This forum was closed on October 1st, 2010. However, the archives are open to the public and filled with vast amounts of good reading and information for you to enjoy. If you wish to meet some Wardrobians, please visit the Into the Wardrobe Facebook group.

Lewis and the occult

The man. The myth.

Re: re: Lewis and the occult

Postby A#minor » January 6th, 2006, 5:49 pm

"My brain and this world don't fit each other, and there's an end of it!" - G.K. Chesterton
User avatar
A#minor
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 7323
Joined: May 2005
Location: Georgia, USA

the original question

Postby Inariae » January 6th, 2006, 10:35 pm

To adress the original question of Lewis' involvement with the occult, the last few chapters of his autobiography, "Suprised By Joy," are helpful. These are direct quotes from that work, and all refer to the time before his conversion:

"As soon as I paused on that 'perhaps,' inevitably all the old occultist lore, and all the old excitement which the Matron of Chartres had innocently aroused in me, rose out of the past....Two things hitherto widely seperated in my mind rushed together: the imaginative longing for joy, or rather the longing which was joy, and the ravenous, quasi-prurient desire for the occult, the preternatural as such. And with these there came (less welcome) some stirring of unease, some of the immemorial fear we have all known in the nursery....there is a kind of gravitation in the mind whereby good rushes to good and evil to evil....in a word, you have already had in this story the World and the Flesh; now came the Devil....I came to see that the magical conclusion was just as irrelevant to joy as the erotic conclusion has been." - chapter XI

"Had they (fantasies) not revealed their true nature by luring me...into...the squalid nightmare of magic?" - chapter XIII (note - he later implies that it was not his incorrectly labeled fantasies that were responsible)

"I thought they (his friends recently converted to anthroposophy) were falling under that ravenous, salt lust for the occult" - chapter XIII

It is, thus, reasonable to assume that despite an early interest (and a fearful, tentative interest at that) in the occult, Lewis not only rejected it, but came to regard it as evil and veiwed it with disgust and horror.

As for the accusation that he is new age or beleives in Theosophy, I have but one word - ludicrous. He not only refutes many modern philosophies (quite neatly) in his works, but he also displays a remarkably strong anti-modernist bias in his works. For any doubters, read his book "Miracles," especially the chapter on "Christianity and Religion." I don't think anyone could call him a modernist or a Theosophist after finishing that. And the rest of the book is worth it too.

Wow....that was longer than I had intended. Hope it helps :) .

-Inariae[/u][/i]
User avatar
Inariae
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 76
Joined: Jan 2006
Location: within the bog of higher education

Re: the original question

Postby wood-maid » January 6th, 2006, 10:54 pm

"Jill," said Tirian, "you are the bravest and most wood-wise of all my subjects, but also the most malapert and disobedient."
"By the Mane!" he whispered to Eustace. "This girl is a wondrous wood-maid. If she had Dryad's blood in her she could scarce do it better." - The Last Battle
User avatar
wood-maid
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 288
Joined: May 2005
Location: Washington

re: Lewis and the occult

Postby Enyalie » January 11th, 2006, 11:27 am

“He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart”

-C.S. Lewis
User avatar
Enyalie
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 91
Joined: Jan 2006
Location: Seattle, sometimes

Re: re: Lewis and the occult

Postby A#minor » January 11th, 2006, 2:32 pm

"My brain and this world don't fit each other, and there's an end of it!" - G.K. Chesterton
User avatar
A#minor
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 7323
Joined: May 2005
Location: Georgia, USA

Re: re: Lewis and the occult

Postby wood-maid » January 11th, 2006, 7:15 pm

"Jill," said Tirian, "you are the bravest and most wood-wise of all my subjects, but also the most malapert and disobedient."
"By the Mane!" he whispered to Eustace. "This girl is a wondrous wood-maid. If she had Dryad's blood in her she could scarce do it better." - The Last Battle
User avatar
wood-maid
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 288
Joined: May 2005
Location: Washington

Re: re: Lewis and the occult

Postby Enyalie » January 18th, 2006, 8:24 am

“He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart”

