Category: religion

Stuck? 3 Personal crisis and growth

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Continued from Stuck? 2 Early doubts.

Personal crisis and growth

It took more than theories to really change that simplistic materialistic viewpoint that had emerged from my school days. It was in the crucible of everyday experience, of relationship and conflict in the real world – the development of the psyche that began to recognise that it was more than mind.

First, there was body and feelings to be accorded their due. Body rebelled at improper treatment through lack of exercise, late nights, alcohol, etc., and had to be accommodated. And for many years I had not really understood ‘feelings’, hardly being aware of the consequent moods foisted onto those around me. Slowly awareness dawned. The mind had a role, but it was in accepting and working with body and feelings, not repressing them. But this was not all.

After years of an unsatisfactory selfish life style, and years of denial, I eventually realised that I was in crisis. An essential selfishness in my being was leading me on a destructive path, which could destroy my material life altogether. I see retrospectively that an inner battle raged between material desires and spiritual values, with conscience as the insistent arbiter. I made painful changes to my life to get back onto a steady track, towards becoming a personality integrated within itself and with the world.

I was inspired to follow directions indicated by earlier intuitions, eventually discovering meditation. This proved a wonderful systematic tool for personality integration, and for ongoing exploration into what I term my higher self – which seems to correspond with the worlds of soul and spirit apparently universal to human experience and documented by many[i].

Expressed simply, I was embarked upon the process of integration of the personality, resolving the previous dissociation of mind/ feelings/ body, and beginning to connect with my higher self/ soul/ spirit[ii]. Inevitably this led to becoming gradually less selfish and more concerned with the general good – the real experience of a developing spirituality. [I lay no claim to great spiritual achievement, being merely an open-minded explorer and seeker.]

2023 perspective: this is a never-ending process; the only destination lies the other side of the dying process. There are many books that I have read since those days, all highly recommendable. See eg the many reviewed on this blog.

[i] The most influential of my guides (written 2002) have perhaps been the extensive works of Paul Brunton and Alice Bailey. See e.g. The Wisdom of the Overself, Paul Brunton, A Treatise on White Magic, Alice Bailey. There are many others.

[ii] A more modern description and approach to personal development is in Psychosynthesis, Roberto Assagioli.

Stuck? 2 Early doubts

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Continued from Stuck? 1 Education of a Materialist.

Early doubts

I always had intimations that there might be something more to life than materialism, choosing the label ‘agnostic’ if pressed on my beliefs [atheism seemed to me to be irrational bravado].

Mathematics had given me an insight of enormous value in my subsequent deliberations. Gödel’s theorem[i] shows that any mathematical system is in a sense incomplete – there are things outside of the system that cannot be known within it. Since much science is essentially about the construction of mathematical models of reality this seems enormously relevant to our subject. There can be no complete model of the universe. Period.

Physics also suggested that the materialistic viewpoint had its limitations. Paradoxes of relativity indicated that different people apparently aged at different rates. Quantum theory seemed even more challenging. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle suggested that science could not be as precise as it had seemed. You couldn’t even know, at the same time, how fast a particle was moving and where it was. And something was a wave or a particle depending on what you were looking for!

Quantum phenomena also included non-locality, when physically remote parts of the universe appeared to be causally and instantly connected[ii]. So-called paranormal phenomena came to seem quite plausible, and indeed are well documented, despite being apparently resistant to proof by controlled experiments.

Astronomy and its bedfellow cosmology offered exciting materialistic visions of our context in space and time. ‘Big bang’ theorists argued against, and prevailed over, ‘steady state’ theorists. And yet what did it all mean – and what came before the bang?

In the background I was becoming aware of the exciting psychology of Freud and Jung, then humanistic psychology and Maslow, and later Assagioli’s psychosynthesis. People grew to self actualisation or individuation. I had special experiences that later found the label ‘peak experiences’. I was convinced that these were intimations of my own potential for something more[iii].

