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Mysticism in CS Lewis Inklings Forever Volume 4 A Collection of Essays Presented at the Fourth Frances White Ewbank Colloquium on C.S. Article 13 Lewis & Friends 3-2004 Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C.S. Lewis David C. Downing Elizabethtown College Follow this and additional works at: https://pillars.taylor.edu/inklings_forever Part of the English Language and Literature Commons, History Commons, Philosophy Commons, and the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Downing, David C. (2004) "Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C.S. Lewis," Inklings Forever: Vol. 4 , Article 13. Available at: https://pillars.taylor.edu/inklings_forever/vol4/iss1/13 This Essay is brought to you for free and open access by the Center for the Study of C.S. Lewis & Friends at Pillars at Taylor University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Inklings Forever by an authorized editor of Pillars at Taylor University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INKLINGS FOREVER, Volume IV A Collection of Essays Presented at The Fourth FRANCES WHITE EWBANK COLLOQUIUM ON C.S. LEWIS & FRIENDS Taylor University 2004 Upland, Indiana Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C.S. Lewis David C. Downing, Elizabethtown College Downing, David C. “Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C.S. Lewis.” Inklings Forever 4 (2004) www.taylor.edu/cslewis 1 Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C.S. Lewis David C. Downing C.S. Lewis is arguably the most influential voice not merely a set of religious beliefs, nor institutional for Christian faith in the modern era. Whether writing customs, nor moral traditions. It was rooted rather in a as a scholar, lay theologian, or story-teller, he is famous vivid, immediate sense of the Divine presence—in for his commitment to “mere Christianity,” for world history and myth, in the natural world, and in presenting the basic tenets of faith shared “in all places every human heart. at all times” by Christians of the first century to those of C.S. Lewis did not consider himself a mystic. In the twenty first. Letters to Malcolm, Lewis said that in younger days Lewis is widely regarded as a “commonsense when he took walking tours, he loved hills, even Christian,” one who offers theology that is mountain walks, but he didn’t have a head for climbing. understandable and morality that is practical. He stands In spiritual ascents, he also considered himself one of in the mainstream of Christian tradition, avoiding the “people of the foothills,” someone who didn’t dare sectarian disputes and writing for the ordinary reader. attempt the “precipices of mysticism.” He added that he Readers of Lewis who admire his middle-of-the- never felt called to “the higher level—the crags up road metaphysics and his practical advice on daily which mystics vanish out of sight” (63). living may be surprised by a sentence in Miracles where Despite this disclaimer, Lewis must certainly have he describes "the burning and undimensioned depth of been one of the most mystical-minded of those who the Divine Life" as "unconditioned and unimaginable, never formally embarked on the Mystical Way. We see transcending discursive thought" (160-161). They may this in the ravishing moments of Sweet Desire he be equally baffled by a passage in his memoir, experienced ever since childhood; in his vivid sense of Surprised by Joy, in which he describes his own the natural order as an image of the spiritual order; in conversion in overtly mystical terms: "Into the region of his lifelong fascination with mystical texts; and in the awe, in deepest solitude there is a road right out of the mystical themes and images he so often appropriated self, a commerce with . the naked Other, imageless for his own books. As his good friend Owen Barfield (though our imagination salutes it with a hundred once remarked, Lewis, like George MacDonald and G. images), unknown, undefined, desired" (221). K. Chesterton before him, radiated a sense that the Equally unusual passages may be found in Lewis’s spiritual world is home, that we are always coming back fiction. In That Hideous Strength, for example, he to a place we have never yet reached (Stand 316). describes a young seeker’s moment of conversion not in According to Rudolf Otto in The Idea of the Holy, terms of her accepting a set of beliefs or joining a one of the defining traits of the numinous is a habitual church. Rather it is a moment of dramatic personal sense of yearning, a deep longing for something encounter: inaccessible or unknown. Throughout his lifetime, Lewis had this kind of mystical yearning in abundance, A boundary had been crossed. She had come