Simone Weil

Simone Weil (3 February 1909 in Paris, France – 24 August 1943 in Ashford, Kent, England), was a French philosopher, gnostic, Christian mystic, and activist for social justice and soteriology of Jewish descent.

 Life 
 Early life 

Simone Weil was born in Paris on February 3, 1909. She was the daughter of Bernard Weil, a doctor from a Jewish family in Alsace, and Salomea "Selma" Reinherz, who came from a Jewish family in Russia and grew up in Belgium. Her family was well-off and cared a lot about their children. Simone was the younger of two children. Her older brother was André Weil, a famous mathematician.

When Simone was a baby, she was healthy, but then she had a serious illness called appendicitis. After that, she often had poor health. During World War I, her father had to leave home to fight as a soldier. This made Simone very sad. Some researchers think this made her want to help other people very much. As a child, she even sent her share of sugar and chocolate to soldiers fighting in the war.

At the age of 10, Simone joined workers who were striking and chanting on the streets. She cared about workers’ rights and supported them. She learned about their low wages and encouraged them to form unions.

Simone Weil was very clean and sometimes worried that others would think she was dirty, even though she was beautiful when she was young. She was loving but did not like to be touched, even by friends.

Her mother said Simone liked boys more than girls and tried to teach her “masculine” virtues. Simone herself decided early on that she needed to be strong like a man to do her work helping poor and weak people. As she grew older, she often wore men’s clothes, did not use makeup, and sometimes signed her name as "Simon." Her parents called her “our son number two” because of this.

 Education and early life 
Simone Weil was a very smart child. By the age of 12, she could read and understand Ancient Greek. Later, she learned Sanskrit so that she could read the Bhagavad Gita in its original language.

As a teenager, she studied at the Lycée Henri IV, a well-known school in Paris. There, she was taught by a famous teacher named Émile Chartier, who was known as "Alain." Weil admired him greatly.

At school, Weil became known for her strong opinions and actions. She spoke out against the military draft and was very political. Because of this, some people called her the "Red Virgin." Her teacher Alain jokingly called her "The Martian" because she was so unusual.Alain, "Journal" (unpublished). Cited in Petrement, Weil, 1:6. Her classmates said she followed her moral beliefs very strictly and called her the "categorical imperative in skirts," comparing her to the philosopher Immanuel Kant.

School officials did not like how Weil acted. She did not care much about how she dressed, refused to follow traditions, and broke rules. One time, she smoked with male students, which was not allowed for girls, and she was suspended for it.

Later, Weil studied at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS), a top school for philosophy in France. There, she met another famous student, Simone de Beauvoir. The two did not get along. Weil said the most important thing in the world was a revolution to feed everyone. De Beauvoir replied that the purpose of life was to find meaning, not happiness. Weil answered, “It's easy to see you've never gone hungry.”

Weil was an excellent student. She finished first in the national philosophy exam. Simone de Beauvoir came in second. In 1931, Weil earned her diploma in philosophy, with a thesis called Science and Perception in Descartes. That same year, she received her agrégation, a special teaching certificate in France.

 Work and political activism 
Simone Weil was deeply interested in politics and helping working-class people. Even as a child, she showed sympathy for soldiers and workers. During World War I, at just six years old, she gave up sugar to support soldiers at the front. At age 10, she said she was a Bolshevik. As a teenager and young adult, she joined protests, supported workers’ rights, and believed in pacifism, Marxism, and trade unionism.

 Teaching and supporting workers 
While teaching in the town of Le Puy, Weil became involved in local politics. She supported workers who were being underpaid by the city. She joined their marches, shared wine with them, and spoke out for better wages. Because of this, she faced criticism, including an antisemitic attack in a newspaper. When the school questioned her behavior, her students and co-workers defended her. In the end, the city raised the workers’ pay.

Weil taught some of her classes outside and tried to make the classroom feel like a family. She also traveled to Saint-Étienne every week to teach workers about literature. She believed that literature could empower people and be part of a revolution.

