Scriptio Divina

The operation of mystical language is much closer to the symbolic register and to revelation than to words used as signs and thus needs to be approached differently. The following is an excerpt from the paper I will be giving at the Mystical Theology Network annual conference in Antwerp next week, 3-6 June 2025.

The best approach to understanding the inner dynamics and telos of mystical writing is captured by the concept of scriptio divina introduced by Stephanie Paulsell in her PhD dissertation, “Scriptio Divina: Writing and The Experience of God in the Works of Marguerite D’Oingt,” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, Illinois, 1993). Paulsell is now the Susan Shallcross Swartz Professor of the Practice of Christian Studies at Harvard Divinity School and her concept of scriptio divina contributes valuable insights into the practice of spiritual writing as its own mystical experience. It encapsulates the category of writing that flows from, responds to, and gives expression to women’s mystical experience.

In her study of the mystical writing of the thirteenth century mystic, Marguerite d’Oingt, Paulsell ‘[took] seriously Marguerite’s interpretation of the experience of writing as itself mystical.’ This inspired Paulsell to coin the term scriptio divina thereby providing a unique lexicon and conceptual apparatus to speak about women’s visionary mystical writing in a way that foregrounds the inner and transformative dynamics and telos of mystical writing. Paulsell observed that the women mystics she was studying not only ‘turn to writing as a result of [their] mysticism but the act of writing becomes central to their mysticism.’ Describing Marguerite’s writing experience, Paulsell says: 

As she writes, … she finds that the practice of writing brings her to another experience of God, an experience of God working in her…. No longer the passive sheet of parchment, … she learns to create as God creates, without another text from which to copy. (emphasis added)

The term scriptio divina thus encapsulates the unique character of mystical writing in its most important aspects: it expresses the mystic’s turn to writing to express her experience of God; her act of writing is itself also mystical and brings her to another experience of God; her writing is a creative act in the sense of divine creation; and the act of writing becomes central to her mystical life. To this impressive phenomenology and hermeneutic of mystical writing by Paulsell, I further propose that it is directly engaged with the transformation of consciousness individually, collectively, and axially….

Paulsell also recognised that, just as lectio divina ‘captures a particular experience of reading …  so scriptio divina … captures the way that writing, as a practice, can sharpen our attention to the deepest realities.’ It could be said that, just as the monks taught themselves lectio, as the art of slow reading, the women taught themselves scriptio, as the art of visionary writing. Yet, whilst lectio became an established part of many contemplative paths, women’s scriptio remains almost unknown as a mystical or spiritual practice.

 — An excerpt from the talk I will give at The Mystical Theology conference, Ruusbroec, June 2025. The title of my talk is:

Two Helftas: Transformation of Communal Consciousness and Literary Production at Helfta.

Image from my visit to the British Library exhibition, Medieval Women: Voices and Visions, 2025.