Into the Dark Night and Back is the first comprehensive English language selection of the mystical writings, poems, and letters of the French mystic and exorcist Jean-Joseph Surin, S.J. (1600–65).

"While studies abound about Catholic Reform and its institutional or social history, its spiritual motives and practices, what one could call its "inner life," have been widely neglected. This book examines how these spiritual ideas and practices shaped the Catholic Reform and Catholic view of the world and led to a diverse but peculiarly theological imagination, a new outlook on the self and the world, and influenced human behaviors and sentiments. It tells the story of how the idea of the "inner reform of the soul" shaped a world religion. The historicization of these religious practices and beliefs makes this book also highly accessible to historians and anthropologists. It relies on a plethora of published and unpublished sources, and a wide field of secondary literature. Although the emphasis is on Europe, this book takes a global perspective by integrating material from Africa, America and Asia as it was in this era that Catholicism became a "world religion.""--

How, Barbara Newman asks, did the myth of the separable heart take such a firm hold in the Middle Ages, from lovers exchanging hearts with one another to mystics exchanging hearts with Jesus? What special traits gave both saints and demoniacs their ability to read minds? Why were mothers who died in childbirth buried in unconsecrated ground? Each of these phenomena, as diverse as they are, offers evidence for a distinctive medieval idea of the person in sharp contrast to that of the modern "subject" of "individual." Starting from the premise that the medieval self was more permeable than its modern counterpart, Newman explores the ways in which the self's porous boundaries admitted openness to penetration by divine and demonic spirits and even by other human beings. She takes up the idea of "coinherence," a state familiarly expressed in the amorous and devotional formula "I in you and you in me," to consider the theory and practice of exchanging the self with others in five relational contexts of increasing intimacy. Moving from the outside in, her chapters deal with charismatic teachers and their students, mind-reading saints and their penitents, lovers trading hearts, pregnant mothers who metaphorically and literally carry their children within, and women and men in the throes of demonic obsession. In a provocative conclusion, she sketches some of the far-reaching consequences of this type of personhood by drawing on comparative work in cultural history, literary criticism, anthropology, psychology, and ethics. The Permeable Self offers medievalists new insight into the appeal and dangers of the erotics of pedagogy; the remarkable influence of courtly romance conventions on hagiography and mysticism; and the unexpected ways that pregnancy—often devalued in mothers—could be positively ascribed to men, virgins, and God. The half-forgotten but vital idea of coinherence is of relevance far beyond medieval studies, however, as Newman shows how it reverberates in such puzzling phenomena as telepathy, the experience of heart transplant recipients who develop relationships with their deceased donors, the phenomenon of psychoanalytic transference, even the continuities between ideas of demonic possession and contemporary understandings of obsessive-compulsive disorder. In The Permeable Self Barbara Newman once again confirms her status as one of our most brilliant and thought-provoking interpreters of the Middle Ages.

Étienne Pasquier (1529–1615) was a lawyer, royal official, man of letters, and historian. He represented the University of Paris in its 1565 suit to dislodge a Jesuit school from Paris. Despite royal support, the Jesuits remained in conflict with many institutions, which in 1595 led to their expulsion from much of the realm. With ever-increasing polemics, Pasquier continued to oppose the Jesuits. To further his aims, he published a dialog between a Jesuit (almost certainly Louis Richeome) and a lawyer (Pasquier himself). He called it the Jesuits’ Catechism (1602). Pasquier’s work did not stop the French king from welcoming the Jesuits back. However, Pasquier’s Catechism remained central to Jansenist and other anti-Jesuit agitation up to the Society’s 1773 suppression and beyond.

In the wake of the French Revolution and other upheavals, Don Bosco (1815–1888) and other nineteenth-century founders and spiritual leaders contributed to the development of spiritual practices and perspectives on the Christian life that have been described as the “Salesian Pentecost.” Here are translations of and commentaries on the little-known spiritual writings of Don Bosco, his collaborators, and his contemporaries involved in the Salesian Pentecost. These diverse persons, fully engaged in apostolic ministry or occupied with the demands of ordinary life as lay women and men, were at the same time engaged in conscious spiritual practices that sought the interior exchange of the heart of Jesus for the human heart.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ Lettres Spirituelles, Volume 1; Lettres Spirituelles; Jean Joseph Surin 2 Jean Joseph Surin Religion; Spirituality; Religion / Spirituality

Excerpt from The Dark Night of the Soul The Ascent of Mount Carmel, by St. John of the Cross, trans lated by David Lewis. Ne.v edition. London: Thomas Baker, 1906. Introduction, p. I7. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.