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Lewis, C S - Prince Caspian - Sailing into the Light
Identifier
000102
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
In C S Lewis’s Prince Caspian – one of the books in the Narnia 'series for children of all ages', Lewis describes a journey at the water level. They travel by boat round the hoop towards the Creator – the allegorical Sun.
It is worth noting that the ‘water’ is so pure in the story they drink it and it gives them new powers. The ‘white birds’ are angels. Arlan is a star.
A description of the experience
C S Lewis – Prince Caspian
Very soon after they had left Ramandin’s country, they began to feel that they had already sailed beyond the world. All was different. For one thing they all found that they were needing less sleep. One did not want to go to bed nor to eat much, nor even to talk except in low voices. Another thing was the light. There was too much of it. The Sun when it came up each morning looked twice, if not three times, its usual size. And every morning …. the huge white birds, singing their song with human voices in a language no one knew streamed overhead and vanished astern on their way to their breakfast at Arlan’s table. A little later they came flying back and vanished into the East
………………..
There had been too much light ever since they left the island of Ramandu, the Sun was too large [though not too hot], the sea was too bright, the air too shining. Now, the light grew no less – if anything it increased – but they could bear it. They could look straight up at the sun without blinking. They could see more light than they had ever seen before. And the deck and the sail and their own faces and bodies became brighter and brighter and every rope shone. And next morning; when the sun rose, now five or six times its old size, they stared hard into it and could see the very feather of the birds that came flying from it