False Mystics provides a history of popular religion, race, and gender in colonial Mexico focusing on questions of spiritual and social rebellion and conformity. Nora E. Jaffary examines more than one hundred trials of “false mystics” whom the Mexican Inquisition prosecuted in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. While the accused experienced many of the same phenomena as bona fide mystics—visions, sacred illness, and bouts of demonic possession—the Mexican tribunal condemned them nevertheless. False Mystics examines why the Catholic church viewed the accused as deviants and argues that this categorization was due in part to unconventional aspects of their spirituality and in part to contemporary social anxieties over class and race mixing, transgressions of appropriate gendered behavior, and fears of Indian and African influences on orthodox Catholicism. Jaffary examines the transformations this category of heresy underwent between Spain and the New World and explores the relationship between accusations of "false" mysticism and contemporary notions of demonic possession, sickness, and mental illness. Jaffary adopts the perspectives of visionaries to examine the influence of colonial artwork on their spiritual imaginations and to trace the reasons that their spirituality diverged from conventional expressions of piety. False Mystics illuminates the challenges that popular religion and individual spirituality posed to both the institutional church and the colonial social order.

Thomas Merton's lectures to the young monastics at the Abbey of Gethsemani provide a good look at Merton the scholar. A Course in Christian Mysticism gathers together, for the first time, the best of these talks into a spiritual, historical, and theological survey of Christian mysticism--from St. John's gospel to St. John of the Cross. Sixteen centuries are covered over thirteen lectures. A general introduction sets the scene for when and how the talks were prepared and for the perennial themes one finds in them, making them relevant for spiritual seekers today. This compact volume allows anyone to learn from one of the twentieth century's greatest Catholic spiritual teachers. The study materials at the back of the book, including additional primary source readings and thoughtful questions for reflection and discussion, make this an essential text for any student of Christian mysticism.

Ecstasy, or extasis, is the Greek term for trance, and is linked with a pleasurable, God-given state of out-of-body experience recorded throughout the New Testament and the church age. Starting with the apostles ecstatic experiences on Pentecost, the Book of Acts further records trances in the lives of Peter and Paul. From the early church to the Christian mystics of the Middle Ages and the famous revivalists of centuries present, God s movements on the earth have always been marked by these supernatural experiences. In this book, John Crowder takes us on a journey from Old Testament ecstatic prophets such as Samuel and Elijah, to the future ecstatics who will usher in a massive wave of harvest Glory to the streets in these last days. God has always wanted a people who live in the Heavens, even as they walk on the Earth. And the world is hungry for the demonstration of a gospel of supernatural power that flows from a life of divine pleasure. More than a state of mind, you will see how the nature of God s ecstasy is found in the joy, bliss and inner raptures of His presence. In this book, you will be encouraged to drink from the river of His pleasure! (Ps. 36:8)

Showing that the summit of ultimate truth is reached in contemplation, this book offers an exposition of the doctrines of St John of the Cross. The expositions and meditations are nourishment for the spirit journeying towards truth.

Much of the traditional literature and teaching on Christian mysticism focuses on that most special experience of God which the very rare individual enjoys. The current renewal of Christian mysticism, however, is being directed toward a more ordinary mysticism. The Mysticism of Everyday develops and encourages this more ordinary form. While not completely omitting a discussion of classical mysticism, it concentrates on that type of mysticism which many people experience. Indeed, some "ordinary mystics" are unaware of their own profound, mystical experiences. In Mysticism, Edward Carter guides us into recognizing and affirming the mystical experiences of everyday life. In doing so, he provides a needed complement to the long-standing, but limited tradition in classical Christian mysticism.