The Directional Language of Interior Movement
A new series on the Discernment of Spirits using Girardian insights
Note: The community conversation with Byrne Hobart on “Manias and Mimesis” (from June 10) is now available to all subscribers. Both an audio version of the Zoom call and a full text transcript can be found here. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Desire Is Movement
I’ve been reading a lot of Augustine recently, partly as research for a (potential) new book project.
I was struck to find that, in his Confessions, Augustine describes the period just prior to his conversion experience as one in which mimetic models of desire were the main catalyst.
Augustine was studying in Carthage at the time, and he was increasingly anxious and unsettled. It seemed to him that he was wasting his life away following his egotistical desires—including his “burning passions”—at every step of the way.
All the while, he longed for an interior peace which eluded him.
H…