Practical Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill

Practical Mysticism Reviews

• 
  Bill Kerwin

  
  When you choose to read a book on an esoteric topic—particularly a topic many find abstruse—you should choose a book written by someone who knows her subject and writes in simple, elegant prose. For example, if you wish to learn a little something about mysticism, you could do no better than read Practical Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill.
  
  Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941)—novelist and mystic, poet and pacifist—was born in Wolverhampton in the West Midlands. Like many who grew up in the Edwardian era, she had a romantic’s interest in the psychic, the mystic, the medieval and the occult. (She was a friend of Arthur Machen, and acquainted with the Order of the Golden Dawn). However, as she became more serious about her spiritual studies, she abandoned her agnosticism for Neoplatonism, and eventually abandoned Neoplatonism for a very Catholic Anglo-Catholicism (if her husband had not strongly disapproved, she might have officially joined the Roman church.)
  
  A person of disciplined habits and mind, she managed to pursue her religious studies, writing, and meditations without neglecting the social and charitable duties of a barrister’s wife. (She believed spirituality should transform everyday life, not replace it). Her classic work Mysticism (1911) was extremely popular and influential, and not only was she was one of the first women to lecture on spirituality at English universities, but she was also the first woman permitted to conduct retreats for the Anglican church.
  
  Practical Mysticism: A Little Book for Normal People (1914) distills the essence of Underhill’s spiritual discoveries and presents them to the everyday reader in a clear and beautiful style.
  
  I will end with a representative sample of that style. Here she uses the image of a tapestry to challenge the notions of “reality” and “fact” in our view of everyday life:

  As a tapestry picture, however various and full of meaning, is ultimately reducible to little squares; so the world of common sense is ultimately reducible to a series of static elements conditioned by the machinery of the brain. Subtle curves, swift movement, delicate gradation, that machinery cannot represent. It leaves them out. From the countless suggestions, the tangle of many-coloured wools which the real world presents to you, you snatch one here and there. Of these you weave together those which are the most useful, the most obvious, the most often repeated: which make a tidy and coherent pattern when seen on the right side. Shut up with this symbolic picture, you soon drop into the habit of behaving to it as though it were not a representation but a thing. On it you fix your attention; with it you "unite." Yet, did you look at the wrong side, at the many short ends, the clumsy joins and patches, this simple philosophy might be disturbed. You would be forced to acknowledge the conventional character of the picture you have made so cleverly, the wholesale waste of material involved in the weaving of it: for only a few amongst the wealth of impressions we receive are seized and incorporated into our picture of the world.
• 
  Donner Tan

  Some people say 'mysticism is a dangerous thing. It begins with mist and ends in schism' (haha)! Evelyn Underhill defuses this myth with this artistically written book addressed to the 'practical man who has lived all his days amongst the illusions of multiplicity'. She calls mysticism 'the Science of Love' - it asks us to stop seeing the world through our egoistic lenses and see it instead as it is. The world in fact for all its parts and diversity points to the Whole, the Real that gives unity to everything. The path of mysticism needs not be as ethereal and mystifying as it sounds to many people. It is a practical skill, to put it simply, of learning to see - a skill that the great theologian Thomas Aquinas reckons proper to all people, if only they get some training!
  
  This is what the book is about. It invites us and tantalizes us with the rudimentary steps of learning to *see*..with our inner eyes/ the eyes of the heart - a spiritual discipline mystics call 'contemplation'. The great obstacles of spiritual perception are 'thoughts, convention and self-interest'. We need to stop asking the instinctive, selfish question 'what's in it for me?' and see things as they really are and adjust ourselves to that reality, which we will discover far transcend the narrow confines of our self-centred, parochial world!
  
  Underhill gently invites us to some basic preparatory exercises of contemplation, training our eyes to see again by taking some simple objects to gaze upon, ceasing all habits of analysing, dissecting, measuring or labelling. As Teresa of Avila taught her disciples, 'I want you to do no more than to look.' That simple exercise when persisted long enough will gradually alter our way of looking at things, ourselves, others and the world around us. She then takes us through the three forms/phases of contemplation - the 'natural, the spiritual and the divine'. In short, they are (a) contemplation of the physical world, (b) inward contemplation in stillness and silence and finally (c) infused contemplation where we let go and God takes over and removes the last vestiges of our pride and self-interest, leading to union.
  
