The Space Trilogy

Well, I think you saw insanity set it right at the very end, after Merlin had placed the Curse of Babel on them, and everything was crashing down. I also think it's difficult to draw lines and precise definitions, because we don't truly and completely understand what possession is. There's a human will, there's an alien will, there's some kind of giving over and/or taking over, but beyond that, we're lost. Like the incident with the pigs at Gadarenes - the demons asked not to be "destroyed" (whatever that meant), but to be sent into the pigs - but then the pigs drowned. Did that effect the "destruction" of the demons, or did something else happen? We just don't know.

I think with That Hideous Strength, at least Frost and Wither had already been largely "devoured" by the demons in the same manner they wanted to "devour" Mark in that chilling scene that Lewis writes. However, it served the demons to let them have a reasonable amount of free will to be effective. Only at the end when they were no longer useful was their will overruled. And even that wasn't a total takeover, since there was still a vestige of choice remaining, even to the end. Remember how Frost was offered repentance even at the very end - but couldn't be bothered with it?
 
PrinceOfTheWest said:
Like the incident with the pigs at Gadarenes - the demons asked not to be "destroyed" (whatever that meant), but to be sent into the pigs - but then the pigs drowned. Did that effect the "destruction" of the demons, or did something else happen? We just don't know.
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We can be sure that the death of a physical host, in and of itself, cannot possibly destroy a bodiless demon. (Which makes the climax of "The Exorcist" absurd.) If death of a host would kill the demon, demons would never make the host commit suicide--which demons in real cases have been known to do, in order to prevent a successful exorcism.
 
Timmy, I think in THS, anyway, Wither and Frost didn't want to be free of the demons that were controlling them, or directing them is maybe a more apropos description. They had invited that direction and agreed to follow it. If you think someone like Pol Pot was maybe demon possessed, I would agree that he might very well be under the directions of some demonic influence as Frost and Wither were. Although he might not have realized an alien was invading his mind (they had invited it), I think as CF says, in his attitudes, beliefs and actions, he could have laid himself open to that kind of control or inner direction.

Just keeping to Pol Pot for convenience sake, he felt that the destruction of the technologically-advanced classes would lead to a perfect agrarian society/economy. He had learned the idea in Marx, but then I think his wilingness to agree that destroying current persons to make way for a better society was in some sens "good" put him on the side of the demons: they wanted him to believe killing some folks was a "good" thing for other folks, so when he did believe it, he advanced them more power to control his actions ...

Does that make sense? He may not have invited an alien power into his mind, but by making agreements with the alien powers, he nevetheless ceded that control to them.

So if you think some leader in power today is being directed by demons, it may just be because he has long believed the lies some demons have propagated, and his belief in their lies has opened his mind to them, so they can in some way direct his actions?
 
But that is just the question, are there powerful leaders really out there that are controled by demons. Was there a point where you think a man like Hitler is being controled by a demon and the original Hitler has disappeared. After all in the un-man in Perelandra Wenston appears to have vanished and you have just this demon.
 
It's always hard to determine where the line lies between willful cooperation with deception and actually turning over the volitional will. Remember in Perelandra that Weston consciously, verbally invites the evil powers into him, while Wither and Frost seem to think they're cooperating with, or serving, their "macrobe" masters.
 
>> Does that make sense? He may not have invited an alien power
>> into his mind, but by making agreements with the alien powers,
>> he nevertheless ceded that control to them.


Of course. There's a Scripture in Proverbs that says, "In vain is a net spread in the sight of a bird." The Devil, Jesus rebuke him, is not going to walk up to anyone and say, "Hi, I'm the Devil, all my promises are false, and all my intentions toward humans are hateful and harmful; now, how would you like to yield your will to me voluntarily, knowing that no good can come to you from it?"
 
Lol, I'm going to get them next week... I wasn't sure if it was good, but now that i've seen most of people think they are, so... I want to have my own opinion, :) Which is the best? Lol, I'll buy the three.
 
I would say the last (That Hideous Strength) book in the most profond book. The only problem is that the book is really slow till the 8th chapter and you may lose interest in it before you get there. It is not till the 8th chapter that things start to come together. But if you stick it out, the last half of the book is exciting, suspenseful and even funny at times. Of course that is why I love my audiobook version. Having a bad case of ADD, reading long drawnout books is hard. I can only sit and read for about a 1/2 hour at a time. Now I can go threw the book in just 2 days and want to go threw again in just a few weeks.
 
space trilogy

has anybody read C.S. lewis the space trilogy books Books , Out of the Silent Planet , Perelandra ,That Hideous Strength ,The Dark Tower .

I never heard of these books Are the good?
 
dawna said:
has anybody read C.S. lewis the space trilogy books Books , Out of the Silent Planet , Perelandra ,That Hideous Strength ,The Dark Tower .

I never heard of these books Are the good?
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They are fantastic books, though I don't believe The Dark Tower is part of the trilogy...;)

Btw, there's already a thread on these books here. ;):)
 
Yup - it probably didn't show up because it hadn't been posted in recently.

Dark Tower wasn't part of the Space Trilogy. The original three are classics.

Interestingly, there was some controversy about Dark Tower, and whether Lewis actually wrote it at all. A Lewis scholar named Kathyrn Lindskoog disputed it because it wasn't published until after his death, and the style didn't seem like Lewis. Elwin Ransom, protagonist of the Space Trilogy, was in it, but there were stylistic differences that cast doubt on the work. It was the source of some scholarly dispute. However, just a couple years ago a student of Lewis' came forth and recounted how Lewis had shown him the MS sometime before his death. It was a "rough" story, never finished, and possibly one that Lewis wouldn't have wanted published, but it's now fairly certain that Lewis was the author.
 
So I've read the Space Trilogy, and right nwo i'm in the process of reading HG Wells "The First Men on the Moon". Iroincially I find that the two men from Eartha re in many ways similar to Devine and Weston in the trilogy, even with the fact they esposue the views of "Manifest Desitiny" and the "White Man's Burden" adn feel it is their job to conquer the moon, and it's inhaibitants and they are the good guys, where as Lewis, and in his essay" The Seeing Eye" even expresses cocnerns that such a thing could take place should we make contact with aliens.

it isn't interesting that the more "forward thinking" Wells has views that are considered wrong and he's lauded, whereas Lewis, the Christian, condems such actions and he's considered backwards and racist.

And yet as a Christian, I can overlook Wells inherit flaws and still enjoy his work, and appreciate his role as a founder of sci-fi, and yet the likes of Phillip Pullman cannot do the same for CS Lewis.
 
The similarities are neither ironic nor accidental. Mr. Lewis knew, and despised, the anti-Christian ideas of H.G. Wells, and intentionally used the Perelandra Trilogy to refute them.
 
re read

I need to read these again, i was about 12 or 13 the first time through and didn't make it all the way through That Hideous Strength I remember really liking the first 2 though......
 
Greetings! And thanks for joining a discussion with substance!

Before you re-read "That Hideous Strength," I urge you to read the nonfiction book "The Abolition of Man," whose theme is closely tied to the third Space Trilogy volume. The one will help the other to make more sense for you.
 
I'll have to try that. And though they are not related I must say that Screw Tape Letters and The Great Divorce are 2 of my favorites.....Not sure where would be the right place to throw that in lol.
 
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