2020/10/08

C. S. Lewis - Wikipedia

C. S. Lewis - Wikipedia



C. S. Lewis

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C. S. Lewis
Monochrome head-and-left-shoulder photo portrait of 50-year-old Lewis
Lewis, age 48
BornClive Staples Lewis
29 November 1898
Belfast, Ireland
Died22 November 1963 (aged 64)
Oxford, England
Pen nameClive Hamilton, N. W. Clerk
OccupationNovelist, scholar, broadcaster
Alma materUniversity College, Oxford
GenreChristian apologetics, fantasy, science fiction, children's literature
Notable worksThe Chronicles of Narnia
Mere Christianity
The Allegory of Love
The Screwtape Letters
The Space Trilogy
Till We Have Faces
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1956; died 1960)​
Children2 step-sons; including Douglas Gresham
RelativesWarren Lewis
(brother)
Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and Cambridge University (Magdalene College, 1954–1963). He is best known for his works of fiction, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Space Trilogy, and for his non-fiction Christian apologetics, such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain.
Lewis and fellow novelist J. R. R. Tolkien were close friends. They both served on the English faculty at Oxford University and were active in the informal Oxford literary group known as the Inklings.[1] According to Lewis's 1955 memoir Surprised by Joy, he was baptised in the Church of Ireland, but fell away from his faith during adolescence. Lewis returned to Anglicanism at the age of 32, owing to the influence of Tolkien and other friends, and he became an "ordinary layman of the Church of England".[2] Lewis's faith profoundly affected his work, and his wartime radio broadcasts on the subject of Christianity brought him wide acclaim.
Lewis wrote more than 30 books[3] which have been translated into more than 30 languages and have sold millions of copies. The books that make up The Chronicles of Narnia have sold the most and have been popularised on stage, TV, radio, and cinema. His philosophical writings are widely cited by Christian apologists from many denominations.
In 1956, Lewis married American writer Joy Davidman; she died of cancer four years later at the age of 45. Lewis died on 22 November 1963 from kidney failure, one week before his 65th birthday. In 2013, on the 50th anniversary of his death, Lewis was honoured with a memorial in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Biography

Childhood

Little Lea, home of the Lewis family from 1905 to 1930
Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland, on 29 November 1898.[4] His father was Albert James Lewis (1863–1929), a solicitor whose father Richard had come to Ireland from Wales during the mid-19th century. His mother was Florence Augusta Lewis, née Hamilton (1862–1908), known as Flora, the daughter of Thomas Hamilton, a Church of Ireland priest, and great granddaughter of both Bishop Hugh Hamilton and John Staples. He had an elder brother, Warren Hamilton Lewis (known as "Warnie").[5][6] He was baptised on 29 January 1899 by his maternal grandfather in St Mark's Church, Dundela.[7]
When his dog Jacksie was killed by a car, the four-year old Lewis adopted the name Jacksie. At first, he would answer to no other name, but later accepted Jack, the name by which he was known to friends and family for the rest of his life.[8] When he was seven, his family moved into "Little Lea", the family home of his childhood, in the Strandtown area of East Belfast.[9]
As a boy, Lewis was fascinated with anthropomorphic animals; he fell in love with Beatrix Potter's stories and often wrote and illustrated his own animal stories. He and his brother Warnie created the world of Boxen, inhabited and run by animals. Lewis loved to read; his father's house was filled with books, and he felt that finding a book to read was as easy as walking into a field and "finding a new blade of grass".[10]
The New House is almost a major character in my story.
I am the product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms,
upstair indoor silences, attics explored in solitude,
distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes,
and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books.
Lewis was schooled by private tutors until age nine when his mother died in 1908 from cancer. His father then sent him to live and study at Wynyard School in Watford, Hertfordshire. Lewis's brother had enrolled there three years previously. The school was closed not long afterward due to a lack of pupils; the headmaster Robert "Oldie" Capron was soon after committed to a psychiatric hospital. Lewis then attended Campbell College in the east of Belfast about a mile from his home, but left after a few months due to respiratory problems. He was then sent to the health-resort town of Malvern, Worcestershire, where he attended the preparatory school Cherbourg House, which Lewis calls "Chartres" in his autobiography. It was during this time that Lewis abandoned his childhood Christian faith and became an atheist, becoming interested in mythology and the occult.[11] In September 1913, Lewis enrolled at Malvern College, where he remained until the following June. He found the school socially competitive.[12] After leaving Malvern, he studied privately with William T. Kirkpatrick, his father's old tutor and former headmaster of Lurgan College.[13]
As a teenager, Lewis was wonder-struck by the songs and legends of what he called Northernness, the ancient literature of Scandinavia preserved in the Icelandic sagas.[14] These legends intensified an inner longing that he would later call "joy". He also grew to love nature; its beauty reminded him of the stories of the North, and the stories of the North reminded him of the beauties of nature. His teenage writings moved away from the tales of Boxen, and he began using different art forms, such as epic poetry and opera, to try to capture his new-found interest in Norse mythology and the natural world. Studying with Kirkpatrick ("The Great Knock", as Lewis afterward called him) instilled in him a love of Greek literature and mythology and sharpened his debate and reasoning skills. In 1916, Lewis was awarded a scholarship at University College, Oxford.[15]

"My Irish life"

Plaque on a park-bench in Bangor, County Down
Lewis experienced a certain cultural shock on first arriving in England: "No Englishman will be able to understand my first impressions of England," Lewis wrote in Surprised by Joy. "The strange English accents with which I was surrounded seemed like the voices of demons. But what was worst was the English landscape ... I have made up the quarrel since; but at that moment I conceived a hatred for England which took many years to heal."[16]
From boyhood, Lewis had immersed himself in Norse and Greek mythology, and later in Irish mythology and literature. He also expressed an interest in the Irish language,[17][18] though there is not much evidence that he laboured to learn it. He developed a particular fondness for W. B. Yeats, in part because of Yeats's use of Ireland's Celtic heritage in poetry. In a letter to a friend, Lewis wrote, "I have here discovered an author exactly after my own heart, whom I am sure you would delight in, W. B. Yeats. He writes plays and poems of rare spirit and beauty about our old Irish mythology."[19]
In 1921, Lewis met Yeats twice, since Yeats had moved to Oxford.[20] Lewis was surprised to find his English peers indifferent to Yeats and the Celtic Revival movement, and wrote: "I am often surprised to find how utterly ignored Yeats is among the men I have met: perhaps his appeal is purely Irish – if so, then thank the gods that I am Irish."[21][22] Early in his career, Lewis considered sending his work to the major Dublin publishers, writing: "If I do ever send my stuff to a publisher, I think I shall try Maunsel, those Dublin people, and so tack myself definitely onto the Irish school."[19] After his conversion to Christianity, his interests gravitated towards Christian theology and away from pagan Celtic mysticism.[23]
Lewis occasionally expressed a somewhat tongue-in-cheek chauvinism toward the English. Describing an encounter with a fellow Irishman, he wrote: "Like all Irish people who meet in England, we ended by criticisms on the invincible flippancy and dullness of the Anglo-Saxon race. After all, there is no doubt, ami, that the Irish are the only people: with all their faults, I would not gladly live or die among another folk."[24] Throughout his life, he sought out the company of other Irish people living in England[25] and visited Northern Ireland regularly. In 1958 he spent his honeymoon there at the Old Inn, Crawfordsburn,[26] which he called "my Irish life".[27]
Various critics have suggested that it was Lewis's dismay over the sectarian conflict in his native Belfast which led him to eventually adopt such an ecumenical brand of Christianity.[28] As one critic has said, Lewis "repeatedly extolled the virtues of all branches of the Christian faith, emphasising a need for unity among Christians around what the Catholic writer G. K. Chesterton called 'Mere Christianity', the core doctrinal beliefs that all denominations share".[29] On the other hand, Paul Stevens of the University of Toronto has written that "Lewis' mere Christianity masked many of the political prejudices of an old-fashioned Ulster Protestant, a native of middle-class Belfast for whom British withdrawal from Northern Ireland even in the 1950s and 1960s was unthinkable."[30]

First World War and Oxford University

Lewis entered Oxford in the 1917 summer term, studying at University College, and shortly after, he joined the Officers' Training Corps at the university as his "most promising route into the army".[31] From there, he was drafted into a Cadet Battalion for training.[31][32] After his training, he was commissioned into the Third Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry of the British Army as a Second Lieutenant. Within months of entering Oxford, the British Army shipped him to France to fight in the First World War.[13]
On his 19th birthday (29 November 1917) he arrived at the front line in the Somme Valley in France, where he experienced trench warfare for the first time.[31][32][33] On 15 April 1918, Lewis was wounded and two of his colleagues were killed by a British shell falling short of its target.[33][page needed] He suffered from depression and homesickness during his convalescence and, upon his recovery in October, he was assigned to duty in Andover, England. He was demobilised in December 1918 and soon restarted his studies.[34] In a later letter, Lewis cited that his experience of the horror of war, along with the loss of his mother and his unhappiness in school, were the bases of his pessimism and atheism.[35]
After Lewis returned to Oxford University, he received a First in Honour Moderations (Greek and Latin literature) in 1920, a First in Greats (Philosophy and Ancient History) in 1922, and a First in English in 1923. In 1924 he became a philosophy tutor at University College and, in 1925, was elected a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Magdalen College, where he served for 29 years until 1954.[36]

