Glamorous Powers

‘Father Darcy would say –’

‘Father Darcy would say the Devil could be at work in your psyche, but that would just be his old-fashioned Victorian shorthand for what you and I know to be the disruptive force of the subconscious mind.’ Francis, who had discarded his theatrical mannerisms as his confidence increased, now leant forward across the desk to hammer his point home. ‘So let me repeat: it’s not the Devil we have to fear here but a dislocation of your personality, possibly brought on by emotional strain or overwork or some cause which is at present hidden from us.’

There was a pause while I debated whether it would be wiser to make no comment but finally I was unable to resist saying: ‘A dislocation of the personality is by no means always incompatible with a genuine call. Indeed in some cases a call can’t be heard until some dislocation occurs to open the spiritual ears.’

Francis immediately felt intimidated. ‘I trust you’re not intending to carp and snipe at everything I say.’

‘No, Father, I’m sorry.’

‘It may indeed be the case that God is calling you by putting you under psychological pressure,’ said Francis irritably, ‘but how can we tell that until we uncover the exact state of your psyche and see whether the pattern reveals the hand of God or the self-centred desires of your disturbed ego?’

‘Quite.’ As I assumed my meekest expression, Francis suddenly realized that if he persisted in his ill-temper I could outflank him by taking a saintly stance which would make him look both petulant and foolish. His innate cunning triumphed over his insecurity; at once he altered course.

‘Once I believe your vision is a gift from God,’ he said with a smile, ‘I’ll be the first to shake your hand and give you my blessing. But meanwhile …’ He gave a theatrical sigh ‘… meanwhile I have a duty to be sceptical.’ Effortlessly he began to exude an aura of benign concern. ‘Now Jonathan, I’m not going to give you orders about how you should spend your time in between our daily interviews, but I do urge you to relax as much as possible. Ambrose thought a little holiday would do you no harm at all –’ This was the first proof I had that Ambrose felt ambivalent about my mental health ‘– so please don’t exhaust yourself in excessive spiritual exercises. Oh, and I forbid you to fast. I don’t want you having visions brought on by lack of food.’

The interview having thus been terminated on a relentlessly friendly note, I retired with relief to my cell.

VI

My cell was in fact not a cell at all but one of the distressingly well-appointed bedrooms set aside for visiting abbots. It lay on the same landing as the Abbot-General’s sumptuous bedchamber, and faced west across the immaculately tended grounds which were bordered by a high brick wall. Our founder Mr Ford, an adventurer who had made his fortune from slave-trading before his miraculous conversion to Anglo-Catholicism in the 1840s, had lived in style on his ill-gotten gains, and his Order, supported from the start by the greater part of his massive wealth, had husbanded their resources with skill.

I have no wish to imply that there is anything wrong with a monastic community which skilfully husbands its resources; on the contrary, every abbot has a duty to make ends meet. But I found it unedifying that a religious order should spend such a large part of those skilfully husbanded resources on maintaining such a luxurious headquarters. I was offended not merely by the antiques in the Abbot-General’s office. The atmosphere of debilitating affluence permeated the entire house and even the novices were pampered by having linoleum on the floor of their scriptorium. As I returned to my grossly over-furnished chamber that afternoon I wondered, not for the first time, how I was expected to pray in it, and to counter my disgust I embarked on some alterations.

My first act was to take down the three pictures and put them in the wardrobe. I like paintings but when I am at work I find them distracting. Then I rolled up the carpet, which was woven into a pattern so exquisite that I had already wasted far too much time gazing at it, and tackled the bed, which I knew from past experience during the annual abbots’ conferences was soft enough to give me back-ache. Having stacked the mattress against the wall I replaced the coverings on the base, which was reassuringly hard, and sat down at the table.

I closed my eyes but not to pray; I was sharpening my concentration in order to plan how I might best master Francis, but the next moment, realizing that I was behaving like some buccaneering politician engaged in a seamy struggle for power with his party’s leader, I checked myself in shame. How unedifying! I resolved to order my thoughts along more salubrious lines, but the more I tried to think like a priest the more I despaired of ever being able to concentrate in that distracting house, and at last, abandoning my room, I sought refuge in the garden.

