{An Invitation to the Church}[4th May 1989]

[Redbook6:125-126)][19890504:1300b]{An Invitation to the Church}[4th May 1989]

19890504.1300c

[continued]

With [W] working temporarily in [...], I now have the children* from c6am to c6pm, and also help to put them to bed in the evening. On the first Monday** of this (abortive, workwise, as it turned out, as [W] worked too fast and was sent home at lunchtime), I became reconciled to the abandonment of my hopes for reading and writing, and accepted that in effect my time would be given to my children, whose interruptions preclude serious study. On Wednesday 12^th April following, our Vicar, Canon [XQ],*** suggested to [W] and me that I should consider becoming ordained.****

*& orphan lambs

**{(the first day also)}

***[See eg [Redbook6:109)][19890309:2040]{A Dream: All Wrong in the Church}[9th March 1989]]

****[Stating at some point that the idea had come to him while he was on his way up to see the writer of this journal]

[See [Redbook6:125)][19890427:1615]{[†]}[27th April 1989]]

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{Evil (1)}[4th May 1989]

[Redbook6:125)][19890504:1300]{Evil (1)}[4th May 1989]

19890504.1300c

It may be that the difference between the physical and spiritual separations, on the one hand, and evil on the other, is that the former are initiated by God, the latter by Man. The separation from God the Spirit which creates the Spiritual Kingdom and the Physical Universe is only what is necessary for that purpose; further veiling of the Spirit is within the power (uniquely, I should imagine)* of Man, and it is this particular ‘degree of Separation from God’ which constitutes evil.

I guess that, given the characteristics of the circle, this arises particularly at the bottom (A~) of the outer circle, and is therefore contrasted with Christ at the top (C).**

*Are there then no ‘evil spirits’ independent of Men, and not developed from Men? I don’t know; but that is the implication.

**[also +C†I~ at the top]

{ → [[Redbook6:126)][19890504:1655]{Evil (2)}[4th May 1989],] 126}

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{[†]}[27th April 1989]

[Redbook6:125)][19890427:1615]{[†]}[27th April 1989]

19890427.1615

† 12 April 1989*

*[This is the only entry under this date. It was a Wednesday.

See [Redbook6:126)][19890504:1300b]{An Invitation to the Church}[4th May 1989]]

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{A World full of Shit}[10th April 1989]

[Redbook6:124)][19890410:2324b]{A World full of Shit}[10th April 1989]

19890410.2324

[continued]

At this mid-life (I presume) period, there becomes increasingly apparent something which for many years – probably since I left school – I had tried successfully to hide from myself: that there are relatively few decent people in the World. The majority of us are shits, and full of shit.

It is interesting that the period when I hid this knowledge from myself seems to represent the second quarter of my life, which is (I hope) the quarter, of all of them, during which the Outer Circle was most dominant.

You might think that Love precluded such a revelation, but True Love cannot be blind: Love loves even shits.

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{Unifying and Separating Work}[10th April 1989]

[Redbook6:123)][19890410:2324]{Unifying and Separating Work}[10th April 1989]

19890410.2324

The creation or sub-creation of complex worlds is a separating activity. By this we see that the business of constructing, or re-constructing within one’s own mind (ie learning), complex systems of artificial regulation or procedure as in Law or Accountancy, is basically separatist.*

Science may be contrasted in this way against Technology. Science seeks the Unity, or at least the Harmony, in Diversity; Technology uses the patterns and principles discovered by Science to construct (or reconstruct) generally more complicated systems. Pure Science is therefore, like Metaphysical Philosophy and Higher Religion, fundamentally a unifying process; Technology is basically a separating process.

*I write as one faced with the possibility of having to re-enter these worlds….

[– & the writing of fiction? – presumably if sub-creation, then separating; but may be balanced by the inward, unifying 

 impulse to enter into the minds of others and understand them.]

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{A Dream: Sister of the Sitting Poor [continued (3)]}[3rd April 1989]

[Redbook6:122-123)][19890403:(a.m.)c]{A Dream: Sister of the Sitting Poor [continued (3)]}[3rd April 1989]

19890403. (a.m.)

[continued]

At the same time,* you have got to be careful about this sort of thing, which can simply be nonsense. Somewhere in Jung’s memoirs he recounts a vision of [a] Doctor [sic] friend attired in the robes of ‘a Basileus of Kos’** – to one unfamiliar with Jung’s symbolism here, this just sounds yukky.

But there is nothing unorthodox in this message, as I interpret it: ‘I return, he was sitting inactive: ***Sister of the Sitting Poor’. It is, as it happens, the only immediate future which does not make me feel uneasy.

*[See last previous entry]

**[Basileus: (King/Emperor (Greek); Kos: one of the Greek islands, also its main town]

***ie the house, not me.{?}

[or [W] – see last previous entry]

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{A Dream: Sister of the Sitting Poor [continued]}[3rd April 1989]

[Redbook6:121-122)][19890403:(a.m.)b]{A Dream: Sister of the Sitting Poor [continued]}[3rd April 1989]

19890403. (a.m.)

