Zoomtard

In the Silver Chair, CS Lewis tells the story of how Prince Rilian is trapped by the Witch in an underground world that serves as her lair. Jill and Scrubb are the two children sent to save him, along with a sceptical, pessimistic creature with big feet (for he is a Marsh-wiggle) called Puddleglum. The Prince is under an enchantment, thinking the Queen beautiful and her lair the fairest place in all the world. He has forgotten entirely of Narnia.

For a few moments every day, the spell wears off and in that time, the children manage to free him. They are interrupted in their escape by the Witch who doesn’t rant and rave and threaten violence but quietly and pleasantly asks questions. “Where is Narnia?” “Up” turns out to be hard idea to communicate. “What does sun mean?” leads them to question whether they have seen a lamp and exaggerated it?

The Witch plays the trick of Ludwig Feuerbach, the German theologian of the 1700s who said that faith was a collective wish projection- the communal desire for significance projected onto the canvas we conveniently call YHWH. Or as Lewis has her say, “Your sun is a dream and there is nothing in that dream that was not copied from the lamp. The lamp is the real thing; the sun is but a tale, a children’s story”.

But then Jill counters. There is one thing in Narnia that has no correspondent. Aslan.

“Aslan?” said the Witch, quickening ever so slightly the pace of her thrumming. “What a pretty name! What does it mean?”

“He is the great Lion who called us out of our own world,” said Scrubb, “and sent us into this to find Prince Rilian.”

“What is a lion?” asked the Witch.

“Oh, hang it all!” said Scrubb. “Don’t you know? How can we describe it to her? Have you ever seen a cat?”

“Surely,” said the Queen. “I love cats.”

“Well, a lion is a little bit – only a little bit, mind you like a huge cat – with a mane. At least, it’s not like a horse’s mane, you know, it’s more like a judge’s wig. And it’s yellow. And terrifically strong.”

The Witch shook her head. “I see,” she said, “that we should do no better with your lion, as you call it, than we did with your sun. You have seen lamps, and so you imagined a bigger and better lamp and called it the sun. You’ve seen cats, and now you want a bigger and better cat, and it’s to be called a lion. Well, ’tis a pretty makebelieve, though, to say truth, it would suit you all better if you were younger. And look how you can put nothing into your make-believe without copying it from the real world, this world of mine, which is the only world. But even you children are too old for such play. As for you, my lord Prince, that art a man full grown, fie upon you! Are you not ashamed of such toys? Come, all of you. Put away these childish tricks. I have work for you all in the real world. There is no Narnia, no Overworld, no sky, no sun, no Aslan. And now, to bed all. And let us begin a wiser life tomorrow. But, first, to bed; to sleep; deep sleep, soft pillows, sleep without foolish dreams.”

The Prince and the two children were standing with their heads hung down, their cheeks flushed, their eyes half closed; the strength all gone from them; the enchantment almost complete. But Puddleglum, desperately gathering all his strength, walked over to the fire. Then he did a very brave thing. He knew it wouldn’t hurt him quite as much as it would
hurt a human; for his feet (which were bare) were webbed and hard and coldblooded like a duck’s. But he knew it would hurt him badly enough; and so it did. With his bare foot he stamped on the fire, grinding a large part of it into ashes on the flat hearth. And three things happened at once.

First, the children and the prince awoke from the spell. Secondly, the witch cried in her true evil voice. Thirdly, Puddlegum saw things clearly as the pain faded away. He says:

“One word, Ma’am,” he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. “One word. All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said. But there’s one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only
dreamed, or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a
funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a playworld which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that’s a small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say.”

The witch cannot take this truth and her countenance changes to its natural state. Her own projections fall apart and they all see her for what she is; a serpent to be defeated.

And what I learned from re-reading this passage, in the back of a car driving from Seattle to Portland with my three closest friends last summer is this: the fake projection is the constant accusation that faith is a psychological crutch, the misquoting of Marx to say that religion is the opiate of the people. For there is no correspondent to the Triune God in the world. There is no time and space thing that maps on to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Nothing in the here and now can be stretched to eternity to look like the Three-And-One God. The counter intuitive idea we need to do business with is not that religion is a collective grasping at something beyond, but that there is a religion that has managed to end up grasping after something that isn’t found anywhere else in time and space.

Religious belief can be investigated and plausible explanations for how it came to be can be generated at the neurological and psychological and sociological level. Yet I am struck once again, this time in a book written to be read by parents as children go to sleep, with this most marvelous realisation: In Christianity, there is God who makes us in His image and not the other way around.

Your Correspondent, Has an out of date manual; nothing in it about “Prussia”, “Siam”, or “autogyro”.