The Most Reluctant Convert (2002) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

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People edit see section history

• C. S. Lewis: Add a description of this character.
• Warren Lewis: C. S. Lewis's older brother.
• Albert Lewis: C. S. Lewis's father.
• Flora Hamilton Lewis: C. S. Lewis's mother.
• Lizzie Endicott: C. S. Lewis's childhood nurse whom he describes with unalloyed nostalgia and affection.
• Arthur Greeves: C. S. Lewis's childhood friend with whom he continued to exchange letters and visits the rest of his life.
• Robert Capron: The arbitrary and sadistic master of Wynyard School where both Warren and C. S. Lewis attended.
• William Kirkpatrick: A skeptic and atheist who was C. S. Lewis's private tutor during his teenage years.
• James Frazier: Author of "The Golden Bough", a comprehensive work on comparative religions and mythology which Lewis's tutor Kirkpatrick had him read.
• Arthur Schopenhauer: Author of "The World as Will and Idea" in which he argues that behind life there is simply Nothing, that there was only darkness and chaos before the universe existed, and that God, free will, and immortality are all illusions. Lewis's tutor Kirkpatrick had him read Schopenhauer's critiques of religion.
• Edward F. C. "Paddy" Moore: C. S. Lewis's roommate at Keble College, where they received military training. Lewis became very close to his family, and they made a pledge with each other before they were shipped off to France that if one of them did not return from the fighting, the other would look after the parent left behind.
• Janie King Moore: Edward F. C. "Paddy" Moore's mother who became like an adoptive mother to Lewis.
• George MacDonald: Writer of the book "Phantastes" which had a dramatic spiritual impact on C. S. Lewis.
• G. K. Chesterton: British author with a robust humor and sense of sincere goodness. Lewis was particularly attracted to his book "The Everlasting Man."
• Dr. John H. Askins: Mrs. Moore's brother who became interested in spiritualism after the Great War and whose psychic disintegration had a traumatic effect on Lewis.
• Henri Bergson: French philosopher and author of "Creative Evolution" whose ideas showed Lewis "the snares that lurk about the word Nothing" and was his first step away from Schopenhauer's nihilism.
• Owen Barfield: A friend Lewis met at Oxford who was the first to bring home to him the problem of any philosophy that saw the physical world as "rock-bottom reality."
• Helena Blavatsky: Russian spiritualist and founder of the Theosophical Society who had a profound influence on the Irish poet William Butler Yeats.
• William Force Stead: An American friend of Lewis who was going to visit William Butler Yeats and asked Lewis if he would like to come along.
• William Butler Yeats: An Irish poet who was obsessed with the paranormal whom Lewis visited twice and impressed with his intelligence and mesmerizing speech, but put off by the séancelike setting and all his talk of magic.
• Maurice Maeterlinck: Belgian dramatist and essayist whose plays were often imbued with mystical overtones and who was interested in spiritualism and the occult. In his book "The Great Secret" he says that Christianity is an unsatisfactory answer to spiritual questions, and instead recommends the exotic speculations of Zoroastrian sun worshipers, Chaldean astrologers, the Egyptian cult of Osiris, the alchemists of pre-Socratic Greece and the Jewish Kabbala.
• Frederick W. H. Myers: Author of "Science and a Future Life", a pioneering study for psychic researchers.
• Jacob Boehme: German mystic and originator of theosophy.
• Sir Oliver Lodge: Author of "Raymond, or Life After Death", a case study of his attempts to contact his dead son, Raymond, who was killed during World War I.
• Reverend Frederick Walker Macran: A friend of Mrs. Moore who had set aside his Christian orthodoxy in favor of "evidences" for human survival beyond the grave. His obsession to surmount death reinforced Lewis's distaste for spiritualism.
• George Berkeley: Idealist and author of "Principles of Human Knowledge" who argued that the material things we see around us are actually objects in the mind of God, and that consciousness , not matter, is the ultimate reality. Lewis found his ideas to exotic and put them aside.
• Friedrich Hegel: Idealist philosopher who said that world history is the process of a transcendent Reason unfolding itself in the material world and in human minds. His ideas influenced T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Bernard Bosanquet.
• F. H. Bradley: Idealist philosopher and author of "Appearance and Reality" who envisioned an all-embracing Absolute which was the "soul" the cosmos.
• T. H. Green: Idealist philosopher and author of "Prolegomena to Ethics" who argued that the mind has an empirical aspect and a metaphysical aspect.
• Bernard Bosquanet: Idealist who applied Hegelianism to political philosophy, arguing that the political state is the concrete embodiment of the "General Will" of individuals in that country
• Alfred K. Hamilton Jenkins: A friend who showed Lewis how to revel in the senses of their physical surroundings.
• Neville Coghill: One of many friends Lewis met at Oxford who was clearly intelligent and well-informed, but also Christian.
• Samuel Alexander: Author of "Space, Time and Deity" in which Lewis is impressed by his truthful antithesis between enjoyment and contemplation.
• J. R. R. Tolkien: C. S. Lewis's friend whom he met and Magdalen College and who, along with Hugo Dyson, helped him understand the incarnation as the historical fulfillment of Dying God myths found in many cultures.
• Hugo Dyson: C. S. Lewis's friend whom he met and Magdalen College and who, along with J. R. R. Tolkien, helped him understand the incarnation as the historical fulfillment of Dying God myths found in many cultures.
• T. D. Weldon: A hard-boiled atheist who commented to Lewis before his conversion that the evidence for the historicity of the Gospels was surprisingly good, as much as he hated to admit it.
• William Law: Eighteenth-century devotional writer of "An Appeal to All That Doubt or Disbelieve" which made Lewis think that Christianity "is the very thing you like in poetry and the romances, but this time it's true."
• Joy Davidman: C. S. Lewis's wife whom he married late in life and then lost three years later to cancer.

Quotes edit see section history

• “With evolution such a dominant paradigm in the modern era, it is commonly assumed that change represents progress, that if something is new it must be better. Lewis noted that what past generations would have called permanence, or stability, contemporary thinkers tend to characterize as stagnation. But he also observed that change itself is not growth: 'Growth is the synthesis of change and continuity, and where there is no continuity there is no growth.' In order to restore continuity, it is sometimes necessary to go back in order to move forward.”

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. David C. Downing (Author)
2. C. S. Lewis (Contributor)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: BX5199.L53 D69 2002
• Dewey: 283.092

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Leaders & Notable People › Religious
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Arts & Literature › Authors
• Books › Religion & Spirituality › Christianity