Fascinating essay, thank you Aris. Especially interesting as It seems to me that there is a parallel between the Reformation – the violent suppression of a whole Catholic way of life which had developed for over a thousand years, replaced with the new Calvinist Protestantism; and the Identity Politics, hate crime legislation, Woke ethos which has taken over in our time, where we are supposed to pay lip service to ideas and lies or lose jobs, careers and reputations. The Reformation was brutal totalitarianism and it happened here in Britain 500 years ago, there’s no reason why it cannot happen again. The Woke agenda is authoritarian at the moment, but as Rod Dreher’s opinion piece points out the threat of totalitarianism is in Scotland right now.
Perhaps the British ghost tradition stems partly from the trauma of the Reformation indeed. One of the most seminal ghost stories appeared at that time c.1600 – the ghost of Hamlet’s father in Shakespeare’s play. It has been argued by Clare Asquith that the ghost represents the soul of England demanding justice for the Old Religion.
Well said. For all sorts of profound psychological reasons, traditional Catholicism offered comfort where Calvin gave nothing but anxiety. Catholics could pray for their dead – Calvinists couldn’t. Catholics had a host of rituals to ward off anxiety – Calvinists didn’t. Catholics could turn to many human comforters from priests and mystics to saints in heaven – Calvinists had an abstract, severe and remote notion of God. Worse, where Catholics could hope that repentance and amendment might spare them Hell, Calvinists were terrorised by the thought that they could do nothing to alter their predestined fate – a fear that drove several Calvinists stark mad. And the very worst is this: that where the human need for comfort and ritual is made public and harmless by Catholicism, Calvinism, because it denies such a need entirely drives that need into private and purely superstitious observances which readily turn – again – towards madness. M. R. James is ambiguous in his response to Catholicism and ritual. He was in fact a convinced protestant, like Dickens; but like Dickens, his subconscious is full of Catholic yearning and this does indeed emerge from his fiction, albeit in twisted form – just like the rituals which Keith Thomas noted rising in the immediate wake of the Reformation. As to Hamlet – yes – remember that the Ghost is right; that the ghost is therefore not a “goblin damned” and that hence it must come from Purgatory, not Hell. The flights of angels which sing the Prince to his rest are offering a Catholic descant in a choir which is not “bare” or “ruin’d”.
Well, thank you both, Claire and Simon. Really interesting insights from you both.
Edward Hamer
3 years ago
An excellent essay – thank you very much.
I must say I think this is one of the most interesting subjects going. So much of modernity is an attempt to draw a bright line between ourselves and the people who came before, and to see ourselves as a new kind of people living in a fundamentally different and improved time. We are desperate to keep ourselves separate from people in “the old days”, and to reassure ourselves that we are safe in the egalitarian, electrically-lit, hygienic present.
It seems our efforts to maintain that illusion are becoming increasingly superstitious and neurotic. Without wishing to be boringly topical, I think that’s at the root of our reaction to the Covid business; we thought disease epidemics belonged to the old days, and to the world of black and white photographs of Spanish Flu patients, so we are falling over ourselves to make this a thoroughly modern epidemic so as to maintain that delusion.
I became a Catholic (and to attend the traditional Latin Mass) partly because I think that is the only way that we can heal this part of ourselves. The only real alternative to haunted modernity is the Communion of Saints.
Thanks for this very interesting comment, Edward. Like you I am a convert to traditional Catholicism, though in my case mainly owing to the Real Presence and the Apostolic Succession.
And I am another convert to the Faith, perhaps for both the reasons given by Edward and you. Certainly history played a great role. Now we are seeing the return to barbaric paganism and superstition, which seems to be the inevitable result of the loss of the true Faith in the Reformation and the so called Age of Reason. Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis.
Julian Hartley
3 years ago
Thanks for this, Aris. It is rich and thoughtful, as your essays tend to be.
I have never seen our present turmoil summed up as being ‘modernity in crisis’, which is odd – it seems like a pithy and useful way of phrasing it. Part of me wonders, though, whether the creature Modernity isn’t perfectly content with how things are going.
grisha koshmarov
3 years ago
Excellent essay; thank you. The first James story I read was “The Mezzotint” and it absolutely terrified me.
I love James but acknowledge he has a tendency to write the same story over and over again; that’s not a criticism, but an observation. Same thing with Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead: all the songs are ultimately the same, but it’s still a good song.
If any James fans are looking to branch out, try L. P. Hartley, Robert Aickman, Edward Lucas White, John Metcalfe.
It is utterly horrifying because it is all about passive observation. Most horror stories work by making the reader identify with the protagonist and then placing the protagonist in a situation of danger. The Mezzotint works by placing the protagonist in a position of safety and having him learn about horrific events of the past, which he can do nothing to change. The knowledge itself is the horror. James really pulled off a coup with it.
Might be the iconic horror story of the Internet/social media/post-legitimate-democracy era. You can learn almost anything; you can change almost nothing.
I haven’t read White or Metcalfe, but I will certainly look them up. Aickman had a lot of short stories in the “Pan” paperback series back in the day, but I always found him to be both predictable and vastly over-rated. Walter de la Mare wrote some very understated tales, which relied almost entirely on atmosphere – All Hallows, Seaton’s Aunt and Mr Kempe are particularly good.
Fascinating essay, thank you Aris.
