caa a22 4500 386387109 CHVBK 20180307112101.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130e198909 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1017/S0034412500019867 doi S0034412500019867 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.1017/S0034412500019867 Jantzen Grace M. King's College, London Mysticism and Experience [Elektronische Daten] [Grace M. Jantzen] The definition of mysticism has shifted, in modern thinking, from a patristic emphasis on the objective content of experience to the modern emphasis on the subjective psychological states or feelings of the individual. Post Kantian Idealism and Romanticism was involved in this shift to a far larger extent than is usually recognized. An important conductor of the subjectivist view of mysticism to modern philosophers of religion was William James, even though in other respects he repudiated Romantic and especially Idealist categories of thought. In this article I wish first to explore William James' understanding of mysticism and religious experience, and then to measure that understanding against the accounts of two actual mystics, Bernard of Clairvaux and Julian of Norwich, who, for all their differences, may be taken as paradigms of the Christian mystical tradition. I shall argue that judging from these two cases, James' position is misguided and inadequate. Since James' account has been of enormous influence in subsequent thinking about mysticism, it follows that if his understanding of mysticism is inadequate, so is much of the work that rests upon it. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989 Religious Studies Cambridge University Press 25/3(1989-09), 295-315 0034-4125 25:3<295 1989 25 RES https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412500019867 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412500019867 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Jantzen Grace M. King's College, London NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Religious Studies Cambridge University Press 25/3(1989-09), 295-315 0034-4125 25:3<295 1989 25 RES CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge