 Good evening ladies and gentlemen. This evening we have come to listen to Professor Peter Tyler's inaugural lecture. I would like to welcome you visitors and friends of St. Mary's. I would also like to extend a particular welcome to Peter's family and close friends who have joined us for this occasion. You are all most welcome. Professor Peter Tyler is Professor of Pastoral Theology and Spirituality. He is also Director of Inspire, the Centre for Initiatives in Spirituality and Reconciliation. But behind these titles lies a life of academic, professional and human learning, which we are celebrating this evening. In terms of his academic life Professor Tyler is a leader in his field and quite prolific in his output. Since 2010 he has authored or co-edited six publications, Picturing the Soul, Previsioning Psychotherapy in Spiritual Direction, Trisa of Avila, Doctor of the Soul, The Bloomsbury Guide to Christian Spirituality, The Return to the Mystical, St. John of the Cross, Outstanding Christian Thinker and Sources of Transformation, Revitalizing Christian Spirituality. He is also co-editor of a new journal for Psycho-Spiritual Formation. Within this time frame he has also contributed more than 20 articles or book chapters to a range of publications. And therefore we can safely say that as an academic he is making a unique and defined contribution to his areas of expertise. Christian mysticism, psychology and spirituality and pastoral theology. In a wider professional context Peter has been a registered psychotherapist with the United Kingdom Council of Psychotherapists for 15 years and he practices locally. His work is at the interface of theology and psychology and he contributes to the current dialogue between spirituality and psychotherapy. This is further practically realized in the work of Inspire. Inspire as a centre has hosted or co-hosted 10 conferences and seminar events since 2011, each with a distinct focus exemplifying the applied nature of the discourse which he is engendering. Topics have included overcoming abuse in church and society the challenges of mental health ministry the legacy of Ecclesiom Suam the soul, Trisa of Avila and psychoanalysis. Ladies and gentlemen it is usually said on occasions like these that Professor X will leave their mark in University Y. And tonight, ladies and gentlemen in Peter's case that is literally so. For as you walked in here this evening you will have passed in the reception area a small peace garden which Peter was instrumental in designing. Peter recommended to the university that we should also place a statue of St. Francis in the centre of the garden. He then undertook to get the statue commissioned but when it arrived some, indeed many here in St. Mary's noticed a striking physical resemblance between the staff member who commissioned the statue and St. Francis. It is so much the case that our two receptionists, Tracy and Ashley have renamed the garden Peter's Place. Now ladies and gentlemen we are an open-minded academic environment so we have arranged for the garden to be open on the way out so that you can go in and examine the evidence for yourself. Ladies and gentlemen in conclusion Professor Peter Tyler is an exemplar of what a teacher should be. He integrates a fine intellect with humility, humour and a lightness of touch. He puts people at ease and brings a passion to his job. He has a love of the university and its mission and his authenticity speaks out across all that he does and to all whom he encounters colleagues, students and visitors alike. Peter, we are very proud of you here at St. Mary's and it therefore gives me great privilege and pleasure to introduce you this evening to give your inaugural address. Congratulations. Vice Chancellor Your Grace Ladies and gentlemen Thank you first of all Vice Chancellor I find words I didn't know the story about the Francis Statue so that wasn't it I didn't see that one coming and on behalf of St. Mary's placing this trust and confidence in me and I pledge to continue to develop the pastoral theology and spirituality programs at St. Mary's to benefit all members of society and the church especially the poorest I would also like to thank my colleagues and students at St. Mary's many of whom are here today for making this possible Thank you too to my many friends and family and colleagues who have made the effort to come here today in some cases from some distance like Kensal Rise and places like that I very much appreciate your support and presence both today and throughout the years Finally the lecture is being filmed so I'd like to also welcome all of those who will be watching this on the internet who many of whom couldn't make it tonight for various reasons so you're very welcome as well Looking back at my own intellectual development over the past few decades the best image I can find to describe it is like being caught up in the middle of a conversation between Ludwig Wittgenstein in the left hand corner in the blue corner and Saint Teresa of Avila in the green corner or more generally an attempt to apply the analytical rigor of the Oxford philosophy I learned as an undergraduate to the mysterious twists and turns of Catholic mystical theology which I have explored in the past few decades at times this has been maddening, frustrating exhilarating, ecstatic and unreasonable yet so far it's taught me a great deal about what it is to be a philosopher a theologian a psychologist but primarily how to be a human