Mysticism: a select illustrative bibliography

The literature on mysticism is voluminous. The development of the subject through the years is best tracked through periodical literature. This bibliography, however, restricts itself to a selection of general and comparative studies in book form published since 1978. It excludes studies of individual mystics and editions or anthologies of mystical texts.


Austin, James H. Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness. Cambridge, MA, 1998.

Barnard, G. William. Exploring Unseen Worlds: Williams James and the Philosophy of Mysticism. Albany, N.Y., 1997.

Barnard, G. William, & Jeffrey John Kripal, eds. Crossing Boundaries: Essays on the Ethical Status of Mysticism. New York, 2002.

Brainard, F. Samuel. Reality and Mystical Experience. University Park, PA, 2000.

Bishop, Donald H., ed. Mysticism and the Mystical Experience: East and West. London & Toronto, 1995. A useful collection of essays surveying mysticism in various traditions.

D'Aquili, Eugene & Andrew B. Newberg. The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience. Minneapolis, 1999.

Ellwood, Robert S. Mysticism and Religion. 2^nd ed., New York & Oxford, 1999. One of the very few introductory surveys of major issues and positions in the study of mysticism, stressing the inseparability of mysticism from the rest of religion.

Forman, Robert K. C., ed. The Problem of Pure Consciousness: mysticism and philosophy. New York & Oxford, 1990. The first of three volumes edited by the leading proponent of the non-constructivist analysis of mysticism.

Forman, Robert K. C., ed. The Innate Capacity: Mysticism, Psychology, Philosophy. New York, 1998.

Forman, Robert K. C. Mysticism, Mind, Consciousness. Albany, N.Y., 1999.

Franks Davis, Caroline. The Evidential Force of Religious Experience. Oxford, 1989.

Gellman, Jerome. Mystical Experience of God: a Philosophical Enquiry. Aldershot, 2001. A critical survey of objections to the argument that mystical experience provides evidence for theism.

Hollenback, Jess Byron. Mysticism: A Comparative Historical Study. Michigan, 1991.

Hollenback, Jess Byron. Mysticism: Experience, Response, and Empowerment. University Park, PA, 1996.

Hollywood, Amy. The Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and Meister Eckhart. Notre Dame, IN, 1995.

Hollywood, Amy. Sensible Ecstasy: Mysticism, Sexual Difference, and the Demands of History. Chicago, 2001.

Hunt, Harry T., Lives in Spirit: Precursors and Dilemmas of a Secular Western Mysticism. Albany, N.Y., 2003.

Idel, Moshe. Kabbalah: New Perspectives. New Haven, 1988.

Idel, Moshe, & Bernard McGinn, eds. Mystical Union in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: An Ecumenical Dialogue. New York, 1996.

Jantzen, Grace. Power, Gender, and Christian Mysticism. Cambridge, 1995.

Jones, Richard H., ed. Mysticism Examined: Philosophical Enquiries into Mysticism. Albany, N.Y., 1993.

Katz, Steven T., ed. Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis. New York, 1978. The first of four volumes edited by the leading proponent of constructivism.

Katz, Steven T., ed. Mysticism and Religious Traditions. New York, 1983.

Katz, Steven T., ed. Mysticism and Language. New York, 1992.

Katz, Steven T., ed. Mysticism and Sacred Scripture. New York, 2000.

McGinn, Bernard. The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. New York, 1994-
An ongoing project in several volumes, already established as the standard history of Christian mysticism.

McIntosh, Mark A. Mystical Theology: The Integrity of Spirituality and Theology. Blackwell, 1998.

Merkur, Dan. Mystical Moments and Unitive Thinking. Albany, 1999.

Mommaers, Paul & Jan van Bragt. Mysticism Buddhist and Christian: Encounters with Jan van Ruusbroec. New York, 1995.

Newell, William Lloyd. Struggle and Submission: R. C. Zaehner on Mysticism. Washington, 1981.

Nieto, José C. Religious Experience and Mysticism: Otherness as Experience of Transcendence. Lanham, MD & New York, 1997.

Petroff, Elizabeth Avilda. Body and Soul: Essays on Medieval Women and Mysticism. New York, 1994.

Pike, Nelson. Mystic Union: An Essay in the Phenomenology of Mysticism. Ithaca, N.Y., 1992.

Roy, Louis. Transcendent Experiences: Phenomenology and Critique. Toronto, 2001.

Roy, Louis. Mystical Consciousness: Western Perspectives and Dialogue with Japanese Thinkers. New York, 2002.

Ruffing, Janet K., ed. Mysticism and Social Transformation. Syracuse, N.Y., 2001.

Sells, Michael A. Mystical Languages of Unsaying. Chicago & London, 1994. A study of the apophatic approach in four different mystical traditions.

Stoeber, Michael. Theo-Monistic Mysticism: a Hindu-Christian Comparison. N.Y., 1994.

Turner, Denys. The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian mysticism. Cambridge, 1995.

Wainwright, William J. Mysticism: A Study of Its Nature, Cognitive Value and Moral Implications. Madison, WI, 1981.

Wiethaus, U., ed. Maps of Flesh and Light: The Religious Experience of Medieval Women Mystics. Syracuse, N.Y., 1993.