I felt better outside. At first I merely strolled around the lawn and savoured the sunshine but later my feet carried me through the gates of the cemetery until I found myself standing by the cross which marked Father Darcy’s grave.

Desolation overwhelmed me. I felt lost and adrift, unnervingly vulnerable – and the next moment I was experiencing not only a painful grief but a painful rage that I should have been so abruptly abandoned.

The emotion lasted no longer than a second but I was shocked by the glimpse I had received into such a dark desperate corner of my psyche. I even glanced over my shoulder as if I feared Francis might be spying on me in my weakness, but of course there was no one there and finally, pulling myself together, I withdrew to the chapel to pray.

VII

At four o’clock on the following afternoon I presented myself once more at the Abbot-General’s office, and the gross china clock which squatted on the marble mantelshelf chimed the hour as I halted before my superior’s desk.

‘Today we’re going to examine your vision in more detail,’ said Francis, motioning me to be seated. ‘So let me start by asking you this: are you sure the chapel was in England?’

I was sufficiently startled to say: ‘It certainly never occurred to me that it wasn’t. The light was so English – that dull greenish light which is so typical of a cloudy English day.’

‘Presumably the greenish light means the trees were in leaf. But was it spring or summer?’

‘Summer. It was too warm to be spring.’

‘If you were aware of the warmth,’ said Francis, writing busily, ‘were you also aware of your clothing? Were you wearing your habit, which we know is hell in hot weather, or were you enjoying the bliss of trousers and a shirt?’

I was intrigued but had to confess: ‘I don’t know.’

‘Then let’s approach the memory from another angle. You said yesterday –’ He consulted his notes ‘– that there were steps leading to the doors of the chapel. Did you raise the skirt of your habit as you mounted these steps?’

‘No,’ I said at once, and added without thinking: ‘How clever of you, Francis!’

He looked at me over the top of his spectacles. ‘Father.’

‘Father. I’m sorry.’

There was a pause before he continued: ‘So it seems you weren’t wearing your habit. But that’s not evidence that you weren’t still a monk. You may have been on an authorized visit to this place, in which case you’d be wearing a clerical suit, just as we all must whenever we journey outside the cloister. So my next question is inevitably: what was your purpose in going to the chapel?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Was it your impression that the chapel was in regular use?’

‘Yes. The lilies –’

‘Obviously the lilies prove that it had been visited recently but was there any evidence that the building was being used for worship? The lack of orthodox altar furnishings seems odd.’

‘I agree but I’m sure it wasn’t deconsecrated. Perhaps I was going there for private prayer.’

‘The place seemed familiar to you?’

‘Yes, I felt no surprise either when I saw the chapel below me in the dell or when I opened the door and saw the interior.’

‘Why do you consistently refer to it as a chapel as if it were owned by a family or an institution? Couldn’t it have been some isolated country church?’

‘In my experience isolated country churches are always medieval. This building was Victorian even though it was built in the style of Inigo Jones.’

‘What makes you so sure it was a Victorian imitation and not the work of the master himself? I thought Victorian architects were in love with medievalism, not classicism.’

‘Then this must have been the exception that proves the rule. The pews were typically Victorian. Of course they could have been added later, but –’

‘If you know so much about the chapel why don’t you know what this ruined building was behind it?’

‘I’m sure I did know exactly what it was, but my mind’s now a blank. Could it have been an ancient castle?’

‘In a dell?’ Francis was sceptical. ‘Castles are usually built on mounds.’

‘Perhaps it was a much older church, then – a church which for some reason had been allowed to fall into ruins.’

There was a pause while we both pondered on this mystery but eventually Francis said: ‘As we know neither the name nor the vicinity of this place it would be well-nigh impossible to track down, but even if we found the chapel really did exist that still wouldn’t prove your vision came from God. All the discovery would prove is that you’re capable of a certain type of clairvoyance.’ Drawing a line below his last note he dipped his pen in the ink again. ‘Let’s leave the chapel now and turn to this bag which you believe to be a symbol. Am I right in assuming this wasn’t a bag you’ve ever owned?’

