Autores

lunes, 23 de enero de 2012 0:45

El dolor total seala el momento en que el individuo ya no est unido al mundo ms que por la irrupcin de su dolor; sus sensaciones o sentimientos estn inmersos en un sufrir que lo envuelve por completo. () El dolor total suele acompaar los ltimos das de vida de las personas afectadas de cncer o sida. Tiende a ser continuo y a acentuarse, hasta conducir a una angustia sin tregua. (...) La vida ha dejado de tener el menor inters; acurrucado en su infierno, el individuo desea morir lo antes posible, y a veces as lo solicita al mdico.

AD, 35-36

Agenciamiento mstico y el dolor 1. Dolor Este dolor del que habla Le Breton 2. Ag siempre vaca el cuerpo, siempre es un Mstico 3. CsO hundimiento; en el caso del agenciamiento mstico que ve el dolor desde la consigna del gozo divino, como un medio para llegar a l, su posicin es ms parecida a los performances corporales del siglo XX; el dolor entonces, no manifiesta un hundimiento que lleva al infierno, si no que muestra un aspecto poltico, de lucha. 1. Ag Mstico 2. Dolor

Late-medieval religious women faced even greater obstacles to speech, and they also turned Pain, 79 to suffering. Jean Fouquets miniature of The Martyrdom of Saint Apollonia makes visible a tension between the ascetic withdrawal of the anchoress and the mystics ecstasy a tension central to the female saint play watched and remembered by late -medieval French audiences and also to the virgin-martyr narrative at the base of these cultural products. Faced with the challenge of expression within a repressive cultural economy, some women Pain, 80 perform outside the realm of rational discourse. () The more irritation one applies to the body in the form of pain, the less output the central nervous system generates from the areas that regulate the signals on which a sense of self relies. Modulated pain weakens the individuals feeling of being a discrete agent; it makes the body-self transparent and facilitates the emergence of a new identity. Metaphorically, pain creates an embodied absence and makes way for a new and greater presence. 5 Mystics empty themselves through pain and prepare the way for a new birth. What they discover in passing through that emptiness is generally what they set out to find in other words, determined by their belief system. The medieval mystic understood herself to transcend the carnal by being raptured away to another, higher realm . Her vision was both corporeal and spiritual, a merging with God. Yet Apollonia is female, and we can productively trace out additional meanings for this image without losing our historical grounding if we shift the frame of analysis from political history to womens history. To begin again from a familiar model for spectator response, a female spectator might identify as victim, in the center of the circle, powerless before the objectifying male gaze. But the virgin martyr is a special kind of victim: although she is subjected to violence, the violence degrades only those who inflict it. Pain, 93

Agenciamiento mstico y el su concepto 1. Ag de dolor Mstico Para el mstico a diferencia de lo que se 2. Dolor ley en el texto de Le Breton (antropologa del dolor) se presenta el dolor como una vaciedad que abre y no que hunde.

1. Ag mstico

The female mystic reaches toward purification and redemption through a process of Pain, 97 abjection that reminds her of her great dissimilarity from Christ. She speaks, she cries, she starves and flagellates her body, she drinks the pus-filled water with which she has washed the feet of lepers. As Bynum argues, the purpose of such suffering was not to destroy or even to punish the body, but to comprehend the humanity of Christ at the moment of his dying. Both self-mortification and illness served as tools for fusing with Christ, and both merged with the ecstatic imagery of erotic union. 80 Affective spirituality encouraged ecstatic trance states, into which some individuals easily slipped at some times. At other times, or for other persons, transcendent experiences were difficult to attain.

1. Ag mstico 2. Dolor 3. Cristo

Both self-injurious behavior and mystical rapture continued to flourish through the fifteenth Pain, century although the church now discouraged them. All other evidence aside, the fact that 99-100 devotional literature intended for female ascetics warned against active emulation of the martyrs suffering was a relatively sure sign of its popularity. For example, Jean Gerson warned against overzealous confession, challenged Bridget of Swedens canonization in 1415, and wrote against Marguerite Porete and the Free Spirit Movement. Elliott attributes the failure of his attempt to defend Joan of Arc at least in part to his own efforts against other female mystics. 93 As Chancellor of the University of Paris, Gersons concern was scholastic reform and reinvigoration, but his effort to suppress female lay mystics unites various strains that particularly contributed to the holy womans downward spiral: the inquisitorial method, scholasticism, the manipulation of medical discourse that is, the theory of humors.94 He diagnosed a certain kind of spiritual duplicity or deception as a womans problem. 95 Standards of behavior changed as lay womens mystical spirituality lost official support, and Gerson and others wrote manuals of discernment that discouraged the performance of pain: because the influence of the Holy Spirit leads the heart to open naturally and serenely, calmness became the behavioral benchmark of the saint.96 As the late-medieval period slid into the early modern, womens ecstatic raptures were more likely to identify them as witches than as saints. Indeed, Callahan notes the fine line between the two groups and points out that Fouquets image of Apollonia could as easily represent a public execution as a theatrical performance.97 The medieval spectator is supposed to accept the theological position that the saint does not Pain, suffer; nevertheless, while gazing at Apollonias closed -off and inviolate body center stage, 100 the spectator can compassionately experience the pain of torment. The miniature, the virgin-martyr play, and the memory image thus present both a warning against ecstasy and an opportunity to vicariously experience it. The dialogical spectacle of a tormented virgin martyr center stage offered a loophole through which compassionate meditation upon her closed-off, inviolate body could slide into imagined mystical rapture. Kristine Stiles finds similar loopholes in body art, arguing that its ambiguity makes it particularly suitable as a vehicle for the languages of the oppressed who long to speak for themselves in the face of those who seek to impose a uniform language. Doublespeak and heteroglossia are as important for reception as for articulation. Bakhtin himself had to

1. Ag mstico

1. Ag mstico 2. Cuerpo grotesc o

otros autores pgina 1

write carefully in order to avoid censure under Stalin, and he in turn seeks out the hidden polemic of writers oppressed by Renaissance or czarist structures of power. He uses the loopholes in texts by Rabelais and Dostoevsky to imagine differently. The same tactic is available to those who watch the virgin martyrs or conceptual artists body in pain. Indeed, Stiles maintains that art actions draw the spectator into a committed relation because they require the viewer to engage in active interpretation rather than passive contemplation or consumption.99 Similarly, Amelia Jones argues that body art provides the possibility for radical engagements that can transform the way we think about meaning and subjectivity (both the artists and our own.) The possibility comes about because the artists body/self is implicated in the work in all its particularity, and as such solicits the spectators engaged response, in all its particularity as well, including embodied desire (or repulsion). Jones argues that body art makes it difficult for the critic or historian to maintain a disinterested position and from that position pronounce upon the meaning and value of the work. As a result, body art has the capacity to "destabilize the structures of conventional art history and criticism.

Mysticism blossomed during the transition into modernity, and we should hardly be Pain, surprised to see it again at modernitys end. The late- medieval churchs authority was 100-10 weakened by the existence of two or at times even three popes, each claiming sole 1 leadership of Christendom; moreover, social controls were generally disrupted by plague, famine, and seemingly interminable war. In a similar pattern, grotesque bodily performance infiltrated the visual art world and experimental physical theatre as social controls loosened after World War II, then burgeoned during the social protest movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s. For the body artist as for the mystic, pain has been a source of empowerment and guarantor of authenticity. But at the same time, it generates material for collecting by hagiographers and connoisseurs, and they can rework these dialogical and heteroglossic performances of suffering in ways that might appall the women who created them. Ambiguity has a negative side as well: many of the women using their bodies in art actions during the 1960s and early 1970s were beautiful and were criticized for being easily co-opted. Hannah Wilke and Carolee Schneemann were dismissed and even vilified during the 1980s, until a terminal illness and age, respectively, rehabilitated them as serious feminist artists.102 Karen Finley ran into the same difficulty in the 1990s when right -wing politicians characterization of her as the nude, chocolate -smeared woman helped them to eviscerate the National Endowment for the Arts even though it totally missed the point of her hilarious and rage-filled performance, which they had not bothered to see. To rephrase Schneemanns complaint, she could be an image maker, but couldnt control the use of her images or determine their meaning with any fixity. Jamess ground-breaking article, Ritual, drama and social body in the late medieval English town (1983), is a study of the mythology of the late medieval urban Corpus Christi cult. The significant practices associated with this cult were the Corpus Christi procession, in which the host was paraded through the streets, and the Corpus Christi play itself, made up of the various pageants presented by individual guilds. Jamess argument, which is largely anthropological, is that the Corpus Christi rituals provided a focus for the conceptualisation of the social order in terms of body, and that the primary function of the cult was social integration and the affirmation of an essential human bond underlying individual manifestations of difference. () However, as James says, the concept of society as a body in which differentiation was taken up into social wholeness was in historical fact projected by societies which were deeply dividedriven by an intense competitiveness: by the struggle for honour and worship, status and precedence, power and wealth'. Thus the Corpus Christi plays had an important mythical function in late medieval urban societies as a site where the deep divisions in occupational and social hierarchies could be occluded or effaced. () In common with many semiotic anthropological approaches, he plays down the contradictory elements in his analysis, and suppresses questions of power: what it is, who its agents are, and how it is exercised. What Jamess argument ignores is that all the metaphors of body which construct particular subjectivities or constituencies in the late Middle Ages, and all the analogies between one body and another which establish culturally specific relations of power, such as the body politic, the body of Christ, husband and wife as one body, the collective, renewable social body, or the body in carnivalesque iconography, were gender -specific. The frequent medieval analogies between the somatic self, the monarch and his subjects, and the husband-wife relation reinforce metonymically notions of spiritual and secular order, natural order (for what could be more natural than a body?), and do so in explicitly gendered terms. It is well known that the corporeal, for example, was frequently coded feminine in medieval culture, as one half of a set of binary oppositions body/head, body/soul, Matter/ Formin which the feminine is associated with the bodily or material half, and the masculine with the cerebral or spiritual half. Thus bodily metaphors are more complex than Jamess over-homogenised account of their deployment in the context of the Corpus Christi feast would suggest. () Finally, James represents the medieval urban body politic as a paradigm of egalitarian universal unity. Yet an alternative meaning is available, though not foregrounded, in his account, namely that this body politic was conceptualised as hierarchical, masculine, and only fully represented by the ruling classes. James quotes the words of a fifteenth-century judge who declared, The political body is made up of men like us. If the mans head is decapitated he himself is dead (my italics). This statement clearly understands the body politic as male and as exclusively embodied by the highest classes . It is tempting, though not inevitable, to see here a metaphor of castration, in which the violent depiction of dismemberment haunts the image of body-as-wholeness, threatening always to return to disrupt its apparent unity. Jamess article does not offer sufficient evidence to pursue here the implications that the body politic paradigm may be a potent site for the return of the repressed. However, the judges metaphor may be more convincingly related to the fears of the upper bourgeoisie about social unrest, an ideological dimension which is possibly reinforced by Jamess references to the disorder which was also reported as a significant part of the Corpus Christi procession: lawsuits, riots and even bloodshed between gilds *sic+ Body politics, 112-11 4 Corpus Christi y el ejemplo del seor y el siervo El drama de corpus christi muestra una similitud con el ejemplo de Juliana de Norwich. Quiz lo ms "dramtico" de su revelacin que es el ejemplum est anclado en la observacin de esta festividad donde se pona en escena la pasin de Cristo.

1. Ag mstico 2. Cuerpo grotesc o 3. Poltica 4. Percepc in pictric a

1. Ejempl o (Divisi n de clases sociales ) 2. Poltica s del cuerpo Ser importante, no olvidar los (poder) 3. Agencia elementos del poder que la autora miento enumera, sobre Qu es el poder en 4. Femeni Juliana? Qu agentes lo tienen? Y no / cmo se ejerce? Para el agenciamiento mstico estas cuestiones del poder y el masucu control sobre el cuerpo y lo social lino resultan interesantes ya que fijan la manera en que pueden estudiarse las relaciones de poder.

otros autores pgina 2

part of the Corpus Christi procession: lawsuits, riots and even bloodshed between gilds *sic+ competing for the symbols of precedence and esteem which the procession conferred. James sees this conflict as an integral aspect of the urban honour culture, marked by aggressive competitiveness, but from a feminist perspective it is also possible to read the rivalry between groups of men in communities of honour, such as we find in the guild and trade organisations in late medieval towns and cities, as belonging to a pattern identified by Carolyn Dinshaw, namely that such rivalry is just an excuse, a pretext, for the consolidation of individual masculine identity with its eradication of threatening feminine difference. Such eradication is everywhere exemplified by the women excluded from the visible public domain celebrated at Corpus Christi. There is very little evidence to suggest that women played any effective political role in the craft guilds, or that they had any responsibility for the production of the plays. My critique of Jamess thesis, then, suggests a cultural context in which the representations of bodies on the stage incarnate a far more complex set of differences than he initially mapped out. Such dualism served, of course, to bolster clerical celibacy and to reinforce clerical misogyny, Body yet was also capable of being reinterpreted in ways that altered the terms of the analogy. In politics, the wellknown words of Hildegard of Bingen in the twelfth century: Man signifies the 117 divinity of the Son of God and woman his humanity. Hildegards words significantly recuperate despised feminine flesh as a desired and necessary aspect of the Incarnation . 1. Cuerpo 2. Ag mstico 3. Cuerp o de C (femeni no y maculin o) 1. Ag mstico 2. Poltica s del cuerpo 3. Cuerpo de C 4. Enferm edad/d olor/ delirio

