Far from presuming to instruct those to whom first-hand information is both accessible and palatable, I write only for the larger class which, repelled by the formidable appearance of more elaborate works on the subject, would yet like to know what is meant by mysticism, and what it has to offer to the average man: how it helps to solve his problems, how it harmonises with the duties and ideals of his active life. Such readers are warned that they will find here nothing but the re-statement of elementary and familiar propositions, and invitations to a discipline immemorially old. It is addressed neither to the learned nor to the devout, who are already in possession of a wide literature dealing from many points of view with the experiences and philosophy of the mystics. It will educate them in a charity free from all taint of sentimentalism it will confer on them an unconquerable hope and assure them that still, even in the hour of greatest desolation, 'There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.' As a contribution, then, to these purposes, this little book is now published. It will teach them to see the world in a truer proportion, discerning eternal beauty beyond and beneath apparent ruthlessness. It will help them to enter, more completely than ever before, into the life of the group to which they belong. It is therefore the function of a practical mysticism to increase, not diminish, the total efficiency, the wisdom and steadfastness, of those who try to practise it. It is a part of every man's life and until he has realised it he is not a complete human being, has not entered into possession of all his powers. The spiritual life is not a special career, involving abstraction from the world of things. This is a task in which all may do their part. If this be so, it becomes a part of true patriotism to keep the spiritual life, both of the individual citizen and of the social group, active and vigorous its vision of realities unsullied by the entangled interests and passions of the time.

No nation is truly victorious which does not emerge with soul unstained.

We are often told, that in the critical periods of history it is the national soul which counts: that 'where there is no vision, the people perish.' No nation is truly defeated which retains its spiritual self-possession.

Practical mysticism by evelyn underhill