"False Mystics is an important addition to the current dialogue on individual spirituality and institutional practices in colonial Mexico. . . . Jaffray provides a fascinating glimpse of the lives and beliefs of a non-elite sector of colonial society and demonstrates their important role in shaping the spiritual landscape of urban New Spain."—Kathleen Myers, Colonial Latin American Historical Review “Nora E. Jaffary, an assistant history professor, takes an esoteric subject that could well have remained a mere historical footnote and, through clear, vivid writing and exhaustive research, crafts it into a fascinating book that offers a new lens on church and state in the Spanish colonial era.”—Richard Harris, Southwest Book Views "Jaffary most often does an excellent job parsing her sources to show the ways in which the mystics represent their notions of ritual and religion."—Pete Sigal, American Historical Review “False Mystics is a valuable and enjoyable addition to our knowledge of colonial Mexico, as well as offering an intriguing contribution to recent debates in the fields of gender, race and religion.”—Caroline Dodds, Ecclesiastical History “[False Mystics is] fascinating and break[s] new ground in the study of popular Catholocism in New Spain.”—Ellen Gunnarsdottir, Journal of Latin American Studies “Nora Jaffary’s detailed and readable book stems from her close study of the records of a hundred or so trials of ‘false mystics’ by the Mexican Inquisition during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.”—British Bulletin of Publications “Nora Jaffary challenges much of the conventional wisdom about the nature of ‘popular religion’. . . . Jaffary makes her most important contribution to scholarly discourse when she treats religious deviancy and gender.” —Ronald Jay Morgan, Itinerario