a form of religious mysticism requiring withdrawal from all human effort and passive contemplation of God

Quietism is a Christian philosophy that swept through France, Italy and Spain during the 17th century, but it had much earlier origins. The mystics known as Quietists insist with more or less emphasis on intellectual stillness and interior passivity as essential conditions of perfection; and all have been officially proscribed as heresy in very explicit terms by the Roman Catholic Church.