Practical Mysticism

Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) was a mystic, controversial Anglican writer on mysticism, novelist, pacifist and metaphysical poet. She travelled regularly to the continent, primarily Switzerland, France and Italy where she pursued her interests in art and Catholicism, visiting numerous churches and monasteries. She published over thirty books either under her maiden name Underhill or under the pseudonym John Cordelier, as was the case for the 1912 book The Spiral Way. Initially an agnostic, she gradually began to acquire an interest in Neoplatonism and from there became increasingly drawn to Catholicism against the objections of her husband, becoming eventually a prominent Anglo-Catholic. Her greatest book, Mysticism: A Study of the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness, was published in 1911. Her other works include The Grey World (1904), Practical Mysticism (1914) and The Essentials of Mysticism: And Other Essays (1920).