I was also drawn towards the Eastern religions, particularly through the evocative novels of Hermann Hesse[iv] and the philosophical writings of Alan Watts[v]. There seemed to be sense here, notably in Buddhism and Taoism. But Christianity became more and more of a puzzle. The great European Gothic cathedrals were wonderfully evocative and inspiring buildings, surely pointing to something more than material concerns. The teachings of Christ largely made sense. And yet I became increasingly aware of the great crimes done over the centuries in the name of the church and Christ, such as the persecution of Cathars, the various Inquisitions and Crusades, even the apparent tacit support of the Nazi regime in the Second World War. I realised that the church, and the religion, were not the spiritual essence.

And there were great heroes, such as M.K.Gandhi and Martin Luther King, who achieved great things for humanity, apparently driven by the fire of an unselfish spirit.

Twenty years later, there is much more evidence of the validity of a ‘spiritual’ world viewpoint, from many great researchers, including the Integral philosophy pioneered by Ken Wilber and a whole raft of inspirational spiritual and psychological teachers. Yet, the materialistic emphasis of the everyday world continues as ever, driven by the interests of those in power, across the world, reinforced by the internet and social media that encourage us to skate across the surface of things, rather than penetrate below and inwards. The contradiction between the teachings of the great spiritual leaders – Christ, Buddha, Taoism, Hindu, etc. – and the institutions established in their name, is ever apparent.

To be continued in Stuck? 3 Personal crisis and growth.

Featured image of stars by Nova Dawn Astrophotography,
CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Notes

[i] Austrian mathematician Kurt Gödel’s theorem is discussed in The Emperor’s New Mind, Roger Penrose. Of course, chaos theory has more recently demonstrated that non-linear systems can exhibit inherently unpredictable emergent properties, but that’s another story…

[ii] A modern perspective on Quantum Theory is in Schrödinger’s Kittens, John Gribbin

[iii] The Outsider, Colin Wilson was a strong early influence.

[iv] Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse is a particularly sublime work.

[v] See e.g. The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, Alan Watts

Stuck? 1 Education of a Materialist

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Twenty years ago, early in my retirement, I wrote an essay on ‘Science and Spirituality: Complementary or Contradictory?’ as a submission for a Resurgence Magazine Essay Competition. It expressed my understanding of the dominant thinking of the time, and its limitations, through the lens of science and spirituality. It didn’t win the prize and the essay was just filed away on the computer.

Recently, I came across it, and thought that it would be interesting to reflect on my views as expressed all those years ago. Has anything changed? Am I any wiser than I was then? Are we collectively any wiser than we were then? Did anything change, or am I/we just stuck in my/our thinking? To attempt to answer these questions, I am serialising that essay over a number of blog posts, with any commentary that seems appropriate, in italics. You are welcome to join me on the journey.

Preamble

Science and spirituality are part of our collective experience. That they could be contradictory now seems strange to me, and yet once they seemed so. This series of posts draws parallels between my own personal experience of growth and the corresponding growth of humanity; reconciliation of a complementary science and spirituality is a fundamental part of this process.

Education of a materialist

My school years centred around the 1950s in Lincoln, England. Science was king. I well remember the reverence accorded to white-coated boffins on the television (when we eventually got one in 1953). What they said was treated as gospel. The pressure from teachers was for the sciences. This was the future, what the country needed. Humanities were second best, for those with no aptitude for science.

When we were kids, religion was singing in morning assembly, and being sent to the Methodist chapel on Sundays. The minister told bible stories and warned us of the dangers of alcohol, while parents kept away and did the gardening. Yet we loved the occasional lay preacher who came with song and speeches that stirred our soul with their passion. Except we had no concept of soul.

Spirituality was something we secretly found out about through reading library books. It seemed to be all to do with séances, ouija ouija boards and magic. It was not talked about in polite society, and definitely not recognised as valid by science.

So I emerged from the education system with an essentially materialistic scientific viewpoint, deeply sceptical of religion, and uncomprehending of spirituality. After studying mathematics, I took up what was then called computer science, and soon became information systems engineering. I joined the everyday world of industry, married and eventually we started a family.

That was the preamble, still valid today. To be continued in Stuck? 2 Early doubts.