Janie Moore

During his army training, Lewis shared a room with another cadet, Edward Courtnay Francis "Paddy" Moore (1898–1918). Maureen Moore, Paddy's sister, said that the two made a mutual pact[37] that if either died during the war, the survivor would take care of both of their families. Paddy was killed in action in 1918 and Lewis kept his promise. Paddy had earlier introduced Lewis to his mother, Janie King Moore, and a friendship quickly sprang up between Lewis, who was 18 when they met, and Janie, who was 45. The friendship with Moore was particularly important to Lewis while he was recovering from his wounds in hospital, as his father did not visit him.
Lewis lived with and cared for Moore until she was hospitalised in the late 1940s. He routinely introduced her as his mother, referred to her as such in letters, and developed a deeply affectionate friendship with her. Lewis's own mother had died when he was a child, and his father was distant, demanding, and eccentric.
Speculation regarding their relationship resurfaced with the 1990 publication of A. N. Wilson's biography of Lewis. Wilson (who never met Lewis) attempted to make a case for their having been lovers for a time. Wilson's biography was not the first to address the question of Lewis's relationship with Moore. George Sayer knew Lewis for 29 years, and he had sought to shed light on the relationship during the period of 14 years prior to Lewis's conversion to Christianity. In his biography Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis, he wrote:
Were they lovers? Owen Barfield, who knew Jack well in the 1920s, once said that he thought the likelihood was "fifty-fifty". Although she was twenty-six years older than Jack, she was still a handsome woman, and he was certainly infatuated with her. But it seems very odd, if they were lovers, that he would call her "mother". We know, too, that they did not share the same bedroom. It seems most likely that he was bound to her by the promise he had given to Paddy and that his promise was reinforced by his love for her as his second mother.[38]
Later Sayer changed his mind. In the introduction to the 1997 edition of his biography of Lewis he wrote:
I have had to alter my opinion of Lewis's relationship with Mrs. Moore. In chapter eight of this book I wrote that I was uncertain about whether they were lovers. Now after conversations with Mrs. Moore's daughter, Maureen, and a consideration of the way in which their bedrooms were arranged at The Kilns, I am quite certain that they were.[39]
However, the romantic nature of the relationship is doubted by other writers; for example, Philip Zaleski and Carol Zaleski write in The Fellowship that
When—or whether—Lewis commenced an affair with Mrs. Moore remains unclear.[40]
Lewis spoke well of Mrs. Moore throughout his life, saying to his friend George Sayer, "She was generous and taught me to be generous, too." In December 1917, Lewis wrote in a letter to his childhood friend Arthur Greeves that Janie and Greeves were "the two people who matter most to me in the world".
In 1930, Lewis moved into The Kilns with his brother Warnie, Mrs. Moore, and her daughter Maureen. The Kilns was a house in the district of Headington Quarry on the outskirts of Oxford, now part of the suburb of Risinghurst. They all contributed financially to the purchase of the house, which passed to Maureen, who by then was Dame Maureen Dunbar, when Warren died in 1973.
Moore suffered from dementia in her later years and was eventually moved into a nursing home, where she died in 1951. Lewis visited her every day in this home until her death.

Return to Christianity

Lewis was raised in a religious family that attended the Church of Ireland. He became an atheist at age 15, though he later described his young self as being paradoxically "very angry with God for not existing" and "equally angry with him for creating a world".[41] His early separation from Christianity began when he started to view his religion as a chore and a duty; around this time, he also gained an interest in the occult, as his studies expanded to include such topics.[42] Lewis quoted Lucretius (De rerum natura, 5.198–9) as having one of the strongest arguments for atheism:[43]
Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse paratam
Naturam rerum; tanta stat praedita culpa
which he translated poetically as follows:
Had God designed the world, it would not be
A world so frail and faulty as we see.
(This is a highly poetic, rather than a literal translation. A more literal translation, by William Ellery Leonard,[44] reads: "That in no wise the nature of all things / For us was fashioned by a power divine – / So great the faults it stands encumbered with.")
Lewis's interest in the works of George MacDonald was part of what turned him from atheism. This can be seen particularly well through this passage in Lewis's The Great Divorce, chapter nine, when the semi-autobiographical main character meets MacDonald in Heaven:
... I tried, trembling, to tell this man all that his writings had done for me. I tried to tell how a certain frosty afternoon at Leatherhead Station when I had first bought a copy of Phantastes (being then about sixteen years old) had been to me what the first sight of Beatrice had been to Dante: Here begins the new life. I started to confess how long that Life had delayed in the region of imagination merely: how slowly and reluctantly I had come to admit that his Christendom had more than an accidental connexion with it, how hard I had tried not to see the true name of the quality which first met me in his books is Holiness.[45]
He eventually returned to Christianity, having been influenced by arguments with his Oxford colleague and Christian friend J. R. R. Tolkien, whom he seems to have met for the first time on 11 May 1926, and the book The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton. Lewis vigorously resisted conversion, noting that he was brought into Christianity like a prodigal, "kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape".[46] He described his last struggle in Surprised by Joy:
You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen [College, Oxford], night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.[47]
After his conversion to theism in 1929, Lewis converted to Christianity in 1931, following a long discussion during a late-night walk along Addison's Walk with his close friends Tolkien and Hugo Dyson. He records making a specific commitment to Christian belief while on his way to the zoo with his brother. He became a member of the Church of England – somewhat to the disappointment of Tolkien, who had hoped that he would join the Catholic Church.[48][page needed][incomplete short citation]
Lewis was a committed Anglican who upheld a largely orthodox Anglican theology, though in his apologetic writings, he made an effort to avoid espousing any one denomination. In his later writings, some believe that he proposed ideas such as purification of venial sins after death in purgatory (The Great Divorce and Letters to Malcolm) and mortal sin (The Screwtape Letters), which are generally considered to be Roman Catholic teachings, although they are also widely held in Anglicanism (particularly in high church Anglo-Catholic circles). Regardless, Lewis considered himself an entirely orthodox Anglican to the end of his life, reflecting that he had initially attended church only to receive communion and had been repelled by the hymns and the poor quality of the sermons. He later came to consider himself honoured by worshipping with men of faith who came in shabby clothes and work boots and who sang all the verses to all the hymns.[49] In 1935, Lewis and his brother Warren donated a stained glass window in memory of their parents to their childhood church of St. Mark's, Dundela, Belfast.[50]

Second World War

After the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the Lewises took child evacuees from London and other cities into The Kilns.[51] Lewis was only 40 when the war started, and he tried to re-enter military service, offering to instruct cadets; but his offer was not accepted. He rejected the recruiting office's suggestion of writing columns for the Ministry of Information in the press, as he did not want to "write lies"[52] to deceive the enemy. He later served in the local Home Guard in Oxford.[52]
From 1941 to 1943, Lewis spoke on religious programmes broadcast by the BBC from London while the city was under periodic air raids.[53] These broadcasts were appreciated by civilians and servicemen at that stage. For example, Air Chief Marshal Sir Donald Hardman wrote:
"The war, the whole of life, everything tended to seem pointless. We needed, many of us, a key to the meaning of the universe. Lewis provided just that."[54]
The broadcasts were anthologised in Mere Christianity. From 1941, he was occupied at his summer holiday weekends visiting R.A.F. stations to speak on his faith, invited by the R.A.F.'s Chaplain-in-Chief Maurice Edwards.[55]
It was also during the same wartime period that Lewis was invited to become first President of the Oxford Socratic Club in January 1942,[56] a position that he enthusiastically held until he resigned on appointment to Cambridge University in 1954.[57]

Honour declined

Lewis was named on the last list of honours by George VI in December 1951 as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) but declined so as to avoid association with any political issues.[58][59]

Chair at Cambridge University

In 1954, Lewis accepted the newly founded chair of Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he finished his career. He maintained a strong attachment to the city of Oxford, keeping a home there and returning on weekends until his death in 1963.

