’Mystical theology’ has developed through a range of meanings, from the hidden dimensions of divine significance in the community’s interpretation of its scriptures to the much later ’science’ of the soul’s ascent into communion with God. The thinkers and questions addressed in this book draws us into the heart of a complicated, beautiful, and often tantalisingly unfinished conversation, continuing over centuries and often brushing allusively into parallel concerns in other religions. Raising fundamental matters of epistemology, representation, metaphysics, and divine reality, contributors approach the mystical from postmodern, feminist, sociological and historical perspectives through thinkers such as Meister Eckhart, Thomas Aquinas, Catherine of Siena, Ignatius of Loyola, William James, Evelyn Underhill, Ernst Troeltsch, Rudolf Otto, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Marion and Jean-Louis Chrétien. Medieval and early modern radical prophetic approaches are also explored. This book includes new essays by Sarah Apetrei, Tina Beattie, Raphel Cadenhead, Oliver Davies, Philip Endean, Brian FitzGerald, Ann Loades, George Pattison, Simon D. Podmore, Joel D.S. Rasmussen, and Johannes Zachhuber.

Louise Nelstrop is a lecturer in Christian Spirituality and Director of Spirituality Programmes in Sarum College, Salisbury. Her research interests include the English Mystics, Theoretical and Philosophical approaches to Mysticism, Cistercian and Victorine Spirituality and the Emerging Church. Her recently publications include Christian Mysticism: An Introduction to Contemporary Theoretical Approaches and Evaluating Fresh Expressions: Explorations in Emerging Church with Martin Percy (eds). Simon D. Podmore is a lecturer in Systematic Theology at Liverpool Hope University. His research interests explore the interfaces between theology, philosophy, psychotherapy and the arts. His recent publications include Kierkegaard and the Self before God: Anatomy of the Abyss (2011) and Struggling with God: Kierkegaard and the Temptation of Spiritual Trial (2013).