 Factory work and political ideas 
Weil believed that only by living like workers could she truly understand their lives. She left her job and worked in factories owned by Alstom and Renault. She did hard, repetitive work and wrote about how factory workers could feel like machines. She called this experience le malheur, meaning deep suffering or affliction.

Although she had once supported Marxism, she later became critical of it. She believed that not only capitalists but also government officials and party leaders could oppress workers. She said some Marxist writers had never experienced real factory life. She also questioned whether revolutions really helped people, saying the idea of "revolution" often led to death and suffering.

In 1932, she visited Germany and warned her friends that the Nazis would soon take power. They did not believe her, but she was right. After Hitler became leader in 1933, she worked to help German communists escape the country.

 Writings and debates 
Weil wrote many articles about social and political issues. Some of these writings were critical of both capitalism and Marxism. Her work often used Marxist methods to study oppression, but she was also self-critical as an intellectual. Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary, stayed at Weil's family apartment in Paris in 1933. He debated with her and even criticized her in his writings. Still, he was reportedly influenced by some of her ideas.

Weil lost a teaching job in 1933 because of her political activism. That year, she joined a general strike to protest job cuts and low wages. In 1934, she took a one-year break from teaching to secretly work in factories. In 1935, she began teaching again in the town of Bourges and helped start a journal called Entre Nous, written by factory workers. She gave much of her income to charity and political causes.

 Spanish Civil War 
In 1936, Weil joined factory workers who were occupying factories in Paris. That same year, she traveled to Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Even though she was a pacifist, she joined the anti-fascist anarchist group known as the Durruti Column. She asked to be sent on a secret rescue mission, but the commander said it was too dangerous. Weil insisted she had the right to sacrifice herself, but was not given the mission.

Weil had poor eyesight and was not good with weapons. Her group tried to keep her away from combat. She only fired her gun once during an air raid. Eventually, she burned herself in a cooking accident and had to leave. Her parents took her back to France to recover. A month later, many people in her group were killed in battle.

Weil wrote reports about her time in Spain. She was shocked by some of the violence, especially when a 15-year-old prisoner was executed. She said she was horrified not just by what others did, but by realizing that she herself might be capable of such violence in war.

 Life in Marseille 
After Nazi Germany invaded France, Weil stopped being a pacifist. She said non-violence was only good if it worked. When the Germans occupied Paris, she and her family fled to Marseille. There, she joined the French Resistance and secretly delivered underground newspapers. The group was later infiltrated, and police questioned her. When they threatened to jail her with sex workers, she replied that she would welcome it. She was not arrested.

In Marseille, Weil began exploring religion more deeply. She met a Catholic priest, Father Joseph-Marie Perrin, and began to learn from him. She also met the Catholic writer Gustave Thibon, who owned a farm. Weil worked at his farm during the grape harvest. Thibon later edited and published some of her writings.

Weil wanted her family to buy a farm and live simply, but they chose instead to plan a move to the United States, which they thought would be safer.

 Encounters with mysticism 
Simone Weil was born into a non-religious family and grew up without belief in God. As a teenager, she thought it was impossible to know if God existed or not. But later in life, she began to have strong spiritual experiences that brought her closer to Christianity. Even as a child, Weil had a deep concern for others and believed in loving her neighbor, a key Christian idea.

 Religious experiences 
In 1935, while on holiday in Portugal, Weil saw a village religious procession where people were singing hymns. She was deeply moved by their faith and beauty. This moment made her feel that Christianity was the religion of the poor and suffering. She wrote that she felt she belonged to it too.

In 1937, Weil had a powerful spiritual experience in Assisi, Italy, at the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli. This church is where Saint Francis of Assisi once prayed. While visiting, she entered a small ancient chapel inside the church. There, she felt a strong urge to kneel and pray for the first time in her life.

Her third and strongest religious experience happened in 1938 while she was reciting a Christian poem, Love III by George Herbert. She wrote that in that moment, "Christ himself came down and took possession of me." After this, her writings became more mystical and spiritual, though she still focused on social and political problems.

