The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary

by Robert Hugh Benson

  Of the Parson's Disquisition on the whole matter

  _In columna nubis loquebatur ad eos._

  He spoke to them in the pillar of the cloud.--_Ps. xcviii. 7._

  VIII

  {At this point of the narrative, in consideration of what has precededand what is yet to follow, Sir John Chaldfield thinks it proper toenlarge at great length upon the threefold nature of man, and thevarious characters and functions that emerge from the development ofeach part.

  For the sake of those who are more interested in the adventures ofMaster Richard and the King than in a medieval priest's surmises as totheir respective psychological states, I shall take leave to summarise afew of his remarks and omit the rest. The whole section, in fact, mightbe omitted without any detriment to the history; and may be ignored bythose who have arrived as far as this point in the reading of the book.

  Sir John is somewhat obscure; and I suspect that he does not fullyunderstand the theory that he attempts to state, which I suppose wastaught him originally by Richard Raynal himself, and subsequentlyillustrated by the priest's own studies. He instances several cases asexamples of the classes of persons to which he refers; but his obscurityis further deepened by the action of the zealous and discreet scribe,who, as I have said in the preface, has been careful to omit nearly allthe names in Sir John's original manuscript.

  Briefly, his theory is as follows--at least so far as I can understandhim.

  * * * * *

  It is at once man's glory and penalty that he is a mixed being. By thepossession of his complex nature he is capable of both height anddepth. He can devote himself to God or Satan; and there are two methodsby which he can attain to proficiency in either of those services. Hecan issue forth through his highest or lowest self, according to his ownwill and predispositions.

  Most men are predisposed to act through the lower or physical self; andby an interior intention direct their actions towards good or evil.Those that serve God in this manner are often incapable of high mysticalacts; but they refrain generally from sin; and when they sin returnthrough Penance. Those who so serve Satan sin freely, and make noefforts at reformation. A few of these, by a wholehearted devotion toevil, succeed in establishing a relation between themselves and physicalnature, and gain a certain control over the lower powers inherent in it.To this class belong the less important magicians and witches; and evensome good Christians possess such powers (which we now call psychical)which, generally speaking, they are at a loss to understand. Suchpersons can blast or wither by the eye; they have a strange authorityover animals; [I append a form of words which Sir John quotes, andwhich, he says, may be used sometimes lawfully even by christened men.It is to be addressed in necessity to a troublesome snake. "By Him whocreated thee I adjure thee that thou remain in the spot where thou art,whether it be thy will to do so or otherwise. And I curse thee with thecurse wherewith the Lord hath cursed thee."] and are able to set up aconnection between inanimate material objects and organic beings. [Heinstances the wasting of an enemy by melting a representation of himfashioned in wax.] But such magic, even when malevolent, need not begreatly feared by Christian men living in grace: its physical orpsychical influence can be counteracted by corresponding physical acts:such things as the sign of the cross, the use of sacramentals, theavoidance of notoriously injurious follies such as beginning work onFriday, the observance of such matters as wearing Principium Evangeliisecundum Joannem on the person, and the paying of ocular deference toSaint Christopher on rising--these precautions and others like them areusually a sufficient safeguard. [I am afraid it is impossible to clearSir John wholly of the charge of superstition. The "Beginning of theGospel according to John" was the fourteen verses read as the lastGospel after mass. A copy of this passage was often carried, sewn intothe clothes, to protect from various ills. The image of St. Christopherusually stood near the door of the church to ensure against violentdeath all who looked on it in the morning.]

  But all this is a very different matter from the high mysticism ofcontemplatives, ascetics, and Satanic adepts.

  These are persons endowed with extraordinary dispositions, who haveresolved to deal with invisible things through the highest faculty oftheir nature. The Satanic adepts are greatly to be feared, even inmatters pertaining to salvation, for, although their power has beenvastly restricted by the union of the divine and human natures in theIncarnation of the Son of God, yet they are capable by the exercise oftheir power, of obscuring spiritual faculties, and bringing to beargrievous temptations, as well as of afflicting by sickness, misfortuneand death.

