Free Glamorous Powers by Susan Howatch Page B

of my favourite classics but because I felt I would be cheered by the writings of a sane practical good-humoured person whose visions had beenrecognized by the Church. As a masculine counterpoise to Dame Julian’s robust femininity I also chose
The Cloud of Unknowing,
another of my favourite works. Feeling I should then emerge from the woods of mysticism into the more arid plains of modern theology I avoided the works of Karl Barth, whose preoccupation with God’s transcendence is fundamentally hostile to mysticism, and was about to select the latest book by Reinhold Niebuhr, who parted company with Barth in several important ways, when suddenly I spotted Dean Inge’s
The Philosophy of Plotinus.
    I was amazed. Plotinus had been a great religious philosopher with a vast influence on Christian Neo-Platonism, but he had been a pagan and Father Darcy had always refused to have Inge’s celebrated masterwork in the house. However on opening the cover of the first volume I found the words ‘Cuthbert Darcy’ inscribed on the fly-leaf. The old fraud! It seemed he had acquired the copy secretly and kept it in his room where it had been discovered after his death. Silently paying tribute to Francis’ broadminded good sense in placing the work in the library, I added both volumes to the collection already in my hands and prepared to retire to my cell, but on my way out I caught sight of a new section devoted to modern psychology.
    Francis and I, enjoying a rare moment of unity, had succeeded in convincing our mentor that not all psycho-analysts should be burnt at the stake, and rising to unprecedented heights of eloquence we had argued that we had a religious duty to understand as much about the human mind as was possible in the light of the latest scientific theories. When Father Darcy had declared that the Devil was corrupting intellectual progress by the writings of his servant Freud I had even summoned the courage to say to him sternly: ‘Remember Galileo.’ The Church has been put in some ridiculous positions in the past by turning up its nose at the scientists.
    However although Father Darcy had given us permission to read the books we felt were important, he had been adamant that we should keep any work on psycho-analysis under lockand key, and the sight of Francis’ collection now standing bravely on the shelves was certainly a surprise. An even greater surprise was that I felt ambivalent. On the one hand I approved of Francis’ resolution to bring the Order openly into the twentieth century, but on the other hand I was aware that monks were very ordinary men in many ways and might not automatically benefit from such intellectual modernism; I could well imagine my drones feasting on certain passages with a curiosity which was more salacious than spiritual. To my horror I saw Francis had even displayed the volumes of Havelock-Ellis on human sexuality. This work was not without interest to a serious student of human nature, but there were parts of it which even I, the crusader for modern knowledge, had felt inclined to burn. Certainly I believed such a work could only have an unwholesome effect on the average monk.
    I suddenly realized I was perturbed to a degree more complex than might have been anticipated, and retiring to my room I tried to analyse my feelings further. After a while I realized I was worried that Francis might be tempted to compensate himself for his spiritual limitations by relying too heavily on psycho-analytical theory. It was a chilling thought. Psychoanalysis can be a useful tool and it had certainly given me numerous important insights during my work as a counsellor, but it is not a substitute for religion and it should always be a servant, never a master. If Francis intended to rely on Freud and Jung instead of on God as he exercised the charism of discernment, then both he and I could well be heading straight for the most profound disaster.

II
    ‘No doubt you’ve composed a host of brilliant