Fortnightly Flotsam: Human Doings (not Beings), Tolkien, Chesterton, Amis, and Dalrymple

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Clarification for a Confused Reader

A reader asks if the “Mystical Erections” title means that the Brethren of the Free Spirit were hitting people over the head with their erections. It’s one of those questions that immediately clog the brain with so many responses, you’re left speechless. I’ve had time to sort it through a bit, so here are just a handful of responses:

1. I really need to hang up this blog.
2. I really need to get a lot better at writing headlines.
3. I really want to meet this woman’s husband so I can bow humbly before him.
4. I wish I could draw so I could (tastefully, maybe even demurely) illustrate a Brethren wielding such a weapon against his victims.
5. The Brethren were “pneumatic antinomians,” which means they didn’t think anything bodily could affect them, so they indulged in all things with no conscience, including their sexual appetite (which they didn’t have, since they weren’t bodily . . . they were “pneumatic”).
6. I suppose “mystical erection” implies the exact opposite of pneumatic antinomianism, so I bear a large degree of the blame here (reference Response 2 above). A member of the Brethren would place no…