In the period 12001500 the extreme somatic manifestations of imitatio Christi (stigmata, Body bodily effusions, tears, cryings) were overwhelmingly displayed by women mystics, yet their politics, patterns were produced very differently from those on the body of Christ . Christs wounds 123 are produced literally; the bodily insignia of female mystics are produced hysterically, so that each subject stands in a different relation to power and has different possibilities for negotiating that power. Although it is difficult to compare a cultural practice imitatio Christiand a social narrativethe Passion of ChristI would argue that it is not so much that different tools are used on male and female bodies, although this is highly significant, but that those bodies lay claim to different regimes of reading, during a period when the literacy of men and women was sharply differentiated. The female mystic, according to Karma Lochrie, reads the body of Christ, and displaces that reading on her body. 61 In one dominant clerical topos women are blank pages, virgin sheets ready to receive the imprint of the father.62

Las razones de esta pluralidad de significados de la palabra "mstica" son numerosos y Fenm En esta ficha se hace una sntesis de las 1. Ag fcilmente comprensibles. En primer lugar, la enorme pluralidad de fenmenos a los que se eno, distintas maneras de hablar de la mstico 2. Signific aplica; adems, la pluralidad de puntos de vista: mdico, psicolgico, filosfico, teolgico, 19-20 mstica, desde los puntos de vista en ado de histrico, cultural, desde los que, dada su gran complejidad, son estudiados esos fenmenos. que se puede estudiar hasta el origen de la Por ltimo, la pluralidad de sistemas de interpretacin de esos hechos extraordinariamente la palabra mstica. densos, que originan interpretaciones y valoraciones muy variadas. palabra () Inspirndonos en el mtodo de la fenomenologa de la religin, comenzaremos por explicar el significado inicial que atribuimos a la palabra "mstica" a partir del uso que de ella se ha hecho en la historia. () La observacin, descripcin, clasificacin, comprensin e interpretacin de esos fenmenos nos permitir establecer la estructura significativa presente en todos ellos, y lograr el establecimiento de un significado de la palabra analgicamente aplicable a esa multiplicad de fenmenos y, tal vez, a otros emparentados con ellos. () Todas estas palabras, ms el adverbio mystikos (secretamente), componen una familia de trminos, derivados del verbo myo, que significa la accin de cerrar aplicada a la boca y a los ojos, y que tienen en comn el referirse a realidades secretas, ocultas, es decir, misteriosas. () *S+e introduce en el vocabulario cristiano a partir del siglo
El sustantivo "mstica" no aparece hasta la primera mitad del siglo XVII . Tambin se remonta Fenm Agenciamiento mstico 1. Ag El agenciamiento de la mstica comienza a este siglo la utilizacin de "msticos" para designar a las personas que viven una eno, mstico a tener su nombre en el siglo XVII, experiencia especial o tienen esa forma peculiar de conocimiento de Dios conocido como 21-22 pasados ya tres siglos de las visiones de conocimiento mstico. La utilizacin del trmino como sustantivo es la seal del Juliana, sin embargo, a partir de dicho "establecimiento de un mbito especfico". "Un espacio delimita, a partir de este momento, un modo de experiencia, un tipo de discurso, una regin del conocimiento" . La utilizacin siglo los msticos comienzan a ser un tipo social, una cateogora objetivable, del sustantivo orienta hacia la identificacin de unos hechos aislables, de unos tipos analizable desde fuera, con prcticas sociales: "los msticos", y de una ciencia que abordar su estudio . Lo nuevo del momento no especiales, maneras de reflejar la es la identificacin de la vida mstica, sino su aislamiento y su objetivacin ante la mirada de produccin social de la poca dada de los que comienzan a estudiarla desde fuera, y el hecho de que la palabra comience a cada uno, de manifestar una produccin designar un fenmeno, un hecho, en el que intervienen numerosos factores. deseante en cada palabra escrita en () Lo que la historia nos muestra es ms bien un conjunto de fenmenos que, aunque posean tinta. "El mstico" obtiene un nuevo algunos rasgos en comn y un cierto aire de familia, mantienen una relacin muy estrecha nombre que lo distingue del anacoreta, con el resto de los elementos de los sistemas religiosos en los que se inscriben y slo se del visionario, del telogo. El mstico dejan comprender adecuadamente en el interior de esa referencia. "No cabe --escriba a este puede bien ser anacoreta, visionario y telogo, lo que lo diferencia es su propsito G. Scholem-- una mstica abstrada del sistema al que pertenece. El mstico anarquista de su propia religin es una invencin sin fundamento. Los grandes msticos han experiencia de Dios, lo que crea un sido fervorosos adeptos de su religin". No hay, dir por su parte M. de Certeau, "discurso agenciamiento social. universal sobre la mstica". Para que fuera posible habra que olvidar que "el hind, el africano y el indonesio no tienen ni la misma concepcin ni la misma prctica de lo que Al ser un agenciamiento social, cada nosotros denominamos con ese nombre". mstico en tanto anacoreta, escritor o artista parte de su propio rasgo cultural. De su sistema de signos, de sus cdigos, de sus dioses, de su inefabilidad

As, pues, con la palabra "mstica" nos referimos, en trminos todava muy generales e imprecisos, a experiencias interiores, inmediatas, fruitivas, que tienen lugar en un nivel de conciencia que supera la que rige en la experiencia ordinaria y objetiva, de la unin -cualquiera que sea la forma en la que se la viva-- del fondo del sujeto con el todo, el

Fenm Una mstica o muchas msticas? 1. Ag eno, 23 Qu podemos entender con una misma mstico palabra? Es decir, la mstica es distinta en cada sistema religioso, incluso en el

otros autores pgina 3

cualquiera que sea la forma en la que se la viva-- del fondo del sujeto con el todo, el universo, el absoluto, lo divino, Dios o el espritu.

en cada sistema religioso, incluso en el centro de una misma religin, la experiencia es vivenciada de manera distinta incluso por sujetos de un mismo momento histrico. La mstica es una construccin de msticas, as msticas cristianas, ateas, budistas, pero no una sola mstica. Si bien, se puede hablar de que el mstico budista experimenta con "la realidad profunda" Podemos entender lo mismo por realidad profunda en el cristianismo? Incluso, el budista mstico pensar en una realidad profunda? O su sistema de signos es completamente otro, distinto y que no permite ser reducido al cristiano. Fenm eno, 32 1. Ag mstico

"La religin es la cristalizacin operada por un enfriamiento racional ( savant) de lo que el misticismo vino a depositar incandescente en el alma de la humanidad. Por (la religin) todos pueden obtener un poco de lo que poseyeron plenamente unos privilegiados". Y aunque una religin mstica como el cristianismo haya podido tomar prestadas no pocas cosas de religiones anteriores, "lo esencial de la nueva religin deba ser la difusin del misticismo". "La religin es al misticismo lo que la vulgarizacin es a la ciencia".* *: H. Bergson, Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion . En Ouvres, dition du Centenaire, PUF, Paris, 1959, pp. 1177-1178, 1158 Pero, constatado el hecho, las explicaciones que hemos aducido dejan abiertas o abren una larga serie de cuestiones pendientes. Es la mstica la forma ms perfecta en la que, tras larga evolucin, culmina toda religin? O es por el contrario la experiencia radical que origina el resto de los elementos de la vida religiosa? Es la experiencia mstica la nica forma posible de perfeccin para la vida religiosa?

Fenm La experiencia mstica al ser una 1. Ag eno, 33 concrecin histrica obtiene estas mstico preguntas, que de fondo tiene el supuesto de si la experiencia mstica es un fondo antropolgico, vivenciado incluso en las sociedades seculares y en sujetos ateos. 1. Ag mstico 2. Epistem e 3. Rizoma 4. Esencial ismo (crtica)

Todas estas posturas han entrado en crisis en las ltimas dcadas. En primer lugar, se les Fenm Episteme, rizomas y agenciamiento reproch proceder a comparaciones demasiado sumarias, ignorar las diferencias de cada eno, mstica Si bien la cita no toca el tema de la tradicin y ver reflejados con demasiada facilidad los rasgos de la propia tradicin, o de la 38-39 episteme en el ncleo de la mstica, es forma de experiencia que apriricamente haban privilegiado como fundamental, sobre el decir, el estudio de las formas de decir y resto de los msticos, privados as de toda originalidad. En realidad, en estas interpretaciones de la mstica se reflejaban las generalizaciones apresuradas del comparativismo de la de hacer de un agenciamiento mstco en primera fase de la fenomenologa de la religin y la creencia poco crtica en la capacidad de particular si suscita al pensamiento del autor dicha reflexin. Esto es, la mstica los anlisis fenomenolgicos para captar la esencia de los fenmenos ms all de sus al ser abordada desde el lenguaje, desde variables formas de manifestarse. la sociedad (produccin social) y desde Por eso la superacin del esencialismo fue sobre todo la consecuencia de un "cambio de el deseo (produccin deseante) se topa paradigma epistemolgico" que planteo en nuevos trminos la relacin entre experiencia e ante la cuestin de cmo se produce la interpretacin en la que el esencialismo vena apoyndose. Como observ M. de Certeau, agencia mstica? Es decir, como ese cambio de paradigma es el resultado de una transformacin en el enfoque de los funciona la experiencia desde la realidad estudios sobre la mstica que, habindose iniciado por la psicologa y pasado por una fenomenologa poco elaborada, desemboc en la perspectiva lingstica y la de su contexto, su historia y cultura en sociolingstica*. la que se vive y el lenguaje en el que se El cambio de paradigma epistemolgico es situado para algunos de los crticos de esta expresa. Con el concepto de agenciamiento, se postura en torno a L. Wittgenstein, con su necesaria refgerencia al uso del lenguaje, a la busca precisamente cmo se articula el experiencia que en l se expresa y a la comunidad que se entiende en ese lenguaje. () contexto (mesetas) con el lenguaje que Los estudios sobre la experiencia mstica de orientacin esencialista estaban viciados de raz se vive, con ello, el contexto, los () Para esos estudios la experiencia "funcionaba" como un toma directa de contacto con la cuerpos, la cultura --en el caso particular de Juliana los tipos de colores que realidad, independientemente del contexto, la historia y la cultura en que se vive y del describe, el tipo textil que pone en lenguaje en que se formula o se expresa. Esa "experiencia pura" poda, pues, tener lugar de juego un habitus de la distincin del forma idntica, ajena a las culturas y, por tanto, anterior las diferencias que sta instaura. gusto-- crean la parte de la agencia en (*) Cf. M. de Certeau, "Historicits mystiques": Recherches de Science Religieuse 73 (1985), tanto mquina de cuerpos; por otro pp. 325-354, 349 lado, la mstica no slo es contexto sino lenguaje que expresa los cuerpos, esta expresin --que en Juliana es en forma de visiones (su episteme ve), por supuesto de escritura, desde la feminidad, etc-- crea la parte de la agencia en tanto mquina de cdigos.

Siguiendo la cita, Esta creencia poco crtica del esencialismo es superada con la cuestin de los anlisis del lenguaje, de los cdigos y signos que funcionan de forma diversa, no en tanto jerarquas estructurales sino como relaciones en forma de rizoma. El ncleo de la interpretacin constructivista puede ser resumido en unas pocas expresiones Fenm Mstica y constructivismo 1. Ag que tomamos de su ms importante defensor St. Katz: "Para comprender el misticismo es eno, mstico Leer la bibliografa que tengo de St. 2. Constru necesario insertar al mstico en su pluriforme contexto, de forma que pueda percibirse cul 40-41 Katz. Observar que los agenciamientos ctivism puede ser la conexin necesaria entre el camino del mstico y su meta, la problemtica del msticos se construyen dependiendo de o mstico y su solucin a esa problemtica: las intenciones del mstico y las experiencias actuales del mstico". Todo el "sistema" depende en realidad de esta primera afirmacin: "no 3. Produc su organizacin social dada, de su hay experiencias puras (es decir, no mediadas)". () nada de una captacin de los objetos cin soc produccin social y deseante. que se haga al margen de las pertenencias y prcticas de grupo. Y la experiencia, nica gua y que tenemos en la vida fuera de las tradiciones y estructuras grupales nica capaz de deseant

otros autores pgina 4

enmendar y corregir a estas ltimas, como una luz muy confusa si se la saca de sus contextos habituales; como algo que frecuentemente entendemos mal y tenemos que corregir con otras experiencias. Para todos estos autores, las experiencias msticas, como todas las dems, estn sometidas a "procesos formativos y constructivos del lenguaje y la cultura" y "tales procesos no slo intervienen configurando nuestra interpretacin de la experiencia despus de que sta ha tenido lugar, sino durante su misma realizacin. () Este proceso de diferenciacin de la experiencia mstica en los esquemas y smbolos de comunidades religiosas establecidas es experiencial y no tiene lugar tan slo en el proceso posexperiencial de referir e interpretar la misma experiencia. Tal proceso acta antes, durante y despus de la experiencia". Aplicado este principio al caso de la experiencia mstica, resulta que "nuestra experiencia de Dios pertenece a un contexto experiencial que es, al menos parcialmente, regulativo y determinativo del contenido de la experiencia. De esta forma podemos ver claramente cmo sucede que las experiencias msticas difieren de una tradicin a otra". Entre los elementos configuradores de la experiencia intervienen tambin las doctrinas de la propia tradicin religiosa, que no se limitan a ser medio de interpretacin sino que "afectan a la sustancia misma de la experiencia".

