Thinking about something to write today, I realised that I
had completely forgotten June 15, the feast of the Anglican saint Evelyn Underhill. I use the term “Anglican Saint” gingerly but confidently: the
Anglican Church officially has no saints of its own, only those shared with the
Roman Catholic Church from before the Reformation; but the Standing Commission
on Liturgy and Music has created a very decent Calendar of “Holy Men, HolyWomen”, and when, a number of years ago, I went to Mass at my old Toronto
Church of St Mary Magdalene I heard, in the Litany, among a long list of other
saints asked to pray for us, “Saint George Herbert”! So I have little
reluctance in calling Evelyn Underhill an Anglican saint, and indeed a Doctor
of the Church. I first heard about her from my late mother-in-law Noel Wynyard,
a rather saintly woman in her own right about whom my daughter Tessa Kuin
Lawton wrote a very fine biography, and who greatly admired Underhill as a
teacher of Anglican spirituality.
Reading her famous book Mysticism,
first published in 1911, I am struck by the civilised ease of the style and the
enduring freshness of her intellectual approach. An example, from the
introduction:
“All men, at one time or another, have fallen in love with
the veiled Isis whom they call Truth. With most, this has been a passing
passion: they have early seen its hopelessness and turned to more practical
things. But other remain all their lives the devout lovers of reality: though
the manner of their love, the vision which they make to themselves of the
beloved object varies enormously. Some see Truth as Dante saw Beatrice: an
adorable yet intangible figure, found in this world yet revealing the next. To
others she seems rather an evil but an irresistible enchantress: enticing,
demanding payment and betraying her lover at the last. Some have seen her in a
test tube, and some in a poet’s dream; some before the altar, others in the
slime. The extreme pragmatists have even sought her in the kitchen, declaring
that she may best be recognized by her utility. Last stage of all, the
philosophic sceptic has comforted an unsuccessful courtship by assuring himself
that his mistress is not really there.”
And a little further: “the mystics are the pioneers of the
spiritual world, and we have no right to deny validity to their discoveries,
merely because we lack the opportunity or the courage necessary to those who
would prosecute such explorations themselves.”
And it occurred to me that in this current age, when
Islamist terrorism has given rise to a whole new materialist atheism
that (in order not to seem to discriminate) now considers all religion not only
as ridiculous but as inherently toxic; reading, marking, learning and inwardly
digesting sages such as Underhill – who includes Muslim and Buddhist mystics in
her considerations – may be a crucial antidote.
It was her book that first made me feel less alone in the world of, oh, say, The New York Review of Books. Naïve of me to be so lonely, of course. She helped change my life. Thanks.
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