Free Glamorous Powers by Susan Howatch Page A

eyebrow. ‘Are you sure you’ve never seen it before?’
    ‘I was sure at the time. But on reflection … Yes, it’s not impossible that I’ve seen it before. I suspect that when my vision required the symbol I didn’t invent the suitcase but plucked the forgotten memory from my subconscious mind.’
    ‘But why that particular bag?’
    ‘Because it was striking enough to lodge in my memory. After all, one never usually looks at a bag twice.’
    Francis laid down his pen, took off his spectacles and idly contemplated the chandelier. ‘Supposing,’ he said, ‘just supposing you’ve got this entirely wrong and it’s the bag, not the chapel, which exists in reality.’
    ‘I’m absolutely sure –’
    ‘Yes,’ said Francis, at once leaning forward on his desk and looking me straight in the eyes, ‘you’re a great deal too sure of yourself here, Jonathan, and I think you should proceed with more mental flexibility and very much more humility. Go away now and ask yourself the following questions: first, what was your connection with the chapel? The assumption that you were going there for prayer is plausible, I agree, but it actually explains nothing. What were you doing in that environment? And what were you thinking about during that walk through the woods? Your mind seems to have been unusually vacant. Does your lack of surprise when you saw the chapel indicate that the scene was familiar to you, or is it in truth an exampleof the curiously dreamlike quality which permeates this experience of yours? If this were a real glimpse of the future, why weren’t you thinking of your current problems, the current people in your life, possibly even of your current approach to God? I put it to you that you were drifting along like a somnambulist, and I think you should consider whether Timothy was really so far off the mark when he interpreted the vision as an allegory. Ask yourself if the ruined building might symbolize what you, in your recent disappointment over your lack of preferment, might consider your spent career as a monk. Ask yourself if this chapel, modern but built along classical lines, might represent your subconscious longing for an entirely new career in the Church. Ask yourself if the evidence that you weren’t wearing your habit is in fact a manifestation of your subconscious desire to discard it. And finally ask yourself why you should have seen a bag which apparently symbolizes not travel and change to you (yesterday’s explanation) but (so you now confess) wealth and women. Think on all these questions, Jonathan. Think carefully. And return here at four o’clock tomorrow.’

THREE
    ‘The danger (of hallucinations) is recognized by the best mystical writers.’
    W. R. INGE
Dean of St Paul’s 1911–1934
Mysticism in Religion

I
    I had by this time planned a course of reading and meditation to occupy the hours when I was neither crossing swords with my superior nor attending services in the chapel. The Fordites have imprinted their own idiosyncratic stamp on the Divine Office of the Benedictines, merging Terce with Sext and None with Vespers, but several hours of each day are still spent in choir; a monk must never forget that his chief work is to worship God. However beyond the hours of worship lie the hours of service to others, and normally I was heavily occupied not only with looking after my community but with giving counsel to those outside the Order who sought my spiritual direction. It was odd, even disconcerting, to find myself suddenly with no work on my hands beyond the hours spent in choir. I might have been advised to rest but anyone who has ever attempted to lead a celibate life knows how important it is to keep oneself constructively occupied, so after a prolonged perusal of the library shelves I selected some books which I judged would engage my mind without unhealthily over-exerting it.
    I chose Dame Julian of Norwich’s
Revelations of Divine Love,
not merely because it was one