Guidelines for Mystical Prayer

Burns & Oates are proud to reissue Ruth Burrows' critically acclaimed work of spiritual theology, Guidelines for Mystical Prayer. When first published in 1976, spiritual theology as reflection on spiritual experience was a growing trend; but at the same time there was a new interest in, and a return to, the classical Carmelite theology of prayer, with an effort to formulate that theology in contemporary thought categories. Guidelines for Mystical Prayer embodies both tendencies. It offers a personal narrative, a reflection on the spiritual history of two gifted people, St Teresa and St John of the Cross; and yet it speaks clearly out of the Carmelite tradition, and in the language of today. Strong interest in Carmelite theology of prayer and the spiritual life has continued into the present; the success of Burrows' Essence of Prayer is testament to this.