A central issue in the study of the correlation between modernity, the turn to the religious subject and the history of mysticism, concerns the critical - some would argue 'subversive' - character and practice of mysticism and spirituality. Is this critical practice merely the resistance effect of the modern pastoral investment in the subject? Or is there something distinctive in mysticism and spirituality that draws it strength from various sources - knowledge, experience, desire or perhaps even one's body - and operates from a specific position or 'locus'? This volume explores these questions with the aim of developing a theory of critical spirituality, that is to say, of its historical appearances and its contemporary forms and characteristics.