The spiritual mentality profile of femaile pietists on the South African frontier, 1750-1860
Abstract
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.