-C.S. Lewis
User avatar
Enyalie
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 91
Joined: Jan 2006
Location: Seattle, sometimes

re: Lewis and the occult

Postby Mornamoice » January 18th, 2006, 10:04 am

Image
Thank you for the pix, A# Minor!
Mornamoice
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 666
Joined: Sep 2005
Location: Southern California

Re: Fun in the sun

Postby Genie » January 18th, 2006, 10:55 am

Totus tuus

Member of the Religious Tolerance Cabal of the Wardrobe
User avatar
Genie
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 714
Joined: Jul 2004
Location: Krakow, Poland (originally from Taiwan)

re: Lewis and the occult

Postby Paul_Burgin » January 19th, 2006, 4:18 pm

Paul_Burgin
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 160
Joined: Jun 2005
Location: Baldock, Hertfordshire

re: Lewis and the occult

Postby Dr. U » July 8th, 2006, 2:24 am

User avatar
Dr. U
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 79
Joined: Jul 2006
Location: Philadelphia, PA

re: Lewis and the occult

Postby David » July 8th, 2006, 5:31 pm

Really closed-minded dogmatic people seem to target Lewis--I don't know why, maybe because Lewis is someone who Christians look to for intellectual answers and this ruffles their egos--they want people to look to them for answers! A professor I had at college, one who was very dogmatic and intolerant of other peoples' ideas, once stood in front of a class and said, "Many people consider Lewis a Christian. After studying his works for many years I have come to the conclusion that he was not." He used to refer to him as a "philosopher," by which he meant a philosopher rather than a Christian believer.

I didn't buy it then but now I have gained a enough wisdom to see that the man probably never really studied Lewis at all. He was just playing the "dogma game." Anyone who did not completely agree with him was obviously a heretic.

And so it goes. A friend of mine who attended a really far-out fundamentalist church when he was a graduate student at the University of Kentucky said the pastor there went around saying Lewis wasn't a Christian. Once someone mentioned The Screwtape Letters to him and he said, "That's the book where C. S. Lewis calls God the enemy."

Frustrating examples like this could be multiplied. Best to just let these cranks, kooks, bigots, ignoramuses, go their own way.

But they are annoying.
The way, the weather, the terrain, the discipline, the leadership. --Sun Tzu
User avatar
David
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 1044
Joined: May 2005
Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan

Re: re: Lewis and the occult

Postby wood-maid » July 9th, 2006, 3:45 pm

"Jill," said Tirian, "you are the bravest and most wood-wise of all my subjects, but also the most malapert and disobedient."
"By the Mane!" he whispered to Eustace. "This girl is a wondrous wood-maid. If she had Dryad's blood in her she could scarce do it better." - The Last Battle
User avatar
wood-maid
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 288
Joined: May 2005
Location: Washington

re: Lewis and the occult

Postby Mavramorn » July 21st, 2006, 12:44 am

User avatar
Mavramorn
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 180
Joined: Jul 2006
Location: In search of "la Cobaye Corse"

re: Lewis and the occult

Postby Theo » July 21st, 2006, 5:15 am

I'll get back on this when I have a little more time, but I'd have to say that article made some sense given its premises. I'm not surprised a fundamentalist of that stripe would disapprove of Lewis. (The article on Tolkien, where they flat-out admit they haven't read his books, was a little more directly silly, though. Kind of fun to see old Tolkien get the HP treatment, though. :))

Although I must admit I was unaware that Aleister Crowley was an Inkling. That would probably have made their beer-and-reading sessions a little more amusingly unpredictable. :grin:
Member of the Religious Tolerance Cabal of the Wardrobe

“First they came for Abdul Rahman and I spoke out because I was a Muslim. Then they came for the Palestinians and I raised hell because I was a Jew. Then they came for the Iraqis and I protested because I was an American. Then they came for the Muslims and I spoke out because I was a Christian, Then they came for the poor and I spoke out because I was rich. By the time they came for me, I had all the support a man could ask for.”
User avatar
Theo
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 777
Joined: Nov 2005
Location: Uppsala, Sweden

PreviousNext

Return to C. S. Lewis

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered members and 9 guests

cron