A Warning to Lord Dunsinane

Delivered by unmarked post; date unknown.

Seal of the Bene Jesuit

Dear Professor,

Forgive this intrusion and our lack of preparatory courtesies.

We have followed your work for many years — in the journals, in your lectures, and in the quiet, unassuming manner in which you have shepherded certain neglected writers back into the light.

It has been clear for a long time that you embody that exceedingly rare combination: of moral seriousness and imaginative breadth that marks a true custodian and judge of the literary spirit.

Your recent endorsement of the so-called New Scripture movement has not gone unnoticed. Indeed, in certain quarters it is being discussed with special interest — not because of its content alone, but because you are the one who has spoken of it.

This is an occasion for joy amongst the initiated but also an occasion for caution.

You believe that you are supporting the emergence of a new literary mode. One defined by heightened cadence, ethical clarity, and a renewed sense of interior gravity. And of course it is those things. But you must have wondered, Professor, you must have sensed that this is not merely a matter of style.

You would sense that there may be deeper structures moving beneath it. Old ones. Dormant ones. Ones that stir only in ages of tumult and transition. Angelic and demonic forces, perhaps. With none to say which they might be.

These are things your protege calls out without proper knowledge of the trembling he should feel. Even the blithe spirits he calls upon should give him occasion for reverence and not a little bit of awe.

And when he calls out those Others? Uttering the name of a Fallen God, a Prurient God, a God of Pestilence, a Thing of the Void Places? The Unholy, The Unredeemer?

Which are only a few of its variegated names —

Your friend has the innocence of youth on his side and the protection of a naive heart. To you Professor will be extended neither. That is not intended to deter your courage, not in the least. But we are bound to make sure that you are properly informed.

You have put your name to something which may yet exceed its author’s intentions. Perhaps you already suspect this, perhaps not. But we would urge you, before you proceed any further, to ask yourself:

Do you know what kind of invocation you have stumbled across? Do you genuinely believe it is only literary? Do you think that Scripture can be reformed without consequence?

Professor please do not mistake the intention behind this letter. We are not warning you against the movement. You are merely being cautioned towards a better understanding of it. There is a vast difference between these things as you will no doubt understand.

There are some of us who have observed such things before. In other epochs, under other names. We have learned many things and one of those is: never underestimate the force of texts that speak in the cadences of the sacred whilst remaining uncontained by any institution. That is a heady and volatile combination. Beware language that moves the spirit without some institutional structure to properly corral those movements.

It is not benign, Professor. Not harmless. Not trivial. It may — if handled unwisely — reshape more than your bookshelves.

This is the core of our message. We have quietly watched the emergence of New Scripture with the same attentiveness with which you have watched one of its earlier practitioners. We have waited for an intellect of your calibre to step forward before breaking our cover.

And now that you have stepped forward, it only fair to tell you that if you have the courage to continue down this path, much may be asked of you.

Not by us. Not even by your earnest young writer.

But by the consequences of the sheer ambition of the movement, which is set against undercurrents much older than this current articulation, which do not always wait for us to understand it before they come exploding out of the gate.

Should you wish to speak further you may write us a note putting any queries that you might have. If you leave the letter on your desk for a few days you can take it as read.

A wise way forward might be to ask your protege to send you all of his written work for your review. And we mean: all of it. He has intuitively — and quite infuriatingly — managed to keep the really perilous and powerful sections of his work hidden from view. That may owe to his having Her guidance and protection, or perhaps he has some secret guile that was stored up in him when he was born into this world.

If you see his full oeuvre you will understand how carefully he has been directed, by prompts made from every imaginable side, some completely secret and some hiding under the glare of full sight.

You may see why it is unwise to underestimate any man and especially this man. Even to make the presumption that he is your protege, rather than the other way around.

YF,

Frere Godfrey — O.B.J. ex parte ordinis