S8E9 – Perelandra – Chapter 7: “Weston’s New Look”

Ransom’s unlikely encounter with an old foe takes a disturbing turn…

S8E9: Chapter 7 – “Weston’s New Look” (Download)

Show Notes

Introduction

Quote of the Week

“Idiot … Can you understand nothing? Will you always try to press everything back into the miserable framework of your old jargon about self and self-sacrifice? That is the old accursed dualism in another form. There is no possible distinction in concrete thought between me and the universe. In so far as I am the conductor of the central forward pressure of the universe, I am it. Do you see, you timid, scruple-mongering fool? I am the Universe. I, Weston, am your God and your Devil. I call that Force into me completely. . . .”

C. S. Lewis, Weston, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

Chit-Chat

• It’s been a sad week in the Episcopal world. Andrew recently attended a funeral for a beloved bishop of the Floridian Episcopal church. Additionally, the Archbishop of Canterbury resigned.
• David was invited to speak to a class about C. S. Lewis at a local Aquinas school. Andrew was re-invited to speak on J. R. R. Tolkien and language for a local chapter of the English Speaker’s Union in September.

Toast

• It’s a West Coast IPA day all around, from Best Day Brewing.
  • Today, we’re toasting new Patreon supporter Vanessa Keck…

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

James 4:7

Discussion

Chapter Summary

Now fluent in Old Solar, Weston converses with the Lady. Ransom and she try to leave the Fixed Land, but Weston draws a gun and forces Ransom to stay. 

Weston explains how he has shifted away from Scientism to a form of “Emergent Evolution”. He no longer cares about propagating humanity through the stars, but furthering “spirituality”. He rejects Ransom’s distinctions between God and the Devil and takes no heed of Ransom’s warnings, calling powers into himself and has something like a seizure.

As the light fails, Ransom falls asleep nearby.

01. “What are You Doing Here?”

We begin this chapter with Ransom being almost impressed by Weston’s massive egoism standing on Perelandra like he owns the place, showing no surprise at Ransom’s presence on the place. 

Q. But Ransom is snapped out of his train of thought by something worrying. What is it?

• Weston is now fluent in Old Solar, the universal language of the cosmos. He wasn’t very good last time, partially out of incapacity, partially out of contempt for the creatures of Malacandra. This makes Ransom fearful, since this was one of his few advantages over his enemy last time.
• Language is the means by which we rationalise and express our consciousness. Christ calls Himself “the Word”.
• However, the Lady can’t communicate with Weston, though he speaks the language. Due to his egoism, he is unable to see things from her perspective. In “Out of the Silent Planet”, Ransom had to translate words for Weston, but we see on Perelandra that he must translate the spiritual concepts Weston is expressing.

The two fish they rode are waiting in the next bay and the Green Lady bids them leave, but Ransom says Weston will not join them. 

Q. What happens as they try to leave?

• Weston pulls a revolver on Ransom – he’s happy for the Green Lady to leave, but he wants Ransom to stay. Ransom had an interesting response:

The sudden heat which swept over his body was the only sign by which he knew that he was frightened. His head remained clear.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

• This new world has been exposed to deception, bloodshed, and now fear. His body is reacting viscerally to that, like it did to the first lie.
• In “The Last Battle”, the final instalment of the Chronicles of Narnia, Edmund points out that he (and the others) are no longer able to feel fear, at least in a mental capacity.
• Ransom asks if he’s going to begin his time on the planet in murder, as he did on Malacandra. The Queen doesn’t understand what’s going on, but because the water is rising and night is drawing in, she’s happy to leave.