[T]ras haber sido utilizado como adjetivo para referirse al sentido oculto de los textos, a los Fenm Agenciamiento mstico Para qu 1. Ag elementos del culto y sobre todo a una forma de conocimiento o experiencia, llega en el eno, 50 funciona? mstico Como todo agenciamiento, el mstico 2. Lenguaj siglo XVII a ser utilizado como sustantivo, en ese momento, "pasa progresivamente a comienza no por la esencia, sino por la e designar un lenguaje"*. La mstica, a partir de ese momento, est constituida fundamentalmente por el cuerpo de manifestacin de su funcin para qu escritos en los que los msticos han formulado sus experiencias. Todo o casi todo, lo que nos sirve el agenciamiento mstico? qu es dado conocer de esas experiencias llega a nosotros a travs de ese cuerpo de escritos que junta? qu separa? Qu construye? constituyen una forma peculiar de lenguaje humano. () El agenciamiento mstico construye en *E+l lenguaje mstico aparece () a los ms variados gneros literarios. Se trata de relatos general un lenguaje, que al mismo autobiogrficos, de expresiones poticas, de comentarios con finalidad exhortativa, tiempo que lo construye deconstruye el pedaggica, apolegtica e incluso de descripcin psicolgica, de explicacin o de lenguaje en s mismo. Lleva el lenguaje interpretacin teolgica, aun cuando el sujeto no emplee estos trminos. al lmite, como las metforas de Juan de la Cruz. O en Juliana de Norwich en su aspecto visual, lleva la relacin de la sangre al extremo, pues constituye con la sangre de Jess en su pasin un lago de sangre, recordar que el cuerpo de Cristo, termina devenido sangre. La construccin cristiana mstica, su agencia, varia de esta forma de la agencia teolgica tradicional. El primer rasgo propio del lenguaje mstico consiste en su condicin de ser el lenguaje de una Fenm Agenciamiento mstico como un 1. Agencia experiencia. () El mstico no habla como el telogo simplemente de Dios. Habla del Dios eno,51 lenguaje minoritario miento La mstica es una manifestacin poltica. que le ha dado como presente en una experiencia. De ah su concrecin, frente a la mstico 2. Lenguaj Una produccin social puesto que a abstraccin propia de otros registros del lenguaje religioso como el propio de la teologa. e pesar de poder ocurrir en los mrgenes de lo social tiene una articulacin del lenguaje. Y cumple una funcin en el orden social, son los sujetos que oran por las almas, que no slo argumentan la existencia del dios en el que creen sino que lo fruyen. Funcionan como sujetos que testimonian la existencia del Dios del a fe. Su lenguaje es concreto, minoritario, habla a partir de la carencia tcnica del lenguaje, donde ste queda corto. La mstica lo hacen vibrar-variar, es variacin contnua. La mstica constituye la variacin del lenguaje religioso, como el black english o el patois a la lengua Inglesa o a la Francesa. Lo que describe el lenguaje mstico es la experiencia mstica, es decir, la experiencia de la fe Fenm Una experiencia esencialmente 1. Ag . vivida de esa forma peculiar que llamamos mstica, y que a grades rasgos podramos resumir eno, 52 subjetiva? Mstico La mstica no parte de lo interior en el 2. Enferm como experiencia intensa de unin con Dios. Una experiencia que es esencialmente sentido de solipsista de individual. La edad subjetiva e interior y que se refiere, a dems, a un contenido que no se deja expresar por experiencia es ms bien una produccin, 3. Produc medio de trminos "cuyo sentido sera fijado por referencia a la percepcin externa". cin que, de forma deseante se puede deseant manifestar a partir del agenciamiento colectivo de signos. Pero que, por s solo e no es subjetivo, pienso que es colectivo. Un acto de colectividad. En l se refleja el inconsciente, la represin social El pecado en Juliana no es acaso una manifestacin de la represin social? Desea la herida, la enfermedad, qu clase de aperturas o fisuras trae consigo este tipo de deseo? Pero la transgresividad propia del lenguaje mstico aflora en otroas muchas caractersticas de Fenm EL lenguaje del mstico es planteado 1. Lenguaj su modus loquendi. Recordemos, por ejemplo, la profusin de superlativos que confiere a eno, como transgresor. Es decir, con un e muchos discursos msticos el estilo "hiperblico" (Garrigou -Lagrange), "exagerado" (Bossuet) 53-54 carcter hiperblico y exagerado. Habra 2. Ag mstico que se les atribuye. El uso de los superlativos por el lenguaje mstico contagia a veces las que decir que lo que hace el mstico es consideraciones teolgicas que de l se hacen. As, Toms de Valgornera defina la mstica en variar el lenguaje. La transgresin del

otros autores pgina 5

estos trminos: "contemplatio perfectisima et altissima Dei et fruitvus ac suavissimus amor ipsius intimi possesi". Los superlativos son sustituidos con frecuencia por el uso continuado de los oh!, los cun! y otros signos de admiracin incluso en autores de un lenguaje probablemente sobrio. Se ha subrayado que sean los que sean los medios que inducen este tipo de experiencia, se pueden sealar algunas circunstancias como ms propicias para su aparicin. Entre otras: la separacin del medio ordinario de vida en situaciones de cautiverio o reclusin, el paso por pasajes desrticos, la inmovilidad de una larga enfermedad o convalecencia, la soledad, el paso por la selva, y, en general, situaciones de inactividad o de ruptura con la actividad de la vida diaria. Fenm eno, 101-10 2

lenguaje en el agenciamiento mstico constituye la fuerza de hacer variar un lenguaje religioso. 1. Ag mstico 2. Enferm edad

En relacin con la primera cuestin son bien conocidos los intentos de explicacin de todos Fenm La mstica puede reducirse a 1. Enferm estos estados como formas diferentes de patologas del psiquismo. Durante el siglo pasado y eno, patologa? edad 2. Ag los primeros decenios del nuestro se han multiplicado los estudios mdicos de los estados 105 Creo que la respuesta a esta pregunta se mstico msticos. Todos ellos tienen en comn el haber privilegiado los fenmenos extraordinarios: debe plantear en relacin al contexto visiones, audiciones alucinatorias, raptos y xtasis, levitaciones, catalepsias, estigmas, etc., como si constituyeran lo esencial del misticismo. Situados todos esos fenmenos en su histrico en el que surge la mstica. El verdadero lugar, como repercusiones sobre el psiquismo y la dimensin corporal de mstico bien puede estar enfermo, experiencias muy intensas, cuya naturaleza y valor debe ser estudiada en s misma, alucinar toda su experiencia, pero lo importante no radica en ese evento, independientemente de esos estados, a veces realmente patolgicos, que las acompaan, sino en la interpretacin del mismo. El han perdido credibilidad las explicaciones que se basan en una indebida reduccin de los evento no es un hecho aislado, presenta fenmenos msticos a algo que una descripcin adecuada muestra no ser ms que una produccin social de la enfermedad, epifenmenos accidentales y secundarios del mismo. una mirada que muestra cmo funcionaba el acontecimiento de enfermar en una poca dada.
La enfermedad es una conexin de ciertos agenciamientos msticos, no se le puede negar, pero tampoco reducir a mera patologa. Esta alegra tiene como caractersticas el ser "sin objeto", el "no echar sus races en la tierra del deseo"; el ser "inopinada, improbable, mgica". Tal alegra no es algo que se merezca ni se justifique. No debe ser confundida con la "alegra de comprender". Es, antes que nada, alegra "en estado bruto, masiva, sofocante, indecible". Pone en primer momento fuera de juego el pensamiento, aunque muy pronto surja la necesidad de "comprender lo que nos ocurre" y para ello se recurra a las palabras "de la propia tribu". Cualquier intento de interpretacin del fenmeno mstico deber, por tanto, responder a la cuestin "Qu es la alegra mstica? De dnde viene y a dnde va?"*. Para responder a estas cuestiones se propone el autor determinar el "estatuto fenomenolgico y ontolgico de esa felicidad o bienaventuranza" que, a pesar de los muchos estudios consagrados a la mstica a lo largo de nuestro siglo, estara todava por establecer. Fenm eno, 107 1. Alegra 2. Ag mstico

No es fcil ofrecer una clasificacin cronolgica de los msticos cristianos debido, sobre todo, a quela nocin de "mstica" no es uniforme a lo largo de los siglos. () El monacato cristiano representa una especie de organizacin de la vida, de institucionalizacin sistemtica, a travs sobre todo del ejercicio de la oracin, de la bsqueda de Dios. () El escritor conocido como Pseudo-Dionisio Areopagita, "Autor monstico que vivi posiblemente en Siria, en torno a l ao 50", y que introdujo el neoplatonismo de Plotino en la teologa cristiana, ejerci sobre la teologa occidental durante no menos de un milenio una influencia incomparable. A l se debe la expresin "mstica teolgica" y el primer tratado sistemtico que la desarrolla. Pero su obra introduce, adems, una serie de temas, como el de la teologa apoftica o negativa --ms adecuada para hablar de Dios que la cataftica o afirmativa-- que no se funda en el hecho de que Dios no posee las perfecciones a las que se refieren las negaciones, sino en que las trasciende. () El primero *de los ncleos de la teora mstica medieval+ est representado por san Bernardo de Claraval, el ms importante impulsor de la reforma cisterciense, iniciador de la va affectiva, es decir, de la propuesta del amor como camino por excelencia para el conocimiento y la unin con Dios. () El segundo ncleo est formado por una serie importante de mujeres, agrupadas en crculos de beguinas o de diferentes rdenes religiosas, y cuya vida religiosa presenta una serie de rasgos que permiten identificarlas como representantes de un tipo peculiar de vida mstica. Entre esos rasgos se encuentran una mayor frecuencia de fenmenos paranormales: levitaciones, inedia, visiones, etc., el recurso a determinadas representaciones de Dios y Jesucristo: maternidad de Dios, e incluso de Jesucristo; proclividad a la valoracin de lo corporal: los sufrimientos de la pasin, la devocin a la eucarista, centralidad del amor vivido de la forma ms intensa y con fuerte repercusin en el rea de los sentimientos y en la corporalidad, que ha dado lugar a hablar de la Minnemystik, la mstica amorosa, como una forma particular de mstica; y, sobre todo, la representacin de la relacin con Dios y con Jesucristo en trminos esponsales y la vivencia de la unin con Dios como matrimonio espiritual, lo que ha llevado a hablar de una Brautmystik, es decir, una mstica nupcial. No creo necesario advertir que todos estos rasgos no son exclusivos de las mujeres msticas, ya que no pocos de ellos aparecen tambin en msticos varones.
*E+l mstico es, antes que nada, alguien que ha vivido una experiencia singular. Refirindonos en primer lugar a las msticas religiosas, caracterstica comn a los msticos de todas las tradiciones es que son personas que han "visto", has "odo", han "gustado", en una palabra, han entrado, frente a la realidad ltima : () en esa relacin ejercida, vivida, padecida, que resumimos como experiencia o relacin experiencial. Dicho con otras palabras, dentro del sistema de creencias, ritos, prcticas morales, pertenencia instituicional, que constituye cada religin, el mstico es alguien que ha entrado en contacto personal, vivido, con la realidad ltima a la que todas esas "piezas" del sistema remiten.

Fenm eno, 213-21 5

1. Ag mstico 2. Mstica afectiva

Fenm eno, 289-29 0

1. Ag mstico

otros autores pgina 6

vivido, con la realidad ltima a la que todas esas "piezas" del sistema remiten. () Es, pues, mstico, en todas las tradiciones religiosas, quien en un momento determinado de su vida confiesa: "Hasta ahora saba de ti de odas; ahora ten han visto mis ojos" (Job, 42,5). () A eso se refieren los msticos cuando, intentando comunicar lo que han vivido, apelan a la experiencia de sus destinatarios como condicin indispensable para que comprendan: "Quien lo ha visto, comprende", deca Plotino. "Quien no ha experimentado esto, no lo comprender bien".
La experiencia o experiencias que dan lugar a una conciencia, a una vida y a un hecho mstico Fenm Agenciamiento y hpax existencial suponen una verdadera "ruptura de nivel existencial" que origina un antes y un despus en eno, Los agenciamientos son hechos la vida de la persona, la aparicin de una nueva forma de ocnciencia y la toma de contacto 294 fechados . Por tanto, tiene un espacio y con nuevas formas o niveles de la persona y de la realidad en su conjunto. En todos los casos un tiempo determinado en el que de la experiencia mstica el sujeto rompe con la forma de conciencia vigente en la vida ordinaria e inicia una nueva forma de ser. Las expresiones de esta ruptura son tan variadas elementos heterogneos se conectan como elocuentes. En unos contextos religiosos se hablar de conversin, como cambio entre s. radical de mente, de forma de vida y de vida a secas; en otros, de iluminacin que supone la adquisicin de un ojo o unos ojos nuevos; en otros, de nuevo nacimiento, de forma que los que han pasado por esa experiencia son los renacidos o los nacidos dos veces. En todo caso, lo que ha ocurrido en esa experiencia ha constituido un hito en la vida de la persona que indicia un antes y un despus. De ah la huella indeleble en la memoria del sujeto, de ah tambin la referencia permanente al momento y al lugar en el que se produjo, como si el sujeto necesitase dejar constancia del hecho en una especie de "acta de nuevo nacimiento". 1. Ag mstico 2. Hpax ex 3. Meseta s

