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WORDING THE SILENCE: INITIATORY READING OF MYSTICAL TEXIS ——~o » —_—_ ANIKO DAROCZI ABSTRACT Hadewijch, the 13-century Brabantine woman mystic, was the magistra of a small group of beguines. We know almost nothing about her life, except that she wrote letters, visions and songs of love mysticism that most probably circulated among her followers and disciples. In her letters there are a number of passages in which she asks the addressee — whom she often calls “dear child” or “sweet love” — to read and re-read what she had received from her, suggesting on the one hand that she as magistra cannot say more about her own experience of God than what she had already said and written, and on the other hand that meditative reading could lead the “dear child” to a more profound knowledge or even experience of the divine. Indeed, if we keep re-reading her letters about the ineffable unio mystica and can listen to the modus mysticus in which she writes, we can conclude that she invites her disciple to an initiatory reading, which sometimes, through the power of unfathomable images arranged in repetitive (rhythmical) patterns, leads to a seeing beyond the imaginable. THE WORD AND THE SILENCE Before a mystic author finds the right words and utters them, a process of ‘becoming word’ takes place within the mystical one-ing. The mystical experience of oneness happens within the person’s innermost being, at an unfathomable depth. God’s touch, there, is itself a form of speaking. Mystical speech is a response to the divine touch which is God’s Word: what the mystic as mystic says emerges from unio and leads back to unio. This is what we understand from the oeuvre of Hadewijch, a Brabantine woman love mystic of the 13'* century who was an author of visions, songs «117 + Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 117 6 2020.06.15. 11:04:16
