In this episode, Kale and I discuss the final pages of The Abolition of Man. In a world allegedly without objective values, what conditions the conditioners? Chesterton’s idea of play and rules providing freedom; the reality that a value-free neutrality does not exist; trans-humanism and post-humanism; the dismembering of nature and disenchantment; the magician’s bargain: how the last step toward the abolition of man is unlike every prior step; the common ancestry of science and magic; how seeing through everything is the same as not to see.

The Abolition of Man - C.S. Lewis

After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man - Michael Ward

Will the Future Be Human? - Yuval Noah Harari

Faustian bargain, Britannica.com

The Freedom of Boundaries in G.K. Chesterton - Zak Schmoll

Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 675-676: "The Church's ultimate trial"

Today, I'm posting a special episode on The Stations of the Cross.

What follows is a Stations of the Cross text I wrote in 2004, reflecting on the images Mel Gibson provided in his movie The Passion of The Christ. Each mediation also includes a quote from one of my favorite spiritual writers.

In the show notes, you'll find links to learn more about the Stations of the Cross, sources for the quotes used in the meditations, and a link to learn more about the album Via Crucis by Dick Le Mair. Many thanks to Le Mair for granting me the rights to include his music in this episode.

How Did the Stations of the Cross Begin? - Fr. William Saunders

“For God So Loved”: C.S. Lewis’s Four Loves and the Doctrine of Christ’s Atonement - Adam J. Johnson

The Four Loves - C.S. Lewis

Text of the meditations inspired by The Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson

Quotation sources:

I - Into Your Hands, Father - Fr. Wilfrid Stinissen

II, IX, XII - Via Crucis - Saint Josemaría Escrivá

III - De Interpellatione David - Saint Ambrose of Milan

IV - Salt of the Earth - Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

V, VIII - Transformation in Christ - Dietrich von Hildebrand

VI - De pauperum - Saint Gregory of Nazianzen

VII - The Jeweler's Shop - Karol Wojtyla

X - Interior Freedom - Fr. Jacques Philippe

XI - The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae) - Saint Pope John Paul II

XIII - The Splendor of Truth (Veritatis Splendor) - Saint Pope John Paul II

XIV - The Lord's descent into hell - ancient homily for Holy Saturday

Closing prayer - Meditations on the Stations of the Cross - Saint John Henry Cardinal Newman

Music: Via Crucis by Dick Le Mair

Today, we begin discussing the final chapter of The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis. Topics include: slavery and freedom; the conquest of man over man; the flight from the reality of death; the world state as a surrogate for the Tao; eugenics, trans-humanism and post-humanism; man as raw material for the post-human project; the impact of World War I on the thinking of Lewis; and what a positive and humane technical progress could look like.

The Abolition of Man - C.S. Lewis

After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man - Michael Ward

Learning in War Time - C.S. Lewis

On Living in an Atomic Age - C.S. Lewis
Reprinted in a collection entitled Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays.

Will the Future Be Human? - Yuval Noah Harari

The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis

The Space Trilogy - C.S. Lewis

"Standing reserves" - Martin Heidegger

Miracles - C.S. Lewis

"Cover stories for a theft" - Eric Weinstein