La experiencia o experiencias que dan lugar a una conciencia, a una vida y a un hecho mstico Fenm Agenciamiento y hpax existencial suponen una verdadera "ruptura de nivel existencial" que origina un antes y un despus en eno, Los agenciamientos son hechos la vida de la persona, la aparicin de una nueva forma de ocnciencia y la toma de contacto 294 fechados . Por tanto, tiene un espacio y con nuevas formas o niveles de la persona y de la realidad en su conjunto. En todos los casos un tiempo determinado en el que de la experiencia mstica el sujeto rompe con la forma de conciencia vigente en la vida ordinaria e inicia una nueva forma de ser. Las expresiones de esta ruptura son tan variadas elementos heterogneos se conectan como elocuentes. En unos contextos religiosos se hablar de conversin, como cambio entre s. radical de mente, de forma de vida y de vida a secas; en otros, de iluminacin que supone la adquisicin de un ojo o unos ojos nuevos; en otros, de nuevo nacimiento, de forma que los que han pasado por esa experiencia son los renacidos o los nacidos dos veces. En todo caso, lo que ha ocurrido en esa experiencia ha constituido un hito en la vida de la persona que indicia un antes y un despus. De ah la huella indeleble en la memoria del sujeto, de ah tambin la referencia permanente al momento y al lugar en el que se produjo, como si el sujeto necesitase dejar constancia del hecho en una especie de "acta de nuevo nacimiento".
Se refiere en primer lugar a la inefabilidad, que origina la mayor semejanza y proximidad de tales experiencias a estados afectivos que a estados intelectuales. Esto comporta que "su cualidad" ha de ser experimentada directamente y no puede ser comunicada ni transferida a los dems. Y esta dependencia de la experiencia es tal, que puede compararse con la que rige entre la captacin de la msica y el estar dotado de odo. Los estados msticos, a pesar de su parentesco con los afectivos poseen para quienes los viven una dimensin notica, una cualidad de conocimiento. Gracias a ellos el sujeto tiene la posibilidad de penetrar a la verdad, al margen del uso del intelecto discursivo. La tercera propiedad es la transitoriedad. Loes estados msticos, en efecto, no pueden ser mantenidos durante mucho tiempo. Una vez desaparecidos, no pueden reproducirse sino de manera muy imperfecta, pero cuadno se repiten se reconocen con facilidad. Este rasgo indica cmo W. James no se refiere a la vida mstica o a la experiencia del mstico, sino a experiencias "puntuales", aisladas y de carcter extraordinario. El no haber tenido en cuenta esto, y la dificultad de aislar tales experiencias de forma absoluta ha hecho que esta propiedad haya sido mas discutida que las otras tres. () La pasividad es la cuarto nota caracterstica de los estados msticos. Reconoce la posibilidad de la disposicin de los sujetos para esa experiencia, pero afirma que, cuando llega a ella, el mstico siente como si su propia voluntad estuviese sometida y, a menudo, "como si un poder superior lo arrastrase y dominase". Este ltimo rasgo emparenta los estados msticos con "ciertos fenmenos bien definidos de personalidad desdoblada", como son el discurso proftico, la escritura automtica o el trance hipntico. Al distinguir estos dos tipos de hechos se refiere James a otro rasgo que tal vez podra ser tenido por una quinta propiedad: los estados msticos tienen profunda incidencia en las personas. Modifican la vida interior del sujeto; son, podramos decir, "dinamognicos". () F.C. Happold, propone las caractersticas ya anotadas por W. James de inefabilidad, cualidad notica, transitoriedad y pasividad, a la que atribuye el matiz de camino de purificacin, y aade por su parte: conciencia de unidad del todo, el sentido de superacin del tiempo y la seguridad de que el ego fenomnico de la vida ordinaria no es el yo real. Fenm eno, 320-32 1

1. Ag mstico 2. Hpax ex 3. Meseta s

1. Ag mstico (caract erstica s de James)

La experiencia se vive, pues, como totalizadora, en el doble sentido de vivir la presencia de la Fenm Este sentido abarcador puede ser naturaleza como un todo y sentir al propio sujeto hecho esa totalidad, totalmente integrado eno, tambin entendido como un a especie en ella. El despertador de esa conciencia puede ser cualquier sentido: la visin de un paisaje, 322 de campo de inmanencia todo se la escucha de una msica, el gusto de un bollo mezclado con el t; pero el resultado convierte en inmanente al sujeto trasciende lo captado por el sentido y por la sensacin que procura: es todo el hombre el mstico... que ve, oye, gusta; y ve, oye y gusta todo a la vez.

1. Ex mstica 2. Hpax existen cial 3. Ag mstico

La mstica no supone la ausencia del lenguaje, sino su origen. Y esto nos explica tanto la apelacin del mstico a la inefabilidad como la necesidad de recurrir al lenguaje y de crear nuevas formas de expresin. Tales estados [de extasis] pueden ser producidos por experiencias diferentes; pueden ser el resultado de anomalas psquicas o ir acompaados de ellas; pueden, por ltimo, ser desencadenadas artificialmente por procedimientos o tcnicas o por la ingestin de drogas.

Fenm eno, 351 Fenm eno, 399-40 0

1. Ag mstico 2. Inefabil idad 1. xtasis 2. Enferm edad 3. Ag

otros autores pgina 7

3. mstico

For a postmodern anchoress there can be no evading these insights of the thinkers of Jantzen Cuadro epistemolgico 1. Ag. Es necesario observar la consideracin postmodernity, no consoling reliance upon an easy divine presence. Where Julian writes , xvi Mstico que hace Jantzen sobre Foucault. Desde 2. Cuadro without hesitation about how God 'is' this or that --all good, loving, not wrathful, and so on -episte el autor francs se debe considerar lo it is necessary now to consider how all those terms are factored into a symbolic structure. molgic simblico no en tanto su verdad sino en Moreover, that symbolic must, after Foucault, be considered not only in terms of truth but in terms of function: what purposes, for good and evil, have been served by particular o tanto su funcin, de ah la pertinencia de las preguntas de Grace Jantzen. conceptions of the divine? In whose hands was this power/knowledge? Whose ends have Buscar los propsitos, el lugar donde been served and who has been disabled? If it falls to a postmodern anchoress to rethink funciona el poder, aquello que articula y secularism, it also falls to her to rethink religion; and there are not short cuts. queda desarticulado en determinada postura Tomando en cuenta que nuestro marco terico es Deleuze resulta pertinente esta diferenciacin. El agenciamiento mstico no es ms una "verdad" histrica, sino una "funcin" en la historia, Qu funciones tuvo Juliana de Norwich en el medioevo? Julian lived at a time when an anchoress or anchorite was, in a sense, a public figure: that is, Jantzen Lo pblico del agenciamiento mstico 1. Ag. El anacoreta no es una figura aislada. Si it was recognized throughout society that there were such a women and men of prayer. , xvi Mstico bien vive encerrada, en un claustro, la They were accepted and valued as making an important contribution, even though -- indeed anacoreta tambin vive bajo la because-- they were enclosed and devoted to prayer. proteccin de una ciudad, convive con la naciente burguesa y sabe de los conflictos que se enfrenta el mundo feudal con los campesinos de su tiempo. It was not only her own death and her own soul's destiny with which an anchoress was to be Jantzen Para quin trabaja el anacoreta? 1. Ag. El agenciamiento mstico tiene una concerned but also the death and destiny of others. One of the central reasons that people , xvii Mstico 2. Poltica funcin social. Su funcin permite from commoners to kings left bequests of money and goods for anchoresses and anchorites s del generar riqueza, es una especie de was in order that they should pray for de speedy release of their souls from purgatory . The cuerpo burocracia divina en la que los reyes, work of prayer performed by women or men enclosed in an anchorhold was considered indispensable for the eternal well-being of the souls of those who supported them with seores feudales o burgueses depositan su dinero para asegurar una salvacin money and material gifts. It is not far-fetched to see anchoresses, at least those supported by wealthy patrons, as their spiritual employees, jus as other servants and employees would be responsible for aspects of their material well -being during their lives. Thus the symbolism El anacoreta reza, tras recibir dinero a of death enacted in the ritual of enclosure was appropriate to a key part of the social favor de quien ha depositado el dinero function of an anchoress, her prayers for the souls of those who died. All of this depends, in en el claustro. turn, on belief in purgatory, where souls are purged of their sins before they can be admitted to heaven. It is for these souls that an anchoress is to pray; her prayers are held to bring about their early release. This belief in purgatory and in the idea that people still alive can do something to help those who have died was of enormous importance in the later Middle Ages. It connected the living and the dead; and was a focus for the preoccupation with death and other worlds characteristic of western Christendom, a preoccupation which has not abated though it has shifted its shape in secular modernity. The anchorhold may be a tomb, but it is also a womb; a womb in which Christ comes to new Jantzen birth in the anchoress, and through her in the world. If the anchoress is dead and buried, , xviii simbolically, she is also fully alive, reborn. Moreover, not only is the anchorhold a womb, but the anchoress, herself reborn, is reborn through her own gestation of Christ. She is simultaneously both mother and foetus. In the Ancrene Wisse this density of imagery arises out of the strong Marian devotion of the anchoress, who seeks to identify herselef both with Mary and also with Christ who was born of Mary. For example, there is a meditation that begins with the three Marys coming to anoint Jesus' body in the tomb, and at first the anchoress is positioned among them. 1. Ag. Mstico 2. Anacor eta

But God forbid that you should say or assume that I a m a teacher, for that is not and Jantzen La construccin de un agenciamiento 1. Ag never was my intention; for I am a women, ignorant, weak and frail. But I know very , 15-16 Cmo se construye una manera de mstico agenciar Juliana parte de su well that what I am saying I have received by revelation of him who is the sovereign ignorancia, de su condicin femenina, teacher. Julian's protestations of ignorance in the first presentation of her experiences have given rise de su fragilidad y por supuesto de su to much puzzlement. enfermedad. El agenciamiento no surge de la nada, surge por una razn. La () razn contar una historia por medio de On the face of it, it would seem that Julian is telling us that she was utterly uneducated, los ojos del claustro que traen consigo without even the most elementary of literary skills. If this was so, then we would have to una prctica, una tica y una esttica, surmise that she dictated her book to a scribe -- a common enough practice in the Middle por supuesto, anclado todo ello siempre Ages. This is not impossible, and some scholars are prepared to take her at her word. () en una religin. She is clearly a woman of profound intellect; and her book, especially in the Long Text, shows such meticulous organization and literary skill that she has been ranked with Chaucer as a pioneering genius of English prose. It might be barely possible that she was capable of all this using only dictation, but the many references and allusions backward and forward in her text and the skilful handling of the material make this seem implausible. () Alternatively, Simon Tugwell makes the interesting suggestion that the implications of denying her own authority of her own, then her teaching comes from the far greater authority of God himself, and cannot be lightly dismissed. However this may be it is possible to throw some light on her comments by two Jantzen Juliana , la iletrada 1. Ag. Juliana se presenta a s misma como observations. First, 'unlettered' or 'illiterate' in the Middle Ages did not necessarily mean the , 16 Mstico 2. Iletrada iletrada. Ahora bien, esto es un a inability to read and write, bur rather not having had a classical education and therefore not enunciacin (statement) poltica. No es having formal training in Latin. There was a whole class of such 'iliterati' who were not en vano, ser iletrada en la edad media unlettered in the modern sense, but who wrote in the vernacular -- as of course Julian herself did. It is likely, therefore, that her comments about not being a teacher and being an no cumpla su sentido moderno, el iletrado poda saber leer vernculo -ignorant, unlettered woman, should be taken in the context of her time to indicate the lack como es el caso de Juliana-- y escribirlo. of formal education such as would have been available to men in monastic or cathedral Se puede pensar en una declaracin schools and universities. We need not take these terms literally in their modern sense, but

otros autores pgina 8

neither need we say that she was telling a 'palpable truth' .

poltica Por qu escribir en Ingls? El ingls daba mayor alcance, poda llegar a la mayor cantidad de cristianos posibles, ms que el latn, pero sobre todo a otro tipo de lectores iletrados que no saban latn, pero s ingls.

Her solidarity with the patristic and spiritual writings of the early and medieval Christian tradition, similarly, might but need not indicate that she had read these author herself. In some respects, particularly in her treatment of the problems raised by sin, she is profoundly Augustinian -- but Augustinian theology was the common legacy of the Middle Ages, and Julian could have absorbed a great deal of teaching by discussion with learned clerics. The same is true of the other alleged influences, like Tomas Aquinas, to whose thought Julian sometimes bears striking similarity or the Cistercians. She does not name or cite any authors explicitly, and though it is clear that she has absorbed much from the tradition, it is not demonstrable (though it might well be true) that she was able to read Latin for herself.

