The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch [245]
‘So you speak as an antiquarian?’
James shrugged his shoulders. He was examining several moths which were circling about the lamp. ‘You have some splendid moths here. I haven’t seen an Oak Eggar for ages. Oh dear, I think that poor fellow’s had it. Do you mind if I close the window? Then they won’t come in.’ He deftly caught two of the moths and put them outside, together with the corpse of their handsome companion, and closed the window. I noticed that it had stopped raining and the air was clearer. The wind had blown the mist away.
‘But then you were just keen on studying the superstition?’ I said. I felt that this evening, in spite of our embarrassments, my cousin was more open to me than I had ever known him.
‘What after all is superstition?’ said James, pouring some more wine into both glasses. ‘What is religion? Where does the one end and the other begin? How could one answer that question about Christianity?’
‘But I mean you were just a student of—not a—’ What did I mean? I could not get my question clear.
‘Of course,’ said James, on whom the wine seemed simply to have the effect of speeding his utterance, ‘you are right to keep using the word “superstition”, the concept is essential. I asked where does the one end and the other begin. I suppose almost all religion is superstition really. Religion is power, it has to be, the power for instance to change oneself, even to destroy oneself. But that is also its bane. The exercise of power is a dangerous delight. The short path is the only path but it is very steep.’
‘I thought religious people felt weak and worshipped something strong.’
‘That’s what they think. The worshipper endows the worshipped object with power, real power not imaginary power, that is the sense of the ontological proof, one of the most ambiguous ideas clever men ever thought of. But this power is dreadful stuff. Our lusts and attachments compose our god. And when one attachment is cast off another arrives by way of consolation. We never give up a pleasure absolutely, we only barter it for another. All spirituality tends to degenerate into magic, and the use of magic has an automatic nemesis even when the mind has been purified of grosser habits. White magic is black magic. And a less than perfect meddling in the spiritual world can breed monsters for other people. Demons used for good can hang around and make mischief afterwards. The last achievement is the absolute surrender of magic itself, the end of what you call superstition. Yet how does it happen? Goodness is giving up power and acting upon the world negatively. The good are unimaginable.’
Perhaps James was drunk after all. I said, ‘Well, I don’t understand the half of what you say. Maybe I’m just an old-fashioned ex-Christian, but I always thought that goodness was to do with loving people, and isn’t that an attachment?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said James, rather I thought too casually, ‘yes—’ He poured himself out some more wine. We had opened another bottle.
‘All this giving up of attachments doesn’t sound to me like salvation and freedom, it sounds like death.’
‘Well, Socrates said we must practise dying—’ James was now beginning to sound flippant.
‘But you yourself,’ I said, for I wanted to hold on to him and bring all this airy metaphysic down to earth, and also to satisfy my curiosity when for once he was in a talkative mood, ‘you yourself have loved people, and after all why not, though God knows who they are, since you’re so damn secretive. You’ve never introduced me to any of your friends from the east.’
‘They never visit me.’
‘Yes, they do. There was that thin bearded chap I saw in your flat once, sitting in a back room.’
‘Oh him,’ said James, ‘he was just a tulpa.’
‘Some sort of