Joy Davidman

She was my daughter and my mother, my pupil and my teacher, my subject and my sovereign; and always, holding all these in solution, my trusty comrade, friend, shipmate, fellow-soldier. My mistress; but at the same time all that any man friend (and I have good ones) has ever been to me. Perhaps more.
C. S. Lewis[60]
In later life, Lewis corresponded with Joy Davidman Gresham, an American writer of Jewish background, a former Communist, and a convert from atheism to Christianity. She was separated from her alcoholic and abusive husband, novelist William L. Gresham, and came to England with her two sons, David and Douglas.[61] Lewis at first regarded her as an agreeable intellectual companion and personal friend, and it was on this level that he agreed to enter into a civil marriage contract with her so that she could continue to live in the UK.[62] The civil marriage took place at the register office, 42 St Giles', Oxford, on 23 April 1956.[63][64] Lewis's brother Warren wrote: "For Jack the attraction was at first undoubtedly intellectual. Joy was the only woman whom he had met ... who had a brain which matched his own in suppleness, in width of interest, and in analytical grasp, and above all in humour and a sense of fun."[61] After complaining of a painful hip, she was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer, and the relationship developed to the point that they sought a Christian marriage. Since she was divorced, this was not straightforward in the Church of England at the time, but a friend, the Rev. Peter Bide, performed the ceremony at her bed in the Churchill Hospital on 21 March 1957.[65]
Gresham's cancer soon went into remission, and the couple lived together as a family with Warren Lewis until 1960, when her cancer recurred and she died on 13 July. Earlier that year, the couple took a brief holiday in Greece and the Aegean; Lewis was fond of walking but not of travel, and this marked his only crossing of the English Channel after 1918. Lewis's book A Grief Observed describes his experience of bereavement in such a raw and personal fashion that he originally released it under the pseudonym N. W. Clerk to keep readers from associating the book with him. Ironically, many friends recommended the book to Lewis as a method for dealing with his own grief. After Lewis's death, his authorship was made public by Faber's, with the permission of the executors.[66]
Lewis continued to raise Gresham's two sons after her death. Douglas Gresham is a Christian like Lewis and his mother,[67] while David Gresham turned to his mother's ancestral faith, becoming Orthodox Jewish in his beliefs. His mother's writings had featured the Jews in an unsympathetic manner, particularly one "shohet" (ritual slaughterer). David informed Lewis that he was going to become a ritual slaughterer to present this type of Jewish religious functionary to the world in a more favourable light. In a 2005 interview, Douglas Gresham acknowledged that he and his brother were not close, but he did say that they are in email contact.[68] Douglas remains involved in the affairs of the Lewis estate.[citation needed]

Illness and death

C. S. Lewis's grave at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry
In early June 1961, Lewis began suffering from nephritis, which resulted in blood poisoning. His illness caused him to miss the autumn term at Cambridge, though his health gradually began improving in 1962 and he returned that April. His health continued to improve and, according to his friend George Sayer, Lewis was fully himself by early 1963. On 15 July that year, he fell ill and was admitted to the hospital; he suffered a heart attack at 5:00 pm the next day and lapsed into a coma, unexpectedly waking the following day at 2:00 pm. After he was discharged from the hospital, Lewis returned to the Kilns, though he was too ill to return to work. As a result, he resigned from his post at Cambridge in August.
Lewis's condition continued to decline, and he was diagnosed with end-stage kidney failure in mid-November. He collapsed in his bedroom at 5:30 pm on 22 November, exactly one week before his 65th birthday, and died a few minutes later.[69] He is buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Headington, Oxford.[70] His brother Warren died on 9 April 1973 and was buried in the same grave.[71]
Media coverage of Lewis's death was almost completely overshadowed by news of the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy, which occurred on the same day (approximately 55 minutes following Lewis's collapse), as did the death of English writer Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World.[72] This coincidence was the inspiration for Peter Kreeft's book Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis, & Aldous Huxley.[73] Lewis is commemorated on 22 November in the church calendar of the Episcopal Church.[74]

Career

Scholar

Magdalen College, Oxford
Lewis began his academic career as an undergraduate student at Oxford University, where he won a triple first, the highest honours in three areas of study.[75] He was then elected a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, where he worked for nearly thirty years, from 1925 to 1954.[76] In 1954, he was awarded the newly founded chair of Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, and was elected a fellow of Magdalene College.[76] Concerning his appointed academic field, he argued that there was no such thing as an English Renaissance.[77][78] Much of his scholarly work concentrated on the later Middle Ages, especially its use of allegory. His The Allegory of Love (1936) helped reinvigorate the serious study of late medieval narratives such as the Roman de la Rose.[79]
Lewis was commissioned to write the volume English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (Excluding Drama) for the Oxford History of English Literature.[77] His book "A Preface to Paradise Lost"[80] is still cited as a criticism of that work. His last academic work, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (1964), is a summary of the medieval world view, a reference to the "discarded image" of the cosmos.[81]
The Eagle and Child pub in Oxford where the Inklings met on Tuesday mornings in 1939
Lewis was a prolific writer, and his circle of literary friends became an informal discussion society known as the "Inklings", including J. R. R. Tolkien, Nevill Coghill, Lord David Cecil, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and his brother Warren Lewis. Glyer points to December 1929 as the Inklings' beginning date.[82] Lewis's friendship with Coghill and Tolkien grew during their time as members of the Kolbítar, an Old Norse reading group that Tolkien founded and which ended around the time of the inception of the Inklings.[83] At Oxford, he was the tutor of poet John Betjeman, critic Kenneth Tynan, mystic Bede Griffiths, novelist Roger Lancelyn Green and Sufi scholar Martin Lings, among many other undergraduates. Curiously, the religious and conservative Betjeman detested Lewis, whereas the anti-establishment Tynan retained a lifelong admiration for him.[84][page needed]
Magdalene College, Cambridge
Of Tolkien, Lewis writes in Surprised by Joy:
When I began teaching for the English Faculty, I made two other friends, both Christians (these queer people seemed now to pop up on every side) who were later to give me much help in getting over the last stile. They were HVV Dyson ... and JRR Tolkien. Friendship with the latter marked the breakdown of two old prejudices. At my first coming into the world I had been (implicitly) warned never to trust a Papist, and at my first coming into the English Faculty (explicitly) never to trust a philologist. Tolkien was both.[85]

Novelist

In addition to his scholarly work, Lewis wrote several popular novels, including the science fiction Space Trilogy for adults and the Narnia fantasies for children. Most deal implicitly with Christian themes such as sin, humanity's fall from grace, and redemption.[86][87]
His first novel after becoming a Christian was The Pilgrim's Regress (1933), which depicted his experience with Christianity in the style of John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. The book was poorly received by critics at the time,[23] although David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, one of Lewis's contemporaries at Oxford, gave him much-valued encouragement. Asked by Lloyd-Jones when he would write another book, Lewis replied, "When I understand the meaning of prayer."[88][page needed]
The Space Trilogy (also called the Cosmic Trilogy or Ransom Trilogy) dealt with what Lewis saw as the dehumanising trends in contemporary science fiction. The first book, Out of the Silent Planet, was apparently written following a conversation with his friend J.R.R. Tolkien about these trends. Lewis agreed to write a "space travel" story and Tolkien a "time travel" one, but Tolkien never completed "The Lost Road", linking his Middle-earth to the modern world. Lewis's main character Elwin Ransom is based in part on Tolkien, a fact to which Tolkien alludes in his letters.[89]
The second novel, Perelandra, depicts a new Garden of Eden on the planet Venus, a new Adam and Eve, and a new "serpent figure" to tempt Eve. The story can be seen as an account of what might have happened if the terrestrial Adam had defeated the serpent and avoided the Fall of Man, with Ransom intervening in the novel to "ransom" the new Adam and Eve from the deceptions of the enemy. The third novel, That Hideous Strength, develops the theme of nihilistic science threatening traditional human values, embodied in Arthurian legend.[citation needed]
Many ideas in the trilogy, particularly opposition to dehumanisation as portrayed in the third book, are presented more formally in The Abolition of Man, based on a series of lectures by Lewis at Durham University in 1943. Lewis stayed in Durham, where he says he was overwhelmed by the magnificence of the cathedral. That Hideous Strength is in fact set in the environs of "Edgestow" university, a small English university like Durham, though Lewis disclaims any other resemblance between the two.[90][page needed]
Walter Hooper, Lewis's literary executor, discovered a fragment of another science-fiction novel apparently written by Lewis called The Dark Tower. Ransom appears in the story but it is not clear whether the book was intended as part of the same series of novels. The manuscript was eventually published in 1977, though Lewis scholar Kathryn Lindskoog doubts its authenticity.[91]
The Mountains of Mourne inspired Lewis to write The Chronicles of Narnia. About them, Lewis wrote "I have seen landscapes ... which, under a particular light, make me feel that at any moment a giant might raise his head over the next ridge."[92]
The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven fantasy novels for children and is considered a classic of children's literature. Written between 1949 and 1954 and illustrated by Pauline Baynes, the series is Lewis's most popular work, having sold over 100 million copies in 41 languages (Kelly 2006) (Guthmann 2005). It has been adapted several times, complete or in part, for radio, television, stage and cinema.[93]
The books contain Christian ideas intended to be easily accessible to young readers. In addition to Christian themes, Lewis also borrows characters from Greek and Roman mythology, as well as traditional British and Irish fairy tales.[94][95]

Other works

Lewis wrote several works on Heaven and Hell. One of these, The Great Divorce, is a short novella in which a few residents of Hell take a bus ride to Heaven, where they are met by people who dwell there. The proposition is that they can stay if they choose, in which case they can call the place where they had come from "Purgatory", instead of "Hell", but many find it not to their taste. The title is a reference to William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, a concept that Lewis found a "disastrous error". This work deliberately echoes two other more famous works with a similar theme: the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, and Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress.
Another short work, The Screwtape Letters, consists of letters of advice from senior demon Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood on the best ways to tempt a particular human and secure his damnation.[96] Lewis's last novel was Till We Have Faces, which he thought of as his most mature and masterly work of fiction but which was never a popular success. It is a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche from the unusual perspective of Psyche's sister. It is deeply concerned with religious ideas, but the setting is entirely pagan, and the connections with specific Christian beliefs are left implicit.[97]
Before Lewis's conversion to Christianity, he published two books: Spirits in Bondage, a collection of poems, and Dymer, a single narrative poem. Both were published under the pen name Clive Hamilton. Other narrative poems have since been published posthumously, including Launcelot, The Nameless Isle, and The Queen of Drum.[98]
He also wrote The Four Loves, which rhetorically explains four categories of love: friendship, eros, affection, and charity.[99]
In 2009, a partial draft was discovered of Language and Human Nature, which Lewis had begun co-writing with J. R. R. Tolkien, but which was never completed.[100]