Jantzen Esto refuerza la cita anterior. , 17

1. Ag mstico

The vocation of an anchoress was one with which people of late medieval times were rather Jantzen Agenciamiento mstico: estar en el 1. Ag more familiar than we are today. It is therefore important for us to explore this lifestyle and , 28-29 mundo pero no pertenecer a l mstico Los anacoretas, como el caso de Juliana 2. Anacor its purpose in order to understand the theology and spirituality within which Julian parten al retiro del mundo. No a la eta developed. The English word 'anchorite' is derived form the Greek verb meaning 'to retire': an manera de los ermitaos, sino que los anchorite (male) or anchoress (female) retired from the world to live strictly within the anacoretas viven en las ciudades y enclosure of their anchorhold. The impulse toward such solitary living had its roots in the cumplen determinadas funciones sociales, principalmente rezar por los tradition of the desert fathers of the fourth century, who retreated from the cities in which otros, los que siguen en el mundo. Los the Church was increasingly accommodating itself to the norms of society, and sought, through self-surrender and extreme austerity, to develop a profound relationship with God, anacoretas por ello viven en la ciudad, conquering the demons which tempted them away from him. This desire for solitude and pues estn en el mundo pero no immediacy of contact with God, having given up social intercourse and the pleasures and pertenecen a l. responsibilities it entails, was frequently emphasized en medieval spirituality. In fact, however, there was also considerable suspicion of the solitary life, and pressure towards El agenciamiento mstico de Juliana communal living in monasteries and convents, where the development of holiness could be parte, de esta forma, de la soledad, pero facilitated by obedience to the Rule and the abbot or superior. no se aparte de lo social, cumple In the eleventh century () many of the hermits and anchorites did not remove primera funcin social que es orar por themselves to solitary places away from all contact with humanity, but sought to develop los dems. their solitude in towns and villages: being in the world but not of it. () The anchorite, by contrast, had no such function [the hermits often repaired bridges and roads+. Their role was to be set apart for prayer and communion with God, to seek his presence and develop holiness of life. If their anchorhold was attached to a church, as was often the case, an anchorite might occasionally preach or assist at the Mass; one of the ancient guides for anchorites encourages this. But this was unusual by the fourteenth century, and would in any case apply to men, not to women. There are instructions about when and what an anchoress was to eat, when she might sleep, Jantzen what she ought to wear, and what prayers she was to say. The Ancrene Riwle does offer , 30 suggestions about these matters in the first and last chapters, which the author trats as the external wrappings of his book; but in his central chapters he insists that the primary concern is the inner life, which cannot be simply regulated with a set of external precepts. The life of the anchoress was meant to be an arduous one, but the arduousness was not for Jantzen Espacio del agente mstico its own sake but for the interior life which it developed. Because of this they were unlike the , 31 desert fathers who tested the extremes of asceticism. The rules we have for anchoresses, especially the Ancrane Riwle, expressly prohibit ascetical heroics, and suggest a moderate lifestyle when measured against the standards of living of the time. () Besides the window to the church there would be a window to the world, where people could come to counsel and guidance. It seems that at least in some cases this window did not open directly to the outdoors, but rather to a small parlour, so that visitors might sit in it and speak to the anchoress through the window, away from prying eyes and pouring rain. We shall consider this window and its various uses and temptations in more detail presently. The solitude of the anchoress, therefore, was not absolute, for besides giving counsel to Jantzen those who consulted her she had a domestic or two in her care. Nevertheless, her special , 33 hallmark was her strict enclosure. She never left her cell, and was regularly referred to as dead to the world, set up as with Christ in his tomb. 'Cell' could be interpreted fairly broadly, to include a garden or perhaps the churchyard where she could take the air. Beyond this, however, there was no release from the anchorhold until death, on pain of excommunication. The idea of the anchoress's death to the world was symbolized in the rite of enclosure, of which several forms survive. In the Sarum usage, to which others are similar, a requiem Mass was sung at the church. Then there was a solemn procession to the anchorhold. When they arrived, the officiant blessed the anchorhold, and led the anchoress inside. The anchoress was the given extreme unction, after which the bishop scattered dust on the anchoress and the anchorhold, which from henceforward was to be considered her grave. The bishop then left the anchoress inside, and bolted the door on the outside, after which the precession returned to the church. It was a dramatic ceremony; its psychological impact on the anchoress and on any observers was intended to reinforce the conception that she was now dead to the world, and was never again to emerge from her enclosure. What could possibly involve an anchoress in litigation? The Ancrene Riwle gives some Jantzen En esta cita se observa una posible prohibitions which offer clues --and which indicate that though in one sense the anchoress is , 34 funcin social de la anacoreta. Sera dead to the world, in another sense, she is very much alive, and the world entered the parte de la produccin social, una anchorhold when she did. In the first place, the anchoress is instructed not to become a especie de banco, aunque guardar repository for other people's valuables, nor even of the chalice and vestments of the church. dinero de otros podra ser peligroso In those troubled times, when the common people would hardly have had access to banks or para el claustro. safety vaults, it might seems most secure to deposit things with an anchoress for safe keeping: no one would desecrate an anchorhold and plunder it. Or would they? One need only think of Litster's mobs ravaging the churches and monasteries of Norwich in 1381. if 1. Ag, mstico

1. Ag mstico

1. Ag. Mstico

1. Ag. Mstico

otros autores pgina 9

Julian was in the anchorhold at that time, she would have been glad of a reputation for not accepting valuables for deposit, for it seems that at the height of their tumult hose mobs would have stopped at nothing. In any case, people have a way of forgetting where they depsoited things or how mucho the deposit was, whether in money, jewels, or other valuables. If an anchoress kept things like this for people, it could easily become a source of contention and potentially even of litigation.

A pleasant note creeps into his discussion: the anchoress, though she is to posses no cattle Jantzen Mascotas or other animals (Aelred had spoken of flocks) is to have a cat. No doubt the cat was , 34 intended for the obvious purpose of catching mice and rats, but it is hard to suppose that the 'gentle and affectionate' anchoress and her servant would not have made a pet of it. The image arises of Julian pondering the meaning of the revelations with pussy curled up at her feet.
It is important to see that the warning are not given in such a way as to suggest that it is only Jantzen Dieta the other party who represents the risk: it is taken for granted that anchoresses are ordinary , 36 women with healthy sexual desires, and therefore never immune form temptations to unchastity. Whatever their death to the world may involve, their instincts are still very much alive. The writer emphasizes that temptations are never far away, and that that, indeed, is a good thing, because it helps the anchoress to a robust self -knowledge and humility. We shall find a place in the development of whole and healthy human development. As was common in the Middle Ages, the writers of these rules believed that moderation in food and drink was a vital counterpart to sexual purity, partly because self -indulgence in one area would easily spread to others. Judging from both Aelred and the Acrenne Riwle in their instructions about food, anchoresses would have had two meals a day from Easter until Holy Cross Day in September; the rest of the year they would have only one. But there were exceptions: every Friday throughout the year was a fast day on which bread and water only were permitted; and every Sunday was a feast day, on which they had two meals. Aelred takes the Rule of St Benedict as a basis. This allows for a pound of bread and a pint of wine per day (these are the times before tea and coffee were available), porridge or vegetables cooked in oil, butter, or milk for the noon meal, followed by fresh fruit in season; for the evening meal some fish or a cheese dish. The Ancrene Riwle specifies that Ye shall eat no flesh nor lard except in great sickness; or whosoever is infirm may eat potage without scruple Even so, however, the anchoress' diet may well have been better than that which the poorer classes enjoyed, in quality if not in quantity[.] The body is to be disciplined in order to make the life of prayer possible, not destroyed to make it impossible. [About the Cloths] Only see that they be plain, and warm, and well made --skins ell tawed; and have as many as you need, for bed and also for back. Jantzen Vestimenta , 37

1. Ag mstico

1. Ag mstico 2. Dieta anacor eta

1. Ag. Mstico 2. Cuerpo

Most solitaries also received gifts of money or in kind from those who came to see them, Jantzen and often, as in the case of Julian, they were the beneficiaries of wills --sometimes of royal , 38 wills. () It was an age of beggars, many our of real need, some for less credible motives; and there was no social security system to help the unfortunate. If an anchoress once began to allow her compassion to lead her into direct alms -giving, laudable though it might be, there would be no end to it and her life of prayer would be severely disrupted.

1. Ag mstico

On the other hand, perhaps even worse, the solitary life could be sought out not by people Jantzen La prctica de la anacoreta deba ser 1. Ag. who sincerely wanted to live a life of prayer and devotion to God, but simply people who , 39 examinada, no cualquiera puede entrar Mstico wanted to live alone because they did not like other people and could not get along in en este tipo de vida. Hay una disciplina, society. It could be a haven for the neurotic and it could drive sane people mad. una forma especfica de llevar las For this reason, the later Middle Ages developed a careful screening procedure: not just prcticas de vida. anyone was allowed to become an anchoress. Those who felt called to this vocation were examined by the bishop or his representative, and only after he was satisfied of the genuineness of the calling would he allow the enclosure to take place. This seems to have had the desired effect, because as already noted there is little evidence of scandal, madness, or failure to fulfil the vocation; and many seem to have found the lifestyle agreeable enough to persevere a ripe old age. It would be fascinating to know how the bishop conducted his examination.

The fourteenth century author of the Cloud of Unknowing cautions the solitary to whom he Jantzen La locura y la mstica. is writing not to confuse spiritual exercises with bodily asceticism: those who 'turn their , 40 bodily sense inwards on themselves' and strain against nature may very well see visions and hear voices, but they will be illusions, attributable to the devil via their own foolishness. In modern terminology we might say that anyone who violently represses his or her physicality is a prime candidate for neurotic fantasies and religious hallucinations: the author of the Cloud, along with many others medieval spiritual directors, knew this very well long before Freud re-emphasized it for modern consciousness. The Cloud warns his contemplative reader, Insofar as you can, never be the cause of your physical weakness. For it is true what I say: this work demands a great tranquillity, and a clean bill of health as well in body as in soul. So for the love of God, govern yourself wisely in body and in soul, and keep ion good health as much as possible.
The very fact that these people, while taking some ascetical measures for granted, find it Jantzen necessary to caution their recluses against excesses, shows that it was common to see , 41-42 ascetical measures as necessary for spiritual progress. One of the reasons for this was that they believed that spiritual growth could take place only when the bodily appetites were kept in control. But even more importantly, they felt that actual physical pain was helpful to them in identifying with the suffering of Jesus. It is interesting to see how Julian takes up and modifies each of these themes in her own teaching on spiritual growth, born out of the most extreme physical suffering in her severe illness, which was an answer to her prayer to share in the bodily suffering of her lord. The people who came to her would hope for two things: her understanding and wisdom, and Jantzen

1. Ag mstico

1. Ag. Mstico

Ag.

otros autores pgina 10

her continuing prayer for them after they had gone their way. Thus along with the obligation , 47 of preserving scrupulous confidentiality, the anchoress had the obligation of ensuring that her life of prayer and communion with God be such that the peace and love of God which she experienced, along with his holiness and mercy, could be communicated to those who came to her. The ministry of an anchoress could be compared in some respects with that of a modern psychotherapist or professional counsellor. She would not go out seeking people in their problems, but would be available to them when they had sufficient motivation to seek her out. Nor would she 'do' anything about the problems of the people who came to her, any more than a psychotherapist would intervene in the financial or legal or marital affairs of those who came to talk about them. Instead she would offer her time and her understanding and her prayer, listening with patience and acceptance to the tales of sin and sadness and brokenness, and helping the person to find a path of healing. When Julian was thirty year old, she became seriously ill, and it was in the context of that illness that she received the vivid and dramatic vision of the passion of Christ. () Vivid and unexpected as they ere, the vision were rooted in a life of prayer. Jantzen Enfermedad como plan de inmanencia La enfermedad acta como el plan de , 53 consistencia donde todo ocurre en el agenciamiento mstico se da un plano espiritual, otro poltico, uno ms esettico y otro social con la misma enfermedad.

Mstico

1. Enferm edad 2. Ag mstico 3. P de c

Jantzen And then a little smoke came in at the door, with great heat and a foul stench. I said: , 77-78 Blessed be the Lord! Is everything on fire here? And I thought that it must be actual fire, which would have burned us to death. I asked those who were with me if they were conscious of any stench. They said no, they were not. I said: blessed be God! For then I knew that it was the devil who had come to assail me. This physical experience which she took to be the devil continued for a considerable time, characterized by a foul smell, oppressive heat, and chattering and muttering in her ears. Some of the vivid experiences, therefore, involved other physical senses besides vision, and not all the experiences were directly related to the crucifix held before her eyes. The question that arises here as in any consideration of mystical vision is why they should be taken seriously as coming from God or as having spiritual significance. How, for instance, would all these intense experiences differ form hallucination or indeed from drug -induced phenomena? Julian was after all extremely ill, and when the previous intensity of her life and prayer are taken into account, it becomes plausible to suppose that she might have been susceptible to unusual hallucinations of a religious variety . It is not unreasonable to suppose that she might have been given such herbs or drugs as were available to medieval medicine to ease her pain; and those familiar with the effects of hallucinogenic drugs know that intense and varied sensations, especially of colour but also of sound and smell, can occur; and if there is a focus for the eyes, as the crucifix was for Julian, all manner of strange things may appear to happen to it. Because the experiences she was having -- the changes of colour, the voices, the heat, the smell .. Are not dissimilar to drug -induced experiences or other sorts of hallucinations, the question arises why they should be taken seriously, or invested with a religious significance. () The fact that the priest took her seriously and refused to treat hear vision as hallucinations brought Julian up short, so that she became very much ashamed of herself for calling her experiences ravings, and wished to make her confession. She felt unable to do so, however, apparently feeling that the priest would not accept that she was telling the truth -- a condition for the practice of confession. () This however, does not resolve the question, acute for us today, which may also be phrased in more general terms: What is the value, if any, of religious experiences such as these? The first response must be a negative one. The value of these intense experiences cannot lie in their sensory content taken on its own, because in this respect there is no significant difference between them and hallucinations, drug -induced or otherwise. Mystical experiences convey a strong sense of certainty, and have often been taken, even by serious writers, to be themselves evidence for their own authenticity. Since sensations of this kind can arise from a variety of causes, however, it is inadequate to suppose that their intensity and the psychological certainty which they generate is itself evidence that they come from God or that they reveal religious truth. For it would mean, on the one hand, that as understanding develops and gaps become Jantzen Agenciamiento mstico, cmo estudiar smaller, God is squeezed out; and on the other, that God is barred from working within and , 79 el plan de consistencia? through the ordinary causal sequence, having been relegated to that which is outside it. Any Es un hecho que Juliana pone su divine intervention would then be like a spanner in the works, an unnatural and disruptive experiencia en un plano de trasc. Nuesra occurrence, rather than the continuous action of God within his world and within human lives. labor en la tesis es poner el vnement This is not to say that the vivid sensory content of Julian's experiences did not come from en un plan de inmanencia, es decir antes God or have religious significance, but only that taken on their own they cannot themselves de la interpretacin de valor hay en su exp. Un valor poltico, otro religioso y be the guarantee of such significance. Nor would Julian herself have supposed they could. uno ms esttico es decir, una Profound though their psychological impact undoubtedly was, to Julian these 'bodily visions' produccin social. Nuestro propsito es were least in importance in her overall account. She says, poner todos los valores en un mismo All the blessed teaching of our Lord God was shown to me in three parts that is to campo de consistencia say by bodily vision, and by words formed in my understanding, and by spiritual vision. About the bodily vision I have said as I saw, as truly as I am able. And about the En la cita de Juliana se observa la words formed, I have repeated them just as our Lord revealed them to me. And cuestin de cmo se escapa la about the spiritual vision, I have told a part, but I never can tell it in full... () experiencia y el sentido en su forma The bodily visions would be of small importance without the spiritual understanding which lgico-lineal. Su lgica se pierde en la was also experienced; they could never be isolated from it and still retain their meaning. It trascendencia, en cambio, posee una riqueza inexorable en la inmanencia. would be quite foreign to Julian's thinking to make the sensory content of the visions the Observa por una parte, el basis upon which the whole account is to be judged. For her it is the other way around: the agenciamiento de cuerpos (bodily spiritual insight and its effect upon her subsequent life are what is important; the bodily visions were a gracious psychological aid, sent to her in answer to her prayer that she might visions) por otro lado el agenciamiento be more mindful of the passion of Christ. de enunciacin (words formed in my

