Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: The Mystical Turn

The Essay: The Mystical Turn: Episode 3: Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism

Religion & Ethics

The Mystical Turn

Episode 3

Episode 3: Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism

Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, The Mystical Turn, Evelyn Underhill's MysticismClose menu

Dr Jane Shaw explores the appeal of Evelyn Underhill's bestselling book, Mysticism.

Dr Jane Shaw, Dean of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, explores the appeal of Evelyn Underhill's bestselling book, Mysticism, first published 100 years ago.

In the third programme in our series, The Mystical Turn, Dr Jane Shaw, Dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, explores the appeal of Evelyn Underhill's bestselling book, Mysticism, first published one hundred years ago.

Mysticism: A Study of the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness, was a major contribution to the revival of interest in mysticism in the early 20th century, and has been republished many times. For years on the margins of the established Church, Evelyn Underhill was attuned to the spiritual longing of the times. But in contrast to WR Inge - the Oxford don and later Dean of St Paul's Cathedral - whose book, Christian Mysticism, had triggered a revival of interest in mysticism at the end of the 19th century, Underhill took mysticism out of the realm of the purely intellectual and into the practical. Her emphasis was on prayer, meditation and personal ascetism. For her, the mystic way was a largely individual endeavour and it was open to everyone. 

Producer: Ian Willox
Executive Producer: Alan Hall

A Chrome Radio production for BBC Radio 3.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Jane Shaw on a renewed interest in mysticism from the late 19th to the early 20th century.

Dr Jane Shaw, Dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, explores the revival of interest in mysticism and religious experience generally - at the end of the 19th and in the early 20th century

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Essay

The Mystical Turn

Episode 3: Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism

Genres

Formats

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3