Featured image of Lego city by Lamiot,
CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

That was 2022 on this blog

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My favourite photos from posts of 2022

Lincoln Cathedral West Front
Knutsford Little Heath
Horse over River Dordogne
Clwydian Hills from Souuthport Pier
Amboise Chateau and River Loire
Normandy sky
Click picture to enlarge/ see slideshow. Click caption to see post.

Featured image is the chateau at Chinon and River Vienne.

My favourite wordy posts of 2022

  • 1965 Kiev – reflections on visiting Kyiv in 1965, at the start of the still-ongoing Russian invasion.
  • Fens overview – overview of a series of posts on a journey through the Fens of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire.
  • The Matter With Things – Review of Iain McGilchrist’s masterwork, vital to understand where humanity is at, psychologically.
  • Trauma and the Body – Review of Bessel van der Kolk’s excellent book The Body Keeps the Score.
  • Letting Go – the need to let go of old attachments, both for living and for dying.

Most viewed (2022)

  • Mint Moth (2017) – amazing furry moth, also in 2021 list.

Most liked (6 years)

  • Trauma and the Body – Review of Bessel van der Kolk’s excellent book The Body Keeps the Score.

A happy new year to you all!

Hope you enjoyed at least some of it, and maybe learned something from it.

Thanks to you fellow bloggers for your comments and likes!

At Lincoln Cathedral

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I never cease to be inspired by Lincoln Cathedral. Growing up in Lincoln, it was always there, dominating the city and visible across the fens for miles around. On our recent visit we caught the afternoon sun full onto the stunning and newly cleaned West Front.

Our purpose was to attend the candlelit Christmas Carol Service, enjoy listening to the sublime singing of the choir, and join in with the well known Christmas carols, all the while inspired by that superb gothic interior.

Afterwards, purple lighting on the cathedral towers gave some magical effects. I particularly liked this one.

God’s own cathedral, I call it. But then, I am a bit biased!

Featured image is a part of the West Front.

Be The Change…

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I went into Manchester the other day, on the Metrolink, while the car was being serviced. Now Manchester is certainly not the most beautiful city in the world. It was a leader in the industrial revolution, and there is an air of functionality about the place, although the Victorians did put up quite a few beautiful buildings.

There is much modern development going on, so I kept losing my way as I went in search of Manchester Cathedral, although I was once quite familiar with the central area of the city. Eventually I found it. The thing is, the cathedral is usually quite easy to find in most cathedral cities, but here it is hidden away, dwarfed by its surroundings. Here is a photograph of the cathedral, with a bronze statue of Mahatma Gandhi in the foreground.

This is a bit of a cheat, as I applied perspective correction to the original wide angle shot from my phone (see featured image). With so many tall buildings around, it is difficult to get a complete framing from street level without using a wide angle lens.

The cathedral is not the grandest building in Manchester, which is probably the Town Hall, larger and more impressive. Manchester’s priorities are clear.

The Gandhi statue was put up in 2019, in memory of the 150th anniversary of the birthday of this great man of peace. A plaque includes the quote “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

An important reminder to each of us. If we want a world of love and peace we have to create it day by day, acting ‘as if’, and it shall happen… But maybe not in our own lifetime

St Jacques, Aubeterre

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The church of St Jacques at Aubeterre sur Dronne is a typical pilgrimage church on one of the routes through France to Compostella in northern Spain, approached by a long climb up through the village from the river Dronne. Romanesque simplicity is the keynote, remarkably beautiful.

West front and tower, wide angle lens

I passed through many similar churches over 20 years ago, as I followed the route from Vezelay to Compostella in our motorcaravan. The basic plan is the same.

Enter, there is no one there, you find a haven of peace, the atmosphere shared with so many thousands of pilgrims since the 12th century. Profoundly moving to tarry awhile, part of that historical stream of seekers.

Nave and side aisles

The tradition of pilgrimage lives on, not only in the so-called Christian world. Yet so many today appear to have forgotten about the interior dimensions of life, focusing only on the external – money, business, science, technology, politics, war… Yet the interior journey is the true journey of life – how we deal with the challenges thrown up by the external, how we learn from it and grow…

I should add that Aubeterre is perhaps better known for its Church of Saint Jean, an underground, Monolithic church built into huge caves in the rock of the hillside – also well worth a visit.