1. Enferm edad 2. Ag mstico 3. intensid ad

1. Cuerpo 2. Percepc in pictric a 3. Apofti ca 4. Ag mstico 5. CsO

otros autores pgina 11

be more mindful of the passion of Christ.

de enunciacin (words formed in my understanding) y una especie de plano que es menos que palabras (spiritual vision) el ltimo nivel es el ms problemtico para Juliana, en ella se escapa la palabra, no porque la trascienda sino porque no alcanza a llegar de inicio y no como fin. Tiene que ver esto ltimo con el vnement, con lo virtual que es real y actual

She never suggest that other people ought to try to have visions, or pray for them, or seek Jantzen them in any way; the visions were like the receptacle for the spiritual treasure, given to all , 80 through her. And you who hear and see this vision and this teaching, which is from Jesus Christ for the edification of your souls, it is God's will and my wish that you accept it with as much joy and delight as if Jesus had shown it to you as he did to me And so it is my desire that it should be to every man the same profit that I asked for my self for it is common and general, just as we are all one; and I am sure that I saw it for the profit of many others. The example of Julian in this relationship between her overriding religious framework and Jantzen La ficha muestra como se puede leer la the particular experiences she had points to a more general understanding of the reciprocity , 82-83 experiencia mstica. Pienso yo, que between context and mystical experience. Recent philosophical writing on mysticism has ambas posturas tanto la que lee el sometimes held that mystical experiences like voices and visions are decisive events which misticismo por medio de las carry complete conviction and which would by themselves bring about religious experiencias corporales del mstico commitment or conversion: the case of Saul on the Damascus Road in the biblical story como tomando encuenta su contexto might be cited here, where the vision of the risen Christ was enough to change him from a son determinantes para entender el Pharisee persecuting the Christians to a Christian believer and apostle . On the other side, it agenciamiento mstico. is urged that the context is already determinative of the experience. This in medieval Europe people had visions of the Virgin Mary, but not of Siva dancing: this was because they already had a religious conceptual structure in which the Virgin Mary played a significant part, and in which visions of her were, if not common, at least within the realm of accepted possibility. Indeed if, per impossibile, someone in medieval Europe did have a vision of Siva dancing, he or she would simply not have known what it was, and would therefore probably not have attached any religious significance to it at all (unless in terms of demonic), let alone have become a convert to Hinduism. As for the case of Saul, this can be explained by the fact that he was already thoroughly familiar with Christianity, and his dramatic conversion was a matter of coming to terms in his life and consciousness with something he had already been subconsciously are of for some time and was violently repressing in his persecution of the Church. Showings deploys what Lochrie has called a semiotics of suffering, a textual process in which the mystics body occupies a central place between the book of Christs body and her reading of this body.49 The textuality of Elisabeth of Spalbeeks performing body transforms her spectators into witnesses of the passion, but also biblical readers. Lochries articulation of imitatio Christi as a lectio corporis joining mystic and Christ as well as mystic and reader of the mystical textallows us to see how Julians emphasis on the permeability of the bodyher own, St. Cecilias, Christs crucified body, and Christs maternal bodyunderpins her visionary experience and her textual articulation of that experience, some portions of which she crafted over the course of fifteen years before writing the long text of Showings.50 49 y 50 Lochrie, Karma.The Language of Transgression: Body, Flesh, and the Word in Mystical Discourse. In Speaking Two Languages: Traditional Disciplines and Contemporary Theory in Medieval Studies, ed. Allen J. Franzen. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991a: 11540. In her thirtieth year, Julian began suffering what she, her family members, and her priest believed would prove a fatal illness. She tells us that she had been sick for three days and nights when she received the last rites, believing herself that she would die before sunrise on the fourth day. But she continued to suffer for two more days and nights, and again believed in reason and by the feelyng of paynes that she would die.53 On the seventh day, her body becomes numb from the waist down and she can no longer speak. She is propped up in bed by those attending her. A priest is summoned to witness her death, and he sets a crucifix before her eyes, urging her to find comfort in the image of thy Saviour.54 She begins to lose her vision, and the sickroom becomes dark as night, and all is oglye and ferfull as if much occupied with fiendes, save in the image of the crosse, which remained illuminated.55 Then Julian feels the upper part of her body begin to lose feeling. She can scarcely breathe, and believes she is dying. But suddenly, Julian writes, all my paine was taken from me, and I was as hole [whole], and namely, in the over [upper] part of my bodie, as ever yet I was before. Likewise as suddenly, as if Julian just now realizes that her desire for the wound of a deathly illness has been fulfilled, she recalls her desire for the second wound, that her bodie might be fulfilled with mynd and feeling of his blessed passion, with compassion and afterward langyng to God.56 She desires that her suffering be joined with Christs, and this prayer is granted by the inception of her visions. Julians illness also functions as a writing process by giving birth to both a visionary experience and an analysis of that experience. She is an agent of her own suffering body, a reader of its corporeal signs, and a translator of its meaning into the written word .57 She moves from reading her own body to reading Christs body. This textuality of the human body, her own and Christs reconfigured by suffering, is the flesh and blood, so to speak, of Julians hermeneutics.
Among the medieval women who joined the crucifix through physical suffering Bynum identifies Marie of Oignies, Villana de Botti, Gertrude of Helfta, Dauphine of Puimichel, Margaret of Ypres, and Julian of Norwich. 61 The experiences of these women demonstrate that there was no clear division among illness, asceticism, mortification, and selftorture, all of which were efforts to plumb the depths of Christs humanity at the moment of his most insistent and terrifying humannessthe moment of his dying.62 To Bynums list, I would add Julians English contemporary, Margery of Kempe, and the twelfth -century seer,

1. Percepc in pictric a 2. Ag Mstico

1. Context o 2. Ag mstico

Monstr Agenciamiento de enunciacin osity, El agenciamiento, como tal, enuncia, es 101 decir conecta no slo cuerpos sino discursos, posturas corporales, es decir, lo incorporado. Si tomamos en cuenta lo que Lochrie hable de una semitica del sufrimiento, me parece aplicable al modelo de agenciamiento de enunciacin. El cuerpo sufriente, pasivo, es llenado de un discurso doliente.

1. Ag Mstico 2. Sufrimi ento / enferm edad 3. Cuerpo 4. Pasivid ad 5. Poltica s del cuerpo (semit ica del suf.) 1. Enferm edad 2. Ag mstico 3. Poltica s del C 4. Enuncia cin

Monstr Enfermedad, detonante del osity, agenciamiento mstico en Juliana 102-10 Me parece muy interesante la categora 3 que puede surgir a partir del suddenly en Juliana, como un vector de la experiencia. Por otra parte, La enfermedad es el detonante de toda la experiencia mstica y visionaria en Juliana de Norwich, inexplicablemente enferm y alivi, digamos por milagro. Tambin es interesante ver cmo en la enfermedad de Juliana el agenciamiento maqunico de cuerpos y el agenciamiento colectivo de enunciacin se unen: aqu se representa el furor de la poltica Julianiana.

Monstr La enfermedad en el agenciamiento 1. Ag osity, mstico femenino mstico La enfermedad no es propia de Juliana, 2. Enferm 104 pertenece a un agenciamiento colectivo edad de enunciacin. Mujeres que enfermaron y sufrieron el unirse al Cristo crucificado.

otros autores pgina 12

add Julians English contemporary, Margery of Kempe, and the twelfth -century seer, Hildegard of Bingen, both of whom, together with Julian, convey further functions of illness in medieval mystical literature: to validate female authority and to impel textual production.63
To speak of illness in mystical literature is inevitably problematic, as the meanings of sickness and health, even of anatomy and physiology, are labile and contested not only across wide spans of time and place, but also within a given time period, culture, or location . That illness intersected with the religious beliefs and practices of some medieval women is certain, but the task of analyzing how illness was read by the women themselves and their contemporaries (family, townspeople, church officials, hagiographers, doctors) bears all the handicaps of medieval womens history and then some since illness is not so much a phenomenon itself as a reading of a variety of phenomena. In the study of sick female mystics, the twenty-first-century scholar is multiple readings removed from any semblance of these phenomena (or their immediate readings) and is embedded, moreover, in her own processes of corporeal reading. The scholarly analysis of illness in latemedieval mystical literature is thus largely yet to be written.74 The extant analysis of the function of illness in texts written by and about female mystics has fallen into two groups. The first approach employs a methodology of diagnostic positivism; the second represents a new historical approach that draws from social constructionism, but examples of this approach differ internally in their degree of sensitivity to the discursive contingency of categories such as the body, humanity, culture, and history itself . A brief foray into this scholarship is useful, I think, to draw attention to modern and medieval methods of reading corporeal disorder in medieval female religiosity, with an eye to the specific function of Julians illness. When is illness imitatio Christi? When is illness a discursive practice? When is illness a monstrous text written with symptoms for its signs? To what extent is the sick female body a particular incarnation of female monstrosity, and to what extent is it a particular incarnation of the mystical female body?

Cristo crucificado.

Monstr La enfermedad como prctica 1. Enferm osity, discursiva edad 2. Ag 105-10 En Juliana de Norwich surge un mstico 6 problema inevitable cuando hablamos sobre su enfermedad y es si la enfermedad es un a prctica discursiva o nicamente agenciamiento maqunico? Para resolver este inconveniente me parece se puede tomar en cuenta la nocin de produccin en Deleuze. Por supuesto que la enfermedad ser una prctica discursiva pues en la enfermedad los cuerpos se incorporan a lo que el medioevo interpreta como sagrado. La enfermedad en su lmite con lo profano lleva a cabo la realizacin de un poder que se encuentra en el interior de lo femenino.

As Christ is scourged, Julian sees his feyer skinne broken full depe in to the tendyr flessche.115 Through these breaches, *t+he hote blode ranne out so plentuously that ther wass neyther seen skynne ne wounde, but as it were all blode.116 In these visions, Christs body is not only penetrated by thorns, nails, and lash, but seems to dissolve as his body becomes all blode.117 His corporeal boundaries now liquefied, his body now blood, Christand thus his mercyis entirely freed. () In this unstoppable flow of blood, Julian finds the power of mercy and purification, but the flow of blood itself remains something monstroushideous and lovely, and associated with the reproductive functions of the female body.