  In the last chapters, she eloquently handles the practical man's greatest resistance: 'what is this all about? is it not another navel-gazing exercise fit for the idle?' No, she contends, the mystical life far from being an escapist exercise, a dreamy pastime, an altered state of consciousness or simply a 'spiritual' experience as an end in itself, is in fact a most practical life-transforming discipline that will overhaul one's vision and unleash our God-given energy for the world! We become what we were meant to be! That is, to become all flame - energised by the vision of the Whole as well as the well-exercised muscles of our will and love, 'nakedly stretched out through long periods of boredom and trials' and directed towards the mending of the broken, the union of the estranged, saving of the lost and the redemption of the world!
  
  While Underhill clearly acknowledges and draws from the common discoveries of the mystical vision and insights in various religions, her contemplative worldview (if i can put it that way) remains firmly rooted in the Christian story that speaks of the telos of our communion with God as well as the renewal of the space-time cosmos for which her life and energy had been generously poured out!
• 
  Anneli

  On one hand: very flowery language that frequently caused me to zone out. On the other: an author that quotes Walt Whitman, St Francis and Buddhist teachings all with the same reverence. In the 1940's. Clearly this was written for me.
• 
  Keith

  Certainly different from the self-help books of the current era that I was expecting, but it was beautifully written and highly motivating all the same.
• 
  Jocelyn

  What Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross say in riddles, Evelyn Underhill makes crystal clear.
• 
  John San Nicolas

  Just finished reading this book for a class on mysticism in Eastern and Western traditions. I will definitely be writing about this one in the future.
  
  Underhill wrote and published Practical Mysticism during a time of global unrest. Published in 1915, the book was birthed into a world embroiled in the Great War. So, while “mysticism” may seem detached, uninvolved, and otherworldly to some, Underhill certainly does not present it in this way.
  
  A Catholic writer, Underhill surveys many mystics, though primarily samples from Christians. Her discussion of mysticism can be understood best as a critique of capitalist habituation—making people care more about consumption, work, professional development, and status rather than the things that really matter. Material possessions and goal-oriented action remove one’s sight in such a way that one cannot really see the world as it is.
  
  Underhill offers a method for rejecting this worldly attitude and embodying the mystic life. This entails seeing God in the things around oneself (a very sacramental view typical from a Catholic). Then, when one can see God in one’s neighbors, or see God’s love sustaining the existence of even things as small as hazelnuts, one begins to see that God pervades all. And because God pervades all, and because humans are free, humans have a choice to participate in this all-ness or not.
  
  Though she writes from a Catholic perspective, Underhill believes that this capacity is open to everyone, regardless of religion. It is an invitation for people to come together despite their differences, to forsake the superficial distractions and cares that lead to war, and set themselves aside. It could be said that Underhill thinks that the foundational sin of the modern era is thinking oneself to be the center of the universe.
• 
  Ben

  At the outset, Underhill promises a secular insight to practical mysticism. But what even is mysticism? I wasn’t positive picking this book up. I was surprised to find her vision of it bears striking resemblance to the modern and much more successfully secular concept of “mindfulness.” At the outset, she defines the practical aspects of mysticism (to be differentiated from levitation, healing, the parlor bag of magic tricks sometimes associated with the cryptic word) as “a union with reality.” A complete union, with all beauty and horror and everything in between understood as components or expressions of a kind of imperfect perfection - a beautiful puzzle that can not be understood except in moments when one is united with reality.
  
  By the book’s end, her faith seems to overrule her intentions, and god makes a recurring and central presence - though for a book written in England in 1913 by a devout catholic, perhaps no reference to a specific vision of god counted as secular.
  
  Her promise is the only thing which she doesn’t deliver. If faith is a part of your experience, cherish her references to it. If faith does not factor into the equation for you (as it does not for me), there is still an abundance of pleasure to take in her insights and her exceptionally poignant prose. I found myself dog-earring nearly half the pages, so peppered is the text with passages worth revisiting.
  
