Every major religious tradition has produced texts that generations of practitioners have returned to for guidance, inspiration, and transformation. These “classics” of mystical spirituality — from Chinese, Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, Christian, and Jewish traditions — continue to exert influence within their home traditions and, increasingly, across them. Dr. Perry Schmidt-Leukel, Senior Professor of Religious Studies & Intercultural Theology at the University of Münster in Germany, leads a project that introduces these classics to a broad, contemporary audience.
Comparing the Classics
The project selects major texts from six traditions and examines their commonalities and differences. Schmidt-Leukel look for key features and themes that recur across very different formations — theistic and non-theistic, from different centuries and continents. also ask how specific differences between traditions might be interpreted as mutually enriching rather than contradictory. identifies several features that can be grouped under the broad umbrella of “mystical spirituality”: ways of experiencing transcendence combined with an affirmation of its ultimate ineffability, an emphasis on an underlying unity of all beings, and an emphasis on transformative spirituality that proves its worth in the challenges of daily life — something significantly different from any shallow form of wellness spirituality.
A Book for Seekers and Scholars
The central outcome is a monograph introducing these classics to a broad but interested audience — people navigating the contemporary interfaith scene, as well as those who understand themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” Schmidt-Leukel work could bring readers into contact with the great religious traditions of the past in a way that speaks directly to the questions many people are asking today about meaning, connection, and the life of the spirit.