Aubeterre is in Nouvelle Aquitaine, France’s largest region, administered from Bordeaux.

We’ll figure it out

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Jane Fritz recent post At this inflection point in history, compassion has to stand its ground set me thinking. The post highlights all the thing that are going wrong in todays world and goes on to highlight the need for connectedness, compassion, courage, authenticity, generosity – none of which I would disagree with.

The thing is, we are all exposed by constant media exposure to all the things that are going wrong in the world, and the trends that appear to be going the wrong way – many of which have featured in moments of exasperation on this blog. So much so, that many people I have spoken to in recent months have actually reduced their exposure to the news and media because it is just so dispiriting. And what is it doing to the minds and dispositions of today’s youngsters?

Two insights occur to me.

First, Einstein is frequently quoted as having said that you cannot solve today’s problems with the mindset of yesterday, or words to that effect. Equally, you cannot anticipate the solutions to today’s problems from yesterday’s mindset, which is what we all have, and are reflected in the media. Tomorrow’s world will emerge from the collective mindset of billions of people confronted with today’s world. Who knows what answers might emerge, and how those problems might be resolved, or evolve into different and maybe even more intractable problems, if that’s possible. So we shouldn’t dispair if we cannot see the answers; it’s a work in progress. As daughter says in her increasing wisdom ” We’ll figure it out…”!

Second, we ourselves are a work in progress. We have choices day in and day out in how we live our lives and the quality of those lives. I believe that we are each on a path of growth and learning – about ourselves and our place in the world, even the purpose of our existence – the soul or daimon. So the job is to fulfil our purpose here, to make the best contribution we can at this moment, from where we stand now. This has been highlighted innumerable times over the centuries by advanced human beings. The job is to move towards our soul purpose, our spirituality, or whatever terminology you wish to use.

Of course, the inevitable result is connectedness, compassion, courage, authenticity, generosity…

Featured image is evening sky over Knutsford 14.8.22

From role to soul?

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I suppose that to some people the theme of Connie Zweig’s book The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul will have no meaning. If we take the view that all life is on the surface, with no interiors, then what could inner work mean for the materialist? If we take what seems to me the sensible viewpoint, that we live in parallel interior and exterior worlds, and that through experience and inner exploration we can become more perfect beings, even align to what it is that led us to be born, then this book could have a lot of meaning for you.

Connie Zweig suggests that in the later part of life we have the opportunity to realise what our whole life process has been about, potentially becoming Elders and mentors for others. The process of building ego, that constituted the first part of life, evolves into a learning process, an uncovering of the strong ego that we built, to transcend its fundamental selfishness and in the light of our new understanding make a positive contribution aligned with our unique destiny.

This is, of course, aligned with the messages underlying transpersonal psychologies and all the world’s major religions and spiritual teachers, extensively quoted by Connie. She suggests that there are two major processes that we go through – psychological reconciliation with the Shadow (and, I would suggest, any traumas accumulated there), and the movement from dominance by ego to being led by our inner soul/spirit.

For me this was like a revision of many approaches to psychological and spiritual growth that I have become aware of over a lifetime,  and important reminders they are.

Becoming reconciled with our own failures and ultimate death are of course a part of this process – death being the great taboo in a surface-oriented culture, death being the end of ego.

Important to me was the emphasis on achieving wisdom, and moving towards the role of the wise Elder, and the importance of this role in society – a role forgotten in many countries including my own – where the upper house of Parliament is apparently misused to reward those giving money to Parties, rather than being the place for the most wise members of society to reflect on new developments.

An important book on an important subject, which is of course outside the current mainstream, but no less important for that.

What can we know?

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What can we know about life? Start with what we might all agree on.

Look inside. I am a conscious subject.

Look outside. There appears to be an objective material world in which I experience. I have a body that operates in this external world.

