Effacing the Self: Mysticism and the Modern Subject (The SUNY in Theology and Continental Thought)

Contents List of Illustrations Introduction Fénelonian Promenades Chapter 1 Love’s Intimate Violence: Selfless Love in Fénelon and Malebranche (and Robespierre) Agape Loving Is Willing Willing Is Loving A Violent “Self” Terrific Love . . . … for the State and for the People Chapter 2 Selfless: Eckhart, Fénelon and the Modern Subject Eckhartian Selflessness … … as “Subject” Modernity: A Change of Subject Mysticism and Modernity “On the Renunciation of the Self” “The interior voice” “Pure Love” The Pain of the Modern Martyrium Chapter 3 Love Thy Neighbor Purely: Mysticism and Politics in Fénelon Pur Amour and Neighborly Love Fénelon: Political The Pure Basis of Politics Chapter 4 Nothing Writes: On Madame Guyon Against “Holy Indifference” Rectifying Fénelon “I am not allowed to continue here” Writing Scripture Nothing That Liberates Nothingness as Place Nothing Writes The Mystical (of the) Self Chapter 5 The Power to Say I: On Simone Weil Nothing but the I Religion for Slaves Redemptive Suffering “The irreducible basis of my suffering” Chapter 6 Contra‑Religious Religion: The Mystical Experience of a Modern Protestant Minister A Religious Experience? A Philosophical Experience? Being and Question Contra‑Religious … … Religion Philosophy / Religion Chapter 7 The Path of Mercy Means Simply that You Abandon Self: On a Novel by Shu¯saku Endo “Trample! Trample!” A Brief Genealogy of the Christian Ego as Self‑Denial Rodrigues’s Doubt Chapter 8 As a Drop in the Ocean: Michel de Certeau’s Selfless Christianity Christianity, a New Mythology? Christianity’s rupture instauratrice A Subversive Drop of Water in the Sea Frame of Reference: One Way Frame of Reference: The Other Way Around What Is Spirituality? Rodrigues Revisited Mysticism in a Modern World Chapter 9 Down with Religion, Long Live Mysticism: Reflections on Spirituality’s Popularity The Emergence of Modernity and the Modern Social The Emergence of Spirituality Spiritualité as Dispositive for the Modern Social Spirituality and the Social Chapter 10 Selflessly Powerful: On Pseudo‑Dionysius, Agamben, and Lefort Failing Words Power Government The Empty Seat of Power from the Neoplatonic Perspective The Empty Seat of Power from the Modern Perspective Coda Chapter 11 Selflessness and Science: On Mysticism, Materialism, and Psychoanalysis Mysticism‑less Self‑Knowledge Selfless Mysticism, Selfless Self-Knowledge Self, Selflessness, and Excess Psychoanalysis as Selfless Science . . . … of the Self . . . … and Its Pleasure Notes Bibliography Index Contents List of Illustrations Introduction Fénelonian Promenades Chapter 1 Love’s Intimate Violence: Selfless Love in Fénelon and Malebranche (and Robespierre) Agape Loving Is Willing Willing Is Loving A Violent “Self” Terrific Love . . . ... for the State and for the People Chapter 2 Selfless: Eckhart, Fénelon and the Modern Subject Eckhartian Selflessness ... ... as “Subject” Modernity: A Change of Subject Mysticism and Modernity “On the Renunciation of the Self” “The interior voice” “Pure Love” The Pain of the Modern Martyrium Chapter 3 Love Thy Neighbor Purely: Mysticism and Politics in Fénelon Pur Amour and Neighborly Love Fénelon: Political The Pure Basis of Politics Chapter 4 Nothing Writes: On Madame Guyon Against “Holy Indifference” Rectifying Fénelon “I am not allowed to continue here” Writing Scripture Nothing That Liberates Nothingness as Place Nothing Writes The Mystical (of the) Self Chapter 5 The Power to Say I: On Simone Weil Nothing but the I Religion for Slaves Redemptive Suffering “The irreducible basis of my suffering” Chapter 6 Contra‐Religious Religion: The Mystical Experience of a Modern Protestant Minister A Religious Experience? A Philosophical Experience? Being and Question Contra‐Religious ... ... Religion Philosophy / Religion Chapter 7 The Path of Mercy Means Simply that You Abandon Self: On a Novel by Shu ̄saku Endo “Trample! Trample!” A Brief Genealogy of the Christian Ego as Self‐Denial Rodrigues’s Doubt Chapter 8 As a Drop in the Ocean: Michel de Certeau’s Selfless Christianity Christianity, a New Mythology? Christianity’s rupture instauratrice A Subversive Drop of Water in the Sea Frame of Reference: One Way Frame of Reference: The Other Way Around What Is Spirituality? Rodrigues Revisited Mysticism in a Modern World Chapter 9 Down with Religion, Long Live Mysticism: Reflections on Spirituality’s Popularity The Emergence of Modernity and the Modern Social The Emergence of Spirituality Spiritualité as Dispositive for the Modern Social Spirituality and the Social Chapter 10 Selflessly Powerful: On Pseudo‐Dionysius, Agamben, and Lefort Failing Words Power Government The Empty Seat of Power from the Neoplatonic Perspective The Empty Seat of Power from the Modern Perspective Coda Chapter 11 Selflessness and Science: On Mysticism, Materialism, and Psychoanalysis Mysticism‐less Self‐Knowledge Selfless Mysticism, Selfless Self-Knowledge Self, Selflessness, and Excess Psychoanalysis as Selfless Science . . . ... of the Self . . . ... and Its Pleasure Notes Bibliography Index In spirituality and mysticism, many seek a counterbalance to the strong emphasis on the self that modernity demands of us: We desire a fixed self on the one hand and are fascinated by selflessness on the other. But is our fascination with selflessness not a ruse to make that self of ours even stronger? And is that self-critical question not the kernel of even traditional mysticism? Marc De Kesel investigates some dark rooms of the mystical tradition to clarify this. This is a book for all who want to free themselves from the conceptual frameworks and rigid dogmas of late-modern religiosity. The first part of the volume deals directly with early modern Christian mysticism, and more specifically with the French spiritualité and discussions centered around the problem of what it means to love God in a pure, radically unselfish way. The second part explores the paradoxical dialectics between self and selflessness in relation to the way Christian religion deals with its own identity. If Christian love is selfless, why has Christianity in the end not given up its own self, its own identity? The third and last part of the volume discusses the dialectics between self and selflessness in three other domains: popular spirituality, politics, and modern science. It makes clear that "selflessness" is not limited to mysticism but is both a fascination and a problem/paradox for modernity in many fields. Marc De Kesel is Professor of Theology, Modernity, and Mysticism at Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. He is the author of Eros and Reading Jacques Lacan's Seminar VII , also published by SUNY Press. "Argues that self and selflessness are aspects of the same insoluble problem at the very heart of modernity"-- Provided by publisher