Editing Dominican Order (section)

===Mysticism===
The Dominican Order was affected by a number of elemental influences. Its early members imbued the order with a mysticism and learning. Mysticism refers to the conviction that all believers have the capability to experience God's love. This love may manifest itself through brief ecstatic experiences, such that one may be engulfed by God and gain an immediate knowledge of him, which is unknowable through the intellect alone. Although the ultimate attainment for mysticism is union with God, the goal is just as much to become like Christ as it is to become one with him. Those who believe in Christ should first have faith in him without becoming engaged in such overwhelming phenomena.{{Cn|date=April 2025}}

The Europeans of the order embraced ecstatic mysticism on a grand scale and looked to a union with the Creator. The English Dominicans looked for this complete unity as well but were not so focused on ecstatic experiences. Instead, their goal was to emulate the moral life of Christ more completely. The Dartford nuns were surrounded by all of those legacies and used them to create something unique.{{Cn|date=April 2025}}

====Saint Albertus Magnus====
[[File:Albertus Magnus Painting by Joos van Gent.jpeg|thumb|upright|Painting of [[Albertus Magnus]] (1206–1280) by [[Justus van Gent]], {{c.|1475}}]]

Another member of the order who contributed significantly to its spirituality is [[Albert the Great]], whose influence on the brotherhood permeated nearly every aspect of Dominican life. Albertus Magnus championed the idea, drawn from [[Dionysius the Areopagite]], that positive knowledge of God is possible but obscure. Thus, it is easier to state what God is not than to state what God is:

{{Blockquote|[W]e affirm things of God only relatively, that is, casually, whereas we deny things of God absolutely, that is, with reference to what He is in Himself. And there is no contradiction between a relative affirmation and an absolute negation. It is not contradictory to say that someone is white-toothed and not white.{{sfn|Tugwell|1982|p=153}}}}

Albert the Great wrote that wisdom and understanding enhance one's faith in God. According to him, these are the tools that God uses to commune with a contemplative. Love in the soul is both the cause and result of true understanding and judgement. It causes not only an intellectual knowledge of God, but a spiritual and emotional knowledge as well. Contemplation is the means whereby one can obtain this goal of understanding. Things that once seemed static and unchanging become full of possibility and perfection. The contemplative then knows that God is, but they do not know what God is. Thus, contemplation forever produces a mystified, imperfect knowledge of God. The soul is exalted beyond the rest of God's creation but it cannot see God himself.{{sfn|Hinnebusch|1975|p=299}}{{sfn|Tugwell|1982|pp= 40–95, 134–198}}

====Rhineland mysticism====
Mysticism in the [[Rhineland]] emerged from a series of crises—political, social (the Black Death and its consequences), and religious.<ref name=crsd>{{Cite web |url=https://www.crsdop.org/Do-you-know-about-Dominican-mysticism?lang=en |title=Bara, Silvia. "Do you know about Dominican mysticism?", Dominican Sisters of the Roman Congregation |access-date=2023-03-10 |archive-date=2023-03-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230310040032/https://www.crsdop.org/Do-you-know-about-Dominican-mysticism?lang=en |url-status=live }}</ref> The writings of Albertus Magnus made a significant contribution to German mysticism, which became vibrant in the minds of the [[Beguines and Beghards|Beguines]] and women such as [[Hildegard of Bingen]] and [[Mechthild of Magdeburg]].{{sfn|Woods|1998|p=39}}

In Europe, it was often the female members of the order, such as [[Catherine of Siena]], [[Mechthild of Magdeburg]], [[Christine of Stommeln]], [[Margaret Ebner]], and Elsbet Stagl,{{sfn|Woods|1998|p=110}} who gained reputations for having mystical experiences. Notable male members of the order associated with mysticism include [[Henry Suso]] and [[Johannes Tauler]].<ref name=crsd/>

One of [[Meister Eckhart]]'s themes is that one should be mindful of the great nobility which God has given the soul.<ref>McColman, Carl. ''Christian Mystics: 108 Seers, Saints, and Sages'' (Hampton Roads: 2016), 130‒131</ref>

====English Dominican mysticism====
{{unreferenced section|date=March 2023}}
By 1300, the enthusiasm for preaching and conversion within the order had lessened. Mysticism, full of the ideas Albertus Magnus expostulated, became the devotion of the greatest minds and hands within the organization. It became a "powerful instrument of personal and theological transformation both within the Order of Preachers and throughout the wider reaches of Christendom.{{efn|Albertus Magnus helped shape English Dominican thought through his idea that God is knowable, but obscure. Additionally, the English friars shared his belief that wisdom and understanding enhance one's faith in God. The English Dominicans also studied classical writers. This was also part of his legacy.{{sfn|Woods|1998|p=}}}} Although Albertus Magnus did much to instill mysticism in the Order of Preachers, it is a concept that reaches back to the Hebrew Bible. In the tradition of Holy Writ, the impossibility of coming face to face with God is a recurring motif. As time passed, Jewish and early Christian writings presented the idea of "unknowing" in which God's presence was enveloped in a dark cloud. All of those ideas associated with mysticism were at play in the spirituality of the Dominican community.

English Dominican mysticism in the late medieval period differed from European strands of it in that, whereas European Dominican mysticism tended to concentrate on ecstatic experiences of union with the divine, English Dominican mysticism's ultimate focus was on a crucial dynamic in one's personal relationship with God. That was an essential moral imitation of the Savior as an ideal for religious change and as the means for reformation of humanity's nature as an image of divinity. This type of mysticism carried with it four elements. Firstly, spiritually it emulated the moral essence of Christ's life. Secondly, there was a connection linking moral emulation of Christ's life and humanity's disposition as images of the divine. Thirdly, English Dominican mysticism focused on an embodied spirituality with a structured love of fellow men at its center. Finally, the supreme aspiration of this mysticism was either an ethical or an actual union with God.

For English Dominican mystics, the mystical experience was not expressed just in one moment of the full knowledge of God but in the journey of or process of faith. That then led to an understanding that was directed toward an experiential knowledge of divinity. However, for these mystics it was possible to pursue mystical life without the visions and voices that are usually associated with such a relationship with God.

The centre of all mystical experience is of course Christ. English Dominicans sought to gain a full knowledge of Christ through an imitation of his life. English mystics of all types tended to focus on the moral values that the events in Christ's life exemplified. That led to a "progressive understanding of the meanings of Scripture—literal, moral, allegorical, and anagogical,"{{attribution needed|date=September 2023}} which was contained within the mystical journey itself. From these considerations of Scripture comes the simplest way to imitate Christ: an emulation of the moral actions and attitudes that Jesus demonstrated in his earthly ministry becomes the most significant way to feel and have knowledge of God.

The English concentrated on the spirit of the events of Christ's life. They neither expected nor sought the appearance of the stigmata or any other physical manifestation. They wanted to create in themselves that environment that allowed Jesus to fulfill his divine mission, insofar as they were able. At the centre of that environment was love, which Christ showed for humanity in becoming human. Christ's love reveals the mercy of God and his care for his creation. English Dominican mystics sought through that love to become images of God. English Dominican spirituality concentrated on the moral implications of image-bearing. Love led to spiritual growth that, in turn, reflected an increase in love for God and humanity.