Ransom was about to implore her to make good her escape when he realised that no imploring was needed. He had irrationally supposed that she would understand the situation; but apparently she saw nothing more than two strangers talking about something which she did not at the moment understand

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

• Weston continually through his conversation with Ransom refers to the Green Lady as a “native” or a “savage”. Like in “Out of the Silent Planet”, he doesn’t seem to think much of the inhabitants of the planet he is visiting.
• There was a lovely exchange between Ransom and the Green Lady:

“It may be that you and I shall not meet soon again. Greet the King for me if you find him and speak of me always to Maleldil. I stay here.”
“We shall meet when Maleldil pleases,” she answered, “or if not, some greater good will happen to us instead.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

02. “Sexless Innocence”

Left alone with Ransom, Weston begins their conversation by protesting Ransom’s description of what happened on Malacandra (the shooting of Hyoi) as “murder”.

Q. What defence does Weston offer?

• Weston claims that the incident was an “accident”, while simultaneously saying that the creature was not a human being, and therefore even if the incident was intentional, it could hardly be classified as murder. As we will see later, his strategy is defend, deny, accuse, attack.

Q. Weston then offers his own critique of Ransom – what is it?

• He accuses Ransom of seducing a “native girl” to introduce civilisation to Venus, because he came across the pair naked. Weston appears to only associate nakedness with sex.
• This scene reminded Matt of “The Wise Man’s Fear”.
• David spent some time talking about his deep dive in preparation for Charles Williams month. He downloaded several books on Audible, and is reading them in the order recommended by Sorina Higgins, who he interviewed last season. The list begins with “War in Heaven”, though the first that C. S. Lewis read was “The Place of the Lion”, which Andrew argues serves as a model for “That Hideous Strength”.
• Returning to the question, Weston subtly lies, saying that the Green Lady and Ransom were embracing, adding something to the situation which was not there.

Q. How do you understand Ransom’s response to Weston’s question? “You ask me to believe that you have been living here with that woman under these conditions in a state of sexless innocence?”

• Ransom says:

“[“Sexless”] is about as good a description of living in Perelandra as it would be to say that a man had forgotten water because Niagara Falls didn’t immediately give him the idea of making it into cups of tea. But you’re right enough if you mean that I have had no more thought of desiring her than–than . . .” Comparisons failed him and his voice died.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

• In “The Abolition of Man”, Lewis criticises people for reducing waterfalls to the effect that bathing in them has on them individually. In “An Experiment in Criticism”, he talks about the difference between receiving a book and using a book. In “The Four Loves”, he discusses appreciative love. In all these works, he is decrying utilitarianism, and he is doing the same in this passage of “Perelandra”.
• Weston talks about the woman being “sexless”. In “The Weight of Glory”, Lewis talks about how modern man views the effect personal sacrifice has on themselves as the highest virtue:

If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love – You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point.

C. S. Lewis The Weight of Glory

• This also relates to “The Great Divorce”, with Pam making a tyranny of Michael’s memory at the expense of her family’s needs.

03. “Weston’s Admission”

Ransom tells Weston to “begin and end as soon as possible whatever butcheries and robberies you have come to do.” To his great surprise, Weston puts down his gun saying, “Ransom, …you do me a great injustice.”. Here begins their conversation which goes on for pretty much the rest of the chapter. 

Q. Weston begins with a frank admission. What does he admit?

• He admits he was seriously mistaken on Malacanda regarding what he describes as “the whole interplanetary problem”. Ransom very nearly laughs, but thinks better of it – this might be the first time in his life he’s ever acknowledged he’s been wrong about something!

“Ransom,” he said, “you do me a great injustice.”
For several seconds there was silence between them. Long breakers with white woolpacks of foam on them were now rolling into the cove exactly as on earth.
“Yes,” said Weston at last, “and I will begin with a frank admission. You may make what capital of it you please. I shall not be deterred. I deliberately say that I was, in some respects, mistaken–seriously mistaken–in my conception of the whole interplanetary problem when I went to Malacandra.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

We’ll get onto Weston’s new outlook shortly, but there’s a temporary break in the conversation as they move Weston’s camping equipment from his boat. Even though he knows it’s not needed, Ransom helps. We’re told “Both men sat down and Ransom listened at first with interest, then with amazement, and finally with incredulity. Weston cleared his throat, threw out his chest, and assumed his lecturing manner.”

