The Book of Margery Kempe Versions of Reality Quotes

Kempe suffers a severe bout of post-partum depression after the birth of her first child and is presented with this reality. For her, evil is tangible and real—and on it's on its way to get her. Perhaps this is a convenient way to talk about depression or even spiritual struggle, but Kempe doesn't appear to be speaking metaphorically here. Devils were part of her daily existence.

We might say that Kempe tunes in to a different wavelength, almost as though she's conscious of something that not everyone can perceive. This hyper-reality reveals itself to Kempe through her senses. She not only tunes in, though—this experience shakes her to her core. Spiritual revelations have profound effects on her body and mind.

Kempe has an enormous capacity to connect things in her world with religious memories or experiences. Perhaps this is because she's looking for God in all things and trying to find a connection between her inner life and the world around her. This can be an overwhelming experience for her, since she is often literally floored when those connections are made.

If we think about what Kempe really experiences in these cases, it's kind of terrifying. Crucifixion is a gruesome punishment. Kempe enters so imaginatively and vividly into Christ's suffering that she can often perceive what he's experiencing with her bodily senses. To see such a thing happening before one's eyes would be devastating. It's this kind of religious experience that Kempe actively courts by living the contemplative life. Suffering is just part of the deal.

The Holy Sepulchre becomes a portal for Kempe that transports her directly to the moment of Christ's actual burial. In this altered reality, Kempe perceives visually in her soul. Whether she sees with her physical eye or her mind, the effect is the same—and it's usually devastating.

This may be one of the most bizarre and distressing moments of the book. Kempe participates in a spiritual wedding with God the Father. She's distressed because she's super attached to Jesus, the Son of God, partly as a result of his humanity. Still, she goes along with it and sees a full wedding entourage in her soul. It's highly symbolic, and it signifies that Kempe is maturing in her spirituality.

Kempe reacts to a greeting from the Abbot of Leicester Abbey and his friars. Seeing them as Christ and his disciples is a way of saying that these are good and truly holy men. It's also a way of continually signifying that Christ's journey on earth continues through the lives of modern-day disciples.

Kempe often springboards into an alternate timeline through participation in memorial services, like the one that is performed on Holy Thursday (the Thursday before Easter). Sometimes, she constructs this reality from what she knows of scripture. But in other cases, like this one, she imagines what must have happened between Christ and his followers, based on her own emotional responses to such sorrow.

Kempe is describing a ritual in which the priest symbolically knocks on the door of heaven (that's the church) and is admitted by Christ (the clerics on the other side of the door). But this opening of a literal door signals to Kempe a different kind of opening and ushers her into a totally different experience. Instead, she sees Christ harrowing hell, freeing all the righteous souls that have been hanging out there since the beginning of time.

Kempe has this experience on Candlemas, when the church celebrates the Purification of Mary. It's an incident described in scripture, so Kempe would have heard this read in church or by a priest at other times. But again, she moves from the present life around her immediately into active participation in the past. Unfortunately, this imaginative movement often makes Kempe unable to cope with present rituals.