(Faculty of Theology, University of the Free State, 2016) Raath, A. W. G.
The reading of female religious literature on the South African frontier allows us
to reconstruct important elements of a shared religious mentality profile of these
pioneer female believers. Such a reconstruction of the religious mentality profile
of pietistic women on the frontier reveals a number of important aspects for
understanding their spiritual life: self-awakenings and conversions; self-purification;
self-illumination and mystically tainted experiences; recollection and the experience
of quiet; meditation, contemplation, ecstasy and rapture; spiritual desertion, and
abandonment of the soul and the unitive life with God in Christ.