being trying to make sense of a confused and confusing world from the perspective of faith for tonight's lecture as with so much of my work is about the interface of faith and reason philosophy and theology yet as my chair in pastoral theology I would also want to apply this debate to practical concerns of pastoral care which I shall do later in this lecture both Wittgenstein and Teresa of Avila were great mavericks rebels and outsiders presumably the appeal to me not just in their lives but in their style of writing half the fun and frustration with working with both is trying to make sense of partly decoded scraps of paper subsequently written all over by well meaning editors associates and literary executors if I have learnt nothing else from this study I have learnt that no one can be assured of their legacy and our fates rest in the hands of our interpreters and heirs accordingly when the choice had to be made as to the subject of this lecture I had to choose one or the other of these two not least because I owe this chair primarily to their help although we have just embarked upon the Terasian 500th anniversary year I chose Wittgenstein as the primary subject for my lecture not just from perversity but because ultimately my approach to Teresa has rested on his revolutionary view of the practice of philosophy and I would say theology as an academic discipline also there are funnier and quirkier anecdotes connected with Wittgenstein which may amuse half the audience who have probably not set foot in an academic lecture hall for many years and I owe it to them to make this evening as pleasant as possible as one of my family has said to me the other week I'm not sure whether they're here tonight I can't understand the title of the lecture so how am I going to understand the lecture itself I shall also try to show you some nice pictures so if you find the lecture tedious you can always enjoy them as an eminent professorial colleague advised me last week on how one should go about the lecture he advised keep it short with plenty of jokes so I shall try to do just that so without further ado I shall begin the lecture entitled The King of the Dark Chamber Ludwig Wittgenstein Rabindranath Tagore and The Mystical Turn and following Indian custom and I'd like to welcome all my Indian visitors tonight I would like to dedicate the lecture to all my teachers and mentors who by their help over the years have made this evening possible some of whom are here tonight and especially my dear departed parents in the summer of 1927 the 38 year old Ludwig Wittgenstein was eventually persuaded by Moritz Schlich professor of philosophy at the University of Vienna to attend his Thursday evening with students and professors who shared an interest in investigating the logical and scientific basis of philosophy what would later evolve into the famous Vienna circle Schlich felt that Wittgenstein was quote one of the greatest geniuses on earth unquote having been one of the first professional philosophers in Vienna to read Wittgenstein's newly published Actatus logical philosophicus and appreciate its enormous significance the meetings were tense and Wittgenstein required a certain amount of careful handling to help him engage with the philosophers gathered to appreciate his every word this is unsurprising having worked with Bertrand Russell at the beginning of the 20th century in Cambridge the problems of philosophical logic at first as his pupil and later effectively as a colleague and rival the young Ludwig had drawn up the essential framework of the Traktatus before enlisting into the Austro-Hungarian Kaiserlich and Königlich army at the outbreak of the great war in 1914 the trauma of the conflict was severe in the extreme very strong son of a sophisticated Viennese Haute Bourgeois family not least because of the stress of having to come into the contact with the type of people his upbringing and station had conspired to insulate him from after surrender capture and incarceration at Monte Cassino Abbey in southern Italy the 30 year old Wittgenstein completed the Traktatus notoriously gnomic final remarks on the mystical Das Mustischer before lapsing into one of the most famous philosophical silences of modern times turning his back on the academy he first sought work as a monastery gardener even at one stage contemplating religious life itself followed by an ultimately doomed attempt pictured here to teach primary school children in the upper Austrian backwaters when Schlich made his approaches Ludwig was effectively doing a form of occupational therapy engaged in the construction of an ultra-modernist and quite stunning house for his sister Gretel in the unfashionable Kundmann Gasse in Vienna here it is this is quite extraordinary you thought it was built last year not 80, 90 years ago Wittgenstein's primary role in the project was to design the windows doors window locks and radiators here we see the entrance hall by the way nowadays part of the Bulgarian cultural attaché you can go around it's well worth a visit the ceiling of this Wittgenstein famously raised by three centimetres just before the building was about to be finished much to the annoyance of everybody on site and here is one of the I told you there were lots of quirky anecdotes and here is one of the radiators that he took a year it took a year to make and the parts had to be brought specially from outside of Austria his sister was delighted with the radiators I think it was