Psychology and Mysticism: the Case of Saint Theresa of Jesus

Abstract

Strictly speaking, it is not possible to make psychology of Saint Teresa of Jesus, to study her experience or psychic reality, since we do not have direct access to her as an historical subject. Psychology can, however, legitimately approach her texts and study them through their language, since written texts are intentionally communicative. Cognitive psychology has tools which are suited to this type of analysis. I will examine texts written by Saint Teresa of Jesus (she is often also called Saint Teresa de Ávila) as human conduct and as especially suited to psychology as an explicative-causal and comprehensive-intentional science, though I do prefer to look at them as a mix of the two, explicative-comprehensive — a combination of both levels of reality.