Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

The mystical reflections of Louis of Blois

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Matt Stone

2011-02-01

“It is a great thing, an exceeding great thing, in the time of this exile, to be joined to God in the divine light by a mystical and denuded union. This takes place when a pure, humble, and resigned soul, burning with ardent charity, is carried above itself by the grace of God, and through the brilliancy of the divine light shining on the mind, it loses all consideration and distinction of things and lays aside all, even the most excellent images; and all liquefied by love, and, as it were, reduced to nothing, it melts away into God. It is then united to God without any medium, and be comes one spirit with Him, and is transformed and changed into Him, as iron placed in the fire is changed into fire, without ceasing to be iron. It becomes one with God, yet not so as to be of the same substance and nature as God.”

Spiritual Works of Louis of Blois

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5 responses to “The mystical reflections of Louis of Blois”

Kalessin

2011-02-01

Iron in fire is a very common metaphor in the mystics. I’m pretty sure Richard Rolle used it in The Fire of Love, though I remember the book mainly for Evelyn Underhill’s introduction, with a history of mystical parallels.
> In our own day, the Carmelite nun Soeur Thérèse de l’Enfant-Jésus describes an experience in which she “felt herself suddenly pierced by a dart of fire.” “I cannot,” she says, “explain this transport, nor can any comparison express the intensity of this flame. It seemed to me that an invisible force immersed me completely in fire.”
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/rolle/fire.ii.html
cf. Pascal’s _Memorial_, etc; I’ll write something on this experience one day as I’ve researched it quite a bit.

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Matt Stone

2011-02-01

Kalessin
Yes, it’s interesting that monotheistic mystics tend towards fire imagery and pantheistic mystics tend towards water imagery.
Consider the reflections of Pascal for instance: “From about half past ten in the evening until half past midnight. Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of philosophers and scholars. Certainty, certainty, heartfelt, joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ.”
Contrast that to reflections of Shunryu Suzuki: “When you do not realize that you are one with the river, or one with the universe, you have fear. Whether it is separated into drops or not, water is water. Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore, and we have no actual difficulty in our life. When the water returns to its original oneness with the river, it no longer has any individual feeling to it; it resumes its own nature, and finds composure.”
The essential difference would appear to be that fire imagery does not relativize the self in quite the same way that water imagery does. It’s certainly been my experience in any case. Personally I gravitate towards “warmth of the sun” imagery over “iron in the fire” imagery, but that probably says more of my post-industrial upbringing than anything else.

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Kalessin

2011-02-01

Exodus has one of the most interesting of all comments on the fire imagery; God appears in fire at Sinai because fire can’t be carved. “You saw no form…” It’s a symbol of immateriality, hence transcendence (hence the exact opposite of Suzuki’s constant river). Not sure that this helps the experience questions, but it’s a plausible ultimate basis for Jewish and Christian fire imagery.

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Matt Stone

2011-02-01

Yeah, Moses was at the back of my mind too. Also Pentecost. But beyond Jewish monotheism I think the Zoroastrians also need to factored into the equation.

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Matt Stone

2011-02-01

Hey, here’s an interesting one from William Blake:
Unless the eye catch fire
the God will not be seen
unless the ear catch fire
the God will not be heard
unless the tongue catch fire
the God will not be named
unless the heart catch fire
the God will not be loved
unless the mind catch fire
the God will not be known”

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