November’s session was led by Eddie Howells, on the topic of desire and spiritual growth, in engagement with the thought of thirteenth century Beguine Hadewijch.

In Christian Neoplatonic accounts of desire, God is understood not as an exterior object but as the interior source and goal of all human desire, in which human desire participates.  For Hadewijch, the thirteenth century Beguine mystic, human desire has an abyssal quality that pinpoints this capacity for participation in God.  Her abyss is what one commentator has called ‘an infinite or “epectetic” vanishing point’ for human desire, where human desire meets and unites with God.  This notion of depth, which Hadewijch situates within the soul, serves both to distinguish such desire from desires for objects in the world or mere ego satisfaction (which are less deep), and to relate all desires (both shallow and deep) to a single divine source.  But when desire is expanded into the divine dimensions of the abyss, in what sense does it remain desire?  Is it simply dissolved into the infinity of God?