Quotes by C. S. Lewis

Trouble in Narnia:

The Occult Side of C.S. Lewis

by Mary Ann Collins

See Index - How mysticism & the occult are changing the Church

I've been uneasy about the enthusiasm for Narnia. Then one morning I woke up vividly remembering some things in the third Narnia book. And now I recognize the root of what has been troubling me.

I had read all of C.S. Lewis' books, including his essays, his collections of letters, his science fiction, and the Narnia books. I read most of the books more than once, and I read the Narnia books many times. I also read all the books of Charles Williams because he was a close friend of Lewis' and Lewis spoke so highly of his books. And I read all of George MacDonald's books because Lewis admired him and spoke well of his books."

"The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" is the third book in the Narnia series. It directly promotes spells and magic.

One part of the voyage deals with an island inhabited by invisible creatures called Dufflepods. Lucy works a spell to make the Dufflepods visible. She goes through a spell book, and it is beautiful and fascinating. Then she finds the right spell and says the words and follows the instructions. And then the Dufflepods (and Aslan) become visible. Her spell made Aslan visible, and he is pleased with what she did.

The book of spells is beautiful and fascinating. One spell is illustrated with pictures of bees; the pictures come to life and the bees fly off of the page. In the world of C.S. Lewis’ day, this would not have caused practical problems. However, these days, kids can go to regular bookstores and buy spell books written by modern witches.

Many Christians are treating the Narnia books as being an allegory, with Aslan representing Jesus and the children representing Christians. If you do this with “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” then you portray Jesus as being pleased when Christians do magic and work spells. And you support the idea that that there are “good” spells and “good” magic. That belief is the basis for modern “white” witchcraft. However, the Bible clearly forbids any form of witchcraft:

In the book, the Dufflepods are ruled by a wizard. He uses magic to rule the Dufflepods because they aren’t yet mature enough to be ruled directly by Aslan. So there is good magic and a good wizard. This magic prepares people for relationship with Aslan. Again, if Aslan is taken as a symbol for Jesus, then magic prepares people to become Christians. In our modern culture, that would mean that Wicca is a way to get to know Jesus and become His follower.

Back when C.S. Lewis wrote the Narnia stories, Wicca did not exist. Kids who read the books couldn’t experiment with spells. But this is a different world today. Now kids are surrounded by movies and TV shows that promote witchcraft, and they may know kids at their school who dabble in it.

What will happen when Disney comes out with a movie of “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”? Christian kids may wind up feeling free to practice magic. And this could take down the barrier between Christianity and Wicca. It could “Christianize” witchcraft in the eyes of some Christian kids.

There are some other problems with C.S. Lewis. He taught many good things, but mixed in with those good things there are other teachings that lay a foundation for apostasy.

For starters in understanding the man, here is a quotation from a letter that he wrote describing a trip that he and his wife Joy took to Greece in 1960. He wrote,

Lewis also said that “Christianity fulfilled paganism” and “paganism prefigured Christianity.” (Roger Lancelyn Green, “C.S. Lewis: A Biography,” Harcourt Inc., 1974, pages 274 and 30.)

In his autobiography (Surprised by Joy), Lewis tells how at age 13 he abandoned his Anglican faith due to the influence of a school mistress who was involved with “Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, Spiritualism; the whole Anglo-American Occultist tradition.” And Lewis developed a “lust” for the occult that remained with him even after he returned to Anglicanism. He said,

Lewis said that he described that lust for the occult in a novel. It occurs in the third book of his science fiction trilogy. A character named is in the process of being initiated into an inner ring of scientists who are occultists. They worship demons, which they call “macrobes” (huge, powerful invisible things, as opposed to microbes, which are tiny invisible things).

“Here, here surely at last (so his desire whispered to him) was the true inner circle of all, the circle whose centre was outside the human race--the ultimate secret, the supreme power, the last initiation. The fact that it was almost completely horrible did not in the least diminish its attraction.” (C. S. Lewis, “That Hideous Strength: A Modern Fairy Tale for Grown Ups,” Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1946, pp. 259 260.)