a part of the house she liked the most because in the summer she could put her obje d'art on top of the radiators she was very impressed by that so Wittgenstein was developing in other directions hence his reluctance to be drawn once again to a professional philosophical discussion if he had been somewhat idiosyncratic in his communication techniques in the past from now on he would display an unusual turn of pedagogy that bordered on the eccentric consequently we can imagine the surprise of the great and good of Vienna when one of the greatest philosophical geniuses on earth would during the meeting only assembled professors and recite to them the poetry of the Bengali noble laureate Rabindranath Tagore a contemporary of Wittgenstein's Rudolf Carnap in his reminiscences of these meetings suggests that quote I sometimes had the impression that the deliberately rational and unemotional attitude of the scientist and likewise any ideas of the flavour of enlightenment were repugnant to Wittgenstein taking this unusual turn as my starting point I would like to use the opportunity of this lecture to suggest an interpretation of why Wittgenstein may have behaved in this way including along the way an exploration of some of the ideas of Tagore and why he should have held such an appeal to Wittgenstein I shall then use Wittgenstein's approach to rational discourse in general as a springboard for representing my understanding of the role of pastoral theology in the contemporary academy as heir to what I will call the medieval mystical theology I shall conclude by outlining the importance of Wittgenstein's turn to the future practices of the academy in particular those in the arena of theology so the next section Wittgenstein and Tagore two sentinels on the borderlands of modernity in a letter to Paul Engelman written on the 23rd of October 1921 Wittgenstein expressed his disapproval of one of Tagore's works the short play The King of the Dark Chamber he wrote concerning it it seems to me as if all that wisdom has come out of the ice box I should not be surprised to learn that he got it all second hand by reading and listening exactly as so many of us acquire their knowledge of Christianity rather than from his own genuine feeling perhaps I don't understand his tone to me it does not ring like the tone of a man possessed by the truth he goes on to suggest in the letter that Tagore may have suffered from a weak translation something Wittgenstein would correct himself a decade later by attempting his own translation or indeed that the fault may lie within Wittgenstein himself this letter alone goes some way to furnishing an explanation of why Ludwig was to inflict the Bengali's writings on the bemused members of the Vienna circle a few years later it was as though Wittgenstein himself was trying to come to terms with Tagore's writings and make sense of how they should be incorporated or not into his own interwar search for the truth which would include amongst others his study of Soren Kierkegaard Fyodor Dostoevsky Tolstoy Oswald Spengler and James Fraser Reflections upon all of whom can be found in his interwar writings and interestingly enough I've also recently found a tantalisingly brief mention of him having read Saint Teresa of Avila during this time I haven't got any more on that at the moment waiting for the document to turn up Accordingly a few months later we find in writing to Ludwig Hensel to say that he has revised his opinion as quote there is indeed something grand here within this re-evaluation of Tagore can be seen Wittgenstein's interwar and between the Traktatis and philosophical investigations search for the meaning of religious truths by the way I always tell my students all you need to know about Wittgenstein is in the bluffers guide to Wittgenstein which I'm afraid, I don't think it's in our library we did have it at one point and it says there all you need to know about Wittgenstein is that there's an early Wittgenstein a late Wittgenstein if anyone asks you a question about it just say do you mean the early Wittgenstein or the late Wittgenstein so remember that so having given as he thought his views on logic and propositional structure in the earlier Traktatis it is almost as if he now sought to find similar clarity to these broader religious and aesthetic questions no doubt spurred I've suggested in an earlier book by his encounter in the trenches with first what he called the nearness of death and secondly the reworking of the gospels by Leo Tolstoy from this what we might broadly term existential approach to religion arises one of the observations that occurs in his notebooks at this time where he writes a religious question is either a life question or empty twaddle this language game we could say only deals with life questions with this comment in mind it becomes clear which criteria Wittgenstein was applying to Tagore's play was it a life question or mere empty twaddle indeed we could argue that this became his talisman towards all academic discourse later in life initially at first he seemed to think the latter before moving to the former was it then about Tagore's work that could have elicited this move regardless of the writings of both men the backgrounds and influences on them might immediately suggest a bond if not to coin Wittgenstein's phrase a family resemblance both were born into grand late 19th century families which would be destined to play significant roles in the cultural lives of their