[continued]

I had assumed that the English* translated the foreign language:* but if so it is a language of which I do not have conscious knowledge, if it is a language at all. However, if you allow for the fact that (I think) I heard rather than saw the words, and that dreams for some reason seem to take to simple encoding using symbols and anagrams,** I can offer a speculative meaning from the Latin:***

(1) Eolred: Redeo, I return (Red- + Eo, I go)

(2) Sedebad: Sedebat, He**** was sitting / He**** was being inactive.

The possible significance of this is that I had just closed a period of personal uncertainty about immediate directions by a silent statement of faith that God (‘he’) [sic] would tell me what I should be doing. If this is the response from (or through) the Unconscious, its implication is perhaps that inactivity – which is how I tend to see my days spent sitting in the Stuffy, reading and writing in a relatively relaxed kind of way – is linked to the Return – which can be both my Return on the inner circle, and the linked Return of that inner sense of innocence and integrity so strongly present in the dream: personalised (‘I return’), the experience of God.

‘The Sitting Poor’ are then contrasted to the ‘Wandering Poor’, less common in our Society than in the less-developed: people like us, in many respects.# ‘Sister’ is appropriate to the first or left inner circle hemisphere.#*

*[words in quotation marks – see last previous entry]

**[Possibly because the part of the brain from which they arise does not have access to the parts responsible for more sophisticated communication? – perhaps because they shut down during sleep.]

***[Dog-Latin, or worse….]

****[/She/It, presumably]

#[ie the Sitting Poor]

#*[And/or to [W]]

[continues]

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{A Dream: Sister of the Sitting Poor}[3rd April 1989]

[Redbook6:120-123)][19890403:(a.m.)]{A Dream: Sister of the Sitting Poor}[3rd April 1989]

19890403. (a.m.)

‘Eolred Sedebad’:

‘Sister of the Sitting Poor’.

It was a large hall-like building – in my dream this morning; and [W] and I had bought it. Early on we encountered a man whom I took for [BM], our farmer neighbour at [C], but whom I now suspect to be a combination of [B] our fundamentalist acquaintance* in [the village], and my Zimbabwean cousin [X]’s farmer husband […], both of whom are born-again or fundamentalist Christians: because at a certain stage in our conversation something he said, along the lines of ‘And then he sent me to...’[,] led me to ask for clarification as to whom he was referring to – the answer was God: and I remarked that only born-again Christians generally spoke like that, at which he told me that that was what he was.

The hall – which might have been L-shaped** – was gradually becoming more populated.*** Towards the end our informant was telling us what it really was, which was not (as we explained to him) what we had thought it to be ( – a shop?).**** I asked him: What did you say its name was again? And he repeated his earlier title for the building: ‘Eolred Sedebad: Sister(?) of the Sitting Poor’. And with this clear statement the dream ended, leaving that deep sense of healing integrity which at one time was quite common in my dreams.

*[See eg [Redbook5:52][19880314:1115b]{Fundamental Points of View [continued]}[14th March 1988]ff; &

[Redbook6:91-92)][19890111:1638]{Religious Fundamentalism and Crass Stupidity in the Social Services}[11th January 1989], final para]

**We were at one end of a short arm which might have corresponded, I now realise, to my position in my Stuffy# as I write this in relation to the ground floor room of [C] as it was when we bought it:

***{We are getting to know more people – all poor-ish – and helping our friends when we can.}

****{We had planned that wherever we went we might sell produce etc..}

#[See [Redbook5:22-23][19880301:2152]{Openness and Compartmentalisation}[1st March 1988]]

[continues]

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{Writers, Publishers, Readers [continued (4)]}[1st April 1989]

[Redbook6:119-120)][19890401:2300]{Writers, Publishers, Readers [continued (4)]}[1st April 1989]

.2300

In a way, the serious writer’s* predicament is epitomised by the saga of [2] and my uncle [U].** I sent him an extract in about May last year – xS’s 2 public question-and-answer sessions. He asked if there was any more like that. I sent him the whole lot, word-processed and perfect[-]bound, in about June, plus a couple of later comments and corrections – and invitations to visit us. He promised to visit and said he hoped to read the book. Then, from c. July [last year] – silence.

I was anxious. Did he not like it? Was he getting other opinions? Suddenly last week – Wednesday before Easter – he phoned, appeared, stayed the night. We discussed all sorts of things relevant to, and in, the book; books in general; my writing; but never my book. In the morning I wondered if I might have the copy back. [U] seemed surprised; and it became apparent, considering also earlier remarks, that he had thought of it as a complimentary copy, had shelved it – had not read it!*** We are sending an s.a.e. for its return.

But this is the problem encapsulated:

(a) that novels are regarded as light entertainment, and hence low down on the list of priorities ever actually to get read;

(b) (I suspect) that the conditions of modern life do not provide most people with the sustained periods of outer peace necessary to allow the re-creation of inner worlds – which is what fiction is actually about.

