Editing Simone Weil (section)

==Encounters with mysticism==
[[File:Bazylika Santa Maria degli Angeli Asyż.jpg|thumb|300px|The [[Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli]] in Assisi where Simone had one of three spiritual "encounters that really counted", leading to her conversion to Christianity<ref>S. Weil, ''Spiritual Autobiography''</ref>]]

Weil was born into a secular household and raised in "complete agnosticism".<ref>S. Weil, ''What is a Jew'', cited by Panichas.</ref><ref name="Panichas">{{cite book|first=George A|last=Panichas|title=Simone Weil Reader|year=1977|isbn=0-918825-01-6|publisher=Moyer Bell}}</ref>{{rp|p=8}} As a teenager, she considered the existence of God for herself and decided nothing could be known either way. In her ''Spiritual Autobiography'', however, Weil records that she always had a Christian outlook, taking to heart from her earliest childhood the idea of loving one's neighbour. 

Weil was attracted to the Christian faith beginning in 1935, when she had the first of three pivotal religious experiences: being moved by the beauty of villagers singing hymns in a [[procession]] she stumbled across while on holiday to Portugal (in [[Póvoa de Varzim]]).{{r|Panichas|p=xxxviii}}<ref name="Sian">{{cite book|author=Simone Weil|editor= Sian Miles|pages = 28–29|title = An Anthology|year = 2005|isbn = 0-14-118819-7|publisher = Penguin Book}}</ref> Weil later wrote "the conviction was suddenly borne in upon her that Christianity is pre-eminently the religion of slaves, that slaves cannot help belonging to it, and she among others."<ref name=":12" /> 

While in Assisi during the spring of 1937, Weil experienced a [[religious ecstasy]] in the [[Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli]]—the same church in which [[Saint]] [[Francis of Assisi]] had prayed. She was led to pray for the first time in her life as [[Lawrence S. Cunningham]] relates:
<blockquote>Below the town is the beautiful church and convent of San Damiano where [[Clare of Assisi|Saint Clare]] once lived. Near that spot is the place purported to be where Saint Francis composed the larger part of his "Canticle of Brother Sun". Below the town in the valley is the ugliest church in the entire environs: the massive baroque basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels, finished in the seventeenth century and rebuilt in the nineteenth century, which houses a rare treasure: a tiny Romanesque chapel that stood in the days of Saint Francis—the "Little Portion" where he would gather his brethren. It was in that tiny chapel that the great mystic Simone Weil first felt compelled to kneel down and pray.<ref>Cunningham, Lawrence S. (2004). ''Francis of Assisi: performing the Gospel life''. Illustrated edition. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. {{ISBN|0-8028-2762-4}}, {{ISBN|978-0-8028-2762-3}}. Source: [https://books.google.com/books?id=7l8t3Y1F2lkC&pg=PA118&lpg=PA118&dq=San+Damiano+simone+weil] (accessed: September 15, 2010), p. 118</ref></blockquote>

Weil had a third, more powerful, [[revelation]] a year later while reciting [[George Herbert]]'s poem ''Love III'', after which "Christ himself came down and took possession of me",<ref>cited by Panichas and other Weil scholars,</ref> and, from 1938 on, her writings became more [[mystical]] and [[Spiritualism (beliefs)|spiritual]], while retaining their focus on [[social relation|social]] and [[political]] issues. In 1938 Weil visited the Benedictine Solesmes Abbey and while suffering from headaches she found pure joy in Gregorian chant that she felt the "possibility of living divine love in the midst of affliction".<ref name=":12" />

She was attracted to [[Catholicism]], but declined to be [[baptized]] at that time, preferring to remain outside due to "the love of those things that are outside Christianity".<ref>S. Weil, ''Spiritual Autobiography'', cited by Panichas and Plant.</ref>{{r|Panichas|p=9}}<ref>{{cite book|author=Stephen Plant|title=Great Christian Thinkers: Simone Weil|pages = xv–xvi|year=1997|isbn=0-7648-0116-3|publisher = Liguori Publications}}</ref> While deeply religious, Weil was skeptical of the Church and dogma as an institution stating "I have not the slightest love for the Church in the strict sense of the word"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Weil |first=Simone |title=Waiting for God |date=2009 |publisher=HarperPerennial |location=New York |pages=8}}</ref> and was appalled by the concept of ''[[Anathema|Anathema Sit]]'' as she refused to separate herself from unbelievers.{{r|Zaretsky|p=135}} Weil felt that humility is incompatible with  belonging to a social group "chosen by God" no matter if that group is a nation or a Church.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2001-04-09 |title=Simone Weil's Last Journey |url=https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/335/article/simone-weils-last-journey |access-date=2024-09-20 |website=America Magazine |language=en}}</ref> Weil also condemns the state of contemporary Christianity, arguing that it has become a social convention entangled with the interests of those who exploit others.<ref name=":47">{{Cite book |last1=Weil |first1=Simone |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/on1400095204 |title=The need for roots: prelude to a declaration of obligations towards the human being |last2=Schwartz |first2=Ros |last3=Kirkpatrick |first3=Kate |date=2023 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-241-46797-8 |series=Penguin classics |location=UK ; USA |oclc=on1400095204}}</ref>{{rp|191}} While Roman civilization replaced love with pride, earlier traditions upheld perfect obedience, which the Greeks honored through their reverence for science.<ref name=":48">{{Cite book |last1=Weil |first1=Simone |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/on1400095204 |title=The need for roots: prelude to a declaration of obligations towards the human being |last2=Schwartz |first2=Ros |last3=Kirkpatrick |first3=Kate |date=2023 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-241-46797-8 |series=Penguin classics |location=UK ; USA |oclc=on1400095204}}</ref>{{rp|225}} Weil wrote that obedience is the "supreme virtue",<ref>{{cite book
|author=Simone Weil
|title=Gravity and Grace
|page = 282-291
|year=2002
|isbn=978-0-415-29001-2
|publisher = [[Routledge]]
|quote = "Obedience is the supreme virtue. We have to love neccessity. Neccessity is what is lowest in relation to the individual (contraint, force, a 'hard fate'); universal neccessity brings deliverance from this.
|author-link=Simone Weil
}}</ref> and that the universe's blind material forces are not sovereign, but obey limits set by God out of love.  For Weil, this idea was present in pre-Roman Christianity and echoed in the wisdom of the [[Pythagoreanism|Pythagoreans]], [[Laozi|Lao Tzu]], [[Hinduism]], and fragments of [[Egyptians|Egyptian]] thought. <ref>{{cite book
|author=Simone Weil
|title=The Need for Roots
|page = 282-291
|year=2002
|isbn=978-0-415-27102-8
|publisher = [[Routledge]]|title-link=The Need for Roots
|quote = "But the thought which really enraptured the ancients was this: what makes the blind forces of matter obedient is not another stronger force; it is love."
|author-link=Simone Weil
}}</ref>