Especially interesting as It seems to me that there is a parallel between the Reformation – the violent suppression of a whole Catholic way of life which had developed for over a thousand years, replaced with the new Calvinist Protestantism; and the Identity Politics, hate crime legislation, Woke ethos which has taken over in our time, where we are supposed to pay lip service to ideas and lies or lose jobs, careers and reputations.
The Reformation was brutal totalitarianism and it happened here in Britain 500 years ago, there’s no reason why it cannot happen again. The Woke agenda is authoritarian at the moment, but as Rod Dreher’s opinion piece points out the threat of totalitarianism is in Scotland right now.
Perhaps the British ghost tradition stems partly from the trauma of the Reformation indeed. One of the most seminal ghost stories appeared at that time c.1600 – the ghost of Hamlet’s father in Shakespeare’s play. It has been argued by Clare Asquith that the ghost represents the soul of England demanding justice for the Old Religion.
Well said. For all sorts of profound psychological reasons, traditional Catholicism offered comfort where Calvin gave nothing but anxiety. Catholics could pray for their dead – Calvinists couldn’t. Catholics had a host of rituals to ward off anxiety – Calvinists didn’t. Catholics could turn to many human comforters from priests and mystics to saints in heaven – Calvinists had an abstract, severe and remote notion of God. Worse, where Catholics could hope that repentance and amendment might spare them Hell, Calvinists were terrorised by the thought that they could do nothing to alter their predestined fate – a fear that drove several Calvinists stark mad. And the very worst is this: that where the human need for comfort and ritual is made public and harmless by Catholicism, Calvinism, because it denies such a need entirely drives that need into private and purely superstitious observances which readily turn – again – towards madness. M. R. James is ambiguous in his response to Catholicism and ritual. He was in fact a convinced protestant, like Dickens; but like Dickens, his subconscious is full of Catholic yearning and this does indeed emerge from his fiction, albeit in twisted form – just like the rituals which Keith Thomas noted rising in the immediate wake of the Reformation. As to Hamlet – yes – remember that the Ghost is right; that the ghost is therefore not a “goblin damned” and that hence it must come from Purgatory, not Hell. The flights of angels which sing the Prince to his rest are offering a Catholic descant in a choir which is not “bare” or “ruin’d”.
Thank you for expanding so well and in more depth, that’s very interesting.
Well, thank you both, Claire and Simon. Really interesting insights from you both.
An excellent essay – thank you very much.
I must say I think this is one of the most interesting subjects going. So much of modernity is an attempt to draw a bright line between ourselves and the people who came before, and to see ourselves as a new kind of people living in a fundamentally different and improved time. We are desperate to keep ourselves separate from people in “the old days”, and to reassure ourselves that we are safe in the egalitarian, electrically-lit, hygienic present.
It seems our efforts to maintain that illusion are becoming increasingly superstitious and neurotic. Without wishing to be boringly topical, I think that’s at the root of our reaction to the Covid business; we thought disease epidemics belonged to the old days, and to the world of black and white photographs of Spanish Flu patients, so we are falling over ourselves to make this a thoroughly modern epidemic so as to maintain that delusion.
I became a Catholic (and to attend the traditional Latin Mass) partly because I think that is the only way that we can heal this part of ourselves. The only real alternative to haunted modernity is the Communion of Saints.
Thanks for this very interesting comment, Edward. Like you I am a convert to traditional Catholicism, though in my case mainly owing to the Real Presence and the Apostolic Succession.
And I am another convert to the Faith, perhaps for both the reasons given by Edward and you. Certainly history played a great role. Now we are seeing the return to barbaric paganism and superstition, which seems to be the inevitable result of the loss of the true Faith in the Reformation and the so called Age of Reason.
Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis.
Thanks for this, Aris. It is rich and thoughtful, as your essays tend to be.
I have never seen our present turmoil summed up as being ‘modernity in crisis’, which is odd – it seems like a pithy and useful way of phrasing it. Part of me wonders, though, whether the creature Modernity isn’t perfectly content with how things are going.
Excellent essay; thank you. The first James story I read was “The Mezzotint” and it absolutely terrified me.
I love James but acknowledge he has a tendency to write the same story over and over again; that’s not a criticism, but an observation. Same thing with Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead: all the songs are ultimately the same, but it’s still a good song.
If any James fans are looking to branch out, try L. P. Hartley, Robert Aickman, Edward Lucas White, John Metcalfe.
Thank you for the recommendations: anyone who likes The Mezzotint has reliable taste! It’s one of my favourites.
It is utterly horrifying because it is all about passive observation. Most horror stories work by making the reader identify with the protagonist and then placing the protagonist in a situation of danger. The Mezzotint works by placing the protagonist in a position of safety and having him learn about horrific events of the past, which he can do nothing to change. The knowledge itself is the horror. James really pulled off a coup with it.
Might be the iconic horror story of the Internet/social media/post-legitimate-democracy era. You can learn almost anything; you can change almost nothing.
I haven’t read White or Metcalfe, but I will certainly look them up.
Aickman had a lot of short stories in the “Pan” paperback series back in the day, but I always found him to be both predictable and vastly over-rated.
Walter de la Mare wrote some very understated tales, which relied almost entirely on atmosphere – All Hallows, Seaton’s Aunt and Mr Kempe are particularly good.