Secret Ladder Disguised

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 29 March 2015.

Jacob's Ladder by Nicolas Dipre

Off the cuff, I think it's just that Arthur fell from grace, doubting his gift, and then he lost it in its original form entirely.

As I've said before, if you ever have a chance to see Household Saints, this gives a clear trajectory of how this sort of thing can happen, especially in modern times, when, as Arthur Miller puts it in his essay "Tragedy and the Common Man," "modern man has had the blood drawn out of his organs of belief by the skepticism of science." You've got to see this movie!

It's the same old drama played out in the lives of everyone, but perhaps most explicitly in the experience of the Chosen People. Read Isaiah 55.

The main point is that God's word never returns to Him empty. It achieves the end for which it was sent.

Would it have been better if Adam and Eve had abided by God's law in the first place? Maybe.

Would it have been better if Arthur had languished in those simple childhood visions? Maybe.

But probably not. This, of course, is the felix culpa concept.

If he had been faithful all those years, the "high road" would have necessarily involved passing through St. John of the Cross's dark night of the soul. That would have been the safest route. St. John of the Cross believes that visions belong to a much earlier stage of the spiritual life and pass away entirely during the dark night.

The danger with visions, unlike with infused contemplation, is that the the devil knows about them and can parrot or piggyback on them. Infused contemplation is the "secret ladder disguised." When the soul is to able to escape in this night, when the sensible and spiritual members of his household alike are at rest, the devil doesn't even know it.

At that point, the soul is safer than it has ever been.

It's not at all surprising that Arthur would fall prey to something at his relatively undeveloped state. And he did not--as would have been the case in past centuries--have access to that clear path toward complete union with God.

So, as I've said elsewhere, Arthur takes the "low road" toward the definitive salvation described in Isaiah 55:

Yes, in joy you shall go forth,
in peace you shall be brought home;
Mountains and hills shall break out in song before you,
all trees of the field shall clap their hands.

In place of the thornbush, the cypress shall grow,
instead of nettles, the myrtle.
This shall be to the LORD’s renown,
as an everlasting sign that shall not fail.

As I've said (and diagrammed!) elsewhere, this "low road" has many characteristics of the mystic "high road" laid out by John of the Cross and others.

Although many of the people and experiences Arthur encounters along this path cannot rightly be called God's messengers or guides, they lead him in an albeit roundabout way to his final destination. Thus, "in joy shall you go forth, / in peace you shall be brought home" because as God communicates through the prophet: "So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; / It shall not return to me empty, / but shall do what pleases me, / achieving the end for which I sent it."

When you drop off the sure path to salvation, what greets you is not the entirely opposite path, but rather a path set up by the devil that retains many characteristics of God's original plan.The devil, inasmuch as he has no true being of his own, can only parasitically appropriate the goods that endlessly shower forth from God and twist them to serve his own purposes. Thus, the lodestone looks a lot like "the stone that the builders rejected." Thus, Carlton prescribes a path of purgation, illumination, and union. And so on and so forth. So many other aspects of Arthur's postlapsarian existence have an analogue in the Christian life.

One last thing. I think that Jesus might have a similar opinion of Carlton's devotees (maybe even of Carlton himself) as he did about prostitutes and tax collectors.

Obviously, it's a little different here. But I say that someone who has fallen into a cult sometimes has a better chance of salvation than someone who has never fallen into something so socially unacceptable. Where else in modern life can you find people living so extremely, throwing caution to the wind?

I think that Jesus would have an easier time among these types than he would the ones who faithfully attend every fish fry and diligently give up chocolate every year for Lent (like me).