  It’s short. It’s potent. It’s insightful, and hopeful. It’s worth the read.
• 
  OSCAR

  Uno espera al leer este libro un tratado de ascética stricto sensu, pero no ocurre así.
  
  La autora mostró grosso modo cómo es el camino del ascenso espiritual y el modo de realizarlo.
  
  Parte uno de la necesidad de poner atención en un elemento para pasar consiguientemente al segundo paso que es apreciar lo divino en todo. Corona la ascensión el tema de recibir la gracia de sentir a Dios. El estilo desenfadado si bien parece ayudar a la lectura, lo desasosiega a uno porque parece que trató Underhill un tema tan serio con desparpajo, con simpleza. A mi parecer la selección de algunas citas dificultó más la comprensión de las ideas expresadas en este texto. Para un neófito el texto puede resultar intolerable. No lo recomiendo al público en general.
  
  
• 
  David

  A new friend revealed her mystic visions to me and I had to swallow my initial violent rejection of her DMT-fractal-Fibonacci-primalspiral stuff. And then I realized I don't actually know anything about mysticism and modern spiritualism. So this is my introduction. Not a great start though there is some good stuff here about slowing down and being less materialistic, etc. Christian Mysticism in particular seems inherently contradictory. Focusing on the Saints who claimed visions (St Francis of Assisi, St Teresa - patron saint of headaches) Underhill writes about the oneness of everything. Seems to me the nature of morality, the Christian perspective on good and evil (which really is foundational to the belief and can't be extracted from it) cannot coexist with modern Monism. The second half of the book is a condescending guide to mental ascension.
  
  Look, I'm sure there's something to stillness of thought, meditation, and even completely different mental states (the mind is an amazingly weird thing). I'm positive that all this is rewarding and achievable with a bit of work, but for me the rational (λόγος) is where the fun's at.
• 
  Floyd

  I found this book vague and certainly not practical to my walk with Jesus.
• 
  B. Rule

  This pressed all of my idiosyncratic buttons. Underhill lives up to her title and provides a paean to mysticism that is focused on its practical benefits. Her account is non-sectarian and surprisingly agnostic, full of pungent and striking language celebrating a viewpoint beyond the quotidian. Underhill lays out a structured account of the steps of mystic insight, but concludes that the result of such a vision should be a revitalized engagement with the world and not idle navel-gazing.
  
  Her account is broad enough to encompass both Western and Eastern practices, and I greatly appreciated her non-peremptory approach in noting that the final vision of reality comes in flavors both personal or non-personal. While her account is psychologically attuned, it does not feel reductive, and while it's religiously interested, it does not feel doctrinaire. She is providing a structural account that tries to avoid a narrow reliance on symbolic systems, although she does tend to quote more Christian mystics.
  
  As someone with an inherent tendency for "mystical experiences" but a discomfort with committing to any strong metaphysical or theological positions, I found this approach very reassuring. Even to the scientifically-minded, this book can have value. It provides a guidebook on thinking about transcendent realities, or simply scales of time beyond human lives, that can have a salutary effect on framing our own concerns and distractions. Underhill spoke deeply to my personal experiences of contemplation, and that validation is warmly appreciated. Also, as someone who lives in my head more than the world, I appreciate the kick in the ass that her conclusion provides. If your mystical insight doesn't prod you to make the world a better, more compassionate place, it's probably B.S.
• 
  Andrew

  This book - with its great subtitle: 'A Little Book for Normal People' - came out in 1914, and is an introductory guide condensing Underhill's vast knowledge in the field of mysticism.
  
  There are a lot of profound moments expressed in language that sparks, mixed in with a reasonable amount I just wasn't sure about. Rooted in the Christian faith, Underhill's methodology is to pull together the commonalities of various mystical traditions (from across various religions) and describe a path to experiencing the divine or 'Reality'.
  
  Underhill sets out a three-stage progression along a spiritual pathway, developing human awareness, and examines what this might mean in normal life (hence the title). She's writing in the context of the beginning of WW1, and is conscious of this, even addressing (in the introduction) what contemplation and mysticism might mean in the midst of the hell of war.
  