Monstr osity, 111

1. CsO 2. Percepc in pictric a 3. Ag mstico (enunc acin) 4. Poltica s del cuerpo (monstr uoso) 1. CsO 2. Ag mstico 3. Sangre

Showings can also be read as an instance of negotiation between discursive formations that Monstr underscore the analogies between male and female blood and discursive formations that osity, insist on the monstrous alterity of female blood . By envisioning the blood of Christs 115 maternal body as a flode of mercy that makes his children feyer and clene, Showings not only exemplifies the permeability of boundaries between body fluids, but destabilizes boundaries between benign male superfluities and dangerously ambiguous female ones.150 This view suggests that Julian reflects medieval analogies between male blood and female blood while simultaneously recontextualizing the blood of the reproductive female body within a framework of cleansing, generation, gestation and nourishment. () We cannot then dismiss the possibility that Julians remark about Christs blood soaking the bed is evocative of menstrual flow.151 But we should also consider the blood -soaked bed as a scene of childbirth. This image resonates more congruously with Julians meditations on the exudings and spillings forth of the maternal body of Christ.152 In particular, these early visions of Christs blood flow express the significance of blood, but especially the blood of birth within the narrative of Christs incarnation. Christ was born in the blood of Mary, born again on the cross, and gives birth in the blood of crucifixion. In this sense, the blood of the passion is the blood of birthing.153 The remarkable paradox of Julians representation of this maternal blood flow is that it simultaneously pours forth and gathers in. Considering that Julian later identifies the incarnation as the moment when Christ knits humanity together in his body, his blood is the maternal blood that forms fetal bodies.154 In this sense, the loss of uterine bloodfigured as menstruation or the blood of childbirthis simultaneously figured as conception.
Julian was among a number of thirteenth- and fourteenth century female mystics to whom Monstr Christ privately revealed his wounds. For holy women such as St. Liutgard, Ida of Louvain, osity, and Catherine of Sienna, Christs wounds were literal entryways.187 The early fourteenth 119 century was a time when interest in the wounds developed into a special devotion.188 It is during this period that the first masses dedicated to Christs wounds appear. Indulgences were granted to those who contemplated the measure of the wound in Christs side (mensura vulneris). As Sarah Beckwith has noted, in a society where the limens of the sacred and the profane were under contestation, the arena of Christs body, the very touchstone of sacerdotal authority, makes itself both closed and open through its wounds.189

1. Ag mstico

Judging from the number of male authors who wrote of Christ as mother from the patristic Monstr period through the late Middle Ages, Bynum cautions against inclinations to associate the osity, motif with female religious writing.202 Indeed, she finds the motherhood of Christ to be a 121 more articulated, selfconscious notion in mens writing than in womens, but also notes that male and female writers tended to employ the metaphor differently.203 Men, such as Bernard and the monk of Farne, tended to see their own nurturing responsibilities reflected in the image of Christ as Mother. They also valued the tenderness of the maternal role as a supplement to the authority of the paternal role in which they acted as the spiritual directors of other men.204 Women, Bynum observes, did not generally use the image of Christ as mother in a way that associated maternal qualities with their own responsibilities, but move from images of lactation or giving birth directly to theological matters, such as

1. Ag mstico

otros autores pgina 13

move from images of lactation or giving birth directly to theological matters, such as eucharist and redemption.205 The thirteenthand fourteenth -century female mystics, Angela Foligno, Lutgard of Aywires, and Catherine of Sienna report visions of nursing from the wound in Christs side.206
This particular reading of Christs wound has been somewhat polarizing in analyses of female Monstr mysticism. Regarding the intersections between the female body, physical suffering, and osity, eroticism in mystical discourse, Nancy Partner has argued that readers would do well to 123 extend their interpretive strategies beyond the frame of reference and symbolic code offered at the manifest level of human self -explanation.221 For Julians Showings, this means acknowledging the allegory of sexual fears and frightening desires spoken through Julians strong images of Christs body punctured, torn, gouged, multiply penetrated despite Julians emphasis on Christs body as site of gestation and birth.222 We might add that, if these frightening images of Christs body accommodate erotic intimations, likewise does the vision in which Christ lovingly spreads his wound and allows Julian to gaze upon his empty womb and broken heart. The maternal site of gestation in Christs body is also the site of desire for corporeal union, a site that Christ translates for Julian into the language of love. () While Bynum acknowledges the existence of textual and iconographic comparisons between wound and vulva, she asserts that they have less to do with sexuality than with fertility and decay.223 In the spirit of her project to problematize tendencies in medieval scholarship to read flesh as temptation, especially of a sexual sort, Bynum urges modern readers to consider a broader range of meanings signified by the female body and even the female genitals. Karma Lochrie criticizes Bynums readings of Christs wound as a fertile (i.e. maternal) site because such readings cancel out the signification of Christs wound as a sexual (i.e. female) site, and she has argued for more expansive readings of the sacred wounds polysemy.224 Lochrie questions Bynums foreclosure of sexual valences in medieval desires to suck, taste, press against, and penetrate Christs body, or more specifically, his wounds. She cites texts such as the Stimulus Amoris, by James of Milan, in which the mystical soul expresses desire to copulate wound to wound with Christ in language that exploits the pun between vulnus and vulva.225 Lochrie also finds the transitivity of wound to vulva/vagina, of masculine to feminine bodies, and of sexualities vividly expressed in certain devotional images of Christs side wound. These images, which show Christs wound disembodied and enlarged to life -size proportions, provide, says Lochrie, a visual conjunction of wound and vagina.226 Openness to the polysemy of Christs wound, therefore, requires openness to its sexual valences, and the interconnectedness of erotic desire, violence, and death under the sign of this fissure in Christs flesh. () If we shift both Bynums emphasis on the fertility function of Christs flesh and Lochries emphasis on the female erotic possibilities such an emphasis overlooks, and instead attend to the intersections of love and pain in the fissures in Christs body, we may find that this body occupies a boundary zone between fertility and eroticism . Julians readings of Christs side wound may admit erotic valences, but it specifically articulates maternal valences . We need not forge divisions between the two when Julian does not foreclose this polysemy. Christs permeable boundaries mark his body as pervious and fertile, qualities that confirm Bynums characterization of a medieval religiosity concerned with the generations, transformations, and dissolutions fundamental to human flesh and exemplified by the maternal body. Yet, Christs permeability, materialized by his split heart and thirst, also marks his body as desiring and desirable, one that he offers to his children now in this lyfe by many prevy touchynges of swete, gostly syghtes and felynges mesuryd to us as oure sympylhed *simpleness+ may bere it so long tyll we shall dye in longyng for love.227 Through this death will come the sensual consummation of a life of longing: And than shall we alle come in to oure Lorde, oure selfe clerely knowyng and God fylsomly felyng, and hym gostely heryng, and hym delectably smellyng, and hym swetly swelwyng [tasting]. And ther shall we se God face to face, homely and fulsomly.228 1. Poltica s del cuerpo 2. Ertico 3. Ag. Mstico 4. Debate BynumLochrie

Christs power to give birth to his children, feed, and support them issues specifically from Monstr his incarnation, that is, his enclosure within human flesh.262 The theological centrality of osity, these interpenetrating images of birth and enclosure within generative bodies testifies that 128 Julians affective encounter with the porous limens of Christs maternal body is not reducible to a dominant commonplace of late medieval devotion to be distinguished from the reasoning inquiry of the theological portions of her text.263 These processes of continuous birth and enclosure permeate all of Julians theology. Mary, Christ, and humanity participate in this process which has been called an imagistic system which plays upon the related images of anchorhold and womb, developing a discursive strategy that links the apophatic and the maternal :264 Oure lady is oure moder, in whom we be all beclosyd and ofn hyr borne in Crist, for she that is moder of oure savyoure is mother of all that ben savyd in our savyour; and oure savyoure is oure very moder, in whome we be endlessly borne and nevyr shall come out of hym.265 Monstr osity, 128-12 9

1. Minorit ario 2. Ag mstico

1. Ag mstico 2. Poltica s del cuerpo

There is no scholarly consensus as to whether Julian composed her long text after she Monstr became an anchoress. A reference to Julian anakorite in the will of Roger Reed provides osity, evidence that she had been enclosed by the year 1394, twenty years after she experienced 129 her sickness and revelations.268 In his careful study on the composition of Showings, Nicholas Watson concludes that the short text was likely written later than had been previously assumed, that is, in the mid to late 1380s rather than in the years immediately following Julians visionary episode. He believes that Julian worked on the long text from the late 1380s to the time of her death, sometime after 1416.269 As McInerney notes, Watsons dating suggests that Julian composed the short text in a domestic, albeit devout setting a setting that she sees reflected in Julians use of images drawn from being a woman in the world, allusions to childbirth, motherhood, sexuality, and domesticity.270 Watsons dating also suggests that the long text, with its rich vocabulary of enclosure would have been a product of perhaps almost a quarter of a century of writing within the anchorhold.271 According to Maud McInerney, the words closen, beclosen, and their cognates, favored by Monstr

1. Ag mstico (claustr o)

1. Anacor

otros autores pgina 14

According to Maud McInerney, the words closen, beclosen, and their cognates, favored by Monstr Julian, included within their late -medieval range of meanings to bury or entomb.273 The osity, anchorhold was in principle as well as practice, not so much a house as a tomb .274 130 Comparisons between the anchorhold and tomb would not have been unfamiliar to the anchoress as the Office for the Dead and the Office of Extreme Unction were traditionally performed during her enclosure ceremony.275 The sprinkling of dust over her body and the blocking up of the door through which she entered her cell would have further underscored the junction of death and the new life beginning within the walls of the anchorhold.276 The anchoress was to become dead to the outside world, but born anew to the reclusive life. The cell, moreover, would be the place of her final death and rebirth into the afterlife; it was womb and tomb twice over. Thus, Julians assertion that we be all in hym *Christ+ beclosyd, and he is beclosyd in us, does not simply describe the relationship between container and contained; it also evokes the tradition of anchoritism as well as the physiology of maternity277 The paradox of expansiveness within enclosure that permeates Showings, like so many concentric circlessickroom, body, womb, soulare depicted as leading both inwards and outwards to the very seat of an immanent divinity.278 This divinity, enfleshed within Marys womb, becomes Moder Jhesu in whose conceiving, gestating, and birthing body life and death converge.

1. Anacor eta 2. Ag mstico 3. Claustr o

The permeability of female corporeality in Ancrene Wisse appears in the form of bodily Monstr orifices imagined as thresholds of temptation, openings in the flesh that render the soul osity, vulnerable to evil. The anchoress body must be constantly monitored to prevent sin often 131 sexual in naturefrom entering and contaminating it. She must also guard against foulness exiting from her own body and corrupting others. The author of this text illustrates the dangers of each of the bodily senses by tracing them to their corresponding orifices in the anchoress body, and then urging her to keep these orifices tightly closed*.+ () The anchoritic body and the anchoritic cell, like a castle or fortress, must equally be shut, sealed, closed, covered, guarded, fastened, bolted up, locked, blind -folded, intactjust some of the terminology employed in Ancrene Wisse.285 In both Ancrene Wisse and Showings, wounds mark the human sinner as well as the body of Monstr Christ. Julian identifies the wounds of humanity contrition, compassion, longing for God osity, as the thre menys *means+ wher by that alle soules com to hevyn, medycins that heal 133 sinful creatures through their openness.292 Ancrene Wisse, by contrast, imagines wounds as the marks of the seven deadly sins in need of being knit together by the remedies of confession and penitence. Bodily sinslechery, gluttony, and slothare foot-wounds; spiritual sinspride, envy, anger, dovetousnessare chest-wounds, and, according to the metaphor of spiritual health and illness, much more dangerous on account of their proximity to the vital organs.293 Wogan-Browne reads in these metaphors the possibility of identification between the negatively permeable female body, inherently volatile and vulnerable to temptation, and the redemptive body of Christ. Female flesh may be a problematic border zone, but in this instance, the sinning body itself is permeable and wounded as the redemptive body of Christ.294 The author of Ancrene Wisse, however, does not present the wounds of sin, when they mark the human soul, as fecund sites for encountering Christ. Rather, these wounds sicken the soul and estrange it from God. In Ancrene Wisse, then, imitatio Christi is incongruously identified with the unbroken flesh and the sealed female body. Its readers are to read in Christs wounds the need to dam up their own vulnerable bodies.295
Considering the female body in the period from 1200 to 1500, Bynum comments: Compared to other periods of religious history and other world religions, medieval spirituality especially female spirituality was particularly bodily; this was so not only because medieval assumptions associated female with flesh but also because theology and natural philosophy saw persons as, in some real sense, body as well as soul.60 According to Bynum, the psychosomatic unity of the person as body and soul, spirit and flesh was the dynamic through which the religious women reached out for God through tears, bleeding, fasting and flagellation. In return, God offered gifts that were written into the womans body (stigmata, spiritual pregnancy, corporeal visions). With regard to visionary women, mirroring the visual schema in Showing of Love, Bynum makes the important observation that in the matrix of corporeal longing and gifts of grace, the divines method of access or impress integrated body, heart and soul . Bynum demonstrates this integration in the erotic poetry of the mid-thirteenth-century beguine Hadewijch. () Beyond the enlivened body of the female visionary as the site for divine access and sensory participation, Bynum observes that the body of Christ himself was accessed as female. Visiona ry, 109-11 0

1. Ag mstico 2. Anacor etas

1. Anacor etas 2. Claustr o 3. Ag mstico

1. Cuerpo 2. Context o 3. Ag mstico

La corrupcin de las instituciones eclesiales, la confianza socavada en las Escrituras a partir Traves Observar el planteamiento poltico del de la exegtica, har a los msticos recelar del rgimen oficial de verdad y de la economa as, 16 texto, especialmente observar la oficial de la Escritura. () La ciencia de los santos habla lenguas cada vez ms alejadas del relacin que tiene con lo que logos y la Escritura, del seminario y del saber pontificio, y cada vez ms cercanas a la voz, "al pretendemos conceptualizar como nio, a la mujer, al analfabeto, a la locura, a los ngeles o al cuerpo. agenciamiento mstico. El agenciamiento mstico que toma la voz como su escritura, pues la escritura dominante no es para ellos, no est en su disposicin.