In the same year, she visited the Solesmes Abbey, a Benedictine monastery. Even though she had painful headaches, she said she felt pure joy when listening to Gregorian chant. For her, this music showed how it was possible to feel divine love even during suffering.

 Relationship with the Church 
Although Weil was drawn to the Catholic faith, she chose not to be baptized. She believed that there was value in staying outside the Church because she still loved people and ideas that were not Christian. Weil also did not fully trust religious institutions. She once said, “I have not the slightest love for the Church in the strict sense of the word.”

She was disturbed by the Church's idea of excommunicating people (known as Anathema Sit) and did not want to cut herself off from non-believers. Weil believed humility was not possible inside a group that saw itself as “chosen by God,” whether that group was a religion or a nation.

Weil thought that modern Christianity had become mixed with social power and lost its true spiritual nature. She believed that real Christianity should focus on love and obedience, not pride. Weil wrote that obedience was the “highest virtue,” and that the physical world obeys divine limits set by God out of love.

 Mysticism and attention 
Weil believed the modern Church and modern science both lacked the "spirit of truth." She said people must give themselves completely to God. For her, attention was very important—she thought focusing the mind deeply could help people understand eternal truths.

She rejected the idea of using religion for personal gain, like a medicine that promises results. True faith, she said, should be so important that losing it would feel like losing the will to live.

Weil thought that early Christianity had this kind of deep faith, but over time it became too closely tied to political power. She believed that only mystics had preserved the true meaning of Christianity, though many were misunderstood or condemned.

 Interest in other religions 
Weil also studied many non-Christian religions. She was especially interested in:
 Ancient Greek and Egyptian religions
 Hinduism (especially the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita)
 Mahayana Buddhism

She believed these traditions also contained real spiritual truth. She wrote that the beauty of Greece, Egypt, India, and even the natural world and art helped bring her closer to Christ. She said they might have helped her even more than traditional Christian teachings.

But Weil did not believe in combining religions into one. She said that each religion should be respected in its own way, and that trying to mix them reduced their value. She wrote that we must give full attention to each religion, as if it were the only one.

 Final thoughts on religion 
Weil believed that miracles in Christianity were real, but she also accepted that miracles could happen in other religions like Tibetan Buddhism and Hinduism. She believed true Christian spirit was still alive in mystical experiences—not in formal rules or institutions.

She did not think of God as a powerful ruler like a king or emperor. Instead, she saw God as love and order—the deep organizing force of the whole universe.

 London writing period 
In 1942, Simone Weil went to the United States with her family. Although she did not want to leave France, she agreed to go so she could help protect her parents, who would not leave without her. Weil also hoped that from the U.S., she could travel more easily to Britain and join the French Resistance. She dreamed of returning to France as a secret agent.

While in New York City, Weil met important members of the Free French government. Maurice Schumann, a former classmate, introduced her to André Philip, the Minister of the Interior under Charles de Gaulle. Philip told Weil he had read her writings before the war and respected her work. He later gave a speech in New York, calling for a new France based on strong moral and spiritual values—not like those of Vichy France, the pro-German regime.

In 1943, Weil moved to London and started working at the Free French government's Commissariat for the Interior, under André Philip and Francis-Louis Crostan. She did not go into the field as she had hoped. Instead, she worked at a desk, analyzing reports from the French Resistance. This gave her time to write one of her most important books, The Need for Roots.

 Writings in London 
During her time in London, Weil wrote many other essays and papers, such as:
 Draft for a Statement of Human Obligations
 Note on the General Suppression of Political Parties
 What is Sacred in Every Human Being?
 Are We Fighting for Justice?
 Essential Ideas for a New Constitution
 Concerning the Colonial Problem in its Relation to the Destiny of the French People

She also translated parts of the Upanishads, ancient Hindu texts.

These writings showed her hope for a better future after World War II. Weil wanted France to rebuild itself on a foundation of duty and moral values—not only on human rights. She believed that focusing only on rights would repeat the mistakes of the French Revolution of 1789. Instead, she believed a strong society should begin with obligations—what people owe to one another—and compassion for others. Her ideas reflected the serious thinking at the time about how to build a just and peaceful France.

