Reverend Brian McGreevy continues his series, Not as Unwise but as Wise: Reflections from C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man and That Hideous Strength on Living Christianly in a Post-Christian World. This is available as a podcast on iTunes.
Episode 23: Not as Unwise but as Wise: Reflections from C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man and That Hideous Strength
SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 12, “WET AND WINDY NIGHT”
Adapted from Rudy Rentzel
Jane, Dimble, and Denniston continue to tramp through the wet countryside looking for Merlin, unsure if they are following Merlin or a common tramp. Meanwhile, we observe Wither at the N.I.C.E. and his mind control, which allows him to hardly ever sleep and to withdraw his mind from the task of living. Wither engages an operative named Stone to search for Merlin on behalf of the N.I.C.E. Stone’s search party finds the chamber empty and sees the end of the tunnel looks as if it has been blasted open. Stone reported the search party split up and continued searching for an old man with a very long beard and unusual clothes.As Jane, Dimble, and Denniston continue their search for Merlin, they see a horse pass close to them ridden by a man in streaming garments. They try unsuccessfully to shout out to him, but the horse leaps over a high hedge, and they disappear.
At Belbury, Frost greets Mark in the prison cell by telling him he is great danger, but also within reach of a great opportunity. The danger lies in that the N.I.C.E. may decide to kill him (as they have done with others). The great opportunity lies in admission to the most select Inner Ring of the N.I.C.E. Frost tells Mark he must learn to ignore all emotion, which only result from chemical phenomena, and focus strictly on Objectivity
Frost also reveals the true source of direction for the N.I.C.E. He says that while Filastro thinks it’s Alcasan’s head, Frost explains that there are actually macrobes that speak through Alcasan’s head. These macrobes exist above the level of animal life, including mankind. They have influenced mankind in the past. The inner circle cooperates with the macrobes to achieve their goals. Frost discusses how society no longer requires a large population, but only requires about ten percent of the current population, the technocrats, those who can achieve objectivity and ignore the chemical phenomena of emotions. The rest are dead weight who can be culled by wars, other disasters, and possibly government action in the future. Though Mark stands by his prior decision to no longer trust anyone at the N.I.C.E., he goes along with this discussion to keep his options open and stay alive. Nevertheless, he still feels the lure of joining this inner circle. Their talk is interrupted by loud noises outside the cell and Frost being handed a message, after which Frost immediately leaves the jail.
Meanwhile, back at St. Anne’s, the company anxiously awaits the return of Jane, Dimble, and Denniston, especially given the strength of the storm outside. Suddenly, they hear a loud noise outside, and the Director and MacPhee go to investigate. They see a huge horse at the door, and a very tall man lept off his back. His reddish-grey hair and beard were blown all about his face. He wore a ragged ill-fitting khaki coat, baggy trousers, and boots that had lost the toes.At Belbury, four men bring in an unconscious naked man on a stretcher, and transfer him to a bed in an elegantly appointed chamber. Withers and Frost stare at him as he appears to regain consciousness but does not speak, gazing blankly at his surroundings. Believing the man is Merlin, Frost tries to address him in Latin, but the man seems not to listen. They bring him wine, but he indicates he prefers beer, which he eagerly drinks down. They bring him all kinds of food, which he devours. They again try to address him in Latin, but the man takes no notice at all, and seems ready to fall back asleep. Frost and Withers retire to an adjacent room to discuss what to do next.
When Frost leaves the jail, Mark realizes he must join the front lines with Jane and all those at St. Anne’s in the battle against the N.I.C.E. He is overwhelmed by the novel sensation of having done the right thing, realizing at the same time that his periodic ungovernable lust to become part of the inner circle is actually some kind of attack. Though he had been a materialist, he begins to understand there are spiritual forces at work which could forcefully bend his free will.
SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 13, “THEY HAVE PULLED DOWN DEEP HEAVEN ON THEIR HEADS”
Merlin stands at the door of the manor at St. Anne’s, and Ransom addresses him in Latin. Since Ransom is dressed in modern clothes, Merlin mistakes him for a slave, and insists on being taken to his master. Merlin only believes in Ransom’s authority and identity as the Pendragon whom he must obey after Ransom correctly answers a series of three questions, which only the Pendragon would be able to answer.
At Belbury, Frost and Wither are concerned about their inability to communicate with the person they believe to be Merlin (actually a simple tramp). They wonder who they have who can communicate with him, and after much pondering, decide upon both Mark and Straik, even if that means bringing them into the inner circle sooner than they had planned. Merlin puts most of the company at St. Anne’s to sleep. Once they awaken, they find him and Ransom clothed in the glorious robes of their respective offices and conversing intimately, which worries them because they believe Merlin is likely to be an enemy and has somehow entranced Ransom. Ransom assures them that Merlin is actually on their side and has been sent to them. Suddenly, Merlin loudly objects to Jane, stating that she and Mark should have had a son who would have saved Logres (England). The Director assures Merlin that Jane is on their side and that she and Mark have plenty of time to have their child.
