THE Church Times is running a 3rd series of monthly online lectures on Christian spirituality in partnership with Sarum College. The 2026 series, which begins on 26 January, will concentrate on five English mystics: Margery Kempe, Richard Rolle, the anonymous 14th-century creator of The Cloud of Unknowing, William Blake, and Evelyn Underhill.
The Programme Leader for Postgraduate Programmes in Christian Spirituality at Sarum College, Dr Michael Hahn, said that the alternative so as to add two later mystics — Blake and Underhill — to the list of well-established 14th-century names was a conscious move to show that the English mystical tradition was not confined to the Middle Ages.
“Blake allows us to have a look at the creation of a mystical corpus of ‘texts’ that goes broader than the written word and explores a spread of genres of writing as well. Underhill is such a very important figure to recognise as a mystic and as a populariser of mysticism, but additionally as a scholar,” he said. “Underhill also wrote about all three of the medieval writers included on this series; so it also allows us to think about how an English mystic viewed the previous English mystics.”
Mysticism was currently a preferred subject in academic, devotional, and popular circles, he said. “Often they’re the voices we hear neither within the theology classroom or from the pulpit, and so I feel they supply an ‘alternative’ set of voices,” he said. “And the mode through which the mystics wrote provides us beautiful, dynamic and deeply contemplative ways to speak about our faith.”
He said that the aim of the series was each to study these figures and to learn from them.
“We at all times be sure that the speakers for these series are genuinely experts on these figures and the texts related to them, and have spent a few years studying them intimately,” he said. “They are in a position to talk on this basis of this expertise and experience. But these webinars are very much aimed as introductions which are comprehensible.”
