S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 5 - 1 S p r i n g 2 0 1 9 3 Jana Trajtelová 1 Julian of Norwich: Introduction Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) is a medieval English mystic, an experienced spiritual teacher and guide. She is also an extraordinary woman with bright and critical intellect, the author of the mystical treatise suitably named The Revelations of Divine Love. Julian is an honest seeker who poses essential questions with true philosophical precision. She does not seem to be easily soothed with authoritative and simplifying theological answers of her times [1]. It is not a coincidence that the existential question of sin and evil was in her thinking the most pressing one. She lived in difficult times, went through three sieges of the Black Death (which killed over half of the population of Norwich – probably including her own family), and witnessed executions of heretics and the beginning of the Hundred Year’s war between France and England. Julian was fully surrounded by pessimistic moods of the “popular” medieval guilt and sin absorption (John-Julian 2001, viii). Paradoxically, she became well-known for her spiritual optimism and all-embracing hope. 2 Briefly About Methodology My basic methodological and methodical perspective is phenomenological. Being attentive to profound experiences of the mystic, I observe fundamental experiential structures of the given spiritual phenomena, searching for evidentially manifested “how” of the given (understood as the specific content of intentional consciousness). Here we mostly remain in a safe valley of experience, presuppositionlessly describing the reality of consciousness, which experiences the world in such and such manner. Only then it is reasonable to make also certain ontological and metaphysical claims. Phenomenological descriptions always implicitly point to certain kind of ontology. I hold the view that metaphysics and ontology are legitimate only if they arise out of immediate experience, remain closely bound to and attested by it. In this way, metaphysics, ontology and even theology do not have to become mere deductive conceptual systems, thought narratives, but they may truly represent living teachings. Through reliable experiential insights they keep their evidential force, validity and justification. My own philosophical effort here wishes to sketch a path pointing this direction. About the author Mgr. Jana Trajtelová, PhD., works as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy and Arts at Trnava University, Slovakia. Her main areas of specialization are Philosophy of Religion and Spirituality, Phenomenology and Philosophical Anthropology. She is a member of the Center for Phenomenological Studies at the Department of Philosophy, Trnava University and the Editor-In-Chief of The Yearbook on History and Interpretation of Phenomenology. In 2011 she published a book on the phenomenology of mysticism, Distance and Proximity of Mysticism: Phenomenological Study of Fundamental Movements in Traditional Western Mysticism (Vzdialenosť a blízkosť mystiky, 2011). She is a co-author of the bookPerson as Phenomenon: From Intersubjectivity to Interpersonality (Osoba ako fenomén: od intersubjektivity k interpersonalite, 2015) and a co-translator of the Anthony Steinbock’s bookHome and Beyond: Generative Phenomenology after Husserl into Slovak (Domáce a cudzie: Generatívna fenomenológia a Husserl, 2013). Her email contact is trajtelova@gmail.com.
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