The Religious Society of Friends: where next?
Patricia Gosling reflects on the importance of mysticism and healing in Quakerism
In her 2013 James Backhouse lecture – ‘A Quaker Astronomer Reflects’ – Jocelyn Bell Burnell commented that, in another age, she would probably have been regarded as a mystic. I think the same could be said of many who find their spiritual home within the Religious Society of Friends. Indeed, within the community of the Christian Church, I see Quakers as the group who, nowadays, most embody the mystical tradition. That is not to say that one cannot find mystics in other denominations – I have personally known a few such – but the significance of the Quaker Meeting for Worship is that it is, essentially, a group experience.
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