 Health and final days 
Although Weil worked hard and wrote many plans, she was frustrated. She felt safe in London while people in France were still suffering. She wanted to do more and tried to get permission to return to France, but her plans were rejected by General de Gaulle and others in power.

There is now evidence that she was recruited by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), a group that sent secret agents into Europe. In May 1943, plans were made to train her as a wireless radio operator in Oxfordshire. But these plans were cancelled when her poor health became known.

Weil’s intense work schedule affected her health. In 1943, she collapsed in her apartment, weak and underweight. She was diagnosed with tuberculosis and told to rest and eat more. But Weil, true to her ideals, refused special treatment. She said she would only eat what the people of occupied France might eat—and sometimes she ate even less. It is possible that she was baptized during this time, but it is not certain.

Her health worsened quickly. Weil was taken to a hospital for rest and care at Grosvenor Hall, a sanatorium in Ashford, Kent. She died there later that year, in 1943.

Weil is buried at Bybrook Cemetery in Ashford.

 Philosophy 
 Absence 
The idea of absence was very important in Simone Weil's religious and philosophical thinking. She believed that God created the universe by choosing to withdraw part of Himself. In her view, God is completely full and perfect. Because of this, nothing else could exist unless God made space for it. So, for anything else to be created, God had to step back. This idea is similar to the Jewish concept of tzimtzum, where God makes room for the world by pulling back.

Weil believed this act of withdrawal was the first example of kenosis, which means self-emptying. Later, she saw Jesus Christ's coming to Earth as a second, corrective act of kenosis. For Weil, humans are not born sinful because of original sin, but because they were created in a space where God is not fully present. That means people are, in a way, spiritually far from God simply by being created. This view is part of a kind of theology called apophatic theology, which focuses on what cannot be said or known about God.

This idea helped Weil explain the problem of evil. Many people ask: If God is all-powerful and good, why does evil exist? Weil answered this by saying that because God had to step back to create anything, the world was never perfect to begin with. Evil exists not because God failed, but because imperfection is part of what it means to be created at all.

Still, Weil did not believe that evil meant people were hopeless. Instead, she thought evil and suffering could bring people closer to God. She once wrote that "evil is the form which God's mercy takes in this world." In her view, suffering shows us the truth about human weakness and leads us to seek something greater. She said: "The extreme affliction which overtakes human beings does not create human misery, it merely reveals it."

 Affliction 
Simone Weil developed the idea of affliction (in French, malheur) to explain a deep kind of human suffering. She started thinking about this while working in factories, where she saw workers treated like machines. The hard, repetitive work left people no time or energy to think or rebel. Weil wrote that “thought flies from affliction as promptly and irresistibly as an animal flees from death.” This kind of suffering, she said, forces people to keep asking why—a question that has no answer.

For Weil, affliction is not just pain or sadness. It includes physical suffering, emotional pain, and social humiliation. Affliction is so powerful that it can destroy a person’s sense of self. She believed that only extreme affliction can make a person lose the ability to say "I"—to feel like a person at all. In this way, affliction goes beyond normal suffering and becomes something that affects the soul itself.

Weil saw that affliction can make even innocent people feel guilty and ashamed. It often causes people to turn that pain inward, blaming themselves instead of those who caused the suffering. This, she said, is like a kind of slavery of the soul.

However, Weil also believed that affliction can open the way to grace. She did not say that suffering is good. Instead, she believed that in extreme suffering, a person might be forced to let go of illusions—false beliefs about themselves and the world—and become more open to spiritual truth.

Weil wrote that people who are most capable of feeling joy are also the ones who suffer most deeply. She described affliction as "suffering plus something else"—a kind of total suffering that affects body, mind, and soul.