There also appear to be in this world other conscious subjects, including those who conditioned me from birth, and including animals and other creatures. I recognise their interiority.

Much of that interiority is shared across humans (at least) – my surrounding culture.

Summary. Basic dualities.

Basic dualities
  • Interior/exterior or subject/object or conscious/material.
  • Individual/collective or me/society + culture.

Quadrants

We can express this as four quadrants; none is reducible to the others.

Wilber quadrants

These are the Four Quadrants of Ken Wilber’s Integral Psychology, and Ken and others have done a great job of mapping all human knowledge onto these four quadrants. See for example his Integral Psychology or his magnum opus Sex, Ecology and Spirituality.

For example,

  • modern science belongs on the right, as it is concerned with objectivity and, axiomatically, excludes the subject.
  • psychology and spirituality belong on the left, although scientific psychology and institutional religion attempt to reduce this to the right, or control it from the right.
  • culture belongs in the bottom left, and social and government systems in the bottom right.
Huber quadrants

These are also the four quadrants of the modern astrological birth chart. Astrology and astrological psychology have long encompassed all aspects of our being in the world. See for example Bruno & Louise Huber’s The Astrological Houses or Life Clock.

Limitations

Remember that the quadrants are an analytical breakdown, and can only represent suggestive truth. In reality we know that all is interconnected; models such as this may help, but always have their limitations.

What this does imply is that one-dimensional approaches to life cannot work. Materialism is a dead end; it cannot deal with interiors and ends up being inhuman. Control of people’s innermost thoughts through religious or political systems is another dead end; it cannot effectively deal with exteriors through science. Humanity has tried all of these through history.

We just have to embrace the complexity, and ultimately the mystery, of life.

Featured image licensed via Shutterstock.

Fundamentalism

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My post Modes of knowing highlighted that we have two modes of knowing: rationality, corresponding to left brain function; and intuition, corresponding to right brain function. The human being operates at best when these two modes of knowing operate in tandem, and there is great danger when the rational/left brain function takes over and ignores or denies the right brain/intuition. This is the root cause of fundamentalism.

Fundamentalism appears in many guises in the modern world.

  • Religious fundamentalism. We all know about that. The word in the holy books is taken as a statement of fact, rather than as metaphor. We see these fundamentalists all over the world – Islamic Christian, Hindhu, Buddhist… The effect is to deny the basic truths that were initially espoused by the founding spiritual teachers – Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha…
  • Political fundamentalism. The dedication to a particular ideology, which is often the cover for a privileged class, even an individual, to stay in control of society.
  • Economic fundamentalism. The dedication to particular ideas about how an economy is run, such as that private is always good, public spending is always bad, of many modern right wingers – or indeed the very opposite from many modern left wingers.
  • Scientific materialist fundamentalism. The belief that objective science and the materialist paradigm can explain everything, and that subjective life – religion/spirituality, morality, values etc – are somehow unimportant as without foundation.

I’m sure you could add further examples. Yes, fundamentalism abounds wherever there is human thought and endeavour – particularly, I would suggest, in these days of significant left-brain domination. The task of human development is, as ever, to tread the path between the extremes that lead to fundamentalism, to respond to life with the full subjectivity of those very subjective values that fundamentalism is inherently unable to take into consideration. To be human beings, not the machines that various fundamentalisms would seek to turn us into.

Inspired by Iain McGilchrist’s The Matter with Things.
Featured image by Stiller Beobachter from Ansbach, Germany, via Wikimedia Commons

Metaphor, Map and Model

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Metaphor

1. a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance…
2. something used, or regarded as being used, to represent something else; emblem; symbol.

dictionary.com

Metaphor is the basis of language and related creativity. While this has always been apparent in the arts and literature, it is perhaps not so readily associated with other fields.

Just consider the two domains of thought that have dominated Western cultures for thousands of years: religion and science.

Religious texts are full of metaphor pointing towards the great religious and spiritual truths that can never be precisely expressed in language. Religions become problematic for human society when these texts are interpreted literally, rather than metaphorically. Then fundamentalism becomes a big problem, as it was for centuries in Europe and still is in many parts of the world. In the terms of Iain McGilchrist’s book The Master and His Emissary, the Left Brain Emissary has usurped the function of the Right Brain Master.

