Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness by Evelyn Underhill is one of the foundational modern works on mystical experience. First published in 1911, it set the tone for much of the twentieth-century study of mysticism and is still widely cited in theology, philosophy of religion and comparative spirituality.
Underhill’s aim is both ambitious and surprisingly practical. She wants to show that mysticism is not a marginal curiosity or a psychological oddity, but a structured way of life grounded in a real, transformative encounter with the Absolute. For her, mysticism is “the art of union with Reality” – a disciplined path that reshapes the whole person, not a passing emotional state.
Evelyn Underhill and the modern study of mysticism
Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941) was an Anglo-Catholic writer, retreat leader and spiritual director whose books did much to revive interest in Christian mysticism in the English-speaking world. Before Mysticism, most English-language discussion of the topic was scattered across sermons, biographies and devotional literature. Underhill brought the sources together and treated mysticism as a serious subject in its own right, drawing on theology, psychology, literary studies and church history.
Her work is also ecumenical and comparative. While she writes as a Christian, she constantly places Christian mystics in dialogue with Jewish, Islamic and Indian traditions, arguing that there is a recognisable “family resemblance” in the way authentic mystics describe the path, even when their doctrinal frameworks differ.
How the book is structured
The book is long and carefully organised. Underhill divides it into two large parts:
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Part One: “The Mystic Fact” explores what mysticism is and how it relates to other fields. She has chapters on mysticism and vitalism, psychology, theology, symbolism and magic, as well as a detailed discussion of the characteristic marks of mystical experience.
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Part Two: “The Mystic Way” follows the inner development of the mystic through recognisable stages: awakening, purification, illumination, the “dark night” of the soul, and final union. In each phase she illustrates her analysis with generous quotations from figures like Meister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, Ruysbroeck, Teresa of Ávila, Plotinus and many others.
This mixture of theory and extended primary texts is one reason the book remains useful. Readers encounter both Underhill’s synthesis and the original voices she is interpreting.
Key themes and ideas
Several themes make Mysticism especially relevant for HolyBooks readers:
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Mysticism as a disciplined process. Underhill insists that genuine mysticism involves a long training of mind, heart and will. The “mystic way” means ethical purification, re-orientation of desire and sustained contemplative practice, not just unusual experiences.
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The unity of theory and practice. She constantly links doctrinal language (about God, the Absolute, the Real) with concrete practices such as prayer, meditation, service and detachment from egoistic motives.
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Symbol and imagination. One whole chapter is devoted to the role of symbols, myths and images in mystic life – how they both reveal and conceal the Real, and why they cannot be taken literally yet cannot simply be discarded.
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The “dark night”. Long before this phrase became popular in self-help literature, Underhill described it as a specific stage: the painful stripping away of old images of God and self so a deeper union can emerge. Drawing especially on St. John of the Cross, she treats this not as pathology but as part of spiritual maturation.
Because of this combination of clear structure and rich quotation, the book can serve as both an introduction for new readers and a reference work for more advanced students. Download the free PDF e-book here:
