A Mystic Impulse: From Apophatics to Decreation in Pseudo-Dionysius, Meister Eckhart and Simone Weil

This article articulates a mystically motivated apophatic subjectivity that emerges from Simone Weil's life and thought. It does so genealogically, via excursions into Pseudo- Dionysius's and Meister Eckhart's negative theologies. These genealogical excursions expose Weil’s resonances with and differences from these earlier thinkers of Christian apophasis. To highlight these differences, this article pays particular attention to two spiritual exercises, attention and decreation. Taken together, they point out a tragic sense pulsing through and informing Weil's remarkable religious thought and praxis.