Mysticism, Magic, and Monasteries

Mysticism, Magic, and Monasteries: Recovering the Sacred Mystery at the Heart of Reality

by Sebastian Morello

Os Justi Press (Lincoln, NE 2024)

Sebastian Morello, a well-known contributor to European Conservative magazine, makes a dramatic plea for the reorientation and renewal of Roman Catholic spiritual life. His new book, Mysticism, Magic and Monasteries (“MMM”) appears at a favorable moment, for hasn’t Rod Dreher just published his own manifesto in favor of mysticism and rediscovering the ”enchantment” of the world:  Living in Wonder? (In fact, Morello reviews this book at the end of MMM). Moreover, Charles Coulombe, an advocate of such ideas for many years,  has written a foreword to Morello’s book.

Like Dreher, Morello confronts the desacralization of the world and of the contemporary Church, both now almost totally suffocated by the rationalism and materialism of modernity.  The mystic wellsprings of Christianity have been largely sealed off. In the West, the contemplative life has been reduced to the province of a small group of specialists. Indeed, there are indications that even these remnants have become targets of the leadership of the Church. Among the clergy, instead of mystics we have managers. The result is a world devoid of meaning.

Now throughout this book the author provides a critical review of the state of the Roman Catholic Church today. I have rarely read such a damning and accurate indictment. Of course, Morello’s status as an author at a secular publication enables him to be franker than most. Consider his perceptive comments on the Church’s dramatic loss of authority:

The hierarchy of the Church has almost entirely lost authority in the eyes of the rest of the faithful. … Among the vocal, active, Catholics of the second half of the twentieth century, there were broadly three factions: the progressives, the traditionalists and the post-conciliar neocons. That third category was dominant until the reign of Pope Francis, but since then has nearly totally disappeared. The champions of the “hermeneutic of continuity” have, generally speaking, fallen silent. It was too difficult to keep it up. …[T]here remained two dominant groups: the progressives and the traditionalists. Neither of these groups maintained much confidence in the authority of the Holy See or the curia. (p.47)

Very true – although I am not as confident that the neocons, even if they have quieted down, have totally disappeared!

Morello traces the disenchantment of the West to the ascendancy of the philosophy of Descartes and its division between the mind and the body. He advocates a return to the medieval and renaissance vision of the material world as participating in the divine. He cites elements of Catholic spirituality in prior ages that have been subsequently obscured: like the connections of Albert the Great and even Thomas Aquinas with Platonism, mysticism and “hermetic magic.” He discusses favorably the writings of  Renaissance humanists in Italy and Germany and their fascination with Platonic, esoteric and  hermetic thought. Morello also finds intellectual allies in much more recent times, such as Valentin Tomberg and his unique Meditations on the Tarot (1980)!  All these connections and links were once mainstream in Catholic thought, but in recent ages have been consigned to obscurity by an embarrassed Catholic Church. Morello does not claim that   reconnection with hermetic magic will rescue the Church – after all, the church has one Savior, Jesus Christ.  But, Morello argues, it may help to break the spell  – the black magic – of Enlightened man. 

And thereby, we may begin to retrieve meaning, and in turn start the Church’s process of humbling itself before the true King of the Universe. (pp.79-80)

MMM summarizes some of the best arguments in favor of monasticism that you will encounter anywhere. For Morello, Western Christendom is Benedictine. (In contrast, he has reservations about the spirituality of the Society of Jesus.)  He sees the revival of the Church (whenever that  occurs) as the rising out of a renewed monastic spirituality. To rediscover a spirituality that recognizes the participation of the material world in the sacred will take many years of living a Christian life. This vocation cannot be individualistic but must be shared in a like-minded community. Thus, I think Morello offers a corrective to the facile hopes of restoring a sense of enchantment through an individual spiritual odyssey or, likewise, to the dreams of those who believe they have a blueprint for the restoration of Christian culture. Any such re-enchantment or restoration will be the fruit of years  – indeed generations – of spiritual effort. That is the task of the monks.

Morello gives us concrete illustrations of his ideas. He analyzes, for example, artwork like Vermeer’s Allegory of Faith:

As the woman (a representation of the Christian soul )is whirled up into union with the infinite love of God she remains anchored by her foot in this world where she encounters that love. (pp.7-9)

Some of Morello’s examples like his description of exercising ( “like a knight Templar!”) with a medieval Indian mace,  may be a little too esoteric.  But there’s no denying the power of Morello’s chapter on “killing our elders.” This of course is now happening literally as the practice of euthanasia spreads. But “spiritual murder”  is also taking place in society and in the Church – in the form of the destruction of prior culture and traditions. We no longer want or listen to the advice of the elders – a key institution in all traditional societies. Instead, we applaud breaking with nature and tradition:

This pattern of replacing what we had with a poor version of the same thing is clearly observable in the cultural killing of our elders, for our societies are now full of therapists and counselors. … We went from a people who will seek a solution for the problems that arise, for love of the community that they helped to build, to a people in whose financial interest it is to perpetuate the problems encountered. (p.126)

Morello challenges us to reject this modern paradigm, starting in our own homes –  by teaching our children and grandchildren how to relate to parents, grandparents and relatives.

Concluding MMM is Morello’s review of Rod Dreher’s Living in Wonder. Morello endorses that book and argues that it makes a clearer and more systematic case for the recovery of the sacred that I was able to discover. However, Morello does criticize Dreher for a certain lack of clarity when he seems to identify the pagan and Christian understanding of the world.  A Christian must distinguish this world, however enchanted, from the divine original. This world does participate in the divine original but is also fallen. Morello thus very clearly rejects the temptation of pantheism – an accusation often raised against those who wish to restore the role of mysticism in the Church.

Altogether a unique and challenging book!

Here is a link to the book listing at Os Justi Press:

Mysticism, Magic and Monasteries