The Western Christian mystical tradition, so beautifully renewed by Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross 400 years ago, soon fell into crisis and a long, dark night from which it is still trying to recover. This is the story of that crisis which centered on a misunderstanding of the writings of John of the Cross, which has persisted until today and how it has shaped our understanding of Christian mysticism. Meet the men and women, some famous, but most forgotten, who have shaped Christian mysticism as we know it today: Tom�s de Jes�s, a Carmelite prodigy of the early 17th century who almost single-handedly altered the course of Western mysticism, Antonio de Alvarado, Francisco Quiroga, Juan Breton, Miguel de Molinos, reviled as the chief of the Quietists, August�n-Fran�ois Poulain, Juan Arintero and many others, down to Thomas Merton, Ruth Burrows and Thomas Keating.