But surely science is different, you exclaim – it’s objective. Piffle! In essence, science makes mathematical models of the real world. And what are these models but metaphors that reach towards the underlying reality. Scientific fundamentalism becomes a problem when the scientist believes that the model accurately describes the real world, rather than being a metaphor, leading to losing touch with reality itself. The map is not the territory (another metaphor).

Of course, science’s handmaidens technology and modern capitalism have this problem in spades. It is not a huge leap to suggest that this Left Brain dominance has significantly contributed to today’s ecological and climate problems, and to the mealy mouthed response to these problems so far.

It’s all metaphor really!

Inspired by Iain McGilchrist’s magnum opus The Matter with Things.
Featured image includes a quote from Genesis I, King James version.

John Polkinghorne

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I was sorry to learn of the death of John Polkinghorne in the recent college magazine Trinity Review. John was my director of studies in Applied Mathematics in the early 1960s, the only director of studies I can really remember from my time at university – which says something. He was very approachable and human, although I must record that he did not in the end succeed in inspiring me to a career involving Applied Mathematics.

I subsequently intemittently followed John’s career at a distance, with interest. Although a physicist specialising in quantum mechanics, John “baffled many of his fellow scientists by believing that advances in his field in the 20th century had made it easier to believe in God… he thought it was no less an article of faith to believe that atoms moved according to some hidden law of nature, as many other scientists did, than it was for him to believe they moved according to God’s will.”

In 1979 John left academia to take holy orders, eventually becoming the vicar of Blean, near Canterbury. He later became dean of Trinity Hall, Cambridge and a prolific writer about the intersection between science and religion. He was knighted in 1997, but as a clergyman was not called “sir”.

As well as being a fine human being, John was yet another example of the long parade of quantum physicists who have stressed the importance of reconciling science and religion/spirituality, in direct contradiction of the materialistic beliefs of many of today’s so-called scientific disciplines. See eg my post on Mystical Scientists.

It was a privilege to have known him.

Featured image of Trinity College, Cambridge by Mahyar-UK, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Hailes Abbey

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We visited Hailes Abbey last summer. This former Cistercian abbey near Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, was founded in 1246 by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, elected King of the Romans and brother to King Henry III. The abbey soon acquired a relic of the (supposed) Holy Blood of Christ, ensuring that it became a popular place of pilgrimage.

Of course, Hailes Abbey was surrendered to Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries, in 1539. All that remains today, in a peaceful country location, is romantic grassy ruins – very pleasant to stroll around and admire the Cistercian architecture, and much enjoyed by the dog.

We come across Cistercian ruins all over England. The massive extent of Henry VIII’s Dissolution is really brought home by this Wikipedia entry listing all the English Cistercian Abbeys.

Hailes Abbey is now managed by English Heritage on behalf of the National Trust.

Fontevraud, Royal Abbey

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The historic Benedictine abbey of Fontevraud lies between Chinon and Saumur, in the area just south of the River Loire. We were lucky, it was an annual French jour de patrimoine, when entry to national museums is free – a great way for a government to encourage interest in local culture and history.

  • Abbey church
  • Cloisters
  • Chapter House
Click to enlarge
The necropolis

Fontevraud is designated a royal abbey because it was here that Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of the first Plantagenet King Henry II, established in the church a necropolis containing recumbent statues of the dead Plantagenets (from bottom, left to right, then top) Henry II, Eleanor herself set higher than her then-dead husband, their first son Richard I ‘the Lionheart’, and Isabelle, wife of Richard’s brother John. This was intended as a similar idea to the necropolis of French Kings in the church of St Denis in Paris, celebrating the continuity of Plantagenet reign over England/parts of British Isles/Normandy/Aquitaine (the so-called Angevin Empire). The necropolis never really developed after John, then king, ‘lost’ most of the French possessions to the French King Philip in 1204 – an early forced ‘Brexit’ which led to decades of scheming and warfare. The Plantagenets remained kings of England until the death of King Richard III in 1485.

