C.S. Lewis on Attention: “Now that she was left alone with the children, she took no notice of either of them. And that was like her too. In Charn she had taken no notice of Polly (till the very end) because Digory was the one she wanted to make use of. Now that she had Uncle Andrew, she took no notice of Digory. I expect most witches are like that. They are not interested in things or people unless they can use them; they are terribly practical.” (The Magician’s Nephew)
This utilitarian attention, that Lewis thought common to both sorcery (goetia) and modern science, is the opposite pole to the kind of attention that Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch describe: a “negative effort” (Weil) or “just and loving gaze” (Murdoch) that waits patiently for the other to reveal itself, rather than imposing its will. Presumably Lewis’s “old magic” (magia) involves Weil and Murdoch’s kind of attention, working “in and with the spiritual qualities of Nature, loving and reverencing them and knowing them from within.” (That Hideous Strength)