THE Church Times is running a third series of monthly online lectures on Christian spirituality in partnership with Sarum College. The 2026 series, which begins on 26 January, will focus on five English mystics: Margery Kempe, Richard Rolle, the anonymous 14th-century author of The Cloud of Unknowing, William Blake, and Evelyn Underhill.
The Programme Leader for Postgraduate Programmes in Christian Spirituality at Sarum College, Dr Michael Hahn, said that the choice to add two later mystics — Blake and Underhill — to the list of well-established 14th-century names was a conscious move to demonstrate that the English mystical tradition was not confined to the Middle Ages.
“Blake allows us to look at the creation of a mystical corpus of ‘texts’ that goes broader than the written word and explores a range of genres of writing as well. Underhill is such an important figure to recognise as a mystic and as a populariser of mysticism, but also as a scholar,” he said. “Underhill also wrote about all three of the medieval writers included in this series; so it also allows us to consider how an English mystic viewed the previous English mystics.”
Mysticism was currently a popular subject in academic, devotional, and popular circles, he said. “Often they are the voices we hear neither in the theology classroom or from the pulpit, and so I think they provide an ‘alternative’ set of voices,” he said. “And the mode in which the mystics wrote provides us beautiful, dynamic and deeply contemplative ways to talk about our faith.”
He said that the purpose of the series was both to learn about these figures and to learn from them.
“We always make sure that the speakers for these series are genuinely experts on these figures and the texts associated with them, and have spent many years studying them in detail,” he said. “They are able to talk on this basis of this expertise and experience. But these webinars are very much aimed as introductions that are understandable.”
