers and their works. These essays examine the evolution of Christian thought as reflected in the literature of every age. The companion volume also features bibliographies, an index, a timeline of Christian Literature, and a list of the greatest Christian authors. The encyclopedia will appeal not only to scholars and Christian evangelicals, but students and teachers in seminaries and theological schools, as well as to the growing body of Christian readers and bibliophiles.