No one’s cleaned here in AGES
– Sadhika Mani
FY Bsc
Reading time: 8-9 minutes
“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” — Genesis 3:19
The above excerpt is a line from the Book of Genesis, a tool Pullman leverages to expound one of the driving concepts of his novel trilogy, His Dark Materials. At the dirt level, his writing can be described as cold, poetic, vividly descriptive and emotionally resonant with the masses; while also maintaining the message of his work by crafting words into sharp rebukes of Christianity, from the point of view of an agnostic. He spins his tale in a largely convoluted manner, at least to me, which makes it rather hard to comprehend on the first read; especially with Pullman’s style of writing.
Oftentimes it even felt like I was reading hymns with how lyrical a lot of the prose was, which is highly ironic considering the fact that the novels were driven by Pullman’s critical examination and evident disapproval of the way organized religion worked.
The plotline follows the trials and tribulations of a young girl by the name Lyra, toeing the precipice of puberty as she attempts to evade the grasp of the ‘Magisterium’, the Church equivalent in the universe of His Dark Materials; a clever play on the fact that the teaching authority of the Catholic Church is also known as the Magisterium. The Church authority of Lyra’s universe was oddly obsessed with killing off a spunky child, going to great lengths to achieve this, all because they believed she would be the second coming of Eve, and would, in the process of succumbing to what they called ‘original sin’, condemn their universe to ‘ruin’ (as the Magisterium would phrase it, their words not mine).
The novel series has sparked many a debate on how Pullman’s depiction of the Magisterium was, as I’ve already mentioned, incredibly harsh, and the negative portrayal of the Catholic Church sent many into fits of rage and varying degrees of offence. There are a couple of reads I’ll list, all of which contribute to the dialogue on how the Magisterium is a direct allegory to the Vatican and its admittedly very questionable actions and behaviours over the years since it was formed; with several well-made connections to how the plot uses some of the spirit of the blatant disapproval several Catholics had towards the Church due to its views on homosexuality and its attempts to control the nation’s politics from the shadows using the moral doctrines they spewed during the 1980s.
It was, however, Pullman’s interpretation of the concept of ‘sin’ that caught my eye. Nobody is devoid of it, not you, not me, nor the priest and nor the church he preaches at. Everyone’s got a very general idea of what sin is, the general consensus being ‘sin’ = ‘bad’ and because it’s such a broad concept, obviously everyone at some point has had to contribute their two cents on what they think sin is.
The Catechism, a referential guide to the Catholic Church’s doctrines, defines sin as:
“-an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law”
This is, evidently enough, the textbook definition that the general population will presumably concur with. Another perspective that made an awful amount of sense was that society perceives sin to exist in the concept of abundance. Abundance of food, want, desire, wrath, and self-worth all make up the seven deadly sins. Even a plethora of love and kindness, a highly desired quality to have, could be considered deceitful in the eyes of the overly wary. Pullman’s interpretation of sin, however, takes a different approach. The novels speak of particulate matter between all the empty spaces and in all of the residents of that world, called Dust.
Philip describes ‘Dust’ to be this mysterious force, of which the powerful people in the story seem to be afraid. He goes further on to speak about Lyra, the protagonist seeing all the grown-ups around her doing frightful things to ward off the Dust that surrounds them and sinks into their very skin, which inevitably leads her to believe that if the bad guys are doing wicked things and consider Dust to be bad then Dust might as well be good.
Dust is what the Magisterium believed to be the source of original sin. Which, as Pullman enunciated so clearly, was once again incredibly ironic like many things are in this story, because almost every unfortunate thing that happened in the books was a result of Magisterium trying to meddle and poke around with the natural process of things.
Is it baffling that the ‘holiest’ institution in the world, the biggest contributor and benefactor of the suffrage of several of that world’s inhabitants, wanted to eradicate what they thought was the source of the sin they committed daily?
No, not really; frankly, the way several organized and hierarchical religions work bears striking resemblances to the way organized crime functions. Firstly, both systems have rather extreme methods of dealing with so-called heretics/whistleblowers who say anything that goes against what they believe is the greater good or goes against their belief system and course of operations.
Prime evidence?
The Roman Catholic Church has been publishing a catalogue, the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, which is an index of publications, all of which were deemed heretical and dangerous to the faith. While this was discontinued in 1966, and has been archived as a historical document, the very fact that the institution had to put out a list of works, banning them from being read reeks of a certain scent of scrambling desperation to keep things in their hands and under their control; similar to how several cartels will actively go out of their way to silence victims and whistleblowers from outing their operations.
And while we’re on the topic of it, we also cannot help but mention what the Church did to Galileo for suggesting that Copernicus’s theory of the solar system being heliocentric was correct (they put him on house arrest, because of course that’s where he belongs, and people like Marcial Maciel belong in green pastures where the truly good men go).
There are also several other parallels I’d like to draw, with how the pyramid structure of both systems pools all the power at the top, how both systems have had several instances where they’ll cover up any unbecoming accidents (sugarcoat for sexual abuse) to sustain public image and opinion, and though I doubt organized crime has ever had to worry about their reputation, the point still stands.
Another point that itched a very particular scratch for me was where exactly Pullman got the concept of Dust. Most of his inspiration stems from Paradise Lost, an epic penned by John Milton detailing the Biblical story of the fall of man. Dust is described as dark matter in the books, which could be directly taken from where Milton speaks of God using this so-called dark matter to create worlds. This use of the term matter in the definition of dust is further expanded on by Pullman in one of the books where he refers to Dust as what happens when matter begins to grow conscious and self-aware.
The concept, at least to me even now, is highly vague and uses several references to form this grandiose picture by the end of the trilogy that turns into more of an abstract notion than a concrete idea.
What makes sense to me personally, is that the concept of Dust highly resonates with the general sentiment that floated around during the Age of Enlightenment. The Age of Enlightenment was a period in the 18th century, a philosophical movement during which thought processes shifted from being oriented towards matters like religion and tradition to reason, science and individualism.
The basic themes surrounding both the Age of Enlightenment and ‘Dust’ are essentially the same at the ground level, with both phenomena being a catalyst and a result, for and of human curiosity. The Enlightenment period brought forth individuals who valued inquiring and questioning everything they were told, much like how the particulate matter ‘Dust’ is specifically attracted to, or is found in denser quantities around those who exhibit higher levels of intellectual curiosity. The Magisterium feared the influence of Dust on individuals the same way religious institutions of this world feared the spread of any scientific or philosophical idea that disproved whatever they preached, which influenced people to depend on reason over dogma.
If Dust was a concept that existed in our universe, I believe this is around the time people accepted it with open arms and let it sink into their very bones, allowing them to grow self-aware and conscious, to develop thoughts that were not dictated by religious institutions. It would make sense for this period to be a driving inspiration for Pullman’s work since, as I mentioned, it was around this time people started questioning authority, laying the groundwork for concepts that resemble secularism and modern-day democracy.
“Dust is only a name for what happens when matter begins to understand itself. Matter loves matter. It seeks to know more about itself, and Dust is formed”- The Amber Spyglass
Dust is the romance that comes from growing a consciousness. The romance of reason and constant scepticism. The very act of doubting one’s own existence is proof that one’s mind is reality –
‘Cogito Ergo Sum’.
I think and therefore I am.