A way into the mystic ways of the West -- Family resemblances and differences -- The biblical roots of Western mysticism -- Mysticism in early Judaism -- Merkabah mysticism -- The Hasidim of medieval Germany -- The beginnings of Kabbalah -- Mature Kabbalah: Zohar -- Isaac Luria and Safed spirituality -- Sabbatai Zevi and messianic mysticism -- The Ba'al Shem Tov and the new Hasidism -- Mysticism in contemporary Judaism.
Mystical elements in the New Testament -- Gnostic Christianity -- The spirituality of the desert -- Shaping Christian mysticism in the East -- Eastern monks and the Hesychastic tradition -- The mysticism of Western monasticism -- Medieval female mystics -- Mendicants as mystics -- English mystics of the 14th century -- 15th- and 16th-century Spanish mystics -- Mysticism among Protestant reformers -- Mystical expressions in Protestantism.
20th-century mystics -- Muhammad the prophet as mystic -- The house of Islam -- The mystical sect: Shi'a -- The appearance of Sufism -- Early Sufi masters -- The limits of mysticism: Al-Ghazzali -- Two masters, two streams -- Sufism in 12th-14th century North Africa -- Sufi saints of Persia and India -- The continuing Sufi tradition -- Mysticism in the West today.
|
