Steven Katz
Notes
Owen supports Katz's thesis, providing examples of how Christian dogma shapes the English mystic's interpretation of the experience, and also that the experience itself is shaped by prexisting mental schemata. [1] Speaking of Julian of Norwich, "At one time Julian felt that she had become ontologically one with God; but on reflection, she realized this could not be the case."[2]. Note the persecution that Christian mystics felt and the need they had to stay within established Church canon, or risk excommunication, even death. Unfortunately, Owen dismisses the obvious conclusion, that fear forces out heterodoxy, in favour of a remarkable sexist dismissal of the notion that "all mystical experiences consist in the feeling of identity between the soul and the Absolute." [3]
Footnotes
- ↑ Owen, H.P. “Experience and Dogma in the English Mystics.” In Mysticism and Religious Traditions, edited by Steven T Katz, 148–62. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1983.
- ↑ Owen, H.P. “Experience and Dogma in the English Mystics.” In Mysticism and Religious Traditions, edited by Steven T Katz, 148–62. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1983. p. 155
- ↑ Ibid.
