40 Facts About Evelyn Underhill

Evelyn Underhill was an English Anglo-Catholic writer and pacifist known for her numerous works on religion and spiritual practice, in particular Christian mysticism.

Evelyn Underhill was a poet and novelist as well as a pacifist and mystic.

Evelyn Underhill travelled regularly within Europe, primarily to Switzerland, France and Italy, where she pursued her interests in art and Catholicism, visiting numerous churches and monasteries.

Evelyn Underhill was called simply "Mrs Moore" by many of her friends.

Evelyn Underhill was a prolific author and published over 30 books either under her maiden name, Underhill, or under the pseudonym "John Cordelier", as was the case for the 1912 book The Spiral Way.

Evelyn Underhill came of age in the Edwardian era, at the turn of the 20th century and, like most of her contemporaries, had a decided romantic bent.

Evelyn Underhill sought the centre of life as she and many of her generation conceived it, not in the state religion, but in experience and the heart.

Evelyn Underhill was fully engaged in the life of a barrister's daughter and wife, including the entertainment and charitable work that entailed, and pursued a daily regimen that included writing, research, worship, prayer and meditation.

Evelyn Underhill was a cousin of Francis Underhill, Bishop of Bath and Wells from 1937.

Evelyn Underhill was educated at home, except for three years at a private school in Folkestone, and subsequently read history and botany at King's College London.

Evelyn Underhill was the first woman to lecture to the clergy in the Church of England and the first woman officially to conduct spiritual retreats for the church.

Evelyn Underhill was the first woman to establish ecumenical links between churches and one of the first woman theologians to lecture in English colleges and universities, which she did frequently.

Evelyn Underhill was an award-winning bookbinder, studying with the most renowned masters of the time.

Evelyn Underhill was schooled in the classics, well read in Western spirituality, well informed in the philosophy, psychology, and physics of her day, and was a writer and reviewer for The Spectator.

Evelyn Underhill then uses that sacramental framework effectively to illustrate the unfolding of a human drama.

Evelyn Underhill's novels are entitled The Grey World, The Lost Word, and The Column of Dust.

Evelyn Underhill had seen, abruptly, the insecurity of those defences which protect our illusions and ward off the horrors of truth.

Evelyn Underhill had found a little hole in the wall of appearances; and peeping through, had caught a glimpse of that seething pot of spiritual forces whence, now and then, a bubble rises to the surface of things.

Evelyn Underhill has little use for theoretical explanations and the traditional religious experience, formal classifications or analysis.

Evelyn Underhill dismisses William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience, and his "four marks of the mystic state".

Evelyn Underhill substituted mysticism is practical, not theoretical, mysticism is an entirely spiritual activity, the business and method of mysticism is love, and mysticism entails a definite psychological experience.

Evelyn Underhill divided her subject into two parts: the first, an introduction, and the second, a detailed study of the nature and development of human consciousness.

Evelyn Underhill divided her map of "the way" into five stages: the first was the "Awakening of Self".

Evelyn Underhill's heart was hungry, yet satisfied, his soul was full of contentment and joy: his prayers and his hopes were fulfilled.

Evelyn Underhill tells how Suso's description of how the abstract truth, once remembered, contains the power of fulfilment and became the starting point of her own path.

Evelyn Underhill had discussed him from several different perspectives during the course of her 1911 book on Mysticism.

Evelyn Underhill starts with a biography, drawn mainly from two near-contemporary works on his life, each written by a fellow monastic: Pomerius, and Gerard Naghel.

Evelyn Underhill's childhood was spent in the village of Ruysbroeck.

Evelyn Underhill makes the distinction between the geographer who draws maps of the mind, and the seeker who actually travels in the realms of spirit.

Evelyn Underhill's life was greatly affected by her husband's resistance to her joining the Catholic Church, to which she was powerfully drawn and which she entered in the year of their marriage.

Evelyn Underhill was a writer himself and was supportive of her writing both before and after their marriage in 1907, though he did not share her spiritual affinities.

Evelyn Underhill was often criticized for believing that the mystical life should be accessible to the average person.

Evelyn Underhill's fiction was influenced by the literary creed expounded by her close friend Arthur Machen, mainly his Hieroglyphics of 1902, summarised by his biographer:.

Two contemporary philosophical writers dominated Evelyn Underhill's thinking at the time she wrote "Mysticism": Rudolf Eucken and Henri Bergson.

Evelyn Underhill introduced her to the spiritual genius of India which she expressed enthusiastically in a letter:.

In 1921, Evelyn Underhill was to all outward appearances in an assured and enviable position.

Evelyn Underhill had been asked by the University of Oxford to give the first of a new series of lectures on religion, and she was the first woman to gain such an honour.

Evelyn Underhill was an authority on her own subject of mysticism and respected for her research and scholarship.

Evelyn Underhill's writing was in demand, and she had an interesting and notable set of friends, devoted readers, a happy marriage and affectionate and loyal parents.

Evelyn Underhill is buried with her husband in the churchyard extension at St John-at-Hampstead in London.