ABSTRACT
Pointing out the need for the soul to prepare itself for the union with God is an important feature of Christian mystical texts. The English mystics make it very clear to the reader that man must fulfil certain conditions in order to be able to experience the mystical unio, and when they explain the nature of purgatio, the first of the three stages of the mystic way, they show a particularly homiletic concern. The fundamental prerequisite for the mystic is the complete concentration of the soul on itself. Most texts are agreed that the withdrawal of the soul into itself only constitutes a real prerequisite for experiencing the mystical unio if it is accompanied by a striving on man’s part for merciless self-knowledge. The mystics delight in describing the freeing of the soul from all dependence on earthly, non-essential things, the rejection of all ties, as an act of baring oneself.
