Saint Ignatius of Loyola´s Spiritual Exercises as a Recursive Experience

This chapter reflects upon the presence of recursion in Saint Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises. Two particular works are the basis for this paper. The first one belongs to the Jesuit Xavier Melloni in his book Mystagogy of Spiritual Exercises (2001). The second one is by linguist Roland Barthes in his book Sade, Fourier, Loyola (1997). These authors approach the study of said exercises with different academic interests. Melloni (2001) analyzes them as an experience of mystical initiation, Barthes (1997) as an experience of language creation. The following is an interpretation of these studies from a perspective of recursion. This way, a new key in reading the Ignatian approach is proposed in which all elements within acquire a new meaning: notes, additions, exercises, exams, and so on, as will be developed further later on.