Dazzling Darkness: The Lives and Afterlives of the Christian Mystics

by James Harpur

At the core of the Christian faith lies the spiritual journey to the heart of ultimate reality, or God–described by some mystics as a ‘dazzling darkness’. For over 2,000 years, certain women and men have experienced various degrees of direct communion with God, from mild illuminations to a union in which the will of the mystic has been consumed.

This book explores such spiritual figures’ lives and teachings, alongside their personal and historical backgrounds, from early Christendom to modern mystics such as Simone Weil and Thomas Merton. It reveals that the English anchoress Julian of Norwich grew up while the Black Death was devastating Europe; that the beguine Marguerite Porete lived at a time when the Church was particularly primed to burn ‘heretics’–a fate she suffered; and that Pierre Teilhard de Chardin developed his idea of spiritual evolution with Charles Darwin’s theories in the air.

Comprehensive, deeply researched and highly engaging, Dazzling Darkness tells the stories of towering figures like Hildegard of Bingen, Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross. Its pages also highlight many lesser-known mystics, including Mary of Egypt, Seraphim of Sarov and Charles de Foucauld, allowing their voices to sing out to future generations.

464 pages, Hardcover

Published June 15, 2025

About the author

James Harpur has had four poetry collections published by Anvil Press: A Vision of Comets (1993), The Monk’s Dream (1996), Oracle Bones (2001) and The Dark Age (2007). Anvil have also published his Fortune’s Prisoner, a translation of the poems of Boethius. In addition, he has published a sequence of religious poems called The Gospel of Joseph of Arimathea (Wild Goose, 2008). His prose publications include Love Burning in the Soul (Shambhala, 2005), an introduction to the Christian mystics.

After studying Classics and English at university, he taught English on the island of Crete then worked as a lexicographer. He is now a freelance writer.

James has won a number of prizes for his poetry, including the 1995 British National Poetry Competition. He has received various awards and bursaries, such as from Cork Arts, the Eric Gregory Trust, the Society of Authors, the Arts Council (UK), and the Hawthornden Foundation. His poems have been broadcast on national and local radio in Ireland and the UK and have appeared in various anthologies. These include Staying Alive (Bloodaxe, 2002), Ireland’s Love Poems (Kyle Cathie, 2000), The New Exeter Book of Riddles (Enitharmon, 2002), The Forward Book of Poetry (Faber, 2001), Voices in the Gallery (Tate Publishing 1986).

He has performed his poetry widely at poetry festivals and venues, including the Triskel Arts Centre (Cork), the Voice Box (London), the ICA (London), and the Irish Writers’ Centre (Dublin). He has held poetry residencies at the Munster Literature Centre in Cork and at Exeter Cathedral in the UK.

He is currently poetry editor of the Temenos Academy Review, a publication founded by the poet and William Blake scholar, Kathleen Raine, and of Southword, one of Ireland’s leading literary journals.

He lives in County Cork, Ireland.