two nations Wittgenstein's Habsburg Austria and Tagore's Bengal with both families wealth arising from the business acumen and wheeling dealing of a significant patriarch in the case of Ludwig his father who you can see here Karl Wittgenstein whose steel empire made the family what the Germans call filthy rich after the economic collapse following the first world war in Tagore's case his grandfather who amassed a huge fortune from landed estates in the east of Bengal and was one of the first Indian industrialists of the 19th century oddly enough dying on one of his many visits to England and today buried at Kenzel Green cemetery in north London so there's a good reason for going to Kenzel Green both Ludwig and Rabindranath were expected to follow in the family enterprises Ludwig ended up moving from engineering and aeronautics to falling into the embrace of philosophy under the tutelage of Russell at Cambridge whilst Tagore spent the time he should have been tending the family estates in Bengal sitting in a house boat and composing some of the lyrics and poetry for which he is famous today the relative wealth of both families gave them also a certain cultural and intellectual independence the Tagore's had lost their high caste Brahmin status some generations back and readily embraced the reforming zeal of Roy's Brahmo Sommage whilst the Wittgensteins drifted from their ancestral Judaism to a Catholicism that seemed to express itself most deeply in their sponsorship and patronage of some of the greatest artistic names of the Viennese Golden Age including amongst others Johannes Brahms Mahler, Le Bois, Kraus Gustav Klimt and Luce and here's the famous portrait of wedding portrait of Wittgenstein's sister by Gustav Klimt today in the gallery in Munich yet despite this privileged and gilded background both seers had turned their back on this privilege in an effort to direct their best efforts towards the help and good fortune of their fellow citizens this wondering exile was no doubt influenced by early trauma and loss Wittgenstein had lost three of his brothers to suicide as he was growing up and here on the left is one of Wittgenstein's brother who committed suicide he was in the the Reich's army in the First World War when they lost the war he shot himself very sad story Tagore's sister-in-law to whom many impute a romantic attachment herself committed suicide when Tagore was a young man finally mention has already been made of Wittgenstein's unorthodox pedagogical methods including his famous distrust of universities as places to study philosophy Tagore too was deeply suspicious of mainstream teaching methods and like Wittgenstein had benefited from a home education which seemed to foster an independent spirit that bore fruit in the establishment of his innovative educational establishment in Bengal Shanti Niketan the so called forest university still to this day one of the foremost educational establishments in modern India I could multiply these family resemblance but I think you get the picture these similarities suggest some of the reasons why Wittgenstein would have recognised such a soulmate in Tagore despite the fact that he was probably completely unaware of these biographical coincidences so what does this have to do with the contemporary practice of theology in the academy well if Wittgenstein's contribution to philosophy is hotly disputed his contribution to religious thought is no less contentious when we turn to him and the religious but rather than influence a contemporary philosophical debate Wittgenstein's writing has produced a whole new way of thinking of the discipline or even developed a new discipline in itself surveying the many eminent philosophers who have ventured to interpret his contribution the only thing that can be said with certainty is that there is very little consensus amongst them as to what exactly is that contribution and how it should be understood keeps us in business really some of the earliest attempts to apply Wittgensteinian approaches to religious issues have also been some of the most far-reaching in their subsequent scholarship and has echoed the approaches of the early pioneers in particular the work of Rush Rees Norman Malcolm, Peter Winch and DZ Phillips one of the key elements of all four writers which has become something of a neo-Wittgensteinian orthodoxy is that religious language must not be treated as any other language but that it has its own system of verification that will only make sense within quote the religious language game one of the chief consequences of this approach has been to have fostered a seemingly invulnerability of the religious form of life which has not opened criticism what has been turned Wittgensteinian Fideism Fergus Kerr in his masterful book Theology After Wittgenstein concludes quote it is sad that Wittgenstein's name is now associated perhaps irreversibly with a position in the philosophy of religion that rests upon radical misconceptions of his most inventively liberating expressions so if a Wittgensteinian approach to religion is not to be found in an over obsessive pursuit of a religious language game or variations on a Fideist theme what form should it take again I think Tagore will be helpful in clarifying this Drury, Morris Drury Wittgenstein's friend and pupil once told Wittgenstein that he had been reading FR Tenant's book entitled Philosophical Theology to which Wittgenstein replied a title like that sounds to me as if it would be