Spirituality

The Occult Mind of Simone Weil

Simone Kotva read

This article argues that Weil’s interest in occult and esoteric subjects such as Gnosticism and Egyptian mystery religion was not an eccentric sideline to an otherwise ‘Christian’ mysticism but emerged necessarily out of her philosophical method, which, quite independently of those texts where Weil deals with esoterica, displays that pathos of hiddenness so characteristic of occultism: the notion, expressed especially clearly in her late work, that philosophy is the search for a truth hidden from the eyes of ordinary persons and accessible only to those able to endure the ordeals required to gain access into its mysteries. In the second part of the argument, I show that Weil’s ‘occultism’ was not an isolated phenomenon but symptomatic of broader trends among intellectuals at the time.

Philosophical Investigations, vol. 43, nos. 1-2, pp. 122-141.

Peter Winch in India 1986 Lecture on Simone Weil

Peter Winch read

This is a talk given by Peter Winch in 1986 when he would have been nearing completion of his Simone Weil:“The just Balance” (1989). The talk was given to a small group in Mahabaleshwar in the Indian state of Maharashtra, and the transcription by Michael Campbell is from a recording made by Prabodh Parikh who, with Probal Dasgupta and Michael McGhee, initiated the Convivium series of meetings between Indian and Western philosophers.

Philosophical Investigations, vol. 43, nos. 1-2, pp. 19-39

“The Language of the Inner Life”

Eric O. Springsted

in Sophie Bourgault & Julie Daigle, eds., Simone Weil, Beyond Ideology?, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 25-40

God Comes to Her: A Kantian Reflection on Evil and Religious Experience in St. Teresa of Ávila and Simone Weil

Elvira Basevich read

Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 1-22

The Paradox of Attention

Simone Kotva read

Philosophy and theology have long harboured contradictory views on spiritual practice. While philosophy advocates the therapeutic benefits of daily meditation, the theology of grace promotes an ideal of happiness bestowed with little effort. As such, the historical juxtaposition of effort and grace grounding modern spiritual exercise can be seen as the essential tension between the secular and sacred.

In Effort and Grace, Simone Kotva explores an exciting new theory of spiritual endeavour from the tradition of French spiritualist philosophy. Spiritual exercise has largely been studied in relation to ancient philosophy and the Ignatian tradition, yet Kotva’s new engagement with its more recent forms has alerted her to an understanding of contemplative practice as rife with critical potential.

Here, she offers an interdisciplinary text tracing the narrative of spiritual exertion through the work of seminal French thinkers such as Maine de Biran, Félix Ravaisson, Henri Bergson, Alain (Émile Chartier), Simone Weil and Gilles Deleuze. Her findings allow both secular philosophers and theologians to understand how the spiritual life can participate in the contemporary philosophical conversation.

Essay in Effort and Grace: On the Spiritual Exercise of Philosophy, London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 131-172.

The Power to Say I. Reflections on the Modernity of Simone Weil’s Mystical Thought

Marc De Kesel read

Interdisciplinary Journal for Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society, pp. 165-181