A major feature of this abbey was that it contained both male and female monks/nuns, and was always overseen by a woman. Close links with French royalty ensured its survival until the French Revolution, when the abbeys were dissolved and taken over by the State, and where possible sold off. This was 250 years after Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries in England.

The abbey at Fontevraud was founded in 1101 by Robert d’Arbrissel, 3 years after founding of the Cistercian movement. This soon developed into a similar chain of monasteries across France, with a few in Spain and England. So controversial was the involvement of women, that  Robert was never canonised by the Catholic Church.

Evraud Tower

The architecture is quite remarkable, as you can see.

After the Revolution Napoleon decreed that the buildings be converted into a prison containing prison workshops. Even the abbey church was adapted to contain first 3 then 5 storeys. The experience of this prison is well described in exhibits at the abbey. The prison was only closed in 1963.

In the meantime, restoration work was recreating the essence of the original abbey. The kitchen/ Evraud Tower was rather imaginatively restored early on. Today, most traces of the adaptation of the abbey buildings to serve as a prison have been removed.

As well as being a tourist attraction in their own right, the abbey buildings now serve as a cultural centre for Western France, with many events and exhibitions.

Today Fontevraud looks magnificent. It provides a great day out to immerse yourself in this aspect of French/English history.

Featured image shows tombs of Henry and Eleanor.

Thomas Cromwell

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Thomas Cromwell is on my mind, having just finished reading Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light, the last of her award-winning trilogy on his life.

Born around 1485, of humble origins in London, Cromwell rose to become an MP, then in 1524 an advisor to Chancellor Thomas Wolsey, right hand man of King Henry VIII. Somehow Cromwell survived the fall of Wolsey in 1529, when King Henry blamed Wolsey for the failure to get the pope to agree with annulling his marriage to Queen Catherine of Aragon, who had not produced a son and heir.

In 1530 the King appointed Cromwell to the Privy Council and over the following years gave him many other titles, including Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Privy Seal and Great Chamberlain. Thomas Cromwell became the second most powerful man in England, second to King Henry of course, but always resented by the traditional aristocracy. He always had jealous enemies.

In 1532 the supremacy of the king over the church in England was confirmed, the Lord Chancellor and anti-protestant Sir Thomas More resigned and was subsequently executed. The marriage to Catherine was annulled at Dunstable Priory, delegitimising her daughter Mary as heir. Henry married Anne Boleyn in 1533. All was orchestrated by Cromwell. In 1534 he was formally confirmed as first minister (compare today’s prime minister).

In 1536 came the act for the suppression of the lesser monasteries, Cromwell’s scheme to seize the wealth and lands of the monasteries, which provoked rebellion in the north of England with first the Lincolnshire Rising and followed by the Pilgrimage of Grace. These rebellions were seen off by Henry and those loyal. Those responsible were first persuaded to delay and later pursued and executed.

Anne Boleyn had not agreed with the religious changes, there were rumours of affairs, and she had also not produced a male heir. Cromwell was instrumental in her trial, fall and execution and the annulment of this marriage, delegitimising her daughter Elizabeth as heir. Henry married Jane Seymour.

Queen Jane died in 1537, after the birth of her son Edward, the longed-for male heir.

In 1538 the religious reform extended to the larger monasteries, which were invited to surrender, a process completed by 1540. Those that resisted, such as Richard Whiting at Glastonbury, were executed. The wealth and lands went to the King and his favoured lords. But the king resisted further religious reform.

Also in 1540 Cromwell had succeeded in arranging a ‘political’ marriage of Henry with Anne of Cleves, which was never consummated as neither party seemed to regard the other with any favour. But political winds were changing on the continent and it is believed that Henry blamed Cromwell for this alliance and the failure to extricate him from the marriage. Conservative forces briefed against Cromwell and the king allowed him to be arrested, tried and executed by July. At the same time, Anne agreed to annulment of the marriage and Henry married Catherine Howard.