  Amongst the profound moments, she describes "the double movement of Transcendent Love, drawing inwards to unity and fruition, and rushing out again to creative acts". I was struck by that, recognising words that pretty accurately encapsulate (I realised) a decent chunk of what it is that I'd like my life to be about and for - they could almost be a motto for what I most desire. This doesn't mean I need to embrace her methodology in total, but it does suggest (at least) that she might be on to something.
• 
  Brodie Gron

  Listened to the public domain recording made available via LibriVox (4.5 hours).
  
  Really great stuff here. I’m a big fan of the way Hill states the purpose of the book so clearly up front, and never strays from it. The evidence of success for a book like this is the depth which it draws from the mothers and fathers of mysticism, and Hill succeeds in spades. She manages to make plain sense of some of the impenetrable and broad St John of the Cross, Teresa of Avalia, and Cloud of Unknowing quotes.
  
  For me, the gold standard of practical (and introductory) mysticism is Thomas Merton’s Seeds of Contemplation, but this is still really great.
• 
  Margie Dorn

  There are a lot of good take-aways in this book and it was a worthwhile read. A good example is her quotation of Dionysius the Areopagite, "If anyone saw God and understood what he saw, then it was not God that he saw, but something that belongs to Him." She is very good at recognizing that spirituality is not spirituality that does not carry itself forward into physical daily life. I felt she was not as clear as I would have liked in describing a methodology (one needs to read Cynthia Bourgeault or Thomas Keating or Brother Lawrence for a better understanding of practicalities). I did prefer the book of hers that I read prior to this one, "The Life of the Spirit and the Life of Today."
• 
  Peter

  Evelyn Underhill is poetic and earnest in her description of the mystic life. She contends that man naturally has both the ability and the need to reach beyond the world of our sight and experience the greater Reality. Her descriptions of five stages of the mystic life are simple - but by no means are these five easy steps.
  
  A pleasurable read for anyone interested in mysticism, especially Christian mysticism. Not academically dense, but perhaps not always immediately clear in its poetry-like descriptions (as is often the case with mystic writings).
• 
  Marsha Lynn

  I tried to absorb this material, but I may not be ready for it yet. After a while I was finishing it just to finish it rather than quit.
  
  The value to me is a glimpse into the possibilities of mysticism, an awareness of the experiences of others which I have not experienced. I may never experience them, but it's good to know I can come back here if I start to long for guidance to another to level of connection with "the Real."
  
  In the meanwhile, I am on my own spiritual journey and discovering my own path to be blessed.
• 
  Sandra Murphy

  Another book I've read for research purposes, along with one of the author's novels (The Grey World). Evelyn Underhill addresses the contrast and commonality of Reality and the unknown. This book was published at the turn of the twentieth century, and I found, at times, the meaning was buried in the use of language, but there are gems here that I found useful for my research. The novel, The Grey World, seemed better at explaining the philosophies she writes of in this book. The novel was more "show," and this book is more "tell."
• 
  Karin Jenkins

  I found this a challenging read. There’s lots of good stuff which requires further thought and a real challenge to change your life and viewpoint. I’m not sure it succeeds in its aim to be “a little book for ordinary people “ rather it’s a book that requires work. I’m glad I read it but I suspect that if I hadn’t been doing it for my spiritual book group I might have got bogged down and not finished it.
• 
  ben adam

  I enjoyed this much more than I expected. It is a timely and interesting response to the mechanization of the human being within modernism. It argues for a tighter relationship to nature that is still valid to this day.
• 
  sare

  For research purposes only. Mysticism is not the end- love of God is. You cannot instrumentalize mysticism. ? Or else you ought not, because Underhill does her best to make her case that will increase man's "efficiency" (blah!)
• 
  Neil Saltmarsh

  I really enjoyed this book particularly at the back end because of it's association with the life of normal everyday people. I will need to read once more to fully grasp all the nuances of the book but thought it worthwhile to read. I look forward to some other Evelyn Underhill books.
• 
  Ci

  This is my first read of Evelyn Underhill, who was a well-known poet and writer, and Anglo-Catholic mystic of import during the first half of the 20th century. It is noted that her work “Mysticism” published in 1911 was only shadowed by Aldous Huxley’s “The perennial philosophy” in 1946.
  
