The Abyss, Detachment and Dreams: Thomas Müntzer’s Reception of Medieval German Mysticism

ABSTRACT Thomas Müntzer was one of the most important inaugurators of the Radical Reformation. The paper opens with a brief biography comparing his career to that of Meister Eckhart. The paper then examines sources in the German mystical tradition with which Müntzer was familiar. These sources included the sermons of Eckhart’s followers Johannes Tauler and Heinrich Seuso, and even several sermons by Eckhart himself. The heart of the paper examines several key components of Müntzer’s thought for evidence of the ways in which this mystical tradition influenced him. It takes up Müntzer’s notion of the birth of the inner or living Word in the soul, the deepest part of the soul as an ‘abyss’ in which it is necessary to confront one’s fear of God, the importance of detachment from selfish and material desires in order to attain contact and union with God, and, in the final part of the paper, Müntzer’s theory that certain dreams are sources of divine revelation and mystical experience.