ABSTRACT
Being now in possession of a body of first-hand material, we may come to face the question posed in the ‘Prologue’ as the outstanding problem of mysticism: The validity of the claim consistently made by the great mystics. The extracts there given from the utterances of a number of the best-accredited Catholic mystics show that their claim amounts to this: that in the highest mystic state the soul, already in this life, enters into conscious immediate relationship with God. It would be too much to say that on the admission of this claim depends the value of the writings of the mystics: even if it be disallowed, many of their writings would retain indeed their value and utility as spiritual instruction for those embracing an interior life of self-discipline, mortification, and prayer; but the most characteristically mystical treatises would have to find their level as the utterance of a splendid illusion, of value only to the psychologist studying religious phenomena or the historian of religious thought. Thus, St Teresa’s Way of Perfection and the first four Mansions of the Interior Castle would always be of practical use to those endeavouring to lead a spiritual life; but the last three Mansions, along with the two latest and most mystical of the treatises of St John of the Cross, and a host of other such writings, would have to be classed in our libraries as outworn ideas of a bygone age, or at best as religious poetry.
