''Grey Eminence: A Study in Religion and Politics'' is a book by
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems.
Born into the ...
published in 1941. It is a biography of
François Leclerc du Tremblay, the French monk who served as advisor to
Cardinal de Richelieu and was referred to by others as ''
l'éminence grise''. As the subtitle indicates Huxley is asking "What is religion?", "What is politics?" and "How are religion and politics related?"
Huxley depicts the career of Tremblay as an example of what can happen when a person's powerful spiritual energies are channelled in the wrong direction. Huxley praises his early preaching and ministering to the sick and poor, his reflections and writings on a life of prayer through which, Huxley thinks, he came close to sanctity: "'at peace and happy in the conviction that his true vocation had been revealed to him" (p.86). However, Huxley argues, the influence of
Benet of Canfield, led Tremblay to abandon the traditional Christian mystical tradition, whereby the imagination was to be set aside once it had initiated a process of mystical ascent. Instead, Benet's followers developed a way whereby image and will came to impede spiritual enlightenment and "direct mystical experience" was subordinated to a personalised theology.
References
1941 non-fiction books
Books by Aldous Huxley
Chatto & Windus books
Cardinal Richelieu
French biographies
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