MAGER, ALOIS. — Benedictine, philosopher and psychologist, born at Zimmern near Rottweil (Swabia) on 21 August 1883, died at Salzburg on 26 December 1946. He entered Beuron in 1903 and was ordained a priest in 1909; he continued his studies in neo-Scholastic philosophy at Louvain, and in German philosophy and experimental psychology at Munich.
From 1924 he was professor of philosophy at the Theological Faculty of Salzburg for 22 years, stimulating Catholic university life and the Higher Culture Weeks, for which he edited the reports from 1931 to 1937.
His studies at Louvain, subsequently concentrated in the dissertation Aristoteles und die spanische Mystik, determined his scholarly orientation and his predominant interest: mysticism, in which he became a recognized authority. The work Mystik als seelische Wirklichkeit. Eine Psychologie der Mystik (Graz-Salzburg 1946) is a genuine manual of asceticism and mysticism and his spiritual and scholarly testament.
Other works worthy of mention are: Die Enge des Bewusstseins (Stuttgart 1919); Die Staatsidee des hl. Augustinus (Munich 1920); Wandel in der Gegenwart Gottes (Augsburg 1921); Theosophie und Christentum (Berlin 1922 and 1926); Neue Versuche zur Messung der Geschwindigkeit der Aufmerksamkeitssenderung (Leipzig 1925); Vorlesungen über experimentelle Psychologie (Beuron 1929); Um Konnersreuth. Neueste religionspsychologische Dokumente (Würzburg 1931); Christus und der Forscher (Augsburg 1931); Mystik als Lehre und Leben (Innsbruck 1934); Des hl. Thomas Erklärungen zu den drei Büchern des Aristoteles «Über die Seele» übertragen und eingeleitet (Vienna 1937). He was also a regular contributor to many journals, for example, Benediktinische Monatschrift (1919–46), Theol. Revue, Etudes Carmelitaines, Gloria Dei, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche.