Cover; Contents; List of Figures; Acknowledgements; Introduction: Toward a Criticism of Contemplation; 1 John Dee: Religious Experience and the Technology of Idolatry; 2 A Glass Darkly: John Donne's Negative Approach to God; 3 Love's Alchemist: Palingenesis and the Unconscious Metalepsis of Sir Kenelm Digby; 4 The Rosicrucian Mysticism of Henry and Thomas Vaughan; 5 The Pauline Mission of Jane Lead; Conclusion: The Real Dialectic; Bibliography; Index
Each of the figures examined in this study -John Dee, John Donne, Sir Kenelm Digby, Henry and Thomas Vaughan, and Jane Lead -is concerned with the ways in which God can be approached or experienced. Michael Martin analyses the ways in which the encounter with God is figured among these early modern writers who inhabit the shared cultural space of poets and preachers, mystics and scientists