‘I’d never have owned such a piece of luggage. It was expensive – and somewhat feminine, pale beige with dark brown corners. In fact it was the sort of suitcase one would associate with a wealthy woman.’

Francis raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure you’ve never seen it before?’

‘I was sure at the time. But on reflection … Yes, it’s not impossible that I’ve seen it before. I suspect that when my vision required the symbol I didn’t invent the suitcase but plucked the forgotten memory from my subconscious mind.’

‘But why that particular bag?’

‘Because it was striking enough to lodge in my memory. After all, one never usually looks at a bag twice.’

Francis laid down his pen, took off his spectacles and idly contemplated the chandelier. ‘Supposing,’ he said, ‘just supposing you’ve got this entirely wrong and it’s the bag, not the chapel, which exists in reality.’

‘I’m absolutely sure –’

‘Yes,’ said Francis, at once leaning forward on his desk and looking me straight in the eyes, ‘you’re a great deal too sure of yourself here, Jonathan, and I think you should proceed with more mental flexibility and very much more humility. Go away now and ask yourself the following questions: first, what was your connection with the chapel? The assumption that you were going there for prayer is plausible, I agree, but it actually explains nothing. What were you doing in that environment? And what were you thinking about during that walk through the woods? Your mind seems to have been unusually vacant. Does your lack of surprise when you saw the chapel indicate that the scene was familiar to you, or is it in truth an example of the curiously dreamlike quality which permeates this experience of yours? If this were a real glimpse of the future, why weren’t you thinking of your current problems, the current people in your life, possibly even of your current approach to God? I put it to you that you were drifting along like a somnambulist, and I think you should consider whether Timothy was really so far off the mark when he interpreted the vision as an allegory. Ask yourself if the ruined building might symbolize what you, in your recent disappointment over your lack of preferment, might consider your spent career as a monk. Ask yourself if this chapel, modern but built along classical lines, might represent your subconscious longing for an entirely new career in the Church. Ask yourself if the evidence that you weren’t wearing your habit is in fact a manifestation of your subconscious desire to discard it. And finally ask yourself why you should have seen a bag which apparently symbolizes not travel and change to you (yesterday’s explanation) but (so you now confess) wealth and women. Think on all these questions, Jonathan. Think carefully. And return here at four o’clock tomorrow.’

THREE

‘The danger (of hallucinations) is recognized by the best mystical writers.’

W. R. INGE

Dean of St Paul’s 1911–1934

Mysticism in Religion

I

I had by this time planned a course of reading and meditation to occupy the hours when I was neither crossing swords with my superior nor attending services in the chapel. The Fordites have imprinted their own idiosyncratic stamp on the Divine Office of the Benedictines, merging Terce with Sext and None with Vespers, but several hours of each day are still spent in choir; a monk must never forget that his chief work is to worship God. However beyond the hours of worship lie the hours of service to others, and normally I was heavily occupied not only with looking after my community but with giving counsel to those outside the Order who sought my spiritual direction. It was odd, even disconcerting, to find myself suddenly with no work on my hands beyond the hours spent in choir. I might have been advised to rest but anyone who has ever attempted to lead a celibate life knows how important it is to keep oneself constructively occupied, so after a prolonged perusal of the library shelves I selected some books which I judged would engage my mind without unhealthily over-exerting it.

I chose Dame Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love, not merely because it was one of my favourite classics but because I felt I would be cheered by the writings of a sane practical good-humoured person whose visions had been recognized by the Church. As a masculine counterpoise to Dame Julian’s robust femininity I also chose The Cloud of Unknowing, another of my favourite works. Feeling I should then emerge from the woods of mysticism into the more arid plains of modern theology I avoided the works of Karl Barth, whose preoccupation with God’s transcendence is fundamentally hostile to mysticism, and was about to select the latest book by Reinhold Niebuhr, who parted company with Barth in several important ways, when suddenly I spotted Dean Inge’s The Philosophy of Plotinus.