Q. We’re then told how Ransom was “filled with a sense of crazy irrelevance” and finds the whole situation bizarre. Why?

• Weston is stranding himself on the island as his ship floats away, and he is making no effort to uncover the reason why Ransom is there with him. More to the point, they’re on an alien planet together, and he just jumped into a philosophic conversation with Ransom like they’re at Cambridge University in a common room!

Ransom felt himself more and more in the presence of a monomaniac. Like an actor who cannot think of anything but his celebrity, or a lover who can think of nothing but his mistress, tense, tedious, and unescapable, the scientist pursued his fixed idea.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

• Matt talked about how Weston’s disposition makes him unable to understand or be understood.

04. “Weston’s ‘New Look'”

So in this next section we get more details about Weston’s change in philosophy, his “New Look” on life (a descriptor taken from “Surprised by Joy”).

Q. Who’d like to try and explain what happened to Weston and how he now views the universe and his place in it?

• He explains how he initially focussed exclusively on studying physics for the purpose of personal gain and utilitarianism – “scholarships, an income, and that generally recognised position in the world without which a man has no leverage.”
• Then he sought to use physics to benefit the human race. He points to what we discovered in “Out of the Silent Planet” where he explained his plan to spread humanity throughout the stars (a plan thwarted by the Malacandrian Oyarsa).
• After recovering from that endeavour, he used his time to reflect on Ransom’s objections to his plans to subdue and extinguish the races of other planets. He initially missed Ransom’s objections because they were presented in a “humanitarian form”. However, he came to see that his “exclusive devotion to human utility was really based on an unconscious dualism…” What was this dualism? “all my life I had been making a wholly unscientific dichotomy or antithesis between Man and Nature”.
• Weston stumbled across a “biological philosophy”.

“…I saw almost at once that I could admit no break, no discontinuity, in the unfolding of the cosmic process. I became a convinced believer in emergent evolution. All is one. The stuff of mind, the unconsciously purposive dynamism, is present from the very beginning.”

C. S. Lewis, Weston, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

• The book “Emergent Evolution” by C. Lloyd Morgan was published in 1923. He argued that physical and psychic events are all part of a single natural order and, contrary to Darwin, evolves unpredictably and suddenly. Recall back to season one in “Mere Christianity”, where Lewis was talking about the “life force”. He also said that the next step in human evolution was Christ.

In other words, badness cannot succeed even in being bad in the same way in which goodness is good. Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness. And there must be something good first before it can be spoiled.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

• In Weston’s transition to this new philosophy, he has inflated his ego even more. Andrew pointed out that trading in lesser sins for greater ones (ie: pride) is no way to live, as pointed out in “The Screwtape Letters”

Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility. Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, ‘By jove! I’m being humble!’, and almost immediately pride—pride at his own humility—will appear.

C. S. Lewis, Screwtape, The Screwtape Letters

• Andrew talked about Christopher Marlowe’s “Dr. Faustus”, and how the character Mephistopheles is trying to keep the main character out of church and away from the sacraments.

We’re then told “Here [Weston] paused. Ransom had heard this sort of thing pretty often before and wondered when his companion was coming to the point.”

05. “Weston’s Theology”

Weston carries on, explaining how his belief in Emergent Evolution swept away how he understood his duty to mankind. He makes the shocking admission that it would have been wrong to liquidate the Malacandrians. 

Q. What does Weston’s now see as his purpose?

• He says his mission is “To spread spirituality, not to spread the human race…I worked first for myself; then for science; then for humanity; but now at last for Spirit itself”.

Q. How does Weston then try and evangelise Ransom regarding Emergent Evolution?

• He tries to connect it to Ransom’s own religion, Christianity. The loaded term “Spirit” that he uses, he attempts to connect with the Holy Spirit.

“…nothing now divides you and me except a few outworn theological technicalities with which organised religion has unhappily allowed itself to get incrusted.”