1. Agencia miento mstico

Demasiado ligada a la voz sin contenido, la voz de Dios ha de adherirse a la letra para no Traves Voz y ley en el agenciamiento mstico 1. Ag considerarse puramente arbitraria. Existe, sin embargo, un uso y una funcin muy diferente as, mstico Juliana de Norwich acta como una voz, 2. Rgime de la voz que tiene el efecto no de poner en acto sino de poner en tela de juicio la letra 19-20 pues es una criatura analfabeta y mujer. n de misma y la autoridad. Es precisamente la voz como autoridad frente a la letra; la voz que Por tanto, puede cantar algo que para la signos tiende a reemplazarla o a poner su validez en cuestin. Hay --y es lo que aqu interesa-- criaturas enigmticas que son, esencialmente, criaturas de ley es imposible de escribir: su (voz) la voz. () La voz epitoma entonces la validez ms all del significado al estar experiencia singular. Lo singular contra lo universal. estructuralmente situada en el punto de la excepcin. Es eptome de algo que no puede hallarse en ninguna parte del enunciado, ni en el discurso hablado, ni en su cadena de significantes. Efectivamente, la ley puede seguir siendo la ley slo en la medida en que est escrita o

otros autores pgina 15

Efectivamente, la ley puede seguir siendo la ley slo en la medida en que est escrita o inscrita, y con ello me refiero a que tenga una forma universalmente accesible. La voz per se, en cambio, la que no se inscribe ni escribe, es precisamente lo que no se puede sujetar ni revisar, es siempre mutable y fugaz, es lo no universal por excelencia. Michel de Certeau describe cmo en el Medioevo el adjetivo mystique se refera a una Traves prctica de interpretacin ligada al descubrimiento del simbolismo de la Escritura. as, 30 Estrechamente ligada a la teologa, la mstica slo se transforma en sustantivo entre los siglos XVI-XVII. Al hacerlo se erige como campo de saber distinto del teolgico; un campo del saber que al reclamar para s la ciencia de la experiencia signar de manera inevitable su fin en la institucin eclesial. A partir de aqu la mstica que no admita el escrutinio de la Escritura se considerar un fenmeno ligado a la patologa. 1. Ag Mstico

Ante la visin deslumbradora, los fragmentos de opacidad naufragan en un ver que extingue Traves Juliana de Norwich y la percepcin 1. Percepc lo que ve. as, 48 pictrica in Qu es lo que ve Juliana, con sus ojos pictric corporales y qu es lo que ve con los a 2. Ag espirituales? Es decir, con el cuerpo Mstico entendido como un todo y con el intelecto como si fuese una cosa aparte 3. CsO del cuerpo. Qu fragmentos, en qu se fija, por qu fija su mirada por ejemplo en las llagas de Cristo?
Fijarse en las heridas puede significar fijarse en las aberturas de cuerpo de Cristo/femenino, en una esquizia, forma parte de una produccin deseante del gozo mstico.

La mirada de la imagen constituye un punto, y el punto es en s mismo "quasi -nada" (prope Traves Deseo/locura, tomar cuerpo: la mirada 1. Percepc nihil) est dotado de una infinita "fecundidad"; est cercano a nada desde una perspectiva as, y lo social in Las catexis deseantes, al igual que la analtica, y cercano a todo desde una perspectiva dinmica. La mirada del icono es un vector 50-51 pictric produccin social, como su nombre lo y una accin en el espacio. Como una flecha, se implanta en cada uno de los espectadores. a dicen son producciones. Producciones 2. A () Efectivamente, "la mirada es enunciativa, pero sola no sabe ni puede saber lo que quiere decir". Si la mirada se abstrae del universo socializado, si no toma cuerpo (social), puede mstico de mquinas, las mquinas deseantes y encontrar la locura. La sociabilidad supone que cada uno de los monjes d testimonio de su las mquinas sociales En este contexto 3. M qu puede querer decir tomar cuerpo experiencia desconcertante y que a su vez sea credo por los dems. () "Bajo este sesgo, la deseant social? Tomar cuerpo social es la creencia socializa lo insensato. La locura de la mirada se hace (casi) cuerpo. La creencia es es represin, tomar cuerpo social es lo por lo tanto el momento, a repetir indefinidamente, a travs del cual la locura de la mirada, molar, frente a lo molecular de todo secreto solitario, se transforma en discurso y en historia." deseo --y de toda locura-- no en vano () *L]a distancia se desmorona. Nietzsche al hablar del amor dir: todo amor es una locura, pero toda locura tiene un poco de razn.
Ahora bien el deseo, la mquina deseante de Juliana de Norwich se sistematiza en la visin, pero no en la visin ptica sino en una visin hptica, donde la distancia se desmorona.

Si entre los siglos XVI Y XVII la palabra mstica deja de ser el adjetivo de un secreto referente Traves a una prctica exegtica y alegrica de la Escritura, y adquiere el significado de experiencia as, 55 interior y privada que dar lugar al nacimiento de toda una ciencia secreta de la experiencia, * fray Juan asiste a e sete nacimiento y al mismo tiempo sus races se anclan, de manera vigorosa, en una comprensin de la mstica que trata de huir, precisamente, de una concepcin apegada a la experiencia. *En el primer caso se sitan las visionarias como Hildegarda de Bingen o Hadewjich de Amberes, visionarios como Joaquin de Fiore y estigmatizados como Francisco de Ass. En el segundo tenemos a Marguerite Porete, o Maestro Eckhart. Hay que sealar adems que esta distincin que configura a la ciencia mstica en el siglo XVII se hace a posteriori, y depende de un posicionamiento respecto al naciente mtodo cientfico. A menudo, es difcil establecer distinciones tajantes entre uno y otro y por ejemplo hay, en la visin misma, un movimiento que apunta a lo apoftico como muestra McGinn. La escritura de Teresa se produca en una poca en la que como seala Michel de Certeau, la Traves configuracin mstica era una respuesta a una prdida. La corrupcin de las instituciones as, 142 eclesiales, la confianza socavada en las Escrituras a partir de la exegtica, signaban la desaparicin progresiva de Dios como nico objeto de amor. Los msticos --nos recuerda Certeau-- llevaban hasta la radicalidad la confrontacin con la instancia evanescente del cosmos.

1. Ag mstico

1. Ag mstico

En la histeria irrumpe lo que no puede : "ser oprimido incluso en la lucha de clases, la libido, Travesi Produccin deseante en la mstica 1. Produc el deseo. Es a partir del deseo que revives la necesidad de que las cosas cambien. El deseo as, 158 Ms all de la enfermedad que padezca cin un agenciamiento. El padecimiento nunca muere, pero puede ser sofocado por mucho tiemp o". () Las msticas o por lo menos deseant patolgico muestra un deseo que no Teresa de vila --esa mujer loca-- se sita, no del lado de la religin, sino del de la histeria. e 2. Ag puede ser oprimido por la economa Desde una lectura fluida de Freud, Cixous efecta una transvaloracin; revierte radicalmente el despliegue de las categoras mdicas a travs de las cuales ciertos textos y experiencias mstico social. Dicho deseo puede ser sofocado, mas no perecer, pues est incoado en la femeninas son patologizadas. () Cixous argumentaba que la histeria (y las formas de produccin deseante de la propia misticismo que se le asociaban) sealaba el retorno de un deseo reprimido que desataba una sociedad. fuerza liberadora que operaba dentro del poder conservador y reificante de la creencia y la prctica religiosa.
La mstica haba de ser comprendida desde un proyecto cultural en el que la identidad Traves femenina histricamente se reduca a lo que ella haba hecho, elegido y dicho los hombres. as, 163 Simone de Beauvoir afirmaba repetidamente que la condicin de vctima de la mujer, de sbdita del hombre, no era un dato natural sino el fruto de elecciones existenciales que podan documentar en cierto grado una complicidad de la propia mujer con la opresin que sufra: "cuando el hombre considera a la mujer como el Otro, entonces encuentra en ella una 1. Ag mstico

otros autores pgina 16

sufra: "cuando el hombre considera a la mujer como el Otro, entonces encuentra en ella una complicidad profunda. De este modo la mujer no se reivindica a s misma como sujeto, porque no tiene los medios concretos para elo, porque experimenta la relacin necesaria con el hombre sin admitir reciprocidad, y porque muchas veces se complace en la parte de Otro. Las mujeres no eran ni histricas ni msticas por naturaleza porque la mujer no "naca se haca", y si bien a menudo era vctima de la opresin; lo cierto era que tambin a menudo poda ser cmplice , y moralmente responsable. La atraccin que desde finales del siglo XIX ejercen las formas extremas de misticismo Traves especficamente femeninas, y en vinculacin con la histeria, se caracteriza por un nfasis en as, 176 lo visual que tendi, como hemos visto en el caso de Teresa de vila, a omitir sus escritos y a favorecer en cambio la representacin visual de sus xtasis. La Iglesia se esforzaba por mostrar que era capaz de distinguir el grano de la paja, y defender verdades eternas en un mundo que no obstante era moderno. La medicina anhelaba mostrar cmo en el mundo sin Dios de la neurosis la convulsin histrica era el nico xtasis que se poda reconocer. La fascinacin no obstante no slo alcanzaba a la ciencia y a la Iglesia; el movimiento feminista ejerci su reflexin en torno al misticismo y la histeria como mbitos privilegiados en los que se haba desplegado un imaginario femenino en el que la cuestin del cuerpo de la mujer, se develaba crucial. Ahora bien, mientras que Beauvoir celebraba la habilidad singlar de Teresa de vila para Traves trascender su cuerpo, Luce Irigaray apuntar a mostrar en ella una experiencia corprea y as, 177 singularmente femenina de la trascendencia. Para ella, desde esta perspectiva, no habr que deslindar la mstica de la histeria, sino aprovechar deliberadamente su asociacin para dar luz a un nuevo imaginario femenino. () Irigaray apostar como he sealado, por una trascendencia que se enraizar en la inmanencia.
Al abrazar las prcticas consideradas ms repugnantes dentro de la economa masculina, la mstica imitaba histricamente la humillacin a la que se vea implcitamente asociado lo femenino en el imaginario de Occidente: "las tareas ms serviles, los comportamientos ms forzosos y degradantes para forzar el desprecio que se tiene, que ella tiene de s misma *+ la sangre, las costras, el pus, eliminados en los dems y absorbidos por ella, sern aquello que la limpiarn de toda mancha. () "El objeto de repugnancia permite a la institucin, como a una familia, constituirse y manifestarse de acuerdo con una ley que tendra como frmula: todas menos una, pero una que sostiene la abyeccin o locura interior de todas".* () *E+n la mstica femenina poda precisamente ser Cristo en quien lejos de contemplar el amor divinizado que la mujer senta por el varn descrito por Beauvoir () Irigaray contemplaba "ese plus de femenino de todos los hombres". Cristo --escriba-- es el modelo que "en su crucifixin le abre una va de redencin en la decadencia en la que se encuentra"**. Habra que precisar que Irigaray coincida aqu con toda una tradicin de la mstica femenina del Medioevo --rastreada desde la historia por Caroline Walker-Bynum-- que perciba el cuerpo de Cristo como esencialmente femenino. En efecto, el cuerpo de Cristo, un cuerpo abierto que redima a travs de la herida que sangraba; era comparado con el sexo de la mujer y con el proceso de dar vida. Cristo alimentaba a sus hijos con su carne y con su sangre, del mismo modo que la madre amamantaba a su criatura con su propio cuerpo. Traves Cuerpo enfermo, cuerpo glorioso en el as, agenciamiento mstico. 190-19 Es importante hacer notar, como el 1 cuerpo grotesco va deviniendo en glorioso. Los objetos parciales , que se encuentran en los flujos de la produccin deseante, la cuestin de la enfermedad, de la herida y del cuerpo abierto, son las formas en las que el deseo fluye en el agenciamiento mstico.

1. Ag mstico

1. Enferm edad 2. Ag mstico

1. Ag mstico 2. CsO (Cuerpo grotesc o) 3. Enferm edad 4. Cristo

Aunque ella misma sealaba que el goce de la mstica al descubrir el cuerpo de Cristo no se Traves vinculaba a la contemplacin de su tormento fsico sino a la redencin de un cuerpo as, 191 (femenino), y a la posibilidad que ello brindaba de establecer una nueva constitucin subjetiva basada e una relacin ueva con el lenguaje: lo cierto era que el desplazamiento no dejaba de suscitar interrogantes porque el cuerpo con el que la mstica se identificaba no dejaba de ser un cuerpo que era feminizado en tanto que herido y crucificado. Era asimismo, a travs de una imitacin de ndole histrica, que la mstica abra en la economa falogocntrica la posibilidad de un nuevo imaginario. () Un cuerpo que si bien conservaba las huellas de su sufrimiento, era glorioso por algo ms que ste y que le abra a una relacin con lo divino que apuntaba, precisamente al lugar extremo en el que los medios cesaban.
Las preguntas que habra que responder seran por lo menos dos. En primer lugar, qu es lo que nos indica de una episteme la necesidad de diagnosticar retrospectivamente y de llevar a cabo una lectura "patolgica" de ciertos fenmenos del pasado? En segundo lugar, cuando autoras como Simone de Beauvoir, asumen la identificacin entre misticismo e histeria pero se esfuerzan en salvar ciertas figuras a quienes no pueda imputrseles ninguna patologa; cuando autoras como Luce Irigaray buscan ms bien apropiarse estratgicamente de dicha asociacin qu buscan en el pasado? No buscan acaso un movimiento de identificacin, de asimilacin de lo que se debe conocer, ms que uno de desfamiliarizacin que haga salir del s mismo y cuestionar todo aquello que habitualmente damos por sentado? () Prescindir de los escritos supone hacer caso omiso al hecho de que el xtasis no es una imagen sino un discurso, de que tienen la estructura de un relato y de que el alma en s misma slo se comprende por su discurso. Traves as, 194-19 5

1. Enferm edad/re dencin 2. Ag mstico 3. Cuerpo 4. Cristo

1. Ag mstico (episte me)

No deberamos de olvidar en primer lugar que no hay acceso inmediato al cuerpo de la mstica sino a los textos que escribieron a menudo en medio de enormes dificultades; y en segundo lugar, que esos mismos textos msticos femeninos son el producto de la relacin de los cuerpos con el poder; una relacin que no debemos ignorar y que puede implicar respuestas inusitadas.

Traves Agenciamiento, cuerpo, poder 1. Ag as, 196 Es importante hacer notar la relacin de mstico estas tres categoras en la formalizacin 2. Cuerpo de lo mstico, los cuerpos y sus formas 3. Poder no surgen de la nada, son el producto de una relacin de ellos con el poder.

otros autores pgina 17