She also believed that we can learn through suffering. In her book Gravity and Grace, Weil compared this to old stories: in the Bible, the serpent offered knowledge to Adam and Eve, and in Greek myth, the sirens offered knowledge to Ulysses. But she said that seeking knowledge through pleasure leads to losing the soul. Real knowledge, she wrote, can only come through suffering:
"The better we are able to conceive of the fullness of joy, the purer and more intense will be our suffering in affliction and our compassion for others. … It is permissible to seek [knowledge] only in suffering."

 Beauty 
Simone Weil saw beauty not just as something pretty or artistic, but as something deeply moral and spiritual. For her, beauty is closely linked to truth, goodness, justice, and even to God. It was an important part of how she understood the world and how people should live.

In her book Gravity and Grace, Weil wrote:
"The love of the beauty of the world is the only pure love. It is the love that enables us to look at things without trying to own them."

She also wrote:
"The beautiful is that which we desire without wishing to eat it. We desire that it be."

This means that true beauty makes us want something to exist simply because it is beautiful—not because we want to use it or control it. For Weil, this kind of love is pure and respectful.

Weil believed that seeing beauty helps people recognize the realness of other people and things. This connects beauty to justice, which she defined as truly seeing others and making sure they are not harmed. She said:
"Justice consists in seeing that no harm comes to those whom we have noticed as real beings."

She criticized modern society—its politics, media, and education—for losing the connection between beauty and truth. Weil believed that modern culture often chases power, fame, and showiness instead of humility and real greatness. She admired beauty in things like Zen poetry, old Christian art, and the lives of saints.

For Weil, beauty also had a theological (religious) meaning. She believed that beauty in the world is a sign that God's presence is real. She wrote:
"The beautiful is the proof that the incarnation is possible."

This means that beauty shows us that God can appear in the world. Weil said that beauty fills the universe, and this beauty matches the needs and feelings of all thinking beings. To her, this harmony was another way to understand that the world was made with purpose.

She also wrote:
"The beauty of this world is Christ's tender smile coming to us through matter."

Beauty had a saving power for Weil. She said that beauty captures the senses so that it can reach the soul. In this way, it helps the soul move closer to God. Where affliction (another important idea in Weil’s work) forces a person to face suffering, beauty gently opens the soul to something higher.

In the end, Simone Weil believed that beauty is not just about how something looks—it is about how it points to truth, goodness, and God. Beauty helps people forget themselves for a moment and pay full attention, which she saw as one of the most important virtues. Through beauty, people may come to know the divine.

 Decreation 
Decreation is a spiritual idea described by the French thinker Simone Weil. She wrote about it in her book Waiting for God. Weil believed that to truly follow God, people must give up their own power and ego. She called this idea "decreation" (in French: décréation).

Decreation means letting go of the “self”—our pride, control, and personal wants. It is a kind of “passive activity” where a person acts without trying to control results. Weil got this idea partly from reading the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu text, when she was young. She compared it to "non-active action".

Weil believed that most people live under the rule of necessity, which includes physical laws, social pressures, and even psychological habits. She said that everything in the soul is affected by these forces—just like how things fall because of gravity. Only grace, she said, can free people from these forces. Grace allows us to go beyond necessity, and the work of grace is decreation.

To Weil, when we are centered on ourselves, we deny these necessary truths. We try to live outside of reality. But if we accept necessity—if we agree to live according to truth and not desire—we can become closer to God. This act of agreement happens through decreation, not through struggle.

Weil described it this way:
“‘Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.’ To forgive debts means to give up our own personality...to be happy that this is the truth.”

Weil believed that our vision of the world is often distorted by attachment. We project our personal desires and dreams onto the world. As a result, we do not see reality clearly. For example, we imagine people owe us things or dream of being rewarded—but these are illusions. True connection to reality requires detachment—letting go of these illusions and destroying the “I”.

This does not mean becoming cold or indifferent. Instead, it is a spiritual practice. It is a way to prepare for God’s presence, which cannot be seen when we are full of imagination and ego. Weil wrote that God can only enter into an “empty” soul.

