The Ghost of C S Lewis 1: Joy
In the first of this two-part mini series, the ghost of C S Lewis being explored is that of his recently deceased wife, Joy.
Whilst researching the paranormal, you occasionally come across accounts from well-known Christians. Either they report seeing an apparition or, as in the following case, were reports from a well-known Christian who saw another that had died recently.
The curious cases of C S Lewis are noteworthy as they present interesting theological conundrums for those who do not believe contact between the living and dead are possible. They’re especially problematic as Lewis is of the Evangelical tradition within Christianity, which by and large holds to this view. We really need to take a deep look at our theology of the afterlife, as reality and the volume of cases seem to suggest it is somewhat lacking in certain traditions.
Clive Staples Lewis and Joy Davidson Gresham
The account of C.S. Lewis and his short marriage to Joy Davidson Gresham is well known to Lewis scholars and fans, and was even made into a film: Shadowlands. After the tragic death of Joy from cancer, Lewis was challenged to the core of his faith, undergoing a deconstruction phase, where he questioned everything.
During this time, he compiled A Grief Observed (1961), initially under the pseudonym N. W. Clerk, allowing him to write candidly. This actually ended up with his friends bringing him the book, thinking it would help him through his grief! Maybe we need to listen to our own words at times?
In Grief, he questions the platitudes spoken in kindness by those attempting to comfort him in his loss. It is a brutally honest work, from the depths of his bereavement and grief. He explores the deepest and most difficult questions that we too may have during such times. Lewis openly wrestles with God, who he accuses of being a cosmic sadist at one point [1]!
The First Visitation
Through his recorded struggles, he discovered the point he was least in sorrow was the point he believed he experienced the intangible presence of his deceased wife [2]:
“And suddenly at the very moment when, so far, I mourned H [Joy] least, I remembered her best. Indeed it was something (almost) better than memory; an instantaneous, unanswerable impression. To say it was like a meeting would be going too far. Yet there was that in it which tempts one to use those words. It was as if the lifting of the sorrow removed a barrier.”
C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, Book II, Para. 23.
The Second Visitation
Later on, at the very end of his book, he writes the following:
I said, several notebooks ago, that even if I got what seemed like an assurance of H.’s [Joy’s] presence, I wouldn’t believe it. Easier said than done. Even now, though, I won’t treat anything of that sort as evidence. It’s the quality of last night’s experience – not what it proves but what it was – that makes it worth putting down. It was quite incredibly unemotional. Just the impression of her mind momentarily facing my own. Mind, not ‘soul’ as we tend to think of soul. Certainly the reverse of what is called ‘soulful’ Not at all like a rapturous re-union of lovers. Much more like getting a telephone call or a wire from her about some practical arrangement. Not that there was any ‘message’ – just intelligence and attention. No sense of joy or sorrow. No love even, in our ordinary sense. No un-love. I had never in any mood imagined the dead as being so – well, so business-like. Yet there was an extreme and cheerful intimacy. An intimacy that had not passed through the senses or the emotions at all.
C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, Book IV, Para. 33.
Lewis struggles to comprehend this mystical experience, as so many who have similar experiences also discover.
Although he recognises that this might well be his subconscious projecting this experience [2], he recognises its healing upon his mind at the time. The intimacy of the experience and the intelligence he recognised behind it seemed to him full of resolve to help him know Joy’s presence in some form.
Joy’s Resolution to Visit Lewis Posthumously
Lewis notes a conversation between them towards the end of her life, which gives an insight into his thinking of possible contact in the afterlife:
Once very near the end I said, ‘If you can – if it is allowed – come to me when I too am on my death bed.’ ‘Allowed!’ she said, ‘Heaven would have a job to hold me; and as for Hell, I’d break it into bits.’ She knew she was speaking a kind of mythological language, with even an element of comedy in it. There was a twinkle as well as a tear in her eye. But there was no myth and no joke about the will, deeper than any feeling, that flashed through her.
C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, Book IV, Para. 37
Summary
Whilst we cannot know the mechanics behind what may have permitted Joy’s presence to comfort and console Lewis, we can learn from his experience that the dead may indeed have a role to play in our healing intimes of grief.
His second experience couldn’t be classed as a crisis apparition per se, for Lewis is not in any grieving emotional state by the time of Book IV. In fact, the lack of emotion within his encounter suggests it is not like his first experience of a comforting presence in Book II, helping him through that part of his grief.
There are many recordings of crisis apparitions across history, with the dead giving words of comfort and wisdom, and even attempts to make amends for behaviours in their former life. Whilst it would be very easy to write them all off as a devilish conspiracy of deception, we are implored by Scripture to test everything and hold on to that which is true [3], and to test the spirits, Greek pneuma (not angels, aggelos, or demons, diamonion), for not all come from God (implying that some do!) [4].
In testing the fruit of these experiences with the ghost of C S Lewis, rather than steering away from his faith in Jesus Christ, he gain encouragement to continue in his writings and defence of the Christian faith. However, if his experiences had been something from a more nefarious and deceptive source, we’d surely not see this fruit.
Next Time: Our next case of the ghost of C S Lewis, we explores his own after death apparitions to bible translator J. B. Phillips. Perhaps his experiences with Joy prepared him for this? We may never know. Click here for Part 2.
[1] Grief, Book II, Para. 27; Book III, Para. 9.
[2] ibid, Book IV, Para. 34,35
[3] 1 Thessalonians 5:21
[4] 1 John 4:1
