Miguel de Molinos: The Spiritual Guide

Miguel de Molinos (c. 1628-1696) was one of the most important figures in the religious controversy known as Quietism. Spanish by birth, he spent nearly his entire adult life in Rome, where he attracted wide fame as a spiritual director and gained the favor of such figures as the exiled Queen Christina of Sweden and several members of the papal court. His Spiritual Guide (1675) recommended a life of spiritual simplicity and promoted what became known as the prayer of quiet. On publication it was an immediate bestseller, but the Guide’s fame came to an abrupt end in 1685 when Molinos was accused of heresy and sentenced to life imprisonment. He died in prison in 1696.

This Classics of Western Spirituality edition of the Spiritual Guide was translated from the new critical edition of Jose Ignacio Tellechea Idigoras. It provides an unabridged translation in modern English along with two introductions: a historical introduction by the translator that gives a short biography of Miguel de Molinos and describes the fate of the Spiritual Guide, and a theological introduction by the eminent scholar Bernard McGinn that explains the controversy over Quietism and situates Molinos’s Guide within the history of mysticism.