Evelyn Underhill's Quest for the Holy: A Lifetime Journey of Personal Transformation

Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2006 by Delicata, Nadia

"What is it to be holy?" This question fashioned Evelyn Underhill's life. The young Underhill struggled with lack of intimacy and a disembodied spirituality. Her arduous spiritual searching drove her from pursuing magic, to a meticulous empirical study of the mystics, to facing personal tragedy in the First World War. Her gradual purification and transformation flourished in her encounter with Baron Friedrich von Hügel, her spiritual mentor. In the process, she rediscovered her Anglican roots, and gave her ultimate assent to Christ. Underhill's mature witness to the Christian life is revealed in her final "personal little book" and testament, "The Golden Sequence: A Fourfold Study of the Spiritual Life."

Writing is an art of expression as much as it is confession. What is written and the form the writing takes speak volumes about why so much labor was put into the work and, consequently, about who the writer is. Evelyn Underhill, a philosopher, a mystic, but above all a voluminous writer,1 seems not only to have had much to say, but more importantly, much to confess. Most of her life was spent concealing her real desires, hiding who she was even from her closest family and friends.2 Yet Underhill seems to have compensated for this lack of intimacy through two primary channels. Through writing, she could engage her tireless intellect in scholarly works while also contributing to the well-being of others through her retreats and her spiritual correspondence with her directees.3 And being "the friend (or rather disciple and adorer)" of Baron Friedrich von Hügel, a man "so saintly, so truthful, sane and tolerant," allowed her to "feel very safe and happy sitting in his shadow."4

In this article, these two media-Underhill's writings and her relationship with von Hügel-will be explored in an attempt to observe and understand who the woman was, and to listen to and ponder what she desires to share with us, her readers. The focus will be on what was dearest to Evelyn Underhill: her continuing efforts to resolve one "pervading" question, "What is it to be holy?"5 This question will take us through Underhill's life to her "personal little book," The Golden Sequence: A Fourfold Study of the Spiritual Life,6 the book that captures her ongoing discernment and crowns her personal spiritual quest.

Holiness

To be holy was what Underhill desired above everything else, her primary pursuit. Yet because of her reflective mind, because of her intensely inquisitive nature, because being was for her warped into knowing, she could not merely succumb to this supernatural pull. Nor could she allow herself simply to be drawn by this immense yearning to transcend her being. Rather, she did it the hard way, and she suffered for it too. Holiness became an intellectual exercise, a hard-core empirical method: she would collect data, observe and analyze phenomena, and arrive at her tentative conclusions. But she remained unsatisfied, paralyzed by her head, unable to perceive the certainty that screamed from her gut.7 Underhill knew certainty in her body, vet found it hard to articulate and accept in her mind-an experience that by 1921 had accompanied her "on and off for over sixteen years."8 Underhill's own personal journey as a mystic began when she was about thirty (1904-1905). With the awakening of her mystical consciousness she could not look back. The struggle between experience and intellect had to be resolved, and the cord which promised to bind the two was holiness.

I believe that the biggest tragedy of Underhill's life was that for too long, she did not change her method for finding a suitable answer to her longing for holiness. Like most of us, Underhill found it difficult to stretch her psychological comfort zone. She persisted in relying on her intellectual prowess and on the same handful of cognitive skills acquired in her formative years. This caused her, to greater and lesser extents throughout her life, to neglect other channels to holiness-her feelings, her intuition, her body, and the people whom she encountered. This is the "beast" Underhill found so hard to conquer:9 her own stubbornness in relying on the false self of her mind addicted to its own ruminations, its own introspection.

Yet to her credit, and unlike many of us, Underhill was also flexible, and courageous enough to experiment with different categories and learn from her own life experiences and from a few intimate and esteemed friends, particularly the Baron. Thus her focus shifted from beauty and magic, to mysticism and the transcendent, to relationship and spirituality. Yet, like her hero in "The Ivory Tower," her pursuit of the mission itself remained constant and unwavering.

Holiness and Magic

Underhill's earliest attempts at understanding her awakened spiritual consciousness were probably undertaken as an agnostic. They coincided with a heightening of her aesthetic sense through her extensive travel in Europe, and through her involvement with the Hermetic Society of the Golden Dawn, a group practicing ritual magic, which she joined in 1904 and belonged to "for some years."10 Her fictional works, published during this time, explored the themes of beauty and magic, together with her understanding of the supernatural as seemingly pantheistic.11 Vet it was Italy, in particular its Roman Catholic churches and rituals, that best captured her imagination and won over her discerning heart, leading her eventually to a theistic awakening and the desire to become Roman Catholic herself.12 Underhill wrote to Father Robert Hugh Benson (her first spiritual director): "A good deal shaken but unconvinced I was 'converted' quite suddenly once and for all by an overpowering vision which had really no specific Christian element but yet convinced me that the Catholic religion was true. It was so tightly bound up with Roman Catholicism that I had no doubt . . . that that Church was my ultimate home."13