Ecstasy in the Nunneries
Hildegard of Bingen was the most celebrated of the female mystics who experienced an intense sensual longing for Jesus Christ
This is Who made our minds? my Thursday essay probing the greatest, cruellest and most beautiful minds of the past 5,000 years, inspired by my book, The Soul: A History of the Human Mind (Penguin 2024). Coming up: Homer’s Psyche, The (French) Revolutionary Conscience and the Totalitarian Mind
MEDIEVAL NUNS had little spiritual or temporal power. They were subordinate to monks, friars, priests and bishops. Their minds alone were at liberty: to think and pray, directly to God and Christ if they so wished, without the intercession of a priest.
These silent sessions of psychological liberty released the nuns to confide their most intimate secrets in Jesus Christ. Relationships of mystical sensuality, of profound love, formed between these devout women and the Son of God.
Their love of the Messiah brought forth an exultation of the mind and spirit, ex…