C. S. Lewis, Weston, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

Q. How does Ransom respond to this attempt to merge Christianity and Weston’s new philosophy?

• He contends with the new “religious view of life”, because he find’s Weston’s phrasing odd. He also tells Weston that there is a difference between Weston’s new spirituality and Christianity, and explains that Christianity is intelligible and articulate, not vague like spiritualism.

“…what we mean by the Holy Ghost is not a blind, inarticulate purposiveness.”

C. S. Lewis, Ransom, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

• Andrew explained that Weston is attempting to strip the Trinity of personality, calling them “outworn technicalities”.

Q. Why does Weston make a big deal about God being spirit?

• He interprets “spirit” to mean “freedom” and “spontaneity”, and believes that this is the goal of the cosmic process.

“What then? Why, spirit–mind–freedom–spontaneity–that’s what I’m talking about. That is the goal towards which the whole cosmic process is moving. The final disengagement of that freedom, that spirituality, is the work to which I dedicate my own life and the life of humanity. The goal, Ransom, the goal: think of it! Pure spirit: the final vortex of self-thinking, self-originating activity.“

C. S. Lewis, Weston, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

• David mused on if Weston is attempting to say that the universe will become self-aware. Matt connected it to “Homo Deus”, which presented the argument that human evolution will eventually bring us to godhood.

06. “The Nature of the Spirit”

So Ransom asks more about the nature of this Spirit. 

Q. Does Weston think Spirit is alive?

• He says yes. However, it’s not a person (he seems to hate anthropomorphism). This is in reference to the Incarnation, and any ties to the goodness of God’s design.

“Anthropomorphism is one of the childish diseases of popular religion.”

C. S. Lewis, Weston, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

• He claims that the force is intelligible.

“Call it a Force. A great, inscrutable Force… A Force that can choose its instruments.”

C. S. Lewis, Weston, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

• Matt talked about the trendiness of New Age Spiritualism.
• Andrew brought up the story of Christian musician Keith Green. He investigated every religion, which all agreed to Jesus being a good and moral teacher. But when he learned Christ’s teachings, he found that the Christian God was a jealous God, and that Jesus alone is the Way, Truth, and Life.

• Weston then claims to have been guided by this Force. Note the “Weston Rays”, which were not named on Malacandra in “Out of the Silent Planet”.

“Guided,” he said. “Chosen. Guided. I’ve become conscious that I’m a man set apart. Why did I do physics? Why did I discover the Weston rays? Why did I go to Malacandra? It–the Force–has pushed me on all the time. I’m being guided. I know now that I am the greatest scientist the world has yet produced. I’ve been made so for a purpose. It is through me that Spirit itself is at this moment pushing on to its goal.”

C. S. Lewis, Weston, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

• This talk about being guided unsettles Ransom.

“One wants to be careful about this sort of thing. There are spirits and spirits you know… a thing might be a spirit and not good for you.”

C. S. Lewis, Ransom, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

Q. Why does Weston not heed this warning?

• He thinks Christians worship God because he’s a spirit. Ransom responds:

“Good heavens, no! We worship Him because He is wise and good. There’s nothing specially fine about simply being a spirit. The Devil is a spirit.”

C. S. Lewis, Ransom, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

• Matt asks how one would go about dismantling an individual such as Weston in a real life argument. Andrew said getting definitions and terms correct is key. David suggesting walking them through the early chapters of “Mere Christianity”.

07. “Better the Devil You Know”

With the subject of the Devil raised, Weston explains that until recently, because he rejects dualism, he would have rejected the distinction between God and Devil. However, he now sees the doublet as a portrait of Spirit:  Your heaven is a picture of the perfect spirituality ahead; your hell a picture of the urge or nisus which is driving us on to it from behind. Hence the static peace of the one and the fire and darkness of the other. The next stage of emergent evolution, beckoning us forward, is God; the transcended stage behind, ejecting us, is the Devil. Ransom asks him if he’s just using this religious language as a metaphor for some kind of duty to spread civilisation. Weston assures him he’s not.

Q. What do you make of all this?

Q. Ransom asks him what proof Weston has of being guided?

• Weston points out his newfound fluency in Old Solar, a language he was previously unable to speak.