Ten years was all it took for the once-humble Thomas Cromwell to dissolve the great monasteries of England and be instrumental in the king undertaking his second, third and fourth marriages, and for others to follow through with the fifth. Whatever we think of his dissolution of the monasteries, he seems not to have deserved the fate of beheading eloquently described by Hilary Mantel.

In fact Mantel’s books tell the whole story of Cromwell’s period in power, from the imagined perspective of the man himself. The whole trilogy is a tour de force, requiring great stamina for a complete reading, but very rewarding.

At the end of the day, Thomas Cromwell was a mere pawn on the European chessboard, in the game being played out by the English, French and Holy Roman kings/emperor, the Protestants and the popes of the Roman Catholic Church. He was dispensable when no longer convenient for his master.

King Henry VIII was a monster ego, who manipulated all to his own perceived personal advantage. We have not a jot of sympathy for him. Just beware today’s monster egos that seek similar over-arching power.

Featured image: Thomas Cromwell, by Hans Holbein

Hilary Mantel trilogy: Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies, The Mirror and the Light

Saint Richard Whiting

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On entering Glastonbury Abbey, one of the first buildings you come to is the charming little St. Patrick’s Chapel. Here is a mural which recalls the last days of the Abbey in 1539.

At the time of the Dissolution programme which began in 1534, Richard Whiting was the gentle and respected bishop of Glastonbury Abbey, the second richest religious institution in England, with around 100 monks. The story is well told by Wikipedia here.

In essence, Whiting was conned in the early years that the programme would only affect smaller institutions. By 1539 Glastonbury was the only remaining abbey in Somerset. On being told to surrender the Abbey, Whiting refused, acting legally correctly. Naturally, the Glastonbury leaders took steps to keep the abbey’s treasures safe. This was then turned round by the church commissioners, and ultimately Thomas Cromwell acting on behalf of King Henry VIII, as evidence of treason. His defiance was simply not acceptable to the all-powerful king. There was no due process. Whiting was convicted in secret, and executed on Glastonbury Tor with two of his team.

The mural shows three gibbets on Glastonbury Tor, where the 3 men were hanged, drawn and quartered. These were savage times, and of course Whiting was not the first religious leader to be so treated.

Whiting is considered a martyr by the Catholic Church which beatified him over 300 years later.

Dissolution

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One of the great infamous acts of British history was Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries 1536-41. On a recent trip across England we came across three of the great religious houses that were dissolved in this process – those at Glastonbury, Dunstable and Bury St Edmunds. The sheer extent of the ruins and the size of the remaining fragments emphasise the enormity of what happened, in a huge transfer of wealth and power from religious to royal authority. Most of the religious buildings in the abbey complexes were subsequently destroyed. Of course, these are just a small sample from the nearly 900 religious houses involved.

A modern day consolation is the wonderful opportunity for photographs offered by the remaining buildings/ fragments.

Glastonbury Abbey
Dunstable Priory, where Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon was annulled
Bury St Edmunds Abbey, with modern cathedral tower in background

Beyond the Res Cogitans

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I love this post from Scott Preston with a great title. It draws together ancient philosophical/ spiritual/ religious ideas and more modern thinking to suggest the direction that human consciousness is moving in, letting go of Monkey Mind and coming into presence.

And there’s a great poem by Rumi.

The Chrysalis

Huike said to Bodhidharma, “My mind is anxious. Please pacify it.”
Bodhidharma replied, “Bring me your mind, and I will pacify it.”
Huike said, “Although I’ve sought it, I cannot find it.”
“There,” Bodhidharma replied, “I have pacified it for you.”

It is often very difficult for Westerners, especially, to understand the meaning of this parable. Generations of conditioning has inculcated the belief that the res cogitans is fundamental to who and what we are — that is “the thinking thing”. “I think, therefore I am”, pronounced Descartes, and divided being into incommensurate domains of the res cogitans and the res extensa — the subject which thinks and the objective realm that it thinks about, the realm of extension, of space and motion. Cogito ergo sum — I am because I think.

This formula (called “metaphysical dualism”) has generated all sorts of problems for the modern mind, which are not…

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