Christian apologist

Lewis is also regarded by many as one of the most influential Christian apologists of his time, in addition to his career as an English professor and an author of fiction. Mere Christianity was voted best book of the 20th century by Christianity Today in 2000.[101] He has been called "The Apostle to the Skeptics" due to his approach to religious belief as a sceptic, and his following conversion.[102]
Lewis was very interested in presenting an argument from reason against metaphysical naturalism and for the existence of God. Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, and Miracles were all concerned, to one degree or another, with refuting popular objections to Christianity, such as the question, "How could a good God allow pain to exist in the world?" He also became a popular lecturer and broadcaster, and some of his writing originated as scripts for radio talks or lectures (including much of Mere Christianity).[103][page needed]
According to George Sayer, losing a 1948 debate with Elizabeth Anscombe, also a Christian, led Lewis to re-evaluate his role as an apologist, and his future works concentrated on devotional literature and children's books.[104] Anscombe had a completely different recollection of the debate's outcome and its emotional effect on Lewis.[104] Victor Reppert also disputes Sayer, listing some of Lewis's post-1948 apologetic publications, including the second and revised edition of his Miracles in 1960, in which Lewis addressed Anscombe's criticism.[105] Noteworthy too is Roger Teichman's suggestion in The Philosophy of Elizabeth Anscombe that the intellectual impact of Anscombe's paper on Lewis's philosophical self-confidence should not be over-rated: "... it seems unlikely that he felt as irretrievably crushed as some of his acquaintances have made out; the episode is probably an inflated legend, in the same category as the affair of Wittgenstein's Poker. Certainly, Anscombe herself believed that Lewis's argument, though flawed, was getting at something very important; she thought that this came out more in the improved version of it that Lewis presented in a subsequent edition of Miracles – though that version also had 'much to criticize in it'."[106]
Lewis wrote an autobiography titled Surprised by Joy, which places special emphasis on his own conversion.[13] He also wrote many essays and public speeches on Christian belief, many of which were collected in God in the Dock and The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses.[107][108]
His most famous works, the Chronicles of Narnia, contain many strong Christian messages and are often considered allegory. Lewis, an expert on the subject of allegory, maintained that the books were not allegory, and preferred to call the Christian aspects of them "suppositional". As Lewis wrote in a letter to a Mrs. Hook in December 1958:
If Aslan represented the immaterial Deity in the same way in which Giant Despair [a character in The Pilgrim's Progress] represents despair, he would be an allegorical figure. In reality, he is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, 'What might Christ become like, if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?' This is not allegory at all.[109]

"Trilemma"

Main article: Lewis's trilemma
In a much-cited passage from Mere Christianity, Lewis challenged the view that Jesus was a great moral teacher but not God. He argued that Jesus made several implicit claims to divinity, which would logically exclude that claim:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.[110]
Although this argument is sometimes called "Lewis's trilemma", Lewis did not invent it but rather developed and popularised it. It has also been used by Christian apologist Josh McDowell in his book More Than a Carpenter.[111] It has been widely repeated in Christian apologetic literature, but largely ignored by professional theologians and biblical scholars.[112]
Lewis's Christian apologetics, and this argument in particular, have been criticised. Philosopher John Beversluis described Lewis's arguments as "textually careless and theologically unreliable",[113] and this particular argument as logically unsound and an example of a false dilemma.[114] Theologian John Hick argues that New Testament scholars do not now support the view that Jesus claimed to be God.[115] New Testament scholar N. T. Wright criticises Lewis for failing to recognise the significance of Jesus' Jewish identity and setting – an oversight which "at best, drastically short-circuits the argument" and which lays Lewis open to criticism that his argument "doesn't work as history, and it backfires dangerously when historical critics question his reading of the gospels", although he believes this "doesn't undermine the eventual claim".[116]
Lewis used a similar argument in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, when the old Professor advises the young heroes that their sister's claims of a magical world must logically be taken as either lies, madness, or truth.[105]

Universal morality

One of the main theses in Lewis's apologia is that there is a common morality known throughout humanity, which he calls "natural law". In the first five chapters of Mere Christianity, Lewis discusses the idea that people have a standard of behaviour to which they expect people to adhere. Lewis claims that people all over the earth know what this law is and when they break it. He goes on to claim that there must be someone or something behind such a universal set of principles.[117]
These then are the two points that I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in.[118]
Lewis also portrays Universal Morality in his works of fiction. In The Chronicles of Narnia he describes Universal Morality as the "deep magic" which everyone knew.[119]
In the second chapter of Mere Christianity, Lewis recognises that "many people find it difficult to understand what this Law of Human Nature ... is." And he responds first to the idea "that the Moral Law is simply our herd instinct" and second to the idea "that the Moral Law is simply a social convention". In responding to the second idea Lewis notes that people often complain that one set of moral ideas is better than another, but that this actually argues for there existing some "Real Morality" to which they are comparing other moralities. Finally, he notes that sometimes differences in moral codes are exaggerated by people who confuse differences in beliefs about morality with differences in beliefs about facts:
I have met people who exaggerate the differences, because they have not distinguished between differences of morality and differences of belief about facts. For example, one man said to me, "Three hundred years ago people in England were putting witches to death. Was that what you call the Rule of Human Nature or Right Conduct?" But surely the reason we do not execute witches is that we do not believe there are such things. If we did – if we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbours or drive them mad or bring bad weather, surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did. There is no difference of moral principle here: the difference is simply about matter of fact. It may be a great advance in knowledge not to believe in witches: there is no moral advance in not executing them when you do not think they are there. You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believed there were no mice in the house.[120]
Lewis also had fairly progressive views on the topic of "animal morality", in particular the suffering of animals, as is evidenced by several of his essays: most notably, On Vivisection[121] and "On the Pains of Animals".[122][123]

Legacy

Ross Wilson's statue of C.S. Lewis in front of the wardrobe from his book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in East Belfast
Lewis continues to attract a wide readership. In 2008, The Times ranked him eleventh on their list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945".[124] Readers of his fiction are often unaware of what Lewis considered the Christian themes of his works. His Christian apologetics are read and quoted by members of many Christian denominations.[125] In 2013, on the 50th anniversary of his death, Lewis joined some of Britain's greatest writers recognised at Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey.[126] The dedication service, at noon on 22 November 2013, included a reading from The Last Battle by Douglas Gresham, younger stepson of Lewis. Flowers were laid by Walter Hooper, trustee and literary advisor to the Lewis Estate. An address was delivered by former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.[127][page needed] The floor stone inscription is a quotation from an address by Lewis:
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else.[127]
Lewis has been the subject of several biographies, a few of which were written by close friends, such as Roger Lancelyn Green and George Sayer.[128][129] In 1985, the screenplay Shadowlands by William Nicholson dramatised Lewis's life and relationship with Joy Davidman Gresham.[130] It was aired on British television starring Joss Ackland and Claire Bloom.[131] This was also staged as a theatre play starring Nigel Hawthorne in 1989[132] and made into the 1993 feature film Shadowlands starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger.[133]
A mural depicting Lewis and characters from the Narnia series, Convention Court, Ballymacarrett Road, East Belfast
Many books have been inspired by Lewis, including A Severe Mercy by his correspondent and friend Sheldon Vanauken. The Chronicles of Narnia has been particularly influential. Modern children's literature has been more or less influenced by Lewis's series, such as Daniel Handler's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, and J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter.(Hilliard 2005) Pullman is an atheist and is known to be sharply critical of C.S. Lewis's work,[134] accusing Lewis of featuring religious propaganda, misogyny, racism, and emotional sadism in his books.[135] However, he has also modestly praised The Chronicles of Narnia for being a "more serious" work of literature in comparison with Tolkien's "trivial" The Lord of the Rings.[136] Authors of adult fantasy literature such as Tim Powers have also testified to being influenced by Lewis's work.[137]
In A Sword Between the Sexes? C. S. Lewis and the Gender Debates, Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen finds in Lewis's work "a hierarchical and essentialist view of class and gender" corresponding to an upbringing during the Edwardian era.[138]
Most of Lewis's posthumous work has been edited by his literary executor Walter Hooper. Kathryn Lindskoog, an independent Lewis scholar, argued that Hooper's scholarship is not reliable and that he has made false statements and attributed forged works to Lewis.[139] C. S. Lewis's stepson Douglas Gresham denies the forgery claims, saying, "The whole controversy thing was engineered for very personal reasons ... Her fanciful theories have been pretty thoroughly discredited."[140]
A bronze statue of Lewis's character Digory from The Magician's Nephew stands in Belfast's Holywood Arches in front of the Holywood Road Library.[141]
Several C. S. Lewis Societies exist around the world, including one which was founded in Oxford in 1982. The C.S. Lewis Society at the University of Oxford meets at Pusey House during term time to discuss papers on the life and works of Lewis and the other Inklings, and generally appreciate all things Lewisian.[142]
Live-action film adaptations have been made of three of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005), Prince Caspian (2008) and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010).
Lewis is featured as a main character in The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica series by James A. Owen.[143] He is one of two characters in Mark St. Germain's 2009 play Freud's Last Session, which imagines a meeting between Lewis, aged 40, and Sigmund Freud, aged 83, at Freud's house in Hampstead, London, in 1939, as the Second World War is about to break out.[144]
The CS Lewis Nature Reserve, on ground owned by Lewis, lies behind his house, The Kilns. There is public access.

