I’m taking a class on Jewish mysticism/esotericism and on a recent test I made the argument that Christian mysticism was more open/do-it-yourself than the Jewish version (which required one to be male, be able to read, be accepted by a rabbi, etc.). The professor maintains that Christian mystics had to leave the world and become monks or nuns in order to follow that path.
Now, I’m pretty sure there are some Christian saints/people who are known as mystics without being cloistered but I’ll be damned if I can think of one. It’s a minor, minor point and didn’t result in any sort of grade drop but if I can find an example I’d like to share it.
So: Christian mystics, not monks or nuns, women for preference?
Julian of Norwich was an anchoress, so she was cloistered in that regard, but she wasn’t a nun.
George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, was never a member of a monastic order, nor were “Mother” Ann Lee, the founder of the Shakers, Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Christian Scientists, Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormons, and so on.
Of course, all of the people in my second paragraph were mystics in the Protestant tradition of Christianity, which didn’t have monastic orders.
some people who had private revelations Private revelation - Wikipedia were children at the time they had it, e.g. see Fatima, La Salette, Lourdes. The people in the above cases were all from the lower class and some were at that point of time, illiterate. Nevertheless, they all (from these 3 cases, except for ones who died shortly after) subsequently entered monastery.
I don’t think there were many Catholic adults claiming private revelations before 20th century who were not also religious.
In the Russian Orthodox Church there was a category of people resembling what Westerners might call a wandering friar who acts really strangely Foolishness for Christ - Wikipedia . Such people would be de facto “secular” (having status similar to homeless) and some may have been illiterate. Some may have been recognized by their contemporaries as valid mystics.
In the case of the Protestants in the absence of monasteries all people claiming divine revelation will perforce be either laity or Protestant pastors. In the majority of cases whatever revelation they may be getting will be probably to guide their own affairs although they may discuss it with people around them if they wish to do so.
If you’re looking for Catholic mystics, there were St. Francis of Assisi, Bonaventure, Raymond Lull, and Anthony of Padua. The Franciscans were a religious order, but not a monastic one, being a mendicant order of wandering preachers.
There was also the Dominicans Meister Eckhart and Catherine of Siena (as well as a number of other Domincan mystic preachers), the Dominicans also being a mendicant order.
If you’re not really tight about hardcore monastic/cloistered, counting in lay ‘orders’ like the Beguines or Brethren of the Common Life probably adds in a few.
Also, Francis was a mystic before there was any Franciscan order for him to be a member of.
I wonder, however, if it is really true that you cannot be a Jewish mystic without being male, able to read, be accepted by a rabbi, etc. I think we should distinguish between mystical traditions, where you learn a certain body of doctrine and/or set of practices, and into which you have to be initiated, with being a mystic. The later is surely a much more personal thing: a sort of psychological condition where you believe you have experiences of direct contact with the divine. Perhaps you can lean to be a mystic by following some traditional discipline, but some people seem to manage it on their own. I do not see why such people should be any less common amongst Jews (or any other religion really) than amongst Christians. And in any case, if mystical traditions exist in Judaism (as they clearly do) surely they must have been founded by some mystic who was not him or herself part of that tradition (as with St Francis).
Wait, I’d missed this. . . what, what? Assisi? Santa Croce? Just because you’re a mendicant order doesn’t mean you’re not monastic, no? Maybe not exceedingly shut-off-eremetic-claustral, but?
The auhtor of the Apocalypse, certainly, and also that of the Shepherd of Hermas. I believe Hildegarde of Bingen was not a monastic; though Julian of Norwich was a recluse, she was not part of an order. Caedmon is another who oribabk qualifies.
Where on the “leaving the world” scale do you consider the Jesuits? They are a monastic order, but hardly a group that sets themselves apart from the world. And Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was one of them. He spent his life trying to reconcile science with spiritual mysticism.
As some posters have noted, a great many Christian monastics can be mystics and/or reclusive: just being one is not a specifically hermitic thing in Christianity, and it certainly was do-it-yourself. And you are right that people did not have to take Holy Orders in order to be Christian mystics. there are and were whole classes of people who didn’t do that.
Now, to some degree, all mystics are reclusive. I mean, having some time spent at least partly alone and in deep though, meditation, and rpayer is sort of part of the whole mystic package. That said, you can be a monastic, and urbine or rural or hermitic type, and a mystic in any combination. Note that even those who were reclusive in part often formed their own social circles (St. Francis, etc.), and that those who were monastic types often did have a do-it-yourself style to them.
I’d probably say you are right on this one. The Jewish tradition is more worldly and less mystical almost all over, except perhaps for the few Kaballistic practicioners. This is not a theological judgement or an insult, but a theological analysis - mysticism and monasticism in that sense was simply not a huge part of Jewish religious practice.
Those are all requirements for becoming a Kabbalist. Not all Jewish mystics are Kabbalists. OTTOMH, the Maharal of Prague (he of the golem legends) was a mystic but not a Kabbalist.