Weil also described two kinds of obedience. The first is false—it is based on imagined rewards or divine approval. The second is true—it is a calm, quiet attention to reality, without personal interest. Weil thought this pure attention is the only good reason to act.

Hurting others, she said, is usually an attempt to fill our own emptiness. But real freedom comes from giving up the self—voluntarily letting go of ego, even though suffering may also take it from us by force. When we accept this loss, we become part of the creative power of God.

Weil even believed that in ancient times, people could serve God without knowing it. Their rituals were meaningful not because of what they imagined, but because of the purity of their attention and actions.

 Obligation 
Simone Weil believed that society should be built on obligations instead of rights. She thought people often ignore the suffering of others because they are too focused on their own rights. She said this weakens our ability to face deep suffering.

Her book The Need for Roots was first called Draft for a Statement of Human Obligations. In it, Weil argued that all human beings have the same basic duties toward others, even though how these are carried out depends on the situation.

Weil made a difference between rights and obligations:
A person, when seen alone, only has duties—including duties to themselves.

Rights come from how others see us and recognize their own obligations to us.

A person alone in the universe would still have obligations, but no rights.

She wrote:
“Rights depend on conditions. Obligations do not.”

In other words, obligations are universal, but rights are conditional. Weil thought that if everyone focused more on what they owed to others, rather than what they were owed, society would become more just and compassionate.

 Rootedness 
In The Need for Roots, Simone Weil says that rootedness is very important for people. Rootedness means being part of a real community that connects the past, the present, and the future. It is a deep need in the human spirit. People feel rooted when they belong to a place, have a family or culture, and take part in meaningful work. Weil thinks everyone needs many roots to live a full life. These roots give us strength for our mind, heart, and spirit.

Weil says roots help people grow toward higher values, like goodness and God. Being rooted means having duties to the community, feeling connected to where you live, and keeping links with history and culture. Rootedness helps us feel at home in the world.

 Uprootedness: A danger for the soul 
The opposite of rootedness is uprootedness. This means feeling lost, disconnected, or cut off from community and culture. Weil says money and power often cause uprootedness. When money becomes the most important thing, it breaks human roots. People become like tools or workers, losing their deeper connections.

Weil saw that many workers stayed in one place but lost their moral and spiritual roots. She also believed that colonialism, conquest, and economic control make people uprooted. When people cannot take part in community life or remember their history, they suffer deeply.

 Patriotism of compassion 
Weil did not reject patriotism, but she said true patriotism is not about pride or power. It is about compassion—caring for your country with kindness and understanding. Compassionate patriotism can also feel for other countries and people in trouble. Weil thought this kind of love is much stronger and better than prideful nationalism. It accepts a country’s problems but stays ready to help and sacrifice for it.

 The spiritual meaning of work 
Weil taught that work is not only about earning money. Work is a spiritual activity. It can help people feel respected and connected to others. But bad work, like long hours in big factories, makes people feel like machines. This causes uprootedness and pain.

Weil wanted work to be meaningful. She imagined small workshops where workers could control their time, learn new skills, and live in community. Machines would be owned by workers or small groups, not by big factories. Weil said work should connect the body, mind, and soul. Even hard work could become beautiful and help people grow closer to God.

 Metaxu: the link in separation 
Weil used the idea of Metaxu from Plato. It means something that both divides and connects at the same time. For example, two prisoners separated by a wall can still talk by knocking on it. The wall divides them but also links them.

Weil said the same is true between people and God. Even when God feels far, the things that separate us can also bring us closer, if we know how to listen.

 Attention: the key to love and justice 
For Weil, attention means focusing fully on someone or something, emptying your own thoughts to truly see the other. Giving attention to someone who suffers is a great act of love. It is even the heart of prayer—turning completely toward God or a neighbor.

Attention is different from pity. Pity often means wanting to feel better about ourselves by helping others. But true attention means fully accepting the other person’s pain and truth without judgment.

Weil said attention is also the foundation of justice. It helps us see people as real and stop harming them. “Justice means seeing that no harm comes to those whom we have noticed as real beings,” she wrote.