Note that he said that Lewis said that he had trouble with that lust for the occult ever since his encounter with the Matron in his boys’ school. He wrote that statement in 1955. By then, he had written all but three of his books. (“The Four Loves,” “Reflections on the Psalms,” and “A Grief Observed”).

Lewis dedicated his autobiography (“Surprised by Joy”) to Bede Griffiths, a former student of his who became a long-time friend. Griffiths founded a “Christian ashram” in India. He said that Hindu temples are a “sacrament.” And he said, “No one can say in the proper sense that the Hindu, the Buddhist or the Muslim is an ‘unbeliever.’ I would say rather that we have to recognize him as our brother in Christ.” (Randy England, “The Unicorn in the Sanctuary: The Impact of the New Age on the Catholic Church,” TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., 1991, pages 70-72)

What Bede Griffiths did and said is the logical conclusion of a statement that C.S. Lewis made in “Mere Christianity.” He said,

Lewis said that he was strongly influenced by George MacDonald, who was a universalist. MacDonald’s book “Lilith” is based on an occult teaching that Adam was married to a demon named Lilith before he married Eve. By the end of MacDonald’s book, Lilith is redeemed, and Adam says that even the devil will eventually be redeemed.

This universalism shows up in some of Lewis’ fiction books. In “The Great Divorce,” Lewis is in Heaven. He speaks with George MacDonald and asks him about universalism, and MacDonald answers that Lewis cannot understand such things now. In the last of the Narnia books (“The Last Battle”), a pagan makes it to Heaven (“Aslan’s Land”) because of his good works and his good motives, in spite of the fact that he did not believe in Aslan and he worshipped Aslan’s enemy, a false god named Tash.

Lilith shows up in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” Mr. Beaver tells the children that the White Witch is descended from Lilith, who is the “first wife” of Adam. This could cause confusion, especially for children. Although Mr. Beaver is a fictional character, he is speaking authoritatively about the real world--the real Adam and Eve of the Bible.

Lewis spoke very highly of Charles Williams and his books, so I read all of his books. They are novels that mix darkness and occultism with some insights about Christianity. In “The Greater Trumps,” the hero is a saintly woman who saves the day by doing magic with Tarot cards.

Williams was as much a mixture as his books were. He started out as a serious occultist. He believed Theosophy and other occult teachings, and he joined the Golden Dawn, a group that practices “sex magick,” which is ritual sex that is done for the purpose of getting occult power. (The notorious Satanist, Aleister Crowley, was a member of the Golden Dawn.) Williams left the Golden Dawn and joined the Anglican church, but he kept some of his Theosophical beliefs.

Lewis also had a close friend named Owen Barfield. He dedicated the Narnia books to him and named Lucy after Barfield’s daughter. Barfield was a philosopher who started out with Theosophy and developed his own version of it.

According to Theosophy, the God of the Bible is a tyrant, and Lucifer (the devil) came to rescue mankind from him. Even this dark view of God shows up in C.S. Lewis’ writings.

After his wife Joy died, Lewis wrote “A Grief Observed,” a book describing his thoughts and emotional struggles as a result of her death. The dark Theosophical view of God shows up in this book, as shown in the following quotations.

“Supposing the truth were ‘God always vivisects’?” (C.S. Lewis, “A Grief Observed,” Bantam Books, The Seabury Press, 1963, p. 33)

“Is it rational to believe in a bad God? Anyway, in a God so bad as all that? The Cosmic Sadist, the spiteful imbecile?” (“A Grief Observed,” p. 35)

Lewis didn’t stay there. He vacillated between despair and hope. But in his moments of agony and despair, the Theosophical view of God came back to haunt him.

There is another problem with C.S. Lewis. I read all of his books, and I do not recall any place where he treated Scripture as being authoritative. He may have done it, but if he did, it was not done often enough, or clearly enough, or strongly enough, to stand out in my memory. Lewis’ theology seems to be based primarily on human reasoning (including evolution and Freudian psychology). Some people have called him a “Christian humanist.”