Explore every episode of the podcast The Christian Mystics Podcast

A prolific scholar, cleric, writer, and statesman, Bonaventure studied in Paris alongside Thomas Aquinas and became one of the foremost Franciscan intellectuals. His mystical works included The Soul's Journey Into God and The Mystical Vine.

Contemplative Light offers classes in spirituality.

Mechthild had her first mystical vision at age 12 and later joined the lay Beguine movement. She became a Dominican tertiary and with the encouragement of the Dominicans, composed the spiritual classic The Flowing Light of the Godhead.

Contemplative Light offers classes in spirituality.

A visionary mystic, Llull advocated the conversion of Muslims through prayer not military action. A prolific writer and Franciscan tertiary, Llull developed a philosophical system in a work called the Ars Magna to help other Christians convert Muslims. Bonaventure studied deeply of Llull's work, bringing it to a higher prominence.

The beloved monk and founder of the Franciscan Order, St. Francis embraced a life of simplicity and poverty, spreading a message of God's universal, boundless love for all creation.

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Richard was a systematic mystical theologian, who sought to defend the use of reason and logic to provide a framework for faith, whose contributed a key notion of condilection, or mutual love of a third being a central characteristic of the Trinity.

Contemplative Light has a class on Contemplative Practices.

Abbess, artist, composer, Hildegard was a visionary German mystic who shared her cosmic vision that God's love extended both outward to the vast expanse of the universe and inward to the individual human psyche.

Contemplative Light provides education and resources in a global effort towards inner transformation through contemplative prayer and meditation.

A great reformer of the Benedictine order in the 12th century, Bernard was instrumental in re-emphasizing the importance of lectio divina and contemplation on Scripture within the Cistercian order. Bernard observed that when lectio divina was neglected monasticism suffered. Bernard considered lectio divina and contemplation guided by the Holy Spirit the keys to nourishing Christian spirituality.

Drawing on Neoplatonic teachings of Plotinus and Christianity, Dionysius was the first the write an explicitly Mystical Theology in which he wrote of the divine darkness that transcends concepts, language, and image. 

Contemplative Light has a class on Contemplative Practices.