 Loving God without saying His Name 
In Waiting for God, Weil explained three ways people love God without naming Him directly:
 Love of Neighbor – Treating others with care and respect, especially those who suffer.
 Love of Beauty in the World – Seeing and appreciating the world’s beauty without trying to control it.
 Love of Religious Ceremonies – Taking part in pure and faithful religious acts with love, not pride.

 Works 
Many of Weil's most famous works were published after she died. Weil believed that her writings showed the best of herself, not her actions or personality. She thought it was more important to focus on what people wrote, because their works contain their best ideas.

 The Iliad, or The Poem of Force 
One of Weil’s well-known essays is called The Iliad, or The Poem of Force. She wrote it in 1939. In this short essay, Weil talks about the idea of “force” in the ancient Greek poem The Iliad. She says force is a power that turns people into things, destroying their freedom and spirit.

Weil explains how the poem shows that force can harm both the winners and the losers in war. She even translated some parts of the poem herself, spending a long time on each line to get it right. This essay is still studied in many universities today.

 The Need for Roots 
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The Need for Roots was written in 1943, just before Weil died. In this book, she writes about how people need strong roots—meaning a deep connection to their community, culture, and values—to live well. Weil wrote this book while working with the French Resistance during World War II.

She wanted to help France recover after the war by encouraging compassion and moral strength instead of only following rules or laws. Weil believed that true victory depends on having a strong and pure spirit.

 Gravity and Grace 
Gravity and Grace is a book made from Weil’s notes and writings. She did not plan to publish it as a book. Her friend Gustave Thibon collected and organized the writings after her death.

In this work, Weil talks about two important ideas: gravity and grace. Gravity means the natural force that pulls everything down, like the weight of the world and suffering. Grace is the opposite — a kind of justice and goodness that comes from God. Weil thought these two forces are always working in the world, meeting especially at the crucifixion of Jesus.

 Waiting for God 
Waiting for God is a collection of Weil’s letters and essays about her spiritual life. It was published after she died, in 1950. The book shows her deep struggle with faith and her search for God.

In the letters, Weil writes about how love, attention, and suffering help people grow closer to God. She explains that true faith needs patience and openness. Even though she believed in God strongly, Weil did not want to be baptized because she felt that faith must come from God, not from a person’s own choice.

The book is important for people interested in mysticism, philosophy, and faith. Some essays in the book include:
 Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God
 The Love of God and Affliction
 Forms of the Implicit Love of God
 Concerning the 'Our Father'''
 The Three Sons of Noah and the History of Mediterranean Civilization Other important essays 
Weil wrote many essays many of which have been compiled into various books. Major essays not included in Gravity and Grace or Waiting for God include: 

 Factory Work (1935) based on Weil's experience working in factories, offering insights into the dehumanizing aspects of industrial labor.
 Reflections on the Causes of Liberty and Social Oppression (1934) a critical analysis of oppression in both capitalist and socialist systems, emphasizing the spiritual value of labor.
 The Power of Words (1937) Examines how political language and slogans can distort truth and manipulate thought.
 Meditation on Obedience and Liberty (1940) explores the relationship between obedience, authority, and personal freedom.
 What the Occitan Inspiration Consists Of (1941) Discusses the spiritual and poetic legacy of the Occitan tradition.
 Human Personality (1943) discusses what constitutes the sacred core in human beings
 Draft for a Statement of Human Obligations (1943) proposes a framework of obligations as the foundation for justice, contrasting with rights-based approaches.
 Note on the General Suppression of Political Parties (1943) (also known as Essential Ideas for a New Constitution) A radical critique of political parties, arguing they hinder the pursuit of truth and justice. Published posthumously in La Table Ronde in 1950.
 What is Sacred in Every Human Being? (1943) composed shortly before her death. It explores the intrinsic value and dignity of every person
 Are We Fighting for Justice? (1943) critiques the moral motivations behind the Allied war effort in World War II, asking whether it is truly being fought for justice or simply for victory
 Concerning the Colonial Problem in its Relation to the Destiny of the French People (1943) (originally Note sur la question coloniale) Weil addresses colonialism and its moral and political implications, particularly for France. She advocates for justice and genuine fraternity between peoples.

