The Puffins and Evelyn Underhill

The Christian mystics had also always been there, until it seemed as if they weren’t. The Quietist controversy of the late seventeenth century put mysticism under suspicion in Catholic circles, and the loss of monasteries in Protestantism drastically (though not completely) reduced their ranks. By the early twentieth century, the most visible features of Protestantism and Catholicism had largely hardened into fortresses of conflicting doctrine. Even the Orthodox world, embattled by centuries of Ottoman dominance, neglected its own great mystical tradition, as evidenced by the eclipse of the icon. The piercing gaze of gold-nimbed saints were too frequently replaced by timid copies of Renaissance art.