John of Ruusbroec led a simple life and had a peaceful death. Yet he was no ordinary man. He lived at a time when much of Europe was experiencing a terrible pestilence, the spread of the bubonic plague. John’s writings give no sense of any crisis near at hand. However, he is subject to a ghostly wound, a wound that he knows resides in his soul. For John, contemplation is the true way to knowledge. It is the basis of all his thinking with regard to the mystical life. Ruusbroec represents the beginning of a modern subjectivity with regard to the inner life.
The Sparkling Stone and The Book of Supreme Truth – both presented in this new edition - are late-medieval spiritual classics that reflect a startling grasp of the apophatic nature of philosophic expression. Ruusbroec’s work represents a development of mystical concepts appropriate to an age that had already fully absorbed Neoplatonism and the works of Aristotle.
This new edition from Azafran Books includes a specially written Introduction from acclaimed writer and scholar James Cowan.
