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“... The events and beliefs of the Middle Ages that have appeared unusual to later centuries have always attracted attention of two rather different sorts. One tendency has been to explain them away. For example, sophisticated and thoughtful about many religious phenomena though he was, in The Varieties of Religious Experience William James tended to reduce the mystical experiences of medieval women, especially when accompanied by bodily rigidity, swelling or trances, to psychological aberrations ...”

“... pregnant woman? In what form would the embryo be found in the afterlife after the Day of Judgment? Caroline WalkerBynum has made abhorrent corners of Catholic metaphysics her speciality. After remarkable work on the mortifying practices of female mystics in the Middle Ages (Holy Feast and Holy Fast), she has turned her ...”

“... and docile bodies. Medieval mysticism provides ecstatic corroboration of a similar point. Caroline WalkerBynum argues persuasively that the body plays a central role in Western female spirituality from about 1200 until about 1500. Although chiefly connected in Medieval society with the twin themes of fertility ...”

“... Buddha. But no culture matches Catholic and Orthodox Christianity for its fascination with what Caroline WalkerBynum calls ‘holy matter’. In Bynum’s account, relics of the saints bear witness to the central paradox of Christian materiality. If the changeless God could become ...”