Religions and mystics

The real reaction took place when she settled in Paris. She was imprisoned for the first time, then quickly freed due to the support of Madame de Maintenon^[1] , who was intrigued by what she had heard of this original spiritual figure. Shortly after her release came the meeting with Fénelon^[2] at Beynes (1688). It was the moment when Madame Guyon was best known and entered into the orbit of the court of Versailles. At first suspicious, Fénelon was quickly won over to a kind of faith and experience which brought him out of the spiritual desiccation he had suffered from for a long time. He recognised in her a genuine spiritual teacher and promoted her inclusion in the circle of the devout at court. Madame de Maintenon was also entranced by the spirituality of Guyon and opened wide for her the doors of the House of Saint Cyr^[3] opposite Versailles, of which she was director. At the same time the 'Secret Brotherhood of the Michelins', whose principles had been established by Madame Guyon, was an underground organisation with a view to one day reform the Gallic Church and the kingdom of France from the head down, given thfat Fénelon was the tutor of the Duke of Burgundy, grandson of the King. Mysticism was allied to politics. Meanwhile, Madame Guyon had written a huge commentary on the Bible. But all this momentum was of short duration. Madame de Maintenon, naturally changeable, was worried by the rumours circulating at court and was driven to the conclusion that the King was suspicious of a new form of piety which he considered as a dream, but above all, as a potential source of opposition to his power. The wind turned and Madame de Maintenon, who was beginning to believe – not without reason – that she might lose control of the girls of Saint Cyr, turned against what she had once adored and gave strict instructions to Bossuet^[4] to go after Madame Guyon. A process was begun. The suppression of Quietism, begun in Rome with the condemnation of Molinos^[5] , had its impact in France. The conferences of Issy (1694) progressively led to the condemnation and incarceration of Madame Guyon for seven long years. Freed on licence in 1703, Madame Guyon ended her life in Blois surrounded by Protestant disciples. This mystic, who never renounced her Catholicism, would thus see her work accepted and spread by Protestants: and it is Pietist, Presbyterian and Methodist circles who have ensured the continuation of Guyonism to this day.

From this point of view, the story of the mysticism of Guyon exemplifies the relationship of religion to mysticism in a certain type of church. One knows that religions are often the object of political attention which sees in them a specific means of social control. The Gallic Catholic church was no exception to this rule: it was an instrument of power and order. Madame Guyon, for her part, cheerfully transgressed. First, she challenged the boundaries between men and women, the frontier of gender: if she had been a prophetess she might still have been tolerated, but here she was, also wanting to be a theologian of her own kind, a spiritual teacher and apostle of an innovative type of piety to a vast public! All these roles were restricted to men, what is more, to clerics. Moreover she promulgated a religious life which could perfectly well be developed on the margins of the official Church, which implied a direct relationship with the Bible, which centred on introspection and the dynamism of interpersonal relations. In mysticism there is an assertion of liberty based on rigour and a model of witness and ethical authenticity. The clergy did all they could to crush the moral reputation of Madame Guyon before it began.

There is in mysticism a search for purity which worries the official religious institutions. Fénelon theorised this search in the doctrine of 'pure love'. But to love God for himself, without self-reference, indifferent to salvation, in a form of self-annihilation: isn't that frightening? Doesn't it fly in the face of human limitations which have need of a place for ordinary hopes and undeniable interests? Certainly, Christ advocated being as perfect as the heavenly Father was perfect (Matthew 5, 48). But should that be taken literally? It's a difficult issue. If holiness is not controlled, labelled and finally sanitised, is this not the beginning of turbulence and trouble? Perhaps what worries the churches the most is that mysticism is so radical. At the end of this presentation, why not think about the attitude of the Grand Inquisitor before the risen Christ, such as Dostoyevsky describes in a famous section of his novel The Brothers Karamazov? Religions respond to the needs of men, mysticism expresses an aspiration. History shows us that neither of the two can definitively supplant the other.