ABSTRACT
In theological terms the ‘spiritual senses’ are not just five powers permanently residing in the soul—by analogy with the physical senses—but are temporary spiritual acts, ultimately effected by divine grace. This spiritual sense perception can certainly become similar to that of the physical senses, and therefore the language which expresses such experiences is something rather different than mere metaphor. In keeping with the medieval love for analogy, the evocation of the spiritual ‘sense experience’ of the soul is sometimes taken to such lengths that the soul is endowed with mouth, gums and teeth. Just as the process of spiritual tasting is an attempt in medieval mysticism to express wisdom and knowledge in concrete terms, so too spiritual ‘feeling’ is often used as a synonym for the perception of transcendental reality, for spiritual knowledge. The imagery of spiritual seeing completes our survey of mystical metaphors of the senses.