Hailing from a much earlier time in Britain, Merlin finds himself confounded by modern England. He wants to use magic and his old relationship with Nature to fight against the modern forces of evil, but Ransom says those methods were never very lawful, and would be quite ineffectual these days. Merlin considers the Director (the Pendragon) the King, and does not understand why he does not simply command things to be as they should be, or command others to follow his edicts. The Director takes pains to explain he is not the king, and he cannot command others. Instead, he explains their battle engages spiritual reality, and involves angelic beings with supernatural powers. Merlin wonders how the Director knows the password (about the Oyeresu as Masters), but Ransom explains he was not using a password but simply speaking truth from his experience with them. Merlin wonders about help from other quarters, but Ransom explains no other help can be found but through eldila. “The Hideous Strength holds all this Earth in its fist to squeeze as it wishes. But for their one mistake, there would be no hope left…They have gone to the gods who would not have come to them, and have pulled down Deep Heaven on their heads.”
KEY PASSAGES FROM CHAPTERS 12 and 13
“Well, Mr. Stone, I am, on the whole, and with certain inevitable reservations, moderately satisfied with your conduct of this affair. I believe that I may be able to present it in a favourable light to those of my colleagues whose good will you have, unfortunately, not been able to retain. If you can bring it to a successful conclusion you would very much strengthen your position. If not… it is inexpressibly painful to me that there should be these tensions and mutual recriminations among us. But you quite understand me, my dear boy. If only I could persuade — say Miss Hardcastle and Mr. Studdock to share my appreciation of your very real qualities, you would need to have no apprehensions about your career or — ah — your security.”—doublespeak, coercion
“You are in danger,” said Frost when he had finished locking the door of Mark’s cell, “but you are also within reach of a great opportunity.” “I gather,” said Mark, “I am at the Institute after all and not in a police station.” “Yes. That makes no difference to the danger. The Institute will soon have official power of liquidation. It has anticipated them. Hingest and Carstairs have both been liquidated. Such actions are demanded of us.”—means v. ends, lies, murder
“Resentment and fear are both chemical phenomena. Our reactions to one another are chemical phenomena. Social relations are chemical relations. You must observe these feelings in yourself in an objective manner. Do not let them distract your attention from the facts.”—denial of humanity and natural order, scientism
“A few centuries ago…a large agricultural population was essential; and war destroyed types which were then still useful. But every advance in industry and agriculture reduces the number of work-people who are required. A large, unintelligent population is now becoming a deadweight. The real importance of scientific war is that scientists have to be reserved. It was not the great technocrats of Koenigsberg or Moscow who supplied the casualties in the siege of Stalingrad: it was superstitious Bavarian peasants and low-grade Russian agricultural workers. The effect of modern war is to eliminate retrogressive types, while sparing the technocracy and increasing its hold upon public affairs. In the new age hitherto been merely the intellectual nucleus of the race is to become, by gradual stages, the race itself. You are to conceive the species as an animal which has discovered how to simplify nutrition and locomotion to such a point that the old complex organs and the large body which contained them are no longer necessary. That large body is therefore to disappear. Only a tenth part of it will now be needed to support the brain. The individual is to become all head. The human race is to become all Technocracy.”—eugenics, death culture, men without chests
“Gradually he realized that he had sustained some sort of attack, and that he had put up no resistance at all; and with that realisation a quite new kind of dread entered his mind. Though he was theoretically a materialist, he had all his life believed quite inconsistently, and even carelessly, in the freedom of his own will. He had seldom made a moral resolution, and when he had resolved some hours ago to trust the Belbury crew no further, he had taken it for granted that he would be able to do what he resolved. He knew, to be sure, that he might “change his mind”; but till he did so, of course he would carry out his plan. It had never occurred to him that his mind could thus be changed for him, all in an instant of time, changed beyond recognition. If that sort of thing could happen… It was unfair. Here was a man trying (for the first time in his life) to do what was obviously the right thing — the thing that Jane and the Dimbles and Aunt would have approved of. You might have expected that when a man behaved in that way the universe would back him up. For the relics of such semi-savage versions of Theism as Mark had picked up in the course of his life were stronger in him than he knew, and he felt, though he would not have put it into words, that it was “up to” the universe to reward his good resolutions. Yet, the very first moment you tried to be good, the universe let you down. It revealed gaps you had never dreamed of. It invented new laws for the express purpose of letting you down. That was what you got for your pains.”—demonic attack, danger of toying with Evil
