In Mystics, William Harmless, S.J., introduces readers to the scholarly study of mysticism. He explores both mystics' extraordinary lives and their no-less-extraordinary writings using a unique case-study method centered on detailed examinations of six major Christian mystics: Thomas Merton, Bernard of Clairvaux, Hildegard of Bingen, Bonaventure, Meister Eckhart, and Evagrius Ponticus. Rather than presenting mysticism as a subtle web of psychological or theological abstractions, Harless's case-study approach brings things down to earth, restoring mystics to their historical context.

Bishop Karl Pruter discusses mysticism, from Plotinus and Dionysius the Areopogite to Walt Whitman and Kahlil Gibran.

"Portrays the lives and experiences of twelve mystical activists, exploring their worldview and spirituality and their relationship to social transformation"--

Steiner immerses the reader in the evolving stream of 11 mystics who appeared in central Europe between the 13th and 17th centuries, who resolved the conflict between their inner perceptions and beginnings of modern science.

In Six Stages on the Spiritual Path, we learn about spirituality and its stages as well as how spirituality helps to reduce our suffering and create more love. Writings from ancient to contemporary mystics across the world provide us with practical and spiritual wisdom that will make our lives happier and more loving. In the first stage on the mystic way, children experience awe and wonder, but they do not realize that this is a spiritual experience. While all indigenous people recognize awe as a mystical experience, only some adults and most artists do. When parents and religious leaders teach children about God, they cause their spiritual growth to flourish or to become stunted at an elementary school level. Awakening is an experience of the Divine that helps us realize that the Sacred Spirit is within us and loves us. Awakening produces love for our neighbors and ourselves. Then love nurtures more awakenings. Illumination and union are deeper mystical experiences that the Holy One is not only within all of us and all of creation, but also that we are within the ONE. Illumination creates more love for all people and all the universe.

May we begin to disrobe the idea that we are separate, let go of beliefs that no longer serve us, and let go of any of the labels that we use to limit ourselves. Open the heart through the senses, and feel the awe for the great mysterythat which cannot be named. A mystic is someone who took the path to become awakened, and has seen and felt the truth. A mystic will point in the direction so that others can see. The Way of the Modern Mystic may change your perceptions of mystics, and/or of yourself, and thereby change your reality. - Rev. Dr. Jeff Bentley

"An organizational psychologist looks at the stories of ordinary people who choose a solitary lifestyle to find wholeness and self actualization."--Publisher description.

Merkur proposes an alternative to the traditional psychoanalytic explanation of mystical experiences as regression to the solipsism of earliest infancy. He does this by viewing unitive thinking as a line of cognitive development, and mystical moments as creative inspirations on unitive topics. Utilizing classical self-reports by Christian, Jewish, and Muslim mystics, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, and modern Western peak experiences, Merkur argues that experiences of mystical union are manifestations of a broader category of psychological processes that manifest in scientific and moral thought, as well as in mysticism. Unconscious as well as conscious, unitive thinking is sometimes realistic and sometimes fantastic, in patterns that are consistent with cognitive development in general. Mystical moments of unitive thinking may be considered moments of creative inspiration that happen to make use of unitive ideas. Building on the psychoanalytic object-relations theory that the self is always in relationship with an object, Merkur argues that the solipsism of some varieties of mystical union always implies unconscious ideas of a love object who is transcendent.