mysticism
Why must medieval mysticism be treated as a malady?
Medieval women – they were ‘just like us’. Except that they weren’t. Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife is the first popular…
Why did Jon Fosse win the Nobel Prize for literature? It’s baffling.
If Jon Fosse’s novels are experimental, they are experiments in exhausting banality, says Philip Hensher
The phoney mystics who fooled the West
Many suspect mystics have exploited naive westerners in search of spiritual enlightenment over the past century, Philip Hensher discovers
Four disparate intellectuals
Of Wolfram Eilenberger’s four intellectual heroines, Simone Weil alone really counts as a ‘visionary’, forsaking philosophy for a kind of saintly mysticism
‘Jerusalem’ is a rousing anthem – but who knows what the words mean?
‘Jerusalem’ may be our unofficial national anthem, but don’t ask anyone who sings it to tell you what it means, says Philip Hensher
The great awakening: Henry Shukman becomes a child of the universe
For eight years I rented a small house in Oxford overlooking the canal. The landlord, a poet and novelist younger…
Spectacular and mind-expanding: Tantra at the British Museum reviewed
A great temple of the goddess Tara can be found at Tarapith in West Bengal. But her true abode, in…
Will we ever unravel the mysteries of Kabbalah?
In an age where ‘authenticity’ is prized above all things (even if what this actually means is that — like,…
David Jones: painter, poet and mystic
David Jones (1895–1974) was a remarkable figure: artist and poet, he was a great original in both disciplines. His was…
Death by Dior, by Terry Cooper - review
This book may sound like it’s going to be about high fashion, but it’s actually about Nazism, satanism, incest and…