I was amazed. Plotinus had been a great religious philosopher with a vast influence on Christian Neo-Platonism, but he had been a pagan and Father Darcy had always refused to have Inge’s celebrated masterwork in the house. However on opening the cover of the first volume I found the words ‘Cuthbert Darcy’ inscribed on the fly-leaf. The old fraud! It seemed he had acquired the copy secretly and kept it in his room where it had been discovered after his death. Silently paying tribute to Francis’ broadminded good sense in placing the work in the library, I added both volumes to the collection already in my hands and prepared to retire to my cell, but on my way out I caught sight of a new section devoted to modern psychology.

Francis and I, enjoying a rare moment of unity, had succeeded in convincing our mentor that not all psycho-analysts should be burnt at the stake, and rising to unprecedented heights of eloquence we had argued that we had a religious duty to understand as much about the human mind as was possible in the light of the latest scientific theories. When Father Darcy had declared that the Devil was corrupting intellectual progress by the writings of his servant Freud I had even summoned the courage to say to him sternly: ‘Remember Galileo.’ The Church has been put in some ridiculous positions in the past by turning up its nose at the scientists.

However although Father Darcy had given us permission to read the books we felt were important, he had been adamant that we should keep any work on psycho-analysis under lock and key, and the sight of Francis’ collection now standing bravely on the shelves was certainly a surprise. An even greater surprise was that I felt ambivalent. On the one hand I approved of Francis’ resolution to bring the Order openly into the twentieth century, but on the other hand I was aware that monks were very ordinary men in many ways and might not automatically benefit from such intellectual modernism; I could well imagine my drones feasting on certain passages with a curiosity which was more salacious than spiritual. To my horror I saw Francis had even displayed the volumes of Havelock-Ellis on human sexuality. This work was not without interest to a serious student of human nature, but there were parts of it which even I, the crusader for modern knowledge, had felt inclined to burn. Certainly I believed such a work could only have an unwholesome effect on the average monk.

I suddenly realized I was perturbed to a degree more complex than might have been anticipated, and retiring to my room I tried to analyse my feelings further. After a while I realized I was worried that Francis might be tempted to compensate himself for his spiritual limitations by relying too heavily on psycho-analytical theory. It was a chilling thought. Psychoanalysis can be a useful tool and it had certainly given me numerous important insights during my work as a counsellor, but it is not a substitute for religion and it should always be a servant, never a master. If Francis intended to rely on Freud and Jung instead of on God as he exercised the charism of discernment, then both he and I could well be heading straight for the most profound disaster.

II

‘No doubt you’ve composed a host of brilliant answers to the questions I posed yesterday,’ said Francis when I returned to his room on the following afternoon, ‘but since my aim at present is not to initiate a debate but to illuminate your situation, I propose we move on to the next topic and discuss your failure to become Abbot-General. I trust you’re not going to deny you were disappointed?’

‘No, Father.’

Francis picked up his pen. ‘What steps did you take to adjust to this disappointment?’

‘I had a long talk with Aidan before the funeral and made a full confession to him. That helped. Aidan’s a wily old fox. He never said anything so obvious as: “You’ve got to forgive the old boy in order to be at peace with his memory,” but he paved the way to forgiveness by persuading me to admit how much I’d have disliked being Abbot-General and how far more suitable you were for the job.’

Francis leant back in his chair. Perhaps he thought his expression was merely quizzical but I found it cynical to the point of being offensive. ‘Why would you have disliked being Abbot-General?’

‘Too much administration. Too much vapid socializing with the upper echelons of the Church. Not enough time to counsel men outside the Order. Not enough time to meditate in solitude.’

‘A small price to pay, surely,’ said Francis, ‘for such enormous gratification to your self-esteem.’

‘My ego isn’t so insatiable as you seem to think! After my talk with Aidan I was happy enough to remain Abbot of Grantchester.’

