Saint Joan · Chapter
The Evolutionary Appetite explained
This chapter explores the modern interpretation of Joan of Arc's visions and voices, arguing against the 19th-century view that they were mere delusions.
What happens
This chapter explores the modern interpretation of Joan of Arc's visions and voices, arguing against the 19th-century view that they were mere delusions. Instead, it proposes that Joan's experiences represent a 'superpersonal need' or 'evolutionary appetite'—a driving force that uses individuals for purposes beyond personal survival and comfort. The author contends that visionaries like Joan are neither impostors nor lunatics, but rather individuals through whom the forces of evolution manifest, and that their experiences, while not objectively valid in a literal sense, are profoundly significant.
Themes in this chapter
Faith and Reason
The chapter examines the tension between rationalist explanations of Joan's visions and a more mystical, evolutionary interpretation, questioning the boundaries between faith, delusion, and superpersonal forces.
Historical Interpretation
The chapter critiques how different centuries (19th vs. 20th) have interpreted Joan's experiences, highlighting the evolving nature of historical understanding.
Characters to notice
- Joan of Arc
Discussed as a visionary whose voices and visions are reinterpreted as manifestations of the evolutionary appetite, not as delusions or imposture.
- St. Catherine
Mentioned as one of the celestial figures Joan claimed to see, representing a dramatization of superpersonal forces.
- St. Margaret
Mentioned as another celestial figure in Joan's visions, similarly interpreted as a psychological dramatization.
- Luther
Cited as an example of a historical figure with vivid imagination who threw an inkhorn at the devil, illustrating the spectrum of visionary experience.
Key passages
“The nineteenth century said that they were delusions, but that as she was a pretty girl, and had been abominably ill-treated and finally done to death by a superstitious rabble of medieval priests hounded on by a corrupt political bishop, it must be assumed that she was the innocent dupe of these delusions.”
The 19th century viewed Joan's voices as delusions, attributing them to her being a pretty girl victimized by corrupt clergy.
Summarizes the 19th-century rationalist perspective on Joan's visions.
“The twentieth century finds this explanation too vapidly commonplace, and demands something more mystic.”
The 20th century rejects the 19th-century view as too simplistic and seeks a more mystical understanding.
Highlights the shift in interpretive framework between centuries.
“But that there are forces at work which use individuals for purposes far transcending the purpose of keeping these individuals alive and prosperous and respectable and safe and happy in the middle station in life, which is all any good bourgeois can reasonably require, is established by the fact that men will, in the pursuit of knowledge and of social readjustments for which they will not be a penny the better, and are indeed often many pence the worse, face poverty, infamy, exile, imprisonment, dreadful hardship, and death.”
There exist superpersonal forces that drive individuals to sacrifice personal comfort and safety for knowledge and social change, as seen in the willingness to endure hardship and death.
Introduces the concept of the 'evolutionary appetite' as a driving force beyond personal gain.
“It is one thing to say that the figure Joan recognized as St. Catherine was not really St. Catherine, but the dramatization by Joan's imagination of that pressure upon her of the driving force that is behind evolution which I have just called the evolutionary appetite.”
Joan's vision of St. Catherine can be understood as her imagination dramatizing the evolutionary pressure she felt, rather than a literal appearance.
Clarifies the author's interpretation of Joan's visions as psychological dramatizations of evolutionary forces.
