The Blazing World

The Empress’s theological discussions with her advisors reflect the religious debates ongoing during Cavendish’s day. In her imagined world, Cavendish creates a world where religion is a benevolent force that unites people peacefully when presented as the one and only “Divine Truth” (100). The Empress’s peaceful conversion of her people reflects this belief. Unlike in England, women are at the forefront of this movement, as they have “quick wits, subtile conceptions, clear understandings, and solid judgments” (100). Their role in the movement illustrates the power and influence women have in Cavendish’s utopia; just as the Empress’s different approach to wielding power demonstrates what Cavendish imagined female rule capable of—through her “Art, and her own ingenuity [the Empress] did not onely convert the Blazing-world to her own Religion, but she kept them in a constant belief, without inforcement or blood-shed” (102). Cavendish’s political ideas contrast with contemporaries, such as Thomas Hobbes, who advocated a more pragmatic, opportunistic approach using fear to ensure authority.

The spirits—and their very existence—demonstrate how Cavendish’s scientific and religious beliefs intersect. Cavendish interjects herself into the narrative, commenting on the indescribable appearance of the immaterial spirits in an aside: They come “in what shapes or forms, I cannot exactly tell” (103). The spirits confirm Cavendish’s theory that matter is made of living, moving particles. The discussion of the spirits’ movements, which builds upon the theoretical work of Lucretius, establishes that “natural material bodies give Spirits motion” (106), as only God is fully immaterial. This detail also has a narrative purpose: The spirits need a physical body to move in, which explains the Duchess’s presence in the text, which allows Cavendish to write herself into the narrative proper, rather than simply making asides as the narrator.

The Empress desires to create Kabbalah, or a mystical belief system justifying how God relates to the material world, which gives Cavendish the opportunity to express her doubts about this form of religious study. During the Renaissance, Christian scholars sought to link Jesus Christ and his resurrection to the ten attributes of the Jewish Kabbalah, both to interpret Christianity more mystically and to use these ideas to convert Jews to Christianity. Cavendish suggests that no philosopher has yet to create an authentic Kabbalah, and she is critical of “Dr. Dee, and Edward Kelly,” Kabbalists whom she describes as “meer Cheats” (104), and of the Platonist Henry More, a Kabbalist who argued for a spirit world and whose “threefold Cabbala” (105) she scoffs at. The spirits confirm that “not all Cabbalas are true” (109), further supporting Cavendish’s belief that there isn’t an immaterial spirit world detached from matter.

At the same time, the Empress’s quest for Kabbalistic knowledge reveals Cavendish’s conviction that some things are beyond human knowledge and questions about them are possibly heretical. When the Empress presses the spirits for answers about the nature of original sin, digging into the details about how “Men did fall” from grace, the spirits answer that “this disobedient sin […] went beyond their knowledg” (116) and promptly disappear, signaling the inappropriateness of the Empress’s curiosity. By having the spirits “punished” (117) for giving even cursory answers to the Empress’s questions, Cavendish presents these issues as unanswerable.

The Blazing World dismisses Platonist ideas as nonsensical and overly abstruse. The spirits name “the three principles of Man, according to the doctrine of Platonists” (111) as: “first of the Intellect, Spirit, or Divine Light: 2. Of the Soul of Man her self and 3. Of the Image of the Soul” (111). Immediately, the spirits reject this division, as they “did not understand these three distinctions, [which] are intricate conceptions of irregular fancies” (111), reflecting Cavendish’s philosophical disagreements with other thinkers of the day. At the same time, the text does endorse Platonic love: “Platonicks believed, the souls of Lovers lived in the bodies of their Beloved” (113). The cult of Platonic love was particularly fashionable during the 1630s at the court of Queen Henrietta Maria, where Cavendish served before her marriage. Platonic love will be mentioned many times later in the book, usually in regard to the Empress and Duchess’s friendship, partially to explain how and why the Empress and Duchess share bodies throughout their travels.

When the Empress is selecting a scribe, Cavendish criticizes the famous male thinkers throughout history for their misogynistic views and for their outsized egos. No “ancient famous Writer, either of Aristotle, Pythagoras, Plato, Epicurus, or the like” (118) would stoop so low as to be an amanuensis—these men “were so wedded to their own opinions, that they would never have the patience to be Scribes” (118). Similarly, “the most famous modern Writers [such] as either Galileo, Cassendius, Des Cartes, Helmont, Hobbes, [or] H. More” (118-19) would condescend to work with the Empress—these men are “so self-conceited, that they would scorn to be Scribes to a Woman” (119). Cavendish is critical of her peers for their sexism, reflecting her struggles with the male, mainstream scientific academy. She creates a self-insert character, the Duchess, to defend herself and highlight her strengths. While the Duchess is “not one of the most learned, eloquent, witty, and ingenious, yet is she a plain and rational Writer” (119). The spirits’ admiration of the Duchess places her amongst the other listed thinkers.