The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary

by Robert Hugh Benson

VIII

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

For the sake of those who are more interested in the adventures of Master Richard and the King than in a medieval priest's surmises as to their respective psychological states, I shall take leave to summarise a few of his remarks and omit the rest. The whole section, in fact, might be omitted without any detriment to the history; and may be ignored by those 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 fully understand the theory that he attempts to state, which I suppose was taught him originally by Richard Raynal himself, and subsequently illustrated by the priest's own studies. He instances several cases as examples of the classes of persons to which he refers; but his obscurity is 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 all the names in Sir John's original manuscript.

Briefly, his theory is as follows—at least so far as I can understand him.

* * * * *

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

Most men are predisposed to act through the lower or physical self; and by an interior intention direct their actions towards good or evil. Those that serve God in this manner are often incapable of high mystical acts; but they refrain generally from sin; and when they sin return through Penance. Those who so serve Satan sin freely, and make no efforts at reformation. A few of these, by a wholehearted devotion to evil, succeed in establishing a relation between themselves and physical nature, and gain a certain control over the lower powers inherent in it. To this class belong the less important magicians and witches; and even some good Christians possess such powers (which we now call psychical) which, generally speaking, they are at a loss to understand. Such persons can blast or wither by the eye; they have a strange authority over animals; [I append a form of words which Sir John quotes, and which, he says, may be used sometimes lawfully even by christened men. It is to be addressed in necessity to a troublesome snake. "By Him who created 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 the curse wherewith the Lord hath cursed thee.">[ and are able to set up a connection between inanimate material objects and organic beings. [He instances the wasting of an enemy by melting a representation of him fashioned in wax.] But such magic, even when malevolent, need not be greatly feared by Christian men living in grace: its physical or psychical influence can be counteracted by corresponding physical acts: such things as the sign of the cross, the use of sacramentals, the avoidance of notoriously injurious follies such as beginning work on Friday, the observance of such matters as wearing Principium Evangelii secundum Joannem on the person, and the paying of ocular deference to Saint Christopher on rising—these precautions and others like them are usually a sufficient safeguard. [I am afraid it is impossible to clear Sir John wholly of the charge of superstition. The "Beginning of the Gospel according to John" was the fourteen verses read as the last Gospel after mass. A copy of this passage was often carried, sewn into the clothes, to protect from various ills. The image of St. Christopher usually stood near the door of the church to ensure against violent death all who looked on it in the morning.]

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

These are persons endowed with extraordinary dispositions, who have resolved to deal with invisible things through the highest faculty of their nature. The Satanic adepts are greatly to be feared, even in matters pertaining to salvation, for, although their power has been vastly restricted by the union of the divine and human natures in the Incarnation of the Son of God, yet they are capable by the exercise of their power, of obscuring spiritual faculties, and bringing to bear grievous temptations, as well as of afflicting by sickness, misfortune and 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 with by 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 is capable of rising to this sinister position: for it is not enough to renounce the faith, to make a league with Satan, to insult the cross and to commit other enormities: there must also be resident in the aspirant a peculiar faculty, corresponding to, if not identical with, the glorious endowment of the contemplative. If, however, all these and other conditions are fulfilled, the initiated person is severed finally from the Body of Christ and incorporated into that of Satan, through which mysterious regeneration it receives supernatural powers corresponding to those of the baptised soul.

Finally Sir John considers those whom he calls "God's adepts," and among those, though in different classes, he places Richard Raynal and the King. [A little later on he also mentions King Solomon as an eminent pre-Christian adept, and Enoch.] These adepts, he says, are of every condition and character, but that which binds them together is the fact 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 degree adepts, for in those sacraments they may be truly said to see, handle, hear and taste the Word of Life. Other powers, however, are still reserved to those who are the masters of the spiritual life;—for not all persons, however holy, are contemplatives, ecstatics, or seers.

Now contemplation is an arduous labour; it is not, as some ignorant persons think, a process of idle absorption; it is rather a state of strenuous endeavour, aided at any rate in its first stages by acts of steady detachment from the world of sense. Richard Raynal had passed through the first rigour of that purgative stage in the short period of one year, and although he still lived a detached life, and practised various austerities, he was so far free of danger that he was able, as has been already remarked, to dig and talk without interrupting the exercise of his higher faculties. He had then passed to the illuminative stage, and had remained, again for one year, in the process of being informed, taught and kindled in preparation for the third and last stage of union with the Divine—elsewhere named the Way of Perfection. He had been rewarded by various sensible gifts, particularly by that of Ecstasy, by which the soul passes, as fully as an embodied soul can pass, into the state of eternity. Here mysteries are seen plainly, though they seldom can be declared in words, or at least only haltingly and under physical images that are not really adequate to that which they represent. [That which Richard calls Calor, or Warmth, appears to be one of these.]

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

The purgative, illuminative and unitive stages had therefore been confused, and had come upon him simultaneously, though gradually; and this as was to be expected, had resulted in intense suffering. There was for him no gradation by which he passed slowly upwards from detachment to union. Richard Raynal's words to him had coincided with the struggling emergence of his own soul on to the higher plane; and he had opened his spiritual eyes on to a terrible future for which he had had but little preparation. The result had been a kind of paralysis of his whole nature, and henceforward the rest of his life, Sir John maintains, had been darkened by his first definite experience in the mystical region. If indeed this King was none other than Henry the Sixth, Sir John's explanation is an interesting commentary on that melancholy personage. Richard then, according to this hypothesis, found joy in his contemplation because he had been trained to look for it; and Henry had found sorrow because he had been overwhelmed by the suddenness of the revelation and his men unpreparedness. Sir John adds that it is difficult to know which of the two lives would be more pleasing to God Almighty.

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

How Master Richard took his meat: and of Master Lieutenant's whipping of him

Domine, ante te omne desiderium meum; et gemitus meus a te non est absconditus.

Lord, all my desire is before Thee: and my groaning is not hidden from
Thee.—Ps. xxxvii. 10.