Magic is the process which produces eucatastrophe. Eucatastrophe is Tolkien's word for the anti-catastrophic "turn" (strophe in Greek) that characterizes fairy stories.
This turning occurs when imminent evil is unexpectedly averted and great good succeeds. To Tolkien, tragedy was the purest form of drama, while eucatastrophe, the antithesis of tragedy, was the purest form of the fairy story. In "On Fairy-Stories," Tolkien gives the purpose and effect of eucatastrophe: "It does not deny the existence of sorrow and failure, it denies universal final defeat giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief." To Tolkien, the most satisfying form of eucatastrophe, and that which he developed to the greatest extent in his works, was denial of death. This concept is basic to Christianity, but also plays an important part in pagan myth.
— Mythology of middle earth.
This turning occurs when imminent evil is unexpectedly averted and great good succeeds. To Tolkien, tragedy was the purest form of drama, while eucatastrophe, the antithesis of tragedy, was the purest form of the fairy story. In "On Fairy-Stories," Tolkien gives the purpose and effect of eucatastrophe: "It does not deny the existence of sorrow and failure, it denies universal final defeat giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief." To Tolkien, the most satisfying form of eucatastrophe, and that which he developed to the greatest extent in his works, was denial of death. This concept is basic to Christianity, but also plays an important part in pagan myth.
— Mythology of middle earth.
Love without God which is the antithesis of Christian love, a love which does not come from the essence of Being but from a contempt of being, which is not an affirmation of everlasting life but a making-the-most of the passing hour of earthly existence. It is nothing but a fantastic illusion; mankind without God can know no such love but rather will achieve the kind described in The Possessed. But Versilov's utopia, such as it is, is interesting in that it develops Dostoevsky's ideas about love. A godless mankind must end in savagery and massacre, bringing man down to the level of a mere means. If a man loves his neighbour in God, that love strengthens his notions of eternity: it is the only real love, Christian love, linked to the soul's immortality, an affirmation of it. True love is bound up with personality, and personality with immortality: that is Dostoyevsky’s essential idea and it is as valid for love between the sexes as for any other kind of human affection.
— Dostoevsky, by Nicholas Berdyaev
— Dostoevsky, by Nicholas Berdyaev
Somewhere there was once a Flower, a Stone, a Crystal, a Queen, a King, a Palace, a Lover and his Beloved, and this was long ago, on an Island somewhere in the ocean five thousand years ago... Such is Love, the Mystic Flower of the Soul. This is the Centre, the Self... Nobody understands what I mean; only a poet could begin to understand...
— C.G. Jung quoted in 'C. G. Jung and Hermann Hesse, A record of two friendships by Miguel Serrano'; Art from Gerard de Lairesse's Bacchus and Ariadne
— C.G. Jung quoted in 'C. G. Jung and Hermann Hesse, A record of two friendships by Miguel Serrano'; Art from Gerard de Lairesse's Bacchus and Ariadne
Now this winged god is called by mortals eros,
But immortals say "Pteros" because love must grow wings.
— Homeridae hymn to Eros
But immortals say "Pteros" because love must grow wings.
— Homeridae hymn to Eros
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
— Sonnet 116, Shakespeare
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
— Sonnet 116, Shakespeare
It is one thing to approach truths by reason, it is quite another to attain to them by that intuitive faculty called nous by the ancients, the ‘fine point of the soul’ by St Francis de Sales, and the ‘heart’ by Pascal.
— Père A.J Featugière, La Révélation d’Hermes Trismegiste
— Père A.J Featugière, La Révélation d’Hermes Trismegiste
Mystics Poetry
It is one thing to approach truths by reason, it is quite another to attain to them by that intuitive faculty called nous by the ancients, the ‘fine point of the soul’ by St Francis de Sales, and the ‘heart’ by Pascal. — Père A.J Featugière, La Révélation…
In striving to do justice to [the soul's mystical experience] he passes beyond the intellectualism of Origen and the intellectual categories of any Platonic mystical thought and, using the language of the Bible, which speaks of man responding to God with his heart, develops a mysticism that knows God beyond knowledge, that feels the presence of God in the darkness of unknowing. This mysticism of feeling radically transcends what we have found so far in the history of mystical
thought.