something indecent this response perhaps indicates the direction we should take in applying Wittgenstein's writings to the study of religion I have already mentioned this evening Wittgenstein's interwar search for truth in his writings what emerges from this as we have already seen is his characterisation following Kierkegaard of what he called the passion of belief as for example in this quote from the notebooks wisdom is passionless but faith by contrast is what Kierkegaard calls a passion in this respect one of the key texts for throwing light on Wittgenstein's attitude to religion are the recollections of his pupil Maurice Drury, gentlemen on the left there Drury had originally gone up to Cambridge to study for the Anglican priesthood at Westcott house however after he'd come under the influence of Wittgenstein like so many young Cambridge students he abandoned his ordination training and spent two years working with unemployed people in Newcastle and Murther Tidville much to the consternation of his parents it reminds me of once I had to give a talk at Thomas Merton's old school at Oakham in Rutland to the present students I was not sure whether the hard drinking partygoer who had got a girl pregnant in Cambridge was necessarily the sort of role model the headmaster had in mind when I was invited to give the talk for anyway with Wittgenstein's encouragement Drury began to study medicine in 1934 and qualified in 1939 the most important period of his recollections of Wittgenstein date from the period after the Second World War when Wittgenstein was living in Ireland and Drury working in St Patrick's Hospital in Dublin the photograph on the right is the hotel it's now called the Ashling Hotel it was the Ross Hotel I was there two weeks ago I was giving a talk in Dublin and they said all right, we'll have dinner tonight in Wittgenstein's hotels I took this photograph they kindly put that plaque up to mark the spot food's quite nice after Drury's death in 1976 his recollections were collected and published by Rush Ries commenting on the reasons for publishing the remarks Drury stated this the number of introductions to and commentaries on Wittgenstein's philosophy is steadily increasing yet to one of his former pupils something that was central in his thinking is not being said Kierkegaard told a bitter parable about the effects of his writings he said he felt like the theatre manager who runs on stage to warn the audience of a fire but they take his appearance as all part of the fast they're enjoying and the louder he shouts the more they applaud 40 years ago Wittgenstein's teaching came to me as a warning against certain intellectual and spiritual dangers by which I was strongly tempted these dangers still surround us it would be a tragedy if well-meaning commentators should make it appear that his writings were now easily assimilable into the very intellectual milieu that they were largely warning against thus if we are to make sense of Wittgenstein's contribution to the philosophical problems arising from religious faith we would do well to look at his conviction of the passion of religious faith as much as the logical structure of any supposed religious language games and this is the famous duck rabbit sign with it sometimes it looks like a duck sometimes a rabbit you can spend the next five minutes figuring that one out Wittgenstein was obsessed with this in his last years in Ireland and we have stories of him going down to the sea and drawing it in the sand with a stick and then spending hours staring at it much to the amusement of the villagers where he was staying Allowing to Wittgenstein's notion of religion as a passion we can add his categorization of philosophy as a way of seeing and he famously characterised the job of the philosopher as presenting what he called a uberblich a perspicuous view as it sometimes translated or an overlook as Wittgenstein himself called it in his lectures of 1930 where he redefines the task of philosophy he states it to be one of attempting to be rid of a particular kind of puzzlement a philosophic puzzlement he says not of the intellect but of the instinct as he says later clarity perspicuity are an end in themselves I am not so interested in constructing the building so much as having a clear view before me of the foundations of possible buildings my goal then is different from the scientist and so my think way is to be distinguished the aim of the philosopher and perhaps the theologian becomes that of holding before us the clear view of possible buildings rather than constructing another new building thus this transforming view leads says Wittgenstein to action for if we have followed his procedure a right we move out of the head to find understanding and meaning in the wider arena of acting which leads us nicely back to the mystical theology for I shall now argue that this is a strategy he shares with the medieval writers of the mystical theology recent research has begun to recover the significance and nature of mystical theology as a distinctive branch of theology in the middle to high medieval period much of this interest seems to be associated with the post modern turn that has overcome theology for which of course Wittgenstein is partly responsible and I would suggest an attempt to recover answers to the post modern world in the pre-modern world we can now establish that from the 12th, 13th centuries onwards we see in Europe the rise of a type of discourse that centres