Bibliography

Main article: C. S. Lewis bibliography

Secondary works

  • John Beversluis (1985), C. S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans ISBN 0-8028-0046-7
  • Ronald W. Bresland (1999), The Backward Glance: C. S. Lewis and Ireland. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies at Queen's University of Belfast.
  • Devin Brown (2013), A Life Observed: A Spiritual Biography of C. S. Lewis. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press ISBN 978-1587433351
  • Joe R. Christopher & Joan K. Ostling (1972), C. S. Lewis: An Annotated Checklist of Writings About Him and His Works. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, n.d. ISBN 0-87338-138-6
  • James Como (1998), Branches to Heaven: The Geniuses of C. S. Lewis. Spence
  • James Como (2006), Remembering C. S. Lewis (3rd edn. of C. S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table). Ignatius Press
  • Sean Connolly (2007), Inklings of Heaven: C. S. Lewis and Eschatology. Gracewing. ISBN 978-0-85244-659-1
  • Michael Coren (1994), The Man Who Created Narnia: The Story of C. S. Lewis. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, reprint edition 1996 (First published 1994 in Canada by Lester Publishing Limited). ISBN 0-8028-3822-7
  • Christopher Derrick (1981) C. S. Lewis and the Church of Rome: A Study in Proto-Ecumenism. Ignatius Press. ISBN 978-99917-1-850-7
  • David C. Downing (1992), Planets in Peril: A Critical Study of C. S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 0-87023-997-X
  • David C. Downing (2002), The Most Reluctant Convert: C. S. Lewis's Journey to Faith. InterVarsity. ISBN 0-8308-3271-8
  • David C. Downing (2005), Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C. S. Lewis. InterVarsity. ISBN 0-8308-3284-X
  • David C. Downing (2005), Into the Wardrobe: C. S. Lewis and the Narnia Chronicles. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 0-7879-7890-6
  • Colin Duriez (2003), Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship. Paulist Press ISBN 1-58768-026-2
  • Colin Duriez (2015), Bedeviled: Lewis, Tolkien and the Shadow of Evil. InterVarsity Press ISBN 0-8308-3417-6
  • Colin Duriez & David Porter (2001), The Inklings Handbook: The Lives, Thought and Writings of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and Their Friends. London: Azure. ISBN 1-902694-13-9
  • Bruce L. Edwards (2005), Not a Tame Lion: The Spiritual World of Narnia. Tyndale. ISBN 1-4143-0381-5
  • Bruce L. Edwards (2005), Further Up and Further In: Understanding C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Broadman and Holman. ISBN 0-8054-4070-4
  • Edwards, Bruce L. (2007). Bruce L. Edwards (ed.). C. S. Lewis: Life, Works, and Legacy. Praeger Perspectives. ISBN 978-0-275-99116-6.
  • Alastair Fowler, "C. S. Lewis: Supervisor", Yale Review; Vol. 91, No. 4 (October 2003).
  • Helen Gardner (1966) "† Clive Staples Lewis, 1898–1963". Biographical memoir, in Proceedings of the British Academy 51 (1966), 417–28.
  • Jocelyn Gibb (ed.) (1965), Light on C. S. Lewis. Geoffrey Bles, 1965, & Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976. ISBN 0-15-652000-1
  • Douglas Gilbert & Clyde Kilby (1973) C. S. Lewis: Images of His World. Eerdmans, 1973 & 2005. ISBN 0-8028-2800-0
  • Glyer, Diana (2007). The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. ISBN 978-0-87338-890-0..
  • Hooper, Walter; Green, Roger Lancelyn (2002) [1974]. C. S. Lewis: A Biography. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-628164-1.
  • Douglas Gresham (1994), Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis. HarperSanFrancisco. ISBN 0-06-063447-2
  • ——— (2005), Jack's Life: A Memory of C. S. Lewis. Broadman & Holman Publishers. ISBN 0-8054-3246-9
  • William Griffin (2005), C. S. Lewis: The Authentic Voice (formerly C. S. Lewis: A Dramatic Life). Lion. ISBN 0-7459-5208-9
  • Dabney Adams Hart (1984), Through the Open Door: A New Look at C. S. Lewis. University of Alabama Press. ISBN 0-8173-0187-9
  • Joel D. Heck (2006), Irrigating Deserts: C. S. Lewis on Education. Concordia Publishing House. ISBN 0-7586-0044-5
  • Carolyn Keefe (1979), C. S. Lewis: Speaker & Teacher. Zondervan. ISBN 0-310-26781-1
  • Jon Kennedy (2008), The Everything Guide to C. S. Lewis and Narnia. Adams Media. ISBN 1-59869-427-8
  • Jon Kennedy (2012), C. S. Lewis Themes and Threads. Amazon Kindle ASIN B00ATSY3AQ
  • Clyde S. Kilby (1964), The Christian World of C. S. Lewis. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964, 1995. ISBN 0-8028-0871-9
  • Don W. King (2001), C. S. Lewis, Poet: The Legacy of His Poetic Impulse. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. ISBN 0-87338-681-7
  • Kathryn Lindskoog (1994), Light in the Shadowlands: Protecting the Real C. S. Lewis. Multnomah Pub. ISBN 0-88070-695-3
  • Susan Lowenberg (1993), C. S. Lewis: A Reference Guide, 1972–1988. Hall & Co. ISBN 0-8161-1846-9
  • Wayne Mardindale & Jerry Root (1990), The Quotable Lewis. Tyndale House Publishers. ISBN 0-8423-5115-9
  • Thomas L. Martin (ed.) (2000), Reading the Classics with C. S. Lewis. Baker Academic. ISBN 1-84227-073-7
  • Laura Miller (2008) "The Magician's Book", Little, Brown & Co. ISBN 978-0-316-01763-3
  • David Mills (ed) (1998) The Pilgrim's Guide: C. S. Lewis and the Art of Witness. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. ISBN 0-8028-4689-0
  • Joseph Pearce (1999), C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church. HarperCollins, 1999; then Ignatius Press, 2003. ISBN 0-89870-979-2
  • Thomas C. Peters (1998), Simply C. S. Lewis: A Beginner's Guide to His Life and Works. Kingsway Publications. ISBN 0-85476-762-2
  • Justin Phillips (2003), C. S. Lewis at the BBC: Messages of Hope in the Darkness of War. Marshall Pickering. ISBN 0-00-710437-5
  • Harry Lee Poe & Rebecca Whitten Poe (eds) (2006), C. S. Lewis Remembered: Collected Reflections of Students, Friends & Colleagues. Zondervan. ISBN 978-0-310-26509-2
  • Victor Reppert (2003), C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 0-8308-2732-3
  • George Sayer (1988), Jack: C. S. Lewis and His Times. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-43362-9
  • Peter J. Schakel (1984), Reason and Imagination in C. S. Lewis: A Study of "Till We Have Faces". Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. ISBN 0-8028-1998-2
  • Peter J. Schakel (2002), Imagination and the Arts in C. S. Lewis: Journeying to Narnia and Other Worlds. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 0-8262-1407-X
  • Peter J. Schakel (ed.) (1977), The Longing for a Form: Essays on the Fiction of C. S. Lewis. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. ISBN 0-87338-204-8
  • Peter J. Schakel & Charles A. Huttar (eds.) (1991), Word and Story in C. S. Lewis. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 0-8262-0760-X
  • Stephen Schofield (1983), In Search of C. S. Lewis. Bridge Logos Pub. ISBN 0-88270-544-X
  • Jeffrey D. Schultz & John G. West, Jr. (eds) (1998), The C. S. Lewis Readers' Encyclopedia. Zondervan Publishing House. ISBN 0-310-21538-2
  • Sanford Schwartz (2009), C. S. Lewis on the Final Frontier: Science and the Supernatural in the Space Trilogy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-537472-8.
  • G. B. Tennyson (ed.) (1989), Owen Barfield on C. S. Lewis. Wesleyan University Press ISBN 0-8195-5233-X
  • Richard J. Wagner (2005) C. S. Lewis and Narnia for Dummies. For Dummies. ISBN 0-7645-8381-6
  • Andrew Walker & Patrick James (eds.) (1998), Rumours of Heaven: Essays in Celebration of C. S. Lewis, Guildford: Eagle. ISBN 0-86347-250-8
  • Chad Walsh (1949), C. S. Lewis: Apostle to the Skeptics. London: Macmillan
  • Chad Walsh (1979), The Literary Legacy of C. S. Lewis. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN 0-15-652785-5
  • Michael Ward (2008), Planet Narnia. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-531387-1
  • George Watson (ed.) (1992), Critical Essays on C. S. Lewis. Menston: Scolar Press. ISBN 0-85967-853-9
  • Michael White (2005), C. S. Lewis: The Boy Who Chronicled Narnia. Abacus. ISBN 0-349-11625-3
  • Erik J. Wielenberg (2007), God and the Reach of Reason. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-70710-7
  • Wilson, A. N. (2002) [1990]. C. S. Lewis: A Biography. W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-32340-5..
  • ———— (1991) [1990]. C. S. Lewis: A Biography. London: Harper Perennial..