  This slim and free version of her mysticism bears an unintentionally ironic “Practical Mysticism” as title. However, Underhill’s writing style is archaic and elegant, passionate without bombastic. I found her writing both exhilarating, fresh and melodiously beautiful.
  
  Underhill stated that “Mysticism is the art of union with Reality. The mystic is a person who has attained that union in greater or less degree; or who aims at and believes in such attainment.” Then “What is Reality”? Here the author compared the Reality as the living, breathing, wild and lovely hare with the materialistic version of a cooked carcass on one’s dinner plate. This reminds me of the scientific reductionism in our high-tech, life-hacking mental culture which worships data as information, information as knowledge, and lastly knowledge as wisdom. The things we discarded unthinkingly, unfeelingly, are those not fit into the finite space of our mental toolshed.
  
  The finiteness is what the mysticism tries to overcome. There are several reasons for human’s mind to become particularly attached to finiteness: it is simple, neat; it has one’s cultural and societal support; it feeds into the identifiably single center of self-interest; there is “image-maker” between him and Reality.
  
  The fact that as human we have cognitive problem to appreciate “infinite” is an interesting observation in mathematics and physics. Even the noble Aristotle banned infinity from Greek thought nearly two thousand years ago. Recall one’s first encounter of “infinite” in algebra and calculus, recall the incredulity suppressed by a student’s resignation “fine, if you say so”. I recently learnt how the sad fate of Moscow school of mathematicians Egorov and Luzin who were persecuted severely by their understanding of infinite with the Marxist Materialism under Stalin.
  
  In our own time, the frittering away our attention at all directions based on genuine or manufactured desire is the norm. Consumerism and Hedonism go hand in hand to provide a paradise on earth, with human mind flits hither and thither, sampling the goods from the hands of others. Underhill supposed that such distracted, superficial touches give no real engagement with the Reality itself, but difficult to lodge as human consciousness is powerfully drawn to its egotistical center.
  
  So what is the loss? The inability to experience the deep flow of life within and without, the ever presence anxiety and dread, the void and irritation, the “smear on the window” of our senses.
  
  The “practical” aspect of Underhill’s mysticism has five sequential steps: “the first two stages prepare the self for union with Reality, and the last three unite it successively with the World of Becoming, the World of Being, and finally with that Ultimate Fact which the philosopher calls the Absolute and the religious mystic calls God.” In other words:
  
  Step 1: Meditation and Recollection. This is the “gathering up” one’s fractured attention, doing deep work instead of scattered dilettantism, this is about concentrated energy in readiness. (This is similar to the “flow” state in positive psychology).
  
  Step 2: Self-adjustment. Where should we direct our gathered attention? From the small center of Self outside. Here the author talked about the “love of life” as a “ mostly cupboard-love. We are quick to snap at her ankles when she locks the larder door: a proceeding which we dignify by the name of pessimism.” This is human nature without achieving the cultivation of maturity. In fact, “Seven Deadly Sins of Pride, Anger, Envy, Avarice, Sloth, Gluttony, and Lust … the seven common forms of egotism. They represent the natural reactions to life of the self-centred human consciousness”. Simply put, one can not see Reality if one is locked-in egoism. I remember Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis along similar vein. (This step has a moral and ethical component)
  
  In so prepared, we should have the “Love and Will” to attend to next three steps of contemplations. Here the “contemplation” is not a leisurely non-doing, instead:
  “Contemplation, you see, has no very close connection with dreaminess and idle musing: it is more like the intense effort of vision, the passionate and self-forgetful act of communion, presupposed in all creative art.” It is not sentimental aestheticism or emotional piety, but a directed outstretching toward higher visions. Step 3 to 5 are progressive stages from communion with Nature to Communion with the Absolute. (Will reread and review after putting the first two steps into action).
  
  The “high life” achieved through mysticism is “You feel yourself now a separate vivid entity, a real, whole man: dependent on the Whole, and gladly so dependent, yet within that Whole a free self-governing thing.” A glorious vision indeed.
• 
  Gabriel Wallis

  What an amazing book! Practical Mysticism validated my own experiences. I learned a lot from this book.
  
• 
  Ed Wojniak

  Evelyn‘s book is the best I’ve read so far in terms of giving an understandable and practical explanation in so far as possible of mysticism.