around the recovery and translation of the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite he's the gentleman without the head third from the left you can always spot him he's always carrying his head he took it quite a long way out of Paris and that's where the present day Basilica is built on the edge of Paris central to this movement was the group of theologians that arose around the Abbey of Saint-Denis near the schools of Paris this group of writers and commentators took particular interest in the Dionysian corpus which was in the process of being retranslated by theologians such as Saracenas and our own English Robert Gross test the manor which replaced the deficiencies of older translations by Hildoen and Aerigena the Abbey grew with the schools of Paris and was open to the new theological developments of the university and from its inception it was concerned of questions on the relationship between intellect and affect intellectus and affectus within the texts of Dionysius Victorines as they became known discovered a form of writing that allowed scholars to combine the intellect with the affect this will go on to form the basis of much of the later medieval tradition of the theologian mystica as I call it the mystical theology a good example of this discourse can be seen in the work of Jean-Jean Chancellor of the University of Paris in his writing Jean-Jean informs us that there are two types of theology open study the first of these he calls the speculative theology the theologia speculativa which is the theology of the intellect concerned with sharpening our understanding of the logos of Christian life this would largely correspond to the type of theology taught in most universities today Oxford, Cambridge, St. Mary's however to name but three however in addition to this mode of theology he describes another drawing on Dionysius and the Victorines this he calls the theologian mystica the mystical theology which is the theology of the affectus what today in many ways we would call Christian spirituality thus in the tractatus primus speculativus of Jean-Jean's day mystica theologia the Chancellor begins by asking whether it is better to have knowledge of God through penitent affect or investigative intellect after much discussion the Chancellor makes it clear which approach he will preference thus he says we see it is correct to say that as contemplation is in the cognitive power of the intelligence the theologian mystica dwells in the corresponding affective power therefore knowledge of God through mystical theology is better acquired he says through a penitent affectus than an investigative intellect we are once again in the place of the Viconstinian Blick the Viconstinian view at the interface of saying and showing to find the symbiotic relationship between the unknowing of the intellect and the wisdom of the affect the affect once purified possesses says Jean-Jean all the passionate force of Dionysius's ecstatic eros quote love takes hold of the beloved and creates ecstasy and this is called rapture because of the manner in which the mind is lifted up and in conclusion he states the school of prayer the scholar Orandi is more praise worthy other things being equal than the school of learning the scholar literis accordingly taking my cue from Viconstin I would like to suggest that one of the chief tasks of pastoral theology in the academy today is to see theology through the lens of this mystical theology in particular that we understand this mystical or pastoral theology as a way of speaking a way of writing and a way of acting and I shall conclude by looking at each in turn mystical theology is a way of speaking from the tractatus onwards Fickenstein began to grasp that the act of communication requires a choreography as you see where the relevance of psychology comes in a choreography between what is said and what is shown as he states in the preface to the tractatus there is what is presented on the written page and there is what is unwritten and the latter he says is more important than the former or as he also says in the tractatus what can be shown cannot be said meaning therefore lies in the dance between the sayable and the unsayable accordingly I'd like to suggest that mystical theology and we could add theology in general which lies by its nature on the boundary of the effable and the ineffable is the locus par excellence for the choreographed dance between speech and non-speech or better saying and showing towards the path to the transcendent faced with the on-pass between what God is in God's self, beyond speech and our attempts to talk about it the logos of the theos or as Erasmus calls it the conversation of God Michael Sel suggests we have three alternatives the first which is not very conducive to academic life is silence I mean we all go home and that's the end of the lecture today but you know we've got to do something here so the second option he says is to distinguish between ways in which the transcendent is beyond names and the way it is not this is the classic analogical approach of St Thomas Aquinas the third which is one interest to me most is to maintain the tension and develop a form of performative discourse that realises that every assertion of the nature of the transcendent must be accompanied by another that denies it my own work has concentrated on this latter approach more specifically how the medieval writers of the Theologian Mystica work with the on-pass of the