“Stand. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, tell me who you are and why you come. “Fellow,” he said in Latin, “tell the Lord of this House that I am come.” As he spoke, the wind from behind him was whipping the coat about his legs and blowing his hair over his forehead; but his great mass stood as if it had been planted like a tree and he seemed in no hurry. And the voice, too, was such as one might imagine to be the voice of a tree, large and slow and patient, drawn up through roots and clay and gravel from the depths of the Earth. “I am the Master here,” said Ransom, in the same language. “To be sure!” answered the Stranger. “And yonder whipper-snapper (mastigia) is without doubt your Bishop.” He did not exactly smile, but a look of disquieting amusement came into his keen eyes. Suddenly he poked his head forward so as to bring his face much nearer to the Director’s.“–faith in Christ as the key marker of identity and Truth
“Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing. The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder. Like in the poem about Heaven and Hell eating into merry Middle Earth from opposite sides… how does it go? Something about ‘eat every day’… ‘till all is somethinged away’. It can’t be eaten, that wouldn’t scan. My memory has failed dreadfully these last few years. Do you know the bit, Margery?” “What you were saying reminded me more of the bit in the Bible about the winnowing fan. Separating the wheat and the chaff. Or like Browning’s line: “Life’s business being just the terrible choice.’”—impossibility of neutrality, importance of choices and destiny
“Merlin is the reverse of Belbury. He’s at the opposite extreme. He is the last vestige of an old order in which matter and spirit were, from our modern point of view, confused. For him every operation on Nature is a kind of personal contact, like coaxing a child or stroking one’s horse. After him came the modern man to whom Nature is something dead — a machine to be worked, and taken to bits if it won’t work the way he pleases. Finally, come the Belbury people, who take over that view from the modern man unaltered and simply want to increase their power by tacking onto it the aid of spirits — extra-natural, anti-natural spirits. Of course they hoped to have it both ways. They thought the old magia of Merlin, which worked in with the spiritual qualities of Nature, loving and reverencing them and knowing them from within, could be combined with the new goeteia — the brutal surgery from without. No. In a sense Merlin represents what we’ve got to get back to in some different way. Do you know that he is forbidden by the rules of his order to use any edged tool on any growing thing?”—importance of Creation and reverence for it“The poison was brewed in these West lands, but it has spat itself everywhere by now. However far you went you would find the machines, the crowded cities, the empty thrones, the false writings, the barren beds: men maddened with false promises and soured with true miseries, worshipping the iron works of their own hands, cut off from Earth their mother and from the Father in Heaven. You might go East so far that East became West and you returned to Britain across the great Ocean, but even so you would not have come out anywhere into the light. The shadow of one dark wing is over all Tellus.”—poison of “progress” and rejection of natural order leading to alienation
“And this,” said Ransom, ignoring the question, “is why we have no way left at all save the one I told you. The Hideous Strength holds all this Earth in its fist to squeeze as it wishes. But for their one mistake, there would be no hope left. If of their own evil will they had not broken the frontier and let in the celestial Powers, this would be their moment of victory. Their own strength has betrayed them. They have gone to the gods who would not have come to them, and pulled down Deep Heaven on their heads. Therefore, they will die. For though you search every cranny to escape, now that you see all crannies closed, you will not disobey me.”—intervention of God and spiritual powers in Heaven changes everything
THEMES THAT APPEAR IN CHAPTERS 12 AND 13
—doublespeak, coercion
—means v. ends, lies, murder
—denial of humanity and natural order, scientism
—eugenics, death culture, men without chests
—holiness, importance of the Incarnation
—wisdom of the world is foolishness
—Evil. division, radical selfishness
—lure of Evil, power of demons, death of Joy
—demonic attack, danger of toying with Evil
—faith in Christ as the key marker of identity and Truth
—perils of ignorance of language
—God’s plan and free will
–importance of identity as a Christian
—impossibility of neutrality, importance of choices and destiny
—importance of Creation and reverence for it
—power of prayer, reality of heavenly powers
—wickedness may backfire in unexpected ways
—God’s plan working through an unlikely man
—poison of “progress” and rejection of natural order leading to alienation
—intervention of God and spiritual powers in Heaven changes everything
Practices of Hope and of Wisdom
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.—Phil. 4:8-9
1. Practice giving thanks for Creation and the natural order God has made. Bless the LORD, all His works in all places of His dominion. Bless the LORD, O my soul! (Ps. 103:22) Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created. (Rev. 4:11) I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. (Ps. 139:14)
2. Beware of becoming lukewarm and collaborating with worldliness. I know your deeds; you are neither cold nor hot. How I wish you were one or the other! So because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of My mouth! (Rev. 3:15-16) Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls. (1 Peter 2:10) Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.(Phil. 3:17-19)
3. Live robustly into your identity as a Christian, both inwardly and outwardly. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2:20) Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Cor. 5:17)
4. Use words well, speaking the truth in love to give life and encouragement to all whom you encounter. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. (Eph. 4:29) A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit. (Prov. 15:4) The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence. (Prov. 10:11)
