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This essay explores the dynamic of contemplative action, which I will refer to as ‘social mysticism’, or what from the perspective of comparative mysticism we might also want to term a form of ‘non-doing’. It focuses primarily on the medieval English mystical tradition, illustrating that two forms of action are discussion—ordinary actions and those which flow out of contemplation. It is noted that the latter constitute a detached form of action. To draw out the full ramifications of social mysticism within a Christian context a short coda is added that considers mysticism in the writings of three twentieth-century anglophone writers, all of whom were strongly influenced by medieval Christian mysticism. The essay sets out to show that focusing on the relationship between mysticism and action raises questions concerning the extent to which ineffability offers the most useful marker for Christian mysticism.

This chapter examines the concrete and the everyday within the Devotio Moderna movement of the late medieval-early modern period. Bocken argues that Nicholas of Cusa’s The Vision of God offers an insight into the devotional practices of this movement, which have too often been viewed as a simplistic rejection of intellectual theology. Examining a central text from this movement, Thomas a Kempis’s, Imitation of Christ, Bocken finds a call to recognise God’s action at work within the human order. The same dynamic is, Bocken maintains, at play in Cusa’s famous portrait exercise, in which monks are invited to circle a portrait whose eyes appear to follow the viewer no matter where they move. A similar process, Bocken argues, lies at the heart of Jan Van Eyck’s famous Ghent Altar piece, which, through a clever use of mirrors, reflections and viewing figures, draws the viewer into the painting. For Bocken, a Kempis, Van Eyck, and the Devotio Moderna all teach that God’s judgments, although unknown, are made manifest through the discernment of the concrete life of the individual. In this way one learns the true meaning of imitatio Christi, that is, how one may become an image of God oneself.