transcendent through transgressive and eruptive modes of discourse both spoken and written which leads us to the second area mystical theology as a way of writing as Cells makes clear and I've developed in my own work we can observe a clear method of mystical discourse in the medieval period up to and including the Spanish mystics Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross that makes use of this performative discourse of eruption to lead us into ineffable choreography humour paradox in short what I call shock and awe are all part of the linguistic armory for writers from Meister Eckhart to Margaret Perrette John of the Cross to Francisco de Assuna in their zeal to lead us into the presence of the one they play with our discursive intellect subjecting it to all sorts of games this can be through intellectual challenge as you find in the case of Eckhart who famously and puzzlingly says God free me from God all through startling and challenging images of an erotic as you find in the work of John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila Eckhart like other of the great practitioners of the Theologian Mystica knew that the stakes were high in trying to bridge the gap between the ineffable and the ineffable in articulating this discourse he knew that he had to present a coherent picture of God that contained the very incoherence that lies at the heart of any project to contain or pin down meaning in a series of lectures to which the Vice Chancellor has already referred I delivered in India earlier this year and published as picturing the soul I suggested that just as Eckhart's shocking language is necessary to maintain a sound theological tension in our approach to God so psychological language must be equally shocking today if it is to maintain the essential unknowability at the centre of the human subject if centre is itself an appropriate term for I'd see the Suche Logos the talk of the soul essentially a mystical choreography between what is said and what is shown but that is a subject for a later lecture and a later book Vice Chancellor as with God so with the psyche there is an unknowing at the heart and we rush in as Wittgenstein observed with empirical and concrete guns ablaze at our own peril this is something that Wittgenstein began to understand in the 1920s yes it may be intellectually satisfying but has it really told us anything about the nature of the psyche or the soul and finally mystical theology as a way of acting and drawing here on this Wittgenstein methodology this move from thinking to seeing to acting I would like to suggest that all theology whether mystical, pastoral or even dare I say systematic theology to my colleagues from the systematic faculty here must ultimately lead to action Blessed John Henry Newman underneath whose bust we shall shortly have a glass of wine so do raise your glass to him and to conscience when you're there famously stated that God did not choose to save us through dialectics for what is the purpose of theology ultimately theology I would like to suggest is ultimately a transformational art it is not a pseudo-science or an aesthetic adventure rather the aim of theology is to establish the conditions intellectually and affectively for the Holy Spirit to act on the soul as John of the Cross put it in the living flame of love when the soul frees itself of all things and attains to emptiness and dispossession concerning them which is equivalent to what it can do of itself it is impossible that God failed to do his part by communicating himself to it at least silently and secretly it is more impossible than it would be for the Son not to shine on clear and uncluttered ground as the sun rises in the morning and shines on your house so that its light may enter if you open the shutters so God who in watching over Israel does not doze or still less sleep will enter the soul that is empty and fill it with divine goods the danger with this of course as the church has always recognised is to imagine from this that the life of the Christian is relatively straight forward we simply make our homes for Christ and he will automatically come and make everything cosy for us however John is adamant that this is not the case the way is hard and the price is high the spiritual and we could add here the theological purging is a painful one oh sweet quarter writes John and ultimately all in us much that is good and true must die the work of theology and philosophy as Wittgenstein testifies is a hard and painful one we must constantly challenge the discursive intellect and seek out the ways of self-deception especially in our desire to make idols of the deus I was recently asked in America what is enlightenment in the Christian tradition the person was of course Californian the only way I could answer was by showing a picture of the famous rubeleth icon the aim of the Christian life is to take up the invitation by the Holy Spirit represented here by rubeleth by the three angels to take our place at the empty seat on the table true theology prepares us to hear that invitation when it must inevitably come and hopefully to give us the wherewithal to make our way tentatively and falteringly to the eternal messianic banquet to which we are all invited we began this lecture with the traumatized Wittgenstein struggling to find an academic mode of speech before the skeptical eyes of the Vienna circle as I hope to have demonstrated here the final form his discourse would take as evidenced