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Carpenter, Humphrey (2017). The Inklings: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and Their Friends. London: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. ISBN 9780007748693.
  2. ^ Lewis 1997, p. 6.
  3. ^ Richard B. Cunningham, C. S. Lewis: Defender of the Faith, Wipf and Stock Publishers (2008), p. 14
  4. ^ Bennett, Jack Arthur Walter; Plaskitt, Emma Lisa (2008) [2004]. "Lewis, Clive Staples (1898–1963)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/34512. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  5. ^ "The Life of C.S. Lewis Timeline". C.S. Lewis Foundation. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  6. ^ "C.S. Lewis Biography". Encyclopedia of World Biography. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  7. ^ "A personalised tour of the church and rectory that inspired CS Lewis and Aslan the Lion". Retrieved 28 February 2020.
  8. ^ Howat, Irene (2006). Ten Boys Who Used Their Talents. Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications Ltd. p. 22. ISBN 978-1-84550-146-4.
  9. ^ Smith, Sandy (18 February 2016). "Surprised by Belfast: Significant Sites in the Land and Life of C.S. Lewis, Part 1, Little Lea". C.S. Lewis Institute. Retrieved 7 March 2017.
  10. ^ Lewis 1966b, p. 10.
  11. ^ Lewis 1966b, p. 56.
  12. ^ Lewis 1966a, p. 107.
  13. ^ Jump up to:a b c Lewis, C.S. (1955). Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life. New York City: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. pp. 128–186. ISBN 978-0-15-687011-5.
  14. ^ Bloom, Harold (2006). C. S. Lewis. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. p. 196. ISBN 978-0791093191.
  15. ^ "About C.S. Lewis". CSLewis.com. Archived from the original on 6 April 2016. Retrieved 4 February 2016.
  16. ^ Lewis 1966b, p. 24.
  17. ^ Martindale, Wayne (2005). Beyond the Shadowlands: C. S. Lewis on Heaven and Hell. Crossway. p. 52. ISBN 978-1581345131.
  18. ^ Lewis 1984, p. 118.
  19. ^ Jump up to:a b Lewis 2000, p. 59.
  20. ^ Lewis 2004, pp. 564–65.
  21. ^ Yeats's appeal wasn't exclusively Irish; he was also a major "magical opponent" of famed English occultist Aleister Crowley, as noted extensively throughout Lawrence Sutin's Do what thou wilt: a life of Aleister Crowley. New York: MacMillan (St. Martins). cf. pp. 56–78.
  22. ^ King, Francis (1978). The Magical World of Aleister Crowley. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan. ISBN 978-0-698-10884-4.
  23. ^ Jump up to:a b Peters, Thomas C. (1997). Simply C. S. Lewis: A Beginner's Guide to the Life and Works of C. S. Lewis. Crossway Books. p. 70. ISBN 978-0891079484.
  24. ^ Lewis 2004, p. 310.
  25. ^ Clare 2010, pp. 21–22.
  26. ^ The Old Inn 2007.
  27. ^ Lewis 1993, p. 93.
  28. ^ Wilson 1991, p. xi.
  29. ^ Clare 2010, p. 24.
  30. ^ Paul Stevens, review of "Reforming Empire: Protestant Colonialism and Conscience in British Literature" by Christopher Hodgkins, Modern Philology, Vol. 103, Issue 1 (August 2005), pp. 137–38, citing Humphrey Carpenter, The Inklings (London: Allen & Unwin, 1978), pp. 50–52, 206–207.
  31. ^ Jump up to:a b c Lewis, C. S. (1955). Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life. Orlando, FL: Harvest Books. pp. 186–88. ISBN 978-0-15-687011-5.
  32. ^ Jump up to:a b Sayer, George (1994). Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis (2nd ed.). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books. pp. 122–130. ISBN 978-0-89107-761-9.
  33. ^ Jump up to:a b Arnott, Anne (1975). The Secret Country of C. S. Lewis. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. ISBN 978-0802834683.
  34. ^ Bruce L. Edwards (2007). C.S. Lewis: An examined life. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 134–135. ISBN 978-0-275-99117-3.
  35. ^ Conn, Marie (2008). C.S. Lewis and Human Suffering: Light Among the Shadows. Mahwah, NJ: HiddenSpring. p. 21. ISBN 9781587680441.
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Your Soul's Plan: Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born

Amazon.com.au:Customer reviews: Your Soul's Plan: Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born



Your Soul's Plan: Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born Paperback – 1 January 2011

by Robert Schwartz (Author)

4.6 out of 5 stars    879 ratings

 





Your Soul's Plan explores the provocative premise that we are all eternal souls who plan our lives, including our greatest challenges, before we are born for the purpose of spiritual growth. Through compelling profiles of people who knowingly planned experiences such as AIDS and cancer, parenting children with disabilities, deafness, blindness, drug addiction, alcoholism, losing a loved one, and severe accidents, this book shows that suffering is not purposeless, but imbued with deep meaning. Working with four of the country's most gifted mediums, author Robert Schwartz reveals the significance of each individual's soul plan and allows us a fascinating look into the "other side."Each personal story focuses on a specific life challenge, organized by type for easy reference. Accessible both to those familiar with the metaphysical aspects of spirituality and to the general reader, the moving narratives that comprise Your Soul's Plan help readers awaken to the reality that they are transcendent, eternal souls. With this stirring book as a guide, feelings of anger, resentment, guilt, and victimization are healed and replaced by acceptance, forgiveness, peace, and gratitude.









Customer Reviews: 4.6 out of 5 stars    879 ratings

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"The more we know about the meaning of life, the better we understand the important choices we must make. Robert Schwartz has done an excellent job of presenting the possible explanations of what we are doing here and why we are here. I highly recommend this book."

--Dannion Brinkley, author of Saved by the Light and The Secrets of the Light

"Your Soul's Plan is a deeply insightful guide as to why our lives unfold as they do and how to direct them to a deeper place. A powerful book . . . I highly recommend it."

--Sonia Choquette, author of The Answer is Simple . . . Love Yourself, Live Your Spirit!



"Your Soul's Plan is one of the most detailed explorations I have seen into understanding why we have chosen certain paths in our lives and how we may use that information to continue our journey as a soul here and now. This book will help thousands of people. A book you HAVE to have in your library!"

--John Holland, author of Born Knowing and Power of the Soul



"Schwartz provides a very special sense of seeing divine order everywhere... Your Soul's Plan provides a fabulous and much-needed compass for those of us seeking to regain the deeper awareness of our core spiritual strength. Highly recommended!"

--New Consciousness Review



"Your Soul's Plan is highly recommended to anyone trying to understand the suffering, tragedy or loss that has caused them to question life, death and/or God. And who among us is not inflicted by such challenges and questions in our lifetime? In my eight years researching life after death, spirituality and life purpose, I have discovered no better explanation of why human challenges exist than what is so eloquently written in Robert Schwartz's book."

--Bob Olson, OfSpirit.com Editor



"The serene cover of Your Soul's Plan belies the punch with which Robert Schwartz communicates the results of his research into pre-birth planning . . . Overall, it is one of the best books of this kind I have come across."

--Anna Jedrziewski, New Age Retailer magazine



About the Author

In a personal session with a medium in 2003, author Robert Schwartz was astonished to speak with nonphysical beings who knew everything about him-not just what he had done in life, but also what he had thought and felt. They told him that he had planned many of his most difficult experiences before he was born. Realizing that a knowledge of pre-birth planning would bring great healing to people and allow them to understand the deeper purpose of their life challenges, he devoted the next three years to studying the pre-birth plans of dozens of individuals. The extraordinary insights that emerged speak to our heartfelt, universal yearning to know . . . why.

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From Australia

Ascension

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing

Reviewed in Australia on 27 March 2019

Verified Purchase

This is a definite must read book for anyone who asks “Why are we here, what is my purpose, why am I suffering so much” etc, the deep questions, for our time here on earth. It is an Amazing book, loved every page, couldn’t stop reading it.

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linda

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly enjoyed this page turner!!!

Reviewed in Australia on 4 November 2015

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Very much an eye-opener!! Fascinating to realise we choose our lives pre-birth. Am still finding it difficult to come to terms with....Robert Schwartz is a brilliant writer, not to mention the mediums who channelled the information for this book.



Thank you Robert Schwartz & co for bringing this information to the world.

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Sis

1.0 out of 5 stars Not worth the money

Reviewed in Australia on 31 July 2020

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Just don't cut it for me.

