Into the Dark Night and Back: The Mystical Writings of Jean-Joseph Surin. Moshe Sluhovsky, ed. Patricia M. Ranum, trans. Jesuit Studies: Modernity through the Prism of Jesuit History 19. Leiden: Brill, 2019. viii + 548 pp. €175

• Published in: Renaissance Quarterly Vol. 74; no. 2; pp. 672 - 673
• Main Author: Krause, Virginia
• Format: Journal Article Book Review
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge Cambridge University Press 01.07.2021
• Subjects: Exorcism; Interiority; Modernity; Mysticism; Otherness; Spirituality
• ISSN: 0034-4338; 1935-0236
• DOI: 10.1017/rqx.2021.67

Infused with Carmelite spirituality from a young age, Jean-Joseph Surin devoted his life to perfecting techniques of mystical spirituality based on the abnegation of the self and the cultivation of interiority (where God's presence was believed to reside), penance, prayer, and humility. Into the Dark Night and Back chronicles all of these events through Surin's own writings, beginning with his account of the possessions at Loudun, The Triumph of Divine Love over the Powers of Hell, followed by his Experimental Science of the Things of the Other Life, which relates his extended period of despair as well as his recovery alongside reflections on mystical spirituality and interiority. The final section contains a selection of Surin's letters from throughout his life, mostly written in the spirit of giving or receiving spiritual direction, including a substantial exchange with Jeanne des Anges, who became a mystic after having been delivered from her demons.