 Legacy 
Simone Weil was not well known while she was alive. In France, only a small group of people—mostly those interested in radical politics—read her essays. But after her death in 1943, her fame grew quickly. By the 1950s, many people in the West were reading her work. For a time, she was seen as one of the most important voices in religious and spiritual thinking of the 20th century. Her ideas on politics and philosophy also became known, though not as widely as her spiritual work.

 Influence on people and ideas 
Weil deeply influenced many well-known people. Pope Paul VI said she was one of the three biggest influences on his life. Writers and thinkers like Iris Murdoch, Jacques Derrida, Albert Camus, Frantz Fanon, Emmanuel Levinas, Adrienne Rich, and Thomas Merton all said she affected their thinking. Philosopher Simone de Beauvoir met Weil when they were both young and said she "envied her for having a heart that could beat right across the world."

Some called Weil a modern-day saint. Poet T. S. Eliot, writer Dwight Macdonald, and psychiatrist Robert Coles admired her deeply. Albert Camus said she was "the only great spirit of our times." Her friend and editor Gustave Thibon described her soul as “absolutely transparent... ready to be reabsorbed into original light.”

Weil's ideas continue to be studied by scholars. Her writings are used in many fields, including philosophy, religion, education, literature, and even areas like cultural studies and ergonomics. A study by the University of Calgary lists over 5,000 works written about her.

 Criticism 
Weil has also been criticized. Some people, including T. S. Eliot, thought she was too extreme in dividing the world into good and evil. Others said she was too quick to make harsh judgments. Weil strongly criticized Judaism and the Roman Empire, which caused some to accuse her of bias. However, her niece Sylvie Weil and other scholars argue that Simone was actually influenced by Jewish ideas, even if she criticized them.

Some Jewish writers, like Susan Sontag, called her antisemitic, but this view is not shared by everyone. A few people, including General Charles de Gaulle (her wartime superior), thought she was mentally unstable. Still, even de Gaulle kept quoting her long after her death.

 Books and biographies 
Since her death, many of Weil’s writings have been published. There are about 20 books written by her, and more than 30 biographies. One famous biography is Simone Weil: A Modern Pilgrimage by Robert Coles, who called her "a giant of reflection."

Groups like the Association pour l'Étude de la Pensée de Simone Weil (France) and the American Weil Society (USA) are dedicated to studying her life and ideas.

 Art and media 
Weil’s life and work have inspired many artists and creators.
 Theater: The play Approaching Simone by Megan Terry, which tells Weil’s life story, won an Obie Award in 1970.
 Film: The 2010 documentary An Encounter with Simone Weil by Julia Haslett explores Weil’s life and impact.
 Music: Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho created La Passion de Simone (2008), based on Weil’s life.
 Literature and poetry: Writers like T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Susan Sontag, Adrienne Rich, and Anne Carson have all mentioned Weil as an influence.
 Fiction and pop culture: In the music of Twenty One Pilots, a character named Clancy is said to be inspired by Weil’s ideas about suffering and freedom. The villain “Nico” may even refer to her brother, André Weil, who used the name “Nicolas Bourbaki.”

Weil's unfinished play Venice Saved'' was later completed and published with the help of translators Silvia Panizza and Philip Wilson.

 Ongoing impact 
Today, Simone Weil is remembered as a unique and powerful thinker. Her work continues to inspire people who are searching for truth, justice, and spiritual meaning. Even though some of her ideas are controversial, she is widely respected for her honesty, courage, and deep concern for human suffering.

 References 

 Other websites 
Some texts from Simone Weil (translated to Catalan)

Category:1909 births
Category:1943 deaths
Category:20th-century French philosophers
Category:Jewish activists
Category:Jewish philosophers
Category:Jews who converted to Christianity
Category:Nonviolence advocates
Category:Scientists from Paris