... “Backbone” is unquestionably a God-concerned story: The case study references religious mystics who performed various acts of bodily abuses on themselves as a way of acting out God’s will, and one of the questions “Backbone” opens is whether this sort of extreme action is a clinical or a spiritual act.
Sunday, March 06, 2011
Resonant ...
... God Talk.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Guess I'm beating a dead horse, but once again the problem is a misunderstanding of mysticism.
ReplyDeleteIn the Middle Ages, when exhibiting the stigmata were like the Ph.D. of mysticism, there were indeed wannabes who mutilated themselves at night and showed up in the morning claiming to have received the stigmata. But it's easy to spot the differences, because with the genuine stigmata you bleed and don't become anemic, and the blood smells like roses. The false stigmata smell like, well, blood.
Those people are not mystics. Period.
You are precisely correct, Art. In fact, spiritual directors are always cautioning against aiming at wonders.
ReplyDeleteRather interesting that someone as smart as Wallace would not have seen the difference. Or, maybe he did and it just isn't mentioned. I haven't read "Backbone."