‘But were you?’ said Francis. That’s the next big question, isn’t it? The world beyond our cloister has been turned upside down, the barbarians are at the gates and it’s a very unpleasant fact of life, as Machiavelli knew all too well, that war can be immensely stimulating. It kicks people out of their well-worn ruts, offers adventure and provides all manner of enthralling changes – unless, of course, one happens to be in a monastery. Then life becomes increasingly drab.’

‘I hope you’re not implying –’

‘Do you deny that the War’s been a depressing influence on your work? You lost one of your best young men the other day, didn’t you?’

‘Barnabas, yes. He’s gone into the Army.’

‘It’s always a harrowing experience to lose a good young monk. And meanwhile you still have more than your fair share of boring old drones – Augustine who falls asleep in choir, Denys the glutton – and what was the name of that monk you told me about once, the one who always has to wash his hands when the clock strikes noon?’

‘Clement. But a monastery wouldn’t be a monastery without its share of harmless eccentrics!’

‘Tedious eccentrics. And meanwhile there you are, active as ever but beached like a stranded whale in your Grantchester backwater –’

‘I hardly think you can describe a place which is only two miles from one of the great universities of the world as a backwater!’

‘Don’t try and tell me the War hasn’t affected Cambridge! My spies inform me that Air Force officers are now billeted in the Colleges and undergraduates are being sucked into the war machine – with the inevitable result that fewer people must be coming to the house to make a retreat or seek counselling. And meanwhile your tedious administrative tasks are increasing – all the irritating war-time regulations have to be mastered, interminable forms have to be filled in –’

‘Bernard likes doing all those sort of things.’

‘– and your frustration must be growing daily. What a contrast to the last war when you were on active service as a chaplain! Then you were making a positive contribution to the war-effort, but now all you can do is twiddle your thumbs in your Grantchester backwater amidst all your boring old men –’

‘That’s a gross misrepresentation!’

‘– and it would be only natural, wouldn’t it, if you occasionally longed to get out into the world and make some vital contribution to the fight to save England from the Nazis?’

‘But even if I went out into the world,’ I exclaimed, unable to resist the temptation to outshout him and falling straight into the trap he had constructed for me, ‘I couldn’t be a chaplain in the Navy again!’

‘No.’ For the second time Francis leant back in his chair and regarded me cynically. ‘You couldn’t. You’re too old, aren’t you? You’re sixty. Sixty! Jonathan –’ The trap sprang shut ‘– why didn’t you remind me that the day preceding your vision happened to be your sixtieth birthday?’

I could only say stiffly: ‘I didn’t think it was important.’

‘No? Could you really regard it as just another birthday? When I was sixty last February I was so sunk in gloom that the old man had to shake me, metaphorically speaking, until my teeth rattled and remind me that to mope about one’s age is self-centred, futile and a prime example of that morbid introspection which can so seriously impair one’s spiritual health. But the old man wasn’t there to shake you till your teeth rattled, was he, Jonathan? He was dead – and that, of course, leads me to my last big question of the afternoon: exactly what effect has his death had on you? It seems to me that you’ve lost the one spiritual director who was capable of keeping you on the rails.’

‘That’s not true. Aidan’s always shown great skill.’

‘Aidan’s skill lay in translating the old man’s orders into action. Father Darcy ruled your career from the moment he removed you from Grantchester seventeen years ago, and perhaps now that you’re without him you’re beginning to feel lost, confused, adrift – even unbalanced –’

This was a line of attack which had to be instantly terminated. ‘I must insist –’

‘No, indeed you must not! You’re not here to be dogmatic and opinionated!’ Francis, wielding his power with the efficiency of a giant cat bent on disembowelling his prey, was at his most formidable. In self-defence I assumed an expressionless silence, and as the pause lengthened I sensed Francis deciding how he might best complete my demolition. Finally he said in the most mellifluous voice he could muster: ‘I can see you’re a trifle upset, Jonathan. Would you like me to tell you a little fairy-story to help calm you down?’