  These select souls are the great mages of all time; and their leader,since the year of redemption, Simon Magus himself, could be dealt withby none other than the Vicar of Christ and prince of apostles.

  It is not every man, even with the worst will in the world, who iscapable of rising to this sinister position: for it is not enough torenounce the faith, to make a league with Satan, to insult the cross andto commit other enormities: there must also be resident in the aspiranta peculiar faculty, corresponding to, if not identical with, theglorious endowment of the contemplative. If, however, all these andother conditions are fulfilled, the initiated person is severed finallyfrom the Body of Christ and incorporated into that of Satan, throughwhich mysterious regeneration it receives supernatural powerscorresponding to those of the baptised soul.

  Finally Sir John considers those whom he calls "God's adepts," andamong those, though in different classes, he places Richard Raynaland the King. [A little later on he also mentions King Solomon as aneminent pre-Christian adept, and Enoch.] These adepts, he says, are ofevery condition and character, but that which binds them together is thefact that they all alike deal directly with invisible things, and not,as others do, through veils and symbols. Since the Incarnation, however,all baptized persons who frequent the sacraments are in a certain degreeadepts, for in those sacraments they may be truly said to see, handle,hear and taste the Word of Life. Other powers, however, are stillreserved to those who are the masters of the spiritual life;--for notall persons, however holy, are contemplatives, ecstatics, or seers.

  Now contemplation is an arduous labour; it is not, as some ignorantpersons think, a process of idle absorption; it is rather a state ofstrenuous endeavour, aided at any rate in its first stages by acts ofsteady detachment from the world of sense. Richard Raynal had passedthrough the first rigour of that purgative stage in the short period ofone year, and although he still lived a detached life, and practisedvarious austerities, he was so far free of danger that he was able, ashas been already remarked, to dig and talk without interrupting theexercise of his higher faculties. He had then passed to the illuminativestage, and had remained, again for one year, in the process of beinginformed, taught and kindled in preparation for the third and last stageof union with the Divine--elsewhere named the Way of Perfection. He hadbeen rewarded by various sensible gifts, particularly by that ofEcstasy, by which the soul passes, as fully as an embodied soul canpass, into the state of eternity. Here mysteries are seen plainly,though they seldom can be declared in words, or at least only haltinglyand under physical images that are not really adequate to that whichthey represent. [That which Richard calls Calor, or Warmth, appearsto be one of these.]

  With the King, however, it was different. By the exigencies of hisvocation he was unable to live the properly contemplative life;solitude, an essential to that life, was impossible to him: but he haddone what he could by asceticism and the habit of recollection; and,further, his soul had been naturally one of those which had thenecessary endowments of the contemplative.

  The purgative, illuminative and unitive stages had therefore beenconfused, and had come upon him simultaneously, though gradually; andthis as was to be expected, had resulted in intense suffering. There wasfor him no gradation by which he passed slowly upwards from detachmentto union. Richard Raynal's words to him had coincided with thestruggling emergence of his own soul on to the higher plane; an
d he hadopened his spiritual eyes on to a terrible future for which he had hadbut little preparation. The result had been a kind of paralysis of hiswhole nature, and henceforward the rest of his life, Sir Johnmaintains, had been darkened by his first definite experience in themystical region. If indeed this King was none other than Henry theSixth, Sir John's explanation is an interesting commentary on thatmelancholy personage. Richard then, according to this hypothesis,found joy in his contemplation because he had been trained to look forit; and Henry had found sorrow because he had been overwhelmed by thesuddenness of the revelation and his men unpreparedness. Sir John addsthat it is difficult to know which of the two lives would be morepleasing to God Almighty.

  As regards his whole statement I feel it is impossible to say more thanto quote the opinion of a modern mystic to whom I submitted theoriginal; which was to the effect that it contains a little nonsense, agood deal of truth, and a not intolerable admixture of superstition. Headded further that Sir John must not be judged hardly; for he waslimited by an inadequate vocabulary and an ignorance of many of theterms that his scanty reading enabled him to employ.}