Yet I enjoyed these men and women. Their sincerity, their excitement
communicated itself to me and I became aware of something I had only
known before from reading, from hearsay: the religious sense which I
so clearly lacked, as did both Paul and Stokharin. I don’t think Cave
really possessed it either because, although he believed entirely in
himself and in the miraculous truth of his word, he did not possess
that curious power to identify himself with creation, to transcend the
self in contemplation of an abstraction, to sacrifice the personality
to a mystical authority; none of us, save Iris in love, possessed this
power which, as nearly as I can get at it, is the religious sense in
man. I learned about it only from those who came to learn from us in
that Chelsea loft. In a sense, I pitied them for I knew that much of
what they evidently believed with such passion was wrong but, at the
same time, I was invigorated by their enthusiasm, by the hunger with
which they devoured Cavesword, by the dignity which their passion lent
an enterprise that in Paul’s busy hands resembled more often than not,
a cynical commercial venture. And I recognized in them (oh, very early,
perhaps in the first weeks of talking to them) that, in their goodness
and their love they would, with Cavesword, smudge as it turned each
bright new page of life; yet, suspecting this, I did not object nor did
I withdraw. Instead, fascinated, I was borne by the tide to the shore
ahead whose every rock I could imagine, sharp with disaster.
Once a week the directors met on Long Island in the walled estate
where Cave now lived with his guards (his host had thoughtfully moved
elsewhere until Cave chose for him to return).
The meetings soon demonstrated a division in our ranks between Paul
and Stokharin on the one side and Iris, Clarissa and Cave on the other
with myself as partisan, more often than not, to Cave. The division was
amiable but significant. Paul and Stokharin wanted to place the Centers
directly under the supervision of the analysts while the rest of us,
led by Iris (Cave seldom intervened, but we had accepted already the
fact that Iris spoke for him), preferred that the Centers be governed
by the Residents. “It is certainly true that the therapists are an
important part of each Center,” said Iris briskly, at the end of a
long wrangle with Stokharin. “But these are _Cavite_ Centers and not
clinics for the advancement of post-Jungian analysis. It is Cavesword
which draws people to the Centers, not mental illness. Those who have
problems are of course helped by Stokharin’s people but, finally, it
is Cave who has made it possible for them to face death. Something no
one has done before.” And thus the point was won in our council though
Stokharin and Paul were still able at times, slyly, to insinuate their
own creatures into important Residencies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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