— Andrew Louth on Gregory of Nyssa
thought.
— Andrew Louth on Gregory of Nyssa
Mystics Poetry
There could have never been two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved. — Jane Austen, Persuasion Art: John Simmons (1823-1876), ‘Hermia and Lysander, a midsummer night’s dream’ detail.
I mean that my heart unto yours is knit
So that but one heart we can make of it.
Two bosoms interchainèd with an oath—
So then two bosoms and a single troth.
— from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Lysander to Hermia
So that but one heart we can make of it.
Two bosoms interchainèd with an oath—
So then two bosoms and a single troth.
— from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Lysander to Hermia
Mystics Poetry
Somewhere there was once a Flower, a Stone, a Crystal, a Queen, a King, a Palace, a Lover and his Beloved, and this was long ago, on an Island somewhere in the ocean five thousand years ago... Such is Love, the Mystic Flower of the Soul. This is the Centre…
Still, they're all alive, the mothers of the heroes, the islands,
Flowering from year to year.
~Hölderlin
Flowering from year to year.
~Hölderlin
The symbolic language of the great traditions of mankind may indeed seem arduous and baffling to some minds, but it is nevertheless perfectly intelligible in the light of the orthodox commentaries; symbolism–this point must be stressed–is a real and rigorous science, and nothing can be more naïve than to suppose that its apparent naïvety springs from an immature and “prelogical” mentality. This science, which can properly be described as “sacred,” quite plainly does not have to adjust itself to the modern experimental approach; the realm of revelation, of symbolism, of pure and direct intellection, stands in fact above both the physical and psychological realms, and consequently it lies beyond the scope of so-called scientific methods.
— Frithjof Schuon, The Transcendent Unity of Religions.
— Frithjof Schuon, The Transcendent Unity of Religions.
A mystic token deeply
graved is beaming
Within the glowing crimson
of the stone,
Like to a heart, that, lost in
pleasant dreaming,
Keepeth the image of the
fair unknown.
A thousand sparks around
the gem are streaming,
A softened radiance in the
heart is thrown;
From that, the light's
indwelling essence darts.
But ah, will this too have
the heart of hearts?
— Novalis, A mystic token deeply
graved is beaming (Karfunkel)
graved is beaming
Within the glowing crimson
of the stone,
Like to a heart, that, lost in
pleasant dreaming,
Keepeth the image of the
fair unknown.
A thousand sparks around
the gem are streaming,
A softened radiance in the
heart is thrown;
From that, the light's
indwelling essence darts.
But ah, will this too have
the heart of hearts?
— Novalis, A mystic token deeply
graved is beaming (Karfunkel)
By every man, the moment he is born,
There stands a guardian Dæmon, who shall be His mystagogue through life.
— beautiful fragment from Menander
There stands a guardian Dæmon, who shall be His mystagogue through life.
— beautiful fragment from Menander
True poetry forever lasts,
Obdurate 'gainst the years.
— says Ronsard in one of his Pindaric odes
Obdurate 'gainst the years.
— says Ronsard in one of his Pindaric odes
Remember that some things need more room than others- respect such need.
How then, I ask, how shall i come?
Come humbly, the voice answers, and patiently. Learn to witness and to wait... The more still, the more open and clear you are- the more will come. Believe me: more will come than you could dream or dare.
Now behold the finished pages of a book. We call it by name: Mother and Child.
But are they here, I ask- the structure, the pulse, the heart-beat- are they here?
O ye of little faith, the voice answers, have we not seen? It is time now to stand aside. Each one must witness for himself- each must be open, and willing. The pure creature is born only when two people love.
— Nell Dorr (Text and Art)
How then, I ask, how shall i come?
Come humbly, the voice answers, and patiently. Learn to witness and to wait... The more still, the more open and clear you are- the more will come. Believe me: more will come than you could dream or dare.
Now behold the finished pages of a book. We call it by name: Mother and Child.
But are they here, I ask- the structure, the pulse, the heart-beat- are they here?
O ye of little faith, the voice answers, have we not seen? It is time now to stand aside. Each one must witness for himself- each must be open, and willing. The pure creature is born only when two people love.
— Nell Dorr (Text and Art)