ABSTRACT
Having travelled through the first parts of Ruusbroec’s inner life, including the trials and atoning wounds of the archetypal hero’s journey, the mystic-hero continues through the latter part of the inner life. Here, Ruusbroec describes the mystic-hero’s deepening experiences of union with Christ the Bridegroom. At work here is the magical agent of Christ’s supernatural adornment of the mystic-hero’s natural state of unity. This chapter follows the archetypal hero’s journey displayed in Ruusbroec’s description of the mystic-hero’s intensifying experiences of divine union. An examination of Ruusbroec’s ‘contemplative life’ sees the mystic-hero progress into Ruusbroec’s ‘Union without Difference’, which is the attainment of the object of the hero’s search: the transformative experience of union as ‘God with God’. This is the sought-after treasure, realised in the mystic-hero’s deification or apotheosis, which Ruusbroec calls ‘God-likeness’.
