Current 93 - Dormition, Dominion, and Pascal
I’m always learning more about David Tibet’s sources. While it is something of a letdown to discover particular songs to be pure recitations, there is a silver lining at least in being exposed to a new poet (John Hall, King Henry - Bishop of Chichester). What I find really rewarding is identifying more subtle and poignant references to past thinkers, like Pascal. Take the song Dormition and Dominion:
I have understood / though when I slip sleeping and silently / from this ribbed room of sighs / you shall not find the history of His personal visit / sewn into my linings, perhaps / nevertheless, I have understood.
Even if the listener can detect this as a reference to anything at all, it is not the sort that lends itself to a Google search. I had listened to this song a number of times before reading The Pensees, but there I learned that Pascal, having gone through a thunderous religious experience, wrote a few brief lines regarding it and kept this parchment on his person for the rest of his life. Found after his death, it reads:
The year of grace 1654. Monday, 23 November. From about half past ten in the evening until half past midnight.
Fire.
‘God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob,’ not of philosophers and scholars.
Certainty, certainty, heartfelt, joy, peace.
God of Jesus Christ.
God of Jesus Christ.
My God and your God.
‘Thy God shall by my God.’
The world forgotten, and everything except God.
He can only be found by the ways taught in the Gospels.
Greatness of the human soul.
‘O righteous Father, the world had not known thee, but I have known thee.’
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.
I have cut myself off from him.
They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters.
‘My God, wilt thou forsake me?’
Let me not be cut off from him forever!
‘And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.’
Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
I have cut myself off from him, shunned him, denied him, crucified him.
Let me never be cut off from him!
He can only be kept by the ways taught in the Gospel.
Sweet and total renunciation.
Total submission to Jesus Christ and my director.
Everlasting joy in return for one day’s effort on earth.
I will not forget thy word. Amen.
(Penguin Classics translation)
So Tibet could be saying one of three things:
1. He has not been granted the same sort of catastrophic encounter with the divine
2. He has had such an encounter but saw fit not to record it
3. He has had such an encounter, recorded it, but that record may not be found
Whichever it may be, he says that he has nevertheless experienced a moment of intellectual union with the divine: I have understood.
Whatever you may think of Pascal and his infamous wager, whatever you may think of Jesus Christ, if you like Current 93 and are fond of this song, I hope reading this post will deepen your appreciation for the sentiment expressed therein.
