Bernard McGinn's The Crisis of Mysticism describes Catholic Quietism's essence from seventeenth-century Spain, Italy, and France and the Inquisition's attack on it. He analyzes the many tributaries of mystic thought that grew into the powerful spiritual torrent of European Quietism. At the crisis of mysticism, the Vatican condemned Quietism in its specific condemnations of Father Miguel Molinos and Archbishop Francois Fenelon. McGinn brilliantly concludes that this harmed the church:

McGinn's thesis says the Vatican's condemnation “ended in the anti-mystical reaction that did such harm to Catholicism” (xvii) and still impacts the church today.

What is Quietism? McGinn describes Quietism as “becoming passive to God's inner action, allowing oneself to be acted upon by God” (7). Through this mystical transformation—called theosis or deification—we experience and may unite with God. In The Ascent to God, Thomas Kuffel writes, “Theosis purifies us, gradually revealing the glory of God, the Beatific Vision” (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Press, 2022, 13).

Many experienced fulfillment in the search for deification. Spanish priest Miguel Molinos (1640–1697) led popular, quiet worship. Perceived as anticlerical, the Inquisition charged him with Quietism. In 1687, Pope Innocent XI judged Molinos guilty, sentencing him to life imprisonment. With Quietism now a formal heresy, a way opened to charge both Fenelon and Guyon with heresy.

Their dramatic history unfolded at King Louis XIV's Versailles, where Bishop Bossuet, Archbishop Fénelon, and Madame Jeanne Guyon served. An aristocratic woman, Guyon's popular books, especially A Short and Simple Method of Prayer and a commentary on Song of Songs, had spread throughout Europe.

In his contemporaneous Historical Memoirs of Versailles, Duc de Saint-Simon described Guyon “as a woman all in God, whose humility and whose love of contemplation and solitude kept her within the strictest limits” (115). The essence of Guyon's and Fénelon's friendship was “an interchange of pleasure between their minds. Their sublimes amalgamated” (114) (translated by Lucy Norton, McGraw Hill, 1967).

Bossuet, the author of the Divine Right of Kings and supporter for the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, publicly attacked all aspects of Guyon and Fénelon, bringing Louis XIV and his secret wife, Madame de Maintenon, into this impassioned dispute.

Fiery words exploded in Versailles and Rome. Relating to these French clerics as equals, Guyon's spiritual authority itself became a target. During years of interrogations, Bossuet built a case against Guyon, yet she continued her confident defense. In her Autobiography, Guyon writes of female authority, saying that if the Lord could work through Balaam's she-ass (Numbers 22:23), the Lord could speak through a woman (translated by Thomas Taylor Allen, 264, vol. 2, London, 1897).

In Quakerism a-la-mode, Bossuet repeatedly debates Guyon's burning at the stake in “fire” (60), taunting her “enormous boastings of a Woman” (103) saying, “Her books and her Doctrine had scandalized the whole Church” (61) (J. Harris and A. Bell, London, 1698). Because of this, Guyon received a lettre de cachet causing her eight years of incarceration, including five years in the infamous Bastille.

King Louis XIV banished Fénelon from Versailles. Subsequently, Pope Innocent XII condemned Fénelon's ideas, an action raising profound concern over mysticism itself. McGinn builds on Jean-Robert Armogathe, saying, “The condemnation of Fenelon's teaching, mild as it was, was ‘A fatal blow’ for a great era of Catholic mysticism” (6).

Yet McGinn's decision to allow Bossuet's thinking to ground the Guyon–Fénelon debate—while excluding all Protestant and Anglican thinkers—mars his history. McGinn quotes Fr. Knox calling Guyon “a lunatic” with “hysterical humility” and “persecution mania” (141). McGinn evaluates Guyon's narratives as “often self-centered, even self-serving” (150) with “exaggerations” (232) and “rhetorical excesses” (168). McGinn declares Guyon's spiritual authority as “extraordinary” (155) and imaginatively creates a dialogue where Guyon says to Fénelon, “I'm in control of you” (208). McGinn acknowledges the breakdown “between female mystics and clerical advisors, directors, and confessors,” yet he uses sources unfavorable to Guyon (310).

Secondly, McGinn makes assertions without citing Guyon's documents. He writes, “How could a mere woman pretend to share in apostolic graces? Guyon, of course, never claimed apostolic ecclesiastical or sacramental authority, something unthinkable at the time” (231). Yet Guyon describes Mary as the first Christian female priest, assisting at the sacrifice of her son who was the Great High Priest of Melchizedek (Autobiography, translated by Thomas Taylor Allen, 253–254 vol. 1, London, 1897). Guyon also describes Mary Magdalen as the apostle of the resurrection whom Jesus Christ joined with the 12 male apostles before giving them the Great Commission (Mystical Perfection through Eucharistic Suffering, translated Nancy Carol James, Eugene, OR: Pickwick Press, 2020, 262–263).

These unjust stereotypes of women have confused the debate over Guyon and Fénelon long enough. Society forced women into a submissive role. We owe human rights to Guyon of her own personality and thoughts, even as the celebrated Archbishop Fénelon treated her as his equal.

Guyon's many supporters include Archbishop Fénelon, theologian Pierre Poiret, author of “Amazing Grace” John Newman, poet William Cowper, founder of Methodism John Wesley, Quaker Hannah Whitall Smith, and Harvard scholar William James. Their ideas would help this unbalanced presentation of Guyon.

Together Guyon and Fénelon drew attention to the sad French realities of the killings of Huguenots, neglect for starving peasants, and the horrors of child labor and domestic violence. Their quiet words are needed for our current time of division and violence.

McGinn states correctly the loss of mysticism following this crisis. The condemnation of Molinos and Fenelon, as well as Guyon's incarceration, need an official clearing to restore the rightful place of mysticism in the Roman Catholic Church.