“What proof,” said Ransom (who indeed did feel frightened), “what proof have you that you are being guided or supported by anything except your own individual mind and other people’s books?”
“You didn’t notice, dear Ransom,” said Weston, “that I’d improved a bit since we last met in my knowledge of extra-terrestrial language. You are a philologist, they tell me.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

• David found it humourous that Weston has known Ransom for quite some time, yet still doesn’t know what he did for a living (typical men). Andrew shared a funny tidbit that though Lewis and Tolkien were fast friends, Lewis had trouble recalling what the “J” in “J. R. R. Tolkien” stood for, and that the pair almost kept their names secret.
• Andrew went on to talk about Weston opposing dualism, calling it “pure mythology”. But according to “Planet Narnia”, pure mythology leads us to the truth of God; it is a means of truth.

• Weston often speaks about surrendering to this life force, and obeying it, no matter if its prompts are good or evil.

“How far does it go? Would you still obey the Life-Force if you found it prompting you to murder me?”
“Yes.”
“Or to sell England to the Germans?”
“Yes.”
“Or to print lies as serious research in a scientific periodical?”
“Yes.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

08. “The Horrible Thing”

Q. Ransom sees a possible point of contact between their two philosophies. What is it?

• Commitment and sacrifice. He sees that Weston is somewhat giving up himself in service of another – or another thing. However, Weston rejects this appeal to self-sacrifice.

“Will you always try to press everything back into the miserable framework of your old jargon about self and self-sacrifice? That is the old accursed dualism in another form. There is no possible distinction in concrete thought between me and the universe. In so far as I am the conductor of the central forward pressure of the universe, I am it. Do you see, you timid, scruple-mongering fool?”

C. S. Lewis, Weston, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

Q. Weston says I am the Universe. I, Weston, am your God and your Devil. I call that Force into me completely. . . .”  What happens next?

• Weston has a seizure-like episode.

Then horrible things began happening. A spasm like that preceding a deadly vomit twisted Weston’s face out of recognition. As it passed, for one second something like the old Weston reappeared–the old Weston, staring with eyes of horror and howling, “Ransom, Ransom! For Christ’s sake don’t let them—-” and instantly his whole body spun round as if he had been hit by a revolver-bullet and he fell to the earth, and was there rolling at Ransom’s feet, slavering and chattering and tearing up the moss by handfuls. Gradually the convulsions decreased. He lay still, breathing heavily, his eyes open but without expression.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

• Ransom attempts to give Weston a sip of brandy, but Weston bites off the neck of the glass bottle.

Ransom was kneeling beside him now. It was obvious that the body was alive, and Ransom wondered whether this were a stroke or an epileptic fit, for he had never seen either. He rummaged among the packages and found a bottle of brandy which he uncorked and applied to the patient’s mouth. To his consternation the teeth opened, closed on the neck of the bottle and bit it through. No glass was spat out.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Seven

• Disturbed by this self-harming behaviour – and also worried for his own safety – Ransom chucks Weston’s revolver into the sea. This mirrors an event in Lewis’ own life, where he tossed his own service revolver into the river.
• Ransom backs away from Weston’s body, attempting to find his way back to the floating islands, but becomes lost along the way, and falls asleep, muttering to himself about the Fixed Land. He finds it much less comfortable than the floating islands. Could this be a plot hole? We never learn from Lewis if the rule of sleeping on fixed land is something that applies to Ransom and Weston.
• Andrew explains that Weston’s invitation to invite in a foreign spirit is a replication of a scene in the play “Othello”, where the character Iago invites the Devil into himself.

“Hell and Night must bring this Monstrous Birth into the World’s Light.”

William Shakespeare, Iago, Othello

Wrap Up

Concluding Thoughts

• David was reminded of “The Last Battle”:

“There goes one…who has called on gods he does not believe in. How will it be with him if they have really come.”

C. S. Lewis, Farsight, The Last Battle

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