the kind of long he called Joy or Sweet Desire. In The into a world, or into a Person, or into the Problem of Pain Lewis confesses that “all [my] life an presence of a Person. Something expectant, unattainable ecstasy has hovered just beyond the grasp patient, inexorable, met her with no veil or of [my] consciousness” (136). protection between. In this height and Readers of Lewis know the details of his life well, depth and breadth the little idea of herself including his life-long quest for the source of Joy, so I which she had hitherto called me dropped will focus here on how his reading of mystical texts, down and vanished, unfluttering, into and his own mystical intuitions, contributed to his bottomless distance, like a bird in a space spiritual quest. Note for example a passage in Surprised without air. (318-19) by Joy in which Lewis discusses the loss of his childhood faith while at Wynyard School in England. In these passages, and many others like them, we He explains that his schoolboy faith did not provide him see that the common image of Lewis as a proponent of with assurance or comfort, but created rather self- “rational religion” does not do justice to the complexity condemnation. He fell into an internalized legalism, of the man. Lewis’s spiritual imagination was every bit such that his private prayers never seemed good as powerful as his intellect. For him, Christian faith was enough. He felt his lips were saying the right things, but 2 Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C.S. Lewis ● David C. Downing his mind and heart were not in the words. lost his sense of wonder, a certain mystical intuition that Lewis adds “if only someone had read me old there was more to the story that his rational side could Walter Hilton’s warning that we must never in prayer find out. If his reason had truly reigned, he would have strive to extort ‘by maistry’ [mastery] what God does quickly dismissed anything written by George not give” (62). This is one of those casual references in MacDonald, the 19th century Scottish homilist, poet and Lewis which reveals a whole other side to him which fantasy writer. But when Lewis, at age seventeen, may surprise those who think of him mainly as a discovered MacDonald's Phantastes, it was an Christian rationalist. emotional and spiritual watershed. Reading the story for “Old Walter Hilton” is the fourteenth-century the first time in the spring of 1916, Lewis wrote author of a manual for contemplatives called The Scale enthusiastically to a friend that he'd had a "great literary of Perfection. This book is sometimes called The experience" that week (Stand 206), and the book Ladder of Perfection, as it presents the image of a became one of his lifelong favorites. Over a decade ladder upon which one’s soul may ascend to a place of later, Lewis wrote that nothing gave him a sense of perfect unity and rest in the Spirit of God. "spiritual healing, of being washed" as much as reading The passage about “maistry” Lewis wished he’d George MacDonald (Stand 389). known as a boy comes early in The Scale of Perfection, Though he didn’t recognize it at the time, the a section about different kinds of prayer, including young Lewis was responding warmly to the Christian liturgical prayers, spontaneous prayers, and “prayers in mysticism that pervades all of MacDonald’s writing. the heart alone” which do not use words. Hilton’s Lewis later called MacDonald a “mystic and natural advice for people “who are troubled by vain thoughts in symbolist . who was seduced into writing novels” their prayer” is not to feel alone. He notes it is very (Allegory 232). This judgment is borne out by critic common to be distracted in prayer by thoughts of what Rolland Hein in summarizing the worldview which “you have done or will do, other people’s actions, or underlies MacDonald’s fiction. Tracing the influence of matters hindering or vexing you” (105). Novalis (1772-1801), Hein finds in MacDonald a Hilton goes on to explain that no one can keep pervasive quest to find “an inner harmony fully the Lord’s command to love the Lord your God commensurate with the harmony seen in the outer with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. The best universe,” as well as a “yearning after the eternal and you can do is humbly acknowledge your weakness and the infinite—a type of spiritual love which draws man ask for mercy. However badly one’s first resolve fades, toward the divine” (7). says Hilton, you should not get “too fearful, too angry Despite his avowed commitment to a materialistic with yourself, or impatient with God for not giving you worldview in his teens and early twenties, Lewis savor and spiritual sweetness in devotion” (106).
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