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Amazon Customer

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book

Reviewed in Australia on 16 January 2016

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This book came in right time...I highly would recommend it to anyone, yet I think the book will find you when you are ready for it😊

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Judy

5.0 out of 5 stars highly recommended.

Reviewed in Australia on 11 December 2014

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Answered a lot of questions for me about soul contracts, highly recommended.

2 people found this helpful

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Stacyg

2.0 out of 5 stars Two Stars

Reviewed in Australia on 16 February 2015

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This book was a little disappointing, I didn't learn anything I didn't already know.

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From other countries

tchimbouani

5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent book but a few questions

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 July 2018

Verified Purchase

I did love the book. Thank you very much Sir for the account of all these lives and their courageous journeys. Thank you very much for all the wisdom that is encapsulated in these pages. It really helps to better understand the world we live in and it helps with raising our inner peace. Thank you very much for that. A few remarks and some questions I have that are left unanswered though:

- Does someone who lives through child abuse or rape choose this experience in every case? If so, why?

- Does someone choose to be born in a poor, unstable and under-developed country? If so, why?

- Has a collective of souls chosen Africa to be this poverty and disease-stricken continent? Is Africa the continent of choice for experiencing the atrocities we know are happening there, and should we be grateful for this? How does one not become mad as he wrestles with the possibility of such an idea?

- The book feels too US-centric. It would have been good to have examples from diverse countries, diverse continents and diverse cultures.

- It would have been good to further explore the difference between a soul choice and a free-will choice. Example: the mistake of the nurse which made one of the characters blind at birth, the boyfriend who kills his partner the mum, they seem to have been acts of 'free-will', which generated an unplanned course of events. It renders the frontier between the planned and the unplanned very blurry. Another book with the exploration and explanation of this would be amazing.

Thanks again.

11 people found this helpful

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Titus L

5.0 out of 5 stars Life Changing Outlook of our Souls

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 February 2020

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Robert Schwartz' book 'Your Soul's Plan' in which with the the help of Mediums he communicates with persons souls to discuss how their lives had come to experience great hardships and challenges, is remarkable.



The astonishing outlook they offer is that the souls themselves, in agreement with those of the key participants in their ensuing earth lives, have chosen and agreed to support each other with the difficulties they experience such as blindness, illness and death. In the conrtext of our souls being infinite in nature, the experiences and cost of our brief human lives is not so insurmountable in nature against the lessons they may learn during each life, this view is acceptable if the soul has so chosen.



I feel a great affinity with this book because it empowers the souls who otherwise may appear to be victims blighted by lifes cruelties - Instead they are presented as souls persuing by agreement with their companion souls such as myself the challenges of lifes hardships and death as a method of soul learning to develop greater compassion and love for all beings. ''Earth primarily serves the function of teaching you to let go of fear and (to) love unconditionally'' Spirit Guide as channeled by the Medium Staci Wells.



In such a remarkable universe that we exist within, this view presents a wider outlook of an intrinsically loving Creator who supports us in co-creating our own paths of spiritual evolution.

One person found this helpful

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Miss C Lee

5.0 out of 5 stars An emotional read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 April 2018

Verified Purchase

I really enjoyed this. Even if you don’t believe in the concept it gives the reader a deep understanding of how people cope with their difficulties and is very compassionily written. Thank you to the author and the wonderfully brave people for sharing their experiences.

3 people found this helpful

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E WILLIAMS

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read, beautifully insightful research.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 September 2020

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This book is truly fascinating, insightful and easy to read. My perspective of the Soul and the lessons we learn here are now changed forever, it really gives you peace to understand our purpose in everything is unconditional love. So we'll written and researched I couldn't put it down.

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---

Your Soul's Plan: Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born

by Robert Schwartz (Goodreads Author)

 4.29  ·   Rating details ·  1,529 ratings  ·  136 reviews

Would you like to understand the deeper spiritual meaning of physical illness, parenting handicapped children, drug addiction, alcoholism, the death of a loved one, accidents, deafness, and blindness?



Your Soul’s Plan (which was originally published under the title Courageous Souls: Do We Plan Our Life Challenges Before Birth?) explores the premise that we are all eternal souls who plan our lives, including our greatest challenges, before we are born for the purpose of spiritual growth. Through compelling profiles of people who knowingly planned the experiences mentioned above, Your Soul’s Plan shows that suffering is not purposeless, but rather imbued with deep meaning. Working with four gifted mediums, author Robert Schwartz reveals the significance of each person’s life plan and allows us a fascinating look into the “other side.”



Each personal story focuses on a specific life challenge, organized by type for easy reference. Accessible both to those familiar with the metaphysical aspects of spirituality and to the general reader, the moving narratives that comprise Your Soul’s Plan help readers awaken to the reality that they are transcendent, eternal souls. With this stirring book as a guide, feelings of anger, resentment, guilt, and victimization are healed and transformed into acceptance, forgiveness, gratitude, and peace.



Robert Schwartz is also the author of Your Soul’s Gift: The Healing Power of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born, which explores the pre-birth planning of spiritual awakening, miscarriage, abortion, caregiving, abusive relationships, sexuality, incest, adoption, poverty, suicide, rape, and mental illness. There’s also a chapter about the pre-birth planning we do with our future pets.



Robert Schwartz is a hypnotherapist who offers general Spiritual Guidance Sessions, Past Life Soul Regressions, and Between Lives Soul Regressions. Visit Robert online at www.yoursoulsplan.com. (less)

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Published May 18th 2010 by North Atlantic Books (first published March 24th 2009)

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Kylie Sparks

Oct 09, 2011Kylie Sparks rated it it was amazing

This is an amazing book. I know it is going to be too "out there" for many people, but for me it confirms what I have always intuitively known to be true: that we plan many aspects of our lives before we are born, including our parents and significant life events. And no matter how harsh those events might seem, they serve a purpose. This book falls in the category of life changing for me.

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Robert

Jul 16, 2008Robert rated it it was amazing  ·  (Review from the author)  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: booksiwrote

Your Soul’s Plan: Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born by Robert Schwartz (www.yoursoulsplan.com) explores the premise that we are all eternal souls who plan our lives, including our greatest challenges, before we’re born for purposes of spiritual growth. The book contains ten true stories of people who planned physical illness, having disabled children, deafness, blindness, drug addiction, alcoholism, losing a loved one, and severe accidents. The information about their pre-birth plans was obtained by four gifted mediums and channels. The book presents the actual conversations people had with their future parents, children, spouses, friends, and other loved ones when they planned their lives together. For readers, suffering that once seemed purposeless becomes imbued with deep meaning. Wisdom may be acquired in a more conscious manner; feelings of anger, guilt, blame, and victimization are healed and replaced by acceptance, forgiveness, gratitude, and peace. (less)

flag19 likes · Like  · 2 comments · see review

Gaile

Oct 22, 2010Gaile rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: new-age-spiritual

I read this with great interest as I am deaf myself and somewhat in the dark as to why I would have planned this.

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Iona  Stewart

May 30, 2014Iona Stewart rated it it was amazing

This is an important book.



By means of communication through mediums and channels, Robert Schwartz examines the subject of pre-birth planning by having these interview angels, spirit guides and the souls of selected persons exposed to severe life challenges. We are given access to pre-birth conversations and thus gain “direct” information regarding how we arrange difficult life events beforehand with all the involved persons.



Six types of challenges are dealt with, a chapter being devoted to each. These are physical illness, parenting handicapped children, deafness and blindness, drug addiction and alcoholism, death of a loved one and, finally, accidents.



I was previously aware of the concept of pre-birth planning, but this well-written book has illuminated the matter clearly for me and I have been much comforted by reading it. Partly, I have myself considerable health challenges and have been aware of the fact that they had meaning, but have now been confirmed of this. The book has comforted me. Also, the book has taught me to respect brave persons I encounter who I understand have chosen their hard lot in life for purposes of growth.



In the first chapter about physical illness, we meet Jon, who chose both to have AIDS and be gay. Jon planned the experience of having AIDS, not just for his own learning, but for the growth of his entire soul group. The progress we as personalities make on the Earth plane expands both our individual souls and every soul in our group. “The disease of AIDS is about splitting a desire for unconditional love with the belief that one does not deserve it.” Jon came down to his life to heal shame – the belief that he is not deserving of unconditional love.



The author asks an angel what it would say to someone with AIDS who is trying to understand the deeper spiritual meaning. The angel replies “Remain very open in your heart. Follow that which comes only from the heart, and in this way many healings will occur on levels that are beyond your understanding.” I feel this is valuable advice.



Of the souls in Jon’s soul group, Jon agreed to be the one with AIDS, while the others were incarnating around him to judge him, reject him and refrain from providing him with unconditional love.



AIDS “points to a pattern of self-hatred among humankind … movement away from light, and a belief in the Self as the body and separate from All That Is.” AIDS is healing humanity.



We also hear about Doris, who suffered from self-loathing and had a toxic self-image. She developed breast cancer. Through her illness Doris learnt the correct use of sexual energy, acceptance of the female form and self-love.



