Introduction: the question of mystical anthropology

In 1926, the Dominican Ambroise Gardeil (1859-1931), who had taught several leading theologians of the next generation (including Yves Congar) and thus paved the way to the influential French movement of the “Nouvelle théologie,” wrote the following in the introduction to his extensive study entitled La structure de l’âme et l’expérience mystique:

For some time now, I have been struck by the emphasis with which the most authoritative mystics affirm that they have a direct experience of the divinity, present in the ground of their soul. . . . And I wonder: how is such an experience possible?1