On Simone Weil’s Inner Experience

Abstract

Convinced that one can attain the truth with a deep desire for it and limitless attention, Simone Weil embarks on an inner journey in search of truth, with reality as her main reference point. Her lived experience as a worker, a witness of the Spanish Civil War as well as a philosophy teacher (to name just a few of the influential events in her life) constituted for Weil a personal journey on which she encountered the supernatural, which in turn gave rise to a metaphysical orientation in her worldview. However, although Simone Weil crossed several thresholds both in her personal life and intellectually, a single guiding thread was a constant in her thinking. This unity to her thought can be detected through an analysis of some of her early writings where the seeds of this approach to reality were first planted. This paper demonstrates the significant stages in Simone Weil's life and thinking, emphasizing the mystical experiences dating to the end of her life, which resulted from her notion that the supernatural is a dimension of the real.