*(irrespective of talent [or otherwise])

**[who also wrote at least one work of [historical] fiction, which was unpublished]

***{It later seemed that he had}

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{Writers, Publishers, Readers [continued (3)]}[1st April 1989]

[Redbook6:119)][19890401:1745c]{Writers, Publishers, Readers [continued (3)]}[1st April 1989]

19890401.1745

[continued]

The writer’s outer circle tendency, like that of any other Artist, will be towards Simplification and Attraction. I suppose in a way this is what is required for commercial success.

The inner circle tendency is through Diversity to Evolution, Inner Action, Harmony and Unity. These qualities suggest individual development of artistic standards rather than consumer-led, market-oriented publishing enterprise.

[continues]

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{Writers, Publishers, Readers [continued]}[1st April 1989]

[Redbook6:118)][19890401:1745b]{Writers, Publishers, Readers [continued]}[1st April 1989]

19890401.1745

[continued]

The Artist is concerned with production, the Dealer with consumption – naturally enough, since the consumer pays. The Artist’s drive is inner, the Dealer’s is pulled by the market-place. My fiction is and is likely to remain a research system: still worthwhile even if unpublished.

The attempt to turn the discoveries into something of coherent form for public consumption – on the basis that the process of discovery, or at least that part of it appearing as fiction, is judged by publishers to be of insufficient interest to the public – is where those incredibly difficult booklets come in. And those, of course, I can conveniently publish myself. The trouble is writing them.

[continues]

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{Writers, Publishers, Readers}[1st April 1989]

[Redbook6:117-120)][19890401:1745]{Writers, Publishers, Readers}[1st April 1989]

19890401.1745

First-time lambing – at our level of inexperience and unpreparedness, it works out at about 2½ days per lamb – followed by Easter (3 visits* in a row to cater for) followed by a frenzy of drain repairs at the end of which, today, I snapped the wooden[handle of the] spade: have kept me away from reading and writing. But before and over this period comes this little exchange:

‘Duckworth (Gerald), & Co, Ltd (1898), The Old Piano Factory, 43 Gloucester Crescent, London, NW1 7DY[.] T.01-485 3484[.] T.A. Platypus, London, NW1[.] Directors: Ray Davies, Colin Haycraft (Chairman and Managing), David Lines[.]

‘General, fiction, and academic.’

– Writers & Artists Yearbook, 1989.

‘… I shall long to hear what Duckworth says. They are (I hope not) a dying breed, the small idiosyncratic privately owned publisher. Everything seems to belong to R. Murdoch or 20th Century Fox. Blackwell[’]s, Hatchards and John Sandoe*** all sent me their Christmas catalogues and there was not one single book I wanted. Very sad.

‘… The only joy for me on the book scene is that Alice Thomas Ellis (married to owner of Duckworth), Molly Keane and Anita Brookner go on being published. They aren’t commercial or airport novels and beautifully written. Not your dish….’****

– Letter from [S E-T],# published novelist and publisher’s reader, 13/3/89.

‘We don’t publish fiction, only academic work….’ (on being questioned further:) ‘We only publish a few, well-known authors of fiction….’

– Chairman’s ? Secretary at Duckworth’s [sic], to [W], telephone conversation re ‘[2]’, 31/3/89.

Such as the Owner’s wife, I suppose.

*[ie by visitors]

**[Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation had acquired 20^th Century Fox in 1985]

***[Bookshops in Oxford (& elsewhere), Piccadilly (London), and King’s Road, Chelsea (London), respectively]

****[The writer had subsequently read Anita Brookner’s ‘A Misalliance’ according to Journal notes.]

#[See eg [Redbook2:129-132][19780829:2025]{Publication}[29^th August 1978]]

[During &/or not long after this period, journalism and short fiction by the writer was accepted for independent publication, for some of which he was even paid.... The problem was always the long naïve sibylline fictions]

[continues]

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{Writing Circles}[15th March 1989]

[Redbook6:115-116)][19890315:2020b]{Writing Circles}[15th March 1989]

19890315.2020

[continued]

Whether or not this* is useful, the idea* arose out of a vague pattern relating to the art of writing: which, broadly speaking, may be said to begin with creation myths, laws, and the recording of history (Outer Action), and proceed through the development of more personal narratives of the complications and distractions of individuals’ lives (eg the nineteenth-century novel – and, I suppose, Law Reports) to a stage of fragmentation and revolution in modernist and post-modernist writing, in which we find ourselves in this century. The relative success of female authors at these later stages is appropriate.

From novels of various techniques concerned with the individual and his (or her) disintegration in the flux of Society, it is possible to envisage a change to a stage of extreme simplification (naive sibylline writing) after which in crisis the form divides in two: round again to Law (eg statement of principle), or back through Love to Revelation…. At the early stage after Crisis, it may be hard to distinguish these two forms: indeed both may appear in the same book. But sooner or later, one or other is likely to predominate.

I speculate that I am writing the naive sibylline fictions which must develop and engage in due course with Crisis, and return through Love.

*[See last previous entry]

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