Reading and Recognition

The Silent Cry

The Greek word for “reading” means to have renewed cognition, to re-cognize. To read texts of mysticism is to have renewed cognition of one’s self, of a being that is buried under rubble. Thus, the discovery of the mystical tradition also sets free one’s own forgotten experience.

— Dorothee Soelle, The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance

In The Wisdom Jesus, Cynthia Bourgeault describes Jesus “as a recognition event.” In Jesus we recognize ourselves, but we also recognize God. Re...