in the later philosophy upon which I have drawn heavily in this lecture is ultimately a dialectic that seeks through the choreography of what is said and what is shown to lead to the transformational release of the fly from the fly bottle I have also drawn parallels with the medieval discourse of mystical theology and suggested that this provides a pattern for theology to core and a reminder that theology is at heart a transformational discipline which must challenge our ways of acting as we make our earthly pilgrimage to our heavenly homes accordingly I hope you will see by now that Wittgenstein's choice of Tagore and in particular the king of the dark chamber was prescient for the type of academic discourse he was hoping to foster in the final decades of his life the story of the king of the dark chamber is simply told the eponymous king dwells in a dark chamber at the centre of his kingdom no subject has seen him some fear him some love him some even doubt his existence his wife Sudeshana grows restless at never being able to see the king and Tagore contrasts her with the nation's speculations as to the nature of the king with the simple devotion of the maid servant Surangama who is content to love the king in his darkness we can see at once the immediate parallels between the speculative and mystical ways of conceiving God Sudeshana representative of the restless intellect can only be comfortable with light, form and vision Surangama who we can take as representative of the practice of the theologian mystica is happy to live in the darkness with all its paradox and mystery in her unknowing she accepts the will of her lord so much so that her intuitive powers can perceive the approach of the king finally unable to bear the strayed of not seeing her lord Sudeshana searches him out in a pleasure garden and falls in love with an imposter these acts lead to the destruction of the palace in fire entering once again the chamber while all is fire outside Sudeshana encounters the true king but this time she has seen him and perceives him as a terrifying darkness terrible oh it was terrible I am afraid even to think of it again oh you are dark and terrible as everlasting night as John of the cross proposes the vision of the eternal king is dark and confusing as the boundary between the saleable and unsaleable is crossed for as the king states the utter darkness that has today shaken you to your soul will one day be your solace and salvation what else can my love exist for running from the encounter Queen Sudeshana pursues a destructive course not only for herself but her country finally humiliated and resigned the queen can once again enter the chamber with her intellect laid low she cannot last finally see the king and discourse with him openly the perspicuous vision has been restored and the play ends with the king opening the windows and doors of the chamber to the queen as she steps into the light in summary the king of the dark chamber can be taken as an allegory for Wittgenstein's own search to articulate the truths of the spiritual life neither fideist foundation list or fundamentalist as I have argued tonight the turn of the Wittgenstein key unlocks a whole garden of mystical discourse for us his contemporary readers as in psychotherapy both Wittgenstein and the mystical writers invite us to observe the foundations of possible buildings rather than trying to build one building Wittgenstein and Tagore do not provide us with clever interpretations and interventions but allow the clarity of insight to be turned on possible buildings the post enlightenment way of knowing requires a more interactive and immediate medium or frame of reference than could be grasped by the verification of either the Vienna circle or what we can term scientism action is the closest activity available to language and such activity will be tempered by a necessary vein of humility arising from the lack of an overriding view this is the necessary humility of the practitioner of the mystical discourse whether contemplative or clergy philosopher or psychotherapist in conclusion I have argued in this lecture tonight and for the past few decades that Wittgenstein's Viennese turn not only allowed a new discourse to return to the heart of academic philosophy but it has also enabled us to appreciate once again the performative discourse that is at the heart of the ancient practice of the theologian mystica the final notations of the tractatus on the mystical once so problematic to hardcore Anglo-American verificationists the true heirs of schlich et al can now be seen as an invitation to a re-evaluation of the Catholic tradition of mystical theology as a venerable discourse inviting us to move from thinking to seeing to acting and in this spirit I conclude with your permission this time I have spoken facing you by reciting a few lines of Tagore have you not heard his silent steps he comes he comes he ever comes every moment and every age every day and every night he comes he comes he ever comes many a song of I sung in many a mood of mind but all their notes have always been proclaimed he comes he comes he ever comes in the fragrant days of sunny April through the forest path he comes he comes he ever comes in the rainy gloom of July nights on the thundering chariot of clouds he comes he comes he ever comes in sorrow after sorrow I press upon my heart and it is the golden touch of his feet that makes my joy to shine thank you very much for your attention