Backward Mutters

Category: C.S. Lewis

  • Surprised by Joy

    From PBS’s special A Question of God which compares the the lives and thought of Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis is the clip recounting Lewis’ conversion. The chapter in which Lewis recounts his conversion to Theism from Surprised by Joy can be read here.

  • How can right belief be maintained…?

    Michael Ward on C.S. Lewis’ The Silver Chair: “How can right belief be maintained in a hostile environment? It is not through superior insight that the heroes win the day, but through corage, through sacrifice. Philosophizing and rhetoric cannot settle this dispute because the Witch’s logic is impeccable — only…

  • Of Magicians and Mad Scientists

    “The serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavor are twins: one was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born of the same impulse. I allow that some (certainly not all) of the early scientists were actuated by a pure love of…

  • More Out There

    David Brooks in a 2008 Op Ed piece on our need for enchantment and the benefits of the ‘discarded image’. The medievals had a tremendous capacity for imagination and enchantment, and while nobody but the deepest romantic would want to go back to their way of thinking (let alone their…

  • Jove: Get your jocund revel on

    This week two of Jupiter’s moons, Europa and Io cross between it and the sun casting their shadows in a double eclipse which you can read about over at space.com. Jupiter is king of the planets, Jove, and it is joviality which is the primary theme of the first of…