The Spiritual Anthropology of Rut Björkman

The following paper presents the anthropology of a rather unknown religious mystic author: Rut Bjoerkman (1901 – 1988) was a women's mystic who spent her life striving for union with God. However, a closer look at the writings she produced over more than 50 years—under her pseudonym Bjoerkman (her grandmother's maiden name; Bjoerkman’s real name was Bahlsen)—seems worthwhile, especially since they were not written with the intention of publication and were thus composed with emotional authenticity. Despite the tension that exists among mystics toward science as a—in her view—"merely" rational approach to reality, her underlying anthropology shall be briefly outlined. A quote shall illustrate the seriousness of her struggle for a "real life", which implies a transcendental anthropology that defines the human being primarily through their relationship to transcendence. Although its anthropology initially arose from a Christian worldview, it underwent a philosophical generalization insofar as it thematizes man in his non-religion-specific relationship to God. Man stands at the intersection of immanence and transcendence. Therefore, if immanence or transcendence is overemphasized at the expense of the other constitutive pole, there is a risk of a loss of being. This loss of being is to be counteracted by a life from the spirit of the transcendent creative power, which is immanently constitutive, by the awareness one's own ontological constitution.