Word: mysticism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Philip Neri, whose delight it was "to play the fool for the love of God," managed to be both saint and humorist-to what degree is made plain in Theodore Maynard's new biography, Mystic in Motley (Bruce Publishing Co., $2.50). Biographer Maynard contributes nothing essentially new, is content in his popularization merely to introduce to modern Americans cue of the most unexpected personalities in Catholic hagiology...
Philip's saintliness lay in his utter simplicity (he consistently refused papal offers of a cardinalate), his overwhelming love which inspired many of Rome's bright young men to enter the church, and the mystic fervor with which he communed with God (it was difficult for him to say mass without being transfixed by ecstasy). His humor lay in the bizarre penances he exacted at confession and the outlandish antics with which he humbled his own pride...
...superstitious mystic, Mahler brooded over Beethoven and Bruckner, each of whom died after finishing his ninth symphony. When Mahler had written eight, he tried to dodge the unlucky number nine by titling his greatest symphonic work Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth...
...Beckmann sometimes talks like this-like a mystic or a philosopher, but his best ideas are wordless. They come from what he calls "the labor of the eyes." Says he: "If you wish to get hold of the invisible you must penetrate as deeply as possible into the visible...
Died. Count Hermann Keyserling, 65, German philosopher-critic (The Travel Diary of a Philosopher), founder of the Darmstadt "School of Wisdom"; in Innsbruck, Austria. The Nazis hated the bearded mystic for his anti-nationalism, in 1942 declared him "unworthy to represent the German spirit"; U.S. lecture audiences of the '20s loved him despite his tart depictions of the U.S. as a humorless, soulless, overly intellectual matriarchate...