Weil describes a spiritual impurity, a lack of the "spirit of truth" in the modern church and in modern science. In response, she calls for a total and unconditional giving of oneself to God.<ref name=":47" />{{rp|191}} Weil emphasizes the importance of attention as a means of opening the mind to eternal wisdom.<ref name=":413">{{Cite book |last1=Weil |first1=Simone |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/on1400095204 |title=The need for roots: prelude to a declaration of obligations towards the human being |last2=Schwartz |first2=Ros |last3=Kirkpatrick |first3=Kate |date=2023 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-241-46797-8 |series=Penguin classics |location=UK ; USA |oclc=on1400095204}}</ref>{{rp|226}} She rejects a pragmatic approach to faith, likening it to a pharmaceutical advertisement, only valuable for what it promises to deliver. True faith, she insists, must be total and it must matter so much that losing it would equate to losing the will to live.<ref name=":47" />{{rp|193}} [[Early Christianity]] might have nourished this approach, but its transformation under Roman influence led to the rejection of divine providence, except in highly personal forms. According to Weil, only [[Christian mysticism|mystics]] preserved this deeper understanding, though they were often condemned.<ref name=":49">{{Cite book |last1=Weil |first1=Simone |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/on1400095204 |title=The need for roots: prelude to a declaration of obligations towards the human being |last2=Schwartz |first2=Ros |last3=Kirkpatrick |first3=Kate |date=2023 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-241-46797-8 |series=Penguin classics |location=UK ; USA |oclc=on1400095204}}</ref>{{rp|202}}

Weil did not limit her curiosity to Christianity. She was interested in other religious traditions—especially the [[Greek mythology|Greek]] and [[Egyptian mythology|Egyptian]] [[Greco-Roman mysteries|mysteries]]; [[Hinduism]] (especially the [[Upanishads]] and the [[Bhagavad Gita]]); and [[Mahayana Buddhism]]. She believed that all these and other traditions contained elements of genuine revelation,<ref name="Eliot">{{cite book|author=Simone Weil|title=The Need for Roots|page = xi, preface by [[T. S. Eliot]]|year=2002|isbn=0-415-27102-9|publisher = [[Routledge]]|title-link=The Need for Roots}}</ref> writing:
<blockquote>Greece, Egypt, ancient India, the beauty of the world, the pure and authentic reflection of this beauty in art and science...these things have done as much as the visibly Christian ones to deliver me into Christ's hands as his captive. I think I might even say more.<ref>Letter to Father Perrin, 26 May 1942</ref></blockquote>

Nevertheless, Weil was opposed to religious [[syncretism]], claiming that it effaced the particularity of the individual traditions:<blockquote>Each religion is alone true, that is to say, that at the moment we are thinking of it we must bring as much attention to bear on it as if there were nothing else ... A "synthesis" of religion implies a lower quality of attention.<ref>''Notebooks of Simone Weil'', volume 1</ref></blockquote>Weil accepts the truth of Christ's miracles but asserts that the miracles of [[Tibetans|Tibetan]] and [[Hindus|Hindu]] traditions are also real.<ref name=":411">{{Cite book |last1=Weil |first1=Simone |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/on1400095204 |title=The need for roots: prelude to a declaration of obligations towards the human being |last2=Schwartz |first2=Ros |last3=Kirkpatrick |first3=Kate |date=2023 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-241-46797-8 |series=Penguin classics |location=UK ; USA |oclc=on1400095204}}</ref>{{rp|207}} She sees authentic Christian inspiration as preserved in mysticism, and she criticizes a conception of God as a master to be worshipped in the manner of slaves or pagans honoring an emperor, calling this idolatrous.<ref name=":411" />{{rp|215}} Instead, she defines divine [[Divine providence|providence]] as the organizing principle of the cosmos.<ref name=":411" />{{rp|220}}