Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

like ours, associates some idea of the female with Venus‟” (Out of the Silent Planet, 111). Lewis doesn‟t
bother to hide any aspect of his message.
The work of Charles Williams, much like the man himself, is difficult to understand. In the words
of Barbara Newman,
The plots always revolve around the damage that occurs when a barrier in between the material
world and the inner or astral plane is breached. Whether through malice or accident, the veil
between worlds is torn, enabling supernatural powers to invade mundane reality and wreak havoc
until they can be contained by characters who willingly surrender to the Divine, resolving the crisis
through acts of substitution and exchange. (Newman, 6)
All of Williams‟ works center on his theory of substituted love and coinherence. Particularly in War in
Heaven, when the breach of the material and astral world occurs when the Holy Grail of legend is found and
put into play, and the situation is corrected through sacrifice and communion: two of the key aspects of
coinherence. Williams‟ theory relies on the idea that the members of the Holy Trinity „indwell‟ in one
another, and that „indwelling‟ is a model for all relationships: “The principle holds true across the full range
of Christian doctrine—the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, the communion of saints. . . This
reciprocity of being, this abiding of every self not in itself but in another, is what Williams means by
coinherence” (Newman, 6). Coinherence and Williams‟ version of prayer both involve a complete
surrender to Love itself. His intercessory prayer is something the pray-er must completely lose themselves
in, and only then are they capable of performing “divine magic” to counter acts of dark magic. Humphrey
Carpenter points out that coinherence “is in spirit entirely Christian,” yet, “like so much of Williams‟
thought, it did have an air of the magical” (Inklings, 105).
The “magical” events and feeling in all of his books are due to Williams‟ own inescapable attraction
to ritual in all of its forms. Apart from his own spiritual order, The Companions, his actual religious
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