"As it is not by the methods of the laboratory that we learn to know life, so it is not by the methods of the intellect that we learn to know God."
Evelyn Underhill was an English Anglo-Catholic writer and pacifist known for her numerous works on religion and spiritual practice, in particular Christian mysticism. Her best-known work is Mysticism, published in 1911.
"I have merely attempted to put the view of the universe and mans place in it which is common to all mystics in plain and untechnical language: and to suggest the practical conditions under which ordinary persons may participate in their experience."
Evelyn Underhill"Recollection, the art which the practical man is now invited to learn, is in essence no more and no less than the subjection of the attention to the control of the will."
Evelyn Underhill"Going forth into the bareness and darkness of this unwalled world of high contemplation, you will find stored for you, and at last made real, all the highest values, all the dearest and noblest experiences of the world of growth and change."
Evelyn Underhill"It is a lonely and arduous excursion, a sufficient test of courage and sincerity: for most men prefer to dwell in comfortable ignorance upon the lower slopes, and there to make of their obvious characteristics a drapery which shall veil the naked truth."
Evelyn Underhill"Mysticism is the art of union with Reality. The mystic is a person who has attained that union in greater or less degree; or who aims at and believes in such attainment."
Evelyn Underhill"Contemplation does not mean abject surrender to every "mystical" impression that comes in. It is no sentimental aestheticism or emotional piety to which you are being invited: nor shall the transcending of reason ever be achieved by way of spiritual silliness."
Evelyn Underhill