[Extract from Letter to [XQ] (2)][1st March 1988]

[Redbook5:23A][19880301:0000][Extract from Letter to [XQ] (2)][1st March 1988]

1^st March 1988

*'It is immensely encouraging to have someone immediately respond – as you did – “archetypes”, “wisdom literature” etc,. (Although I am not usually able to recall which are the Wisdom Books, I had noticed a similarity between [xS] and σοφια,** Sophia, personification of wisdom, a concept of apparently unique status as a – ?Being somewhere between Angel and Divinity, and of uncertain origin? – but I am getting out of my depth!).

'I write, specifically and deliberately[,] to explore a pattern of Archetypes (– a conscious intention to guide and to make use of a mostly “unconscious” process –) of which the Christ archetype is, without doubt, paramount. I hope it does not offend you to hear Christ described in such terms: many people assume that by describing something in non-material or “inner” terms one is invalidating its reality; but that is, of course, the reverse of the truth. If I have to discover Christ partly through the art of fiction (however poorly expressed), that may well be because my natural station is very far from Christ: so that I have to explore the darkness in order to discover the Light. Fiction seems to be a way of doing this. Such fiction is of small interest to anyone who does not share (or at least understand) its priorities: it must seem at best childish (perhaps in mistake for qualities aspiring to the Child-like).'***

*[See [Redbook5:5A][19880126:0000][Extract from Letter to [XQ] (1)][26^th January 1988].]

**[Correctly, presumably: σοφία]

***[A photocopy of a letter inserted here in the ms to Canon [XQ], the recipient of the letter of which an extract is included at [Redbook5:5A][19880126:0000]{[Extract from Letter to [XQ] (1)]}[26^th January 1988], includes the words above.]

[PostedBlogger09122017]