EVELYN
UNDERHILL (1875-1941)
Evelyn Underhill was an Anglican writer on mysticism. She was educated at King’s College, London, of which College she became a Fellow in 1927. She was converted in 1907, and in her spiritual quest she was led to the Christian mystics. She took the Catholic Friedrich von Hügel as her spiritual director until his death in 1925. As from about 1924 she became a much demanded retreat conductor, spiritual counsellor and religious journalist. At the end of her life she was an avowed pacifist.
Her work
was set forth in 1911 with the publication of one of her most important book Mysticism.
In this and her subsequent
works, she sought to find an harmony between formal and orthodox Christian theology
and practical spiritual experience.
She always encouraged her readers to go beyond mere spiritual curiosity
and knowledge in pointing out the practicality of a deeper spiritual experience.
Much of
what had been published before her pioneering Mysticism, seemed to limit
the reader to an historical knowledge and to an objective approach to
mysticism.
Evelyn Underhill
became aware that the need of many believers was to have some guidelines so as
to appropriate for themselves the spiritual experiences of the great mystics of
the past. She was convinced that
the spiritual life of a Richard Rolle or of a John of the Cross could be shared
by anyone who would give himself enough over to the dealings of the Lord. Her call was to make mysticism relevant
to today’s believers. It is to
this end that she edited works of English and continental mystical classics
like The Cloud of Unknowing.
She also ignited a renewed interest in men and women like Nicholas of
Cusa, Walter Hilton, Teresa of Avila and many others.
She believed
that the Christian mystics attained a high level of spiritual transformation
because “they loved and attended to Him more than we do”.
Didier
LEBEAU
This article 2001 by Didier LEBEAU. It can be copied and distributed freely. Feedback is most welcomed.
Biographies
by M. Cropper, SPCK 1958 and by C. J. R. Armstrong, Oxford 1975
Letters
of Evelyn Underhill, edited by C. W. S. Williams, 1943
Collected
Papers of Evelyn Underhill, edited by L. Menzies, 1946
Evelyn
Underhill: Mysticism, 1911
Practical Mysticism, 1915
The Essentials of Mysticism, 1920
http://www.ccel.org/u/underhill/