Doris’s cancer is neither a failure nor a punishment. It is a form of healing, not illness,



“As Jon and Doris released shame and self-loathing and chose instead to love themselves, they made it easier for every person on Earth to replace self-judgement with self-love.” They created a vibration or resonance of love that radiated well beyond their immediate sphere. “By surmounting the challenges we planned before birth, we create a resonance that heals humanity.”



In the chapter about parenting handicapped children, we hear the story of Jennifer, who has two handicapped boys, one with Asperger’s Syndrome, bipolar disorder and ADD, the other one with severe autism and who is blind.



The two boys were brothers in a previous life, where they also were Nazis. They chose to come back “communicationally disabled” to learn what it is like to have the truth and be unable to communicate it, since before “they had the truth and deliberately buried it.”



In the chapter about deafness and blindness we are given the story of Penelope, who has been completely deaf since birth, She knew she was meant to be deaf “to better understand the neglected”. The medium, Staci, finds out that being deaf gives Penelope the opportunity to be more in touch with her “inner experience, intuition, thoughts, even the physical symptoms and feedback” her body gives her. It helps her to know herself.



We also learn about Bob, who is blind. His life plan was designed to give him a deeper understanding of self-love through both its lack and the experience of its subsequent creation.



The chapter on drug addiction and alcoholism is particularly illuminating, since this is a group whom we often judge, wondering why they don’t just pull themselves together and refrain from submitting to their addiction. The persons involved planned not only their addiction, but the specific addictive substance. We are told that for those addicted to drugs it is “essential to honour your past, know yourself, learn about who you are, and then love yourself”.



We learn to see drug addicts not as such but as courageous souls who undertook the life challenge of drug addiction to learn self-nurturing.



Pat, the alcoholic, had carried into this life the energy of fear. His plan was that fear would cause alcoholism, which in turn could lead to a healing of fear. He planned not only his alcoholism but the surmounting of that addiction. He had lost his connection with the All That Is, with God, with his own divine nature and spirituality. The return to seeking and achieving spiritual connection is motivated by the total lack of it, which the alcoholism causes. This was a classic learning-through-opposites life plan.



The chapters on the death of a loved one and accidents are equally instructive.



I found the book as a whole to be thoroughly illuminating, insightful, informative, satisfying, comforting and perfectly expressed. I would absolutely recommend this book to everyone. It is one of the most important books I have read this year, in fact, ever.



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Jennifer

Sep 05, 2009Jennifer rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition

Well, I think this is one of those rare books that will change my life. I'd read a book on this subject before, Journey of Souls, which was trying to be more objective and scientific, so I was ready for this one. I definitely recommend this to anyone going through a difficult time.

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Jean

May 14, 2011Jean rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: believers in reincarnation

I found this book while taking Metaphysical courses. It disucsses reincarnation, and how our soul's plan what they need to grow to perfection. We choose the situations we are born in, to balance our karma and gain the experiences we need to do so. We also do this in "Soul Groups" so if you feel like you know someone the first time you met them, they were likely a part of your life in a different incarnation. This was a very interesting read.

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Tusk

Sep 07, 2017Tusk added it

One book that never leaves my coffee table, or even my briefcase when I travel, as I consider it one of the most important tools of my life, Robert Schwartz' "Your Soul's Plan: Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born" brings summation, understanding, compassion, affirmation, and most importantly courage to the forefront.



This book is a miracle.



Not everyone is ready for this information. Yet when it comes your way, expect to be changed -- or not -- personally, it has given me great confidence after one of the most challenging lives imaginable.



Beyond mere words, it is a gift to the world and if you feel you are questioning your place in this existence I would encourage you to find it. It makes a valuable gift to friends who are coping with challenge; thank you to Robert Schwartz for making it happen.



Keep teaching us, Robert.



Christophe Johnston

Portland, OR (less)

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Cobus Koekemoer

Feb 07, 2012Cobus Koekemoer rated it really liked it

I urge everyone to read this book. Just by knowing there is a bigger picture (truth) and by expanding your perspective, your physical life in general becomes more meaningful and your attitude towards your life and everyone you encounter will change for the better. You will become aware of what is truly important and stop "sweating the small stuff." Open yourself up to the truth - you've got nothing to lose - only to gain tremendously.

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Sverre

Apr 21, 2013Sverre rated it liked it

Shelves: metaphysics

This material is what sceptics would call delusional and fundamentalists term as demonic. I think this is an honest effort but those of us who have explored multiple dimensions of the soul's journey, as provided by various sources, would find the concepts in this book comprehensible but not easily compatible with spiritual sensibility.



From this side of the veil, from an ethical, moral and karmic perspective it does seem to go against the grain to put ourselves in the position of superior judgment, delegating instant forgiveness--even commendation--to ourselves or others when committing ignorant, hateful or evil acts. This book can give readers the feeling that as far as our earthly lives are concerned we are often merely puppets in a predetermined game of chess in which free will is given little opportunity to function. I can't help but be a might cynical in respect to this material's emphasis on the frequent goodness of badness. It reminds me quite a bit of the god of Neale Donald Walsch in which moralistic relativism is a strong suit and we are not to attempt to second guess the Grand Scheme of things. It is difficult for me to picture a woman--being one of the "enlightened" ones--who has just been brutally raped, turning to her attacker and saying something like: "I am sure this experience was something I needed and our souls both agreed to, so thank you, and God bless you..."



I found this book well worth the read for curiosity but not one I will treasure. Those who find soul research interesting would be much more challenged by the concepts in "Michael for the Millennium" by Yarbro. I much prefer the works of Michael Newton and the Edgar Cayce legacy. May truth be wherever we find it! (less)

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Paul

May 30, 2018Paul rated it really liked it

Shakespeare said that all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. This author goes one step further and says that we helped write the play, especially our own part. Whether you believe that or not, this book emphasizes that karma means not punishment, but opportunities, with useful insight in recognizing those opportunities in our own lives.

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Saiisha

Dec 31, 2015Saiisha rated it it was amazing

I love recommending this book to my clients who are looking for answers to some of their situations or choices in life. It's a fascinating read with 10 detailed case studies, and it's impossible not to find parallels or answers to some of your own questions.

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Carole

Jan 21, 2016Carole rated it it was amazing

This is an amazing book....if you believe in reincarnation, if you believe your energy moves on and never dies this book will be a mind blowing experience. Only one other book resonated with my heart and soul and made me feel like I had found a guide book for living as a human and it was The New Earth, this books shows us why we are who we are in this lifetime. Love Love Loved it.

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Gregg

Jan 04, 2019Gregg rated it it was amazing

Shelves: metaphysics

Lovely Material to Awaken your Soul Memory! You Chose this Life, and are thus the Designer of your Pre Destiny!

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Ebru

May 02, 2017Ebru rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: spirituality

I read this book a long time ago. I gave it away out of gratitude. Wish I could give an in-depth recommendation... Know that if you are a person earnestly seeking for spiritual answers, for your mind to be changed and world-view to be enriched, if the concept of soul families and pre-birth intention appeals to you, this book is for you. It did my heart so good.

It will give you higher perspectives on any struggle (diseases, addictions, having disabled children, loss of Loved Ones, etc.) whether or not you feel personally relates to you *or could* - in the end you will be flourished with tangible insights and breathtaking love for the Intelligence behind, and look with new eyes at the old, and feel greater devotion to all stories and growing souls, yours included. I remember the touching impact Penelopes story had on me.. they were all honestly healing big time.

I consider it a memory gifted to the One on his conscious path back home, encouraging forgiveness and letting go.

I can only say: If you hear the calling, go for it. ❤

Books like this are like a secret. They may not be for everyone. But for those they are their beauty will be revealed inevitably. (less)

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Ellyn

Oct 09, 2013Ellyn rated it really liked it

I loved gaining the understanding or thought of relaxing since all that we go through serves to teach us and give us more to love in this life!

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Katrine Austin

Jan 03, 2015Katrine Austin rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition

This book was life changing, referred to me from my life partner who is convinced this life is not the first we've interacted on. Very thought provoking read. Highly recommended.

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Nicole

Jun 24, 2015Nicole rated it really liked it

Subject continues to fascinate me, love learning about the soul, both in religious and spiritual terms.

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Divya

Feb 23, 2019Divya rated it really liked it

I read the book slowly, over many weeks, giving myself time to digest and mull over the matter - reflecting as I was reading through.

This book is centred on the basic premise that all the worlds a stage, we write the play, especially our own part in it, to learn certain lessons, that help in spiritual evolution, the quicker you learn, the more you discover about life and living.

The closest I’ve come to reading matter like this is 10-15 years ago - a book by Dr. Brian Weiss called Many Lives Many Masters, a psychologist, that uses past life regression in therapy with miraculous results. While that book was more like this happened and then this result ensued, this book went more into the why, what were the lessons learned, how this can be applied to more people at large. So while nothing in this book was earth shatteringly new material, there was something refreshing here. I liked the format of stories, it was very impactful. I like the emphasis on life lessons that were woven into stories through the book. I felt like some more information on how he found people to interview and how he found the people who made his book possible was lacking - it could have added more context. And some stuff seemed repetitive. But overall, lovely read. I’d highly recommend to people interested in their spiritual evolution. (less)

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