The Cathar Mysticism of Simone Weil
Publication Type |
Book Chapter |
Year of Publication |
1997 |
Author |
|
Book |
Studies in Gnosticism and in the Philosophy of Religion |
Pages |
117-127 |
Publisher |
Four Courts Press |
Place Published |
Dublin |
Language |
English |
Keywords |
Cathars |
Annotation |
This chapter begins with a brief discussion of Weil’s attraction to the Cathars arguing this attraction was to an idealized view as Weil’s knowledge of the movement and their teachings were somewhat limited. Hanratty suggests Weil was attracted to an attitude among the Cathars that resonated with her own; their view of themselves as standing in opposition and in many ways, superior to the prevailing beliefs and customs of their time. He goes on to identify some of the heretical aspects of Weil’s thought including her postulation of a universal mystical revelation running through a diverse number of religious teachings and philosophies, her denunciation and rejection of the Hebrew Bible and the God she saw portrayed within it, her fiercely individualistic spirituality and subsequent distrust of the collective dimensions of religion, her privileging of knowledge and subsequently the intellect as the primary mode of access to transcendent truth or reality, her heterodox interpretation of the incarnation and finally her tendency to extreme religious practices, experiences and self-abnegation. In the second half of the chapter, Hanratty looks at the affinities of Weil’s thought with the teachings of the Cathars, especially her postulation of a gulf between necessity and the good, the ‘small part of the soul’ which allows access to transcendent truth, her view of the incarnation as the mediating event between this radically dualist view of the necessary and the good, and finally her view that personal decreation, the voluntary destruction of the ‘I’ or ego, would lead to the divinization of the individual self. |
Notes |
This article has been reviewed by Michel Narcy in Cahiers Simone Weil 20, no.2 (1997): 145 |