See this article: The Famous Book she Never Wrote
Excerpts:
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Every natural impulse of the soul is governed by laws analogous to physical gravity: except only grace.
We must always expect things to turn out as if pulled downwards by their own weight, unless the supernatural comes into play. There are just two forces in the universe: upwards to the light, down by the weight of nature.
Gravity: As a rule what we expect from others is determined by the effect of gravity in ourselves. What we actually get is determined by the effect of gravity in them. By chance the effects may match, but often not.
How is it that when I show the need for someone, in a small or big way, they tend to distance themselves from me? That’s gravity.
King Lear: a tragedy of gravity. Every kind of base deed comes from gravity: the term speaks for itself.
The goal of an action, and the energy that fuels it: these are separate things.
Suppose there is something that has to be done. Where do we get the strength? A good action can drag me down if I don’t have reserves of strength to help others.
Baseness and superficiality go well together. “His love is violent but base”: this is a possible sentence. “His love is deep but base”: not possible.
I suspect that we are better able to endure suffering for a selfish motive (for example standing in a queue for seven hours to buy an egg) than for an altruistic one, such as saving a human life. If it’s true, then in certain respects a selfish act is better able to deal with problems, temptations and misfortunes than a noble one.
Example: Napoleon’s troops; the use of cruelty to raise their morale. Take this into account in cases of moral weakness. It illustrates a general law which puts greater strength at the disposal of baseness. This is symbolised by gravity.
Food queues: the same action is easier for base than noble motives. The base ones give us more strength and endurance. So the problem is how to transfer it to the noble motives .
I mustn’t forget that when one of my headaches was raging, I used to feel an intense urge to hurt someone else by hitting them in the same spot. Such correlative or mirroring desires are common among creatures.
At various times in this state, I’ve succumbed to the temptation to say some wounding words. Thus I’ve been pulled down by gravity, which is the worst sin. I’ve perverted the very purpose of language by sowing division, where it’s meant to be an expression of connections.
I need to turn to the other in humility, for the sake of being delivered from myself.
Any attempt to break free using my own strength would be like a cow straining against its hobble. thus falling to its knees.
In this manner I succumb to stress, which simply makes things worse. It sets up a vicious circle of misplaced effort. I can’t free my own self, only with help from above.
We can’t produce moral strength from within. Like eating and breathing, we have to get it from outside. This we take for granted and think we can be self-sufficient, as if the law of conservation of energy applies to our own driving-force, as in physics. We don’t see our neediness till we are completely starved, and then we turn to whatever we can get.
We’re in need of a remedy, something like chlorophyll which allows plants to feed on light. So I must not lay blame on anyone. All misdeeds come to the same thing: not being able to feed on light. Without this capacity, any evil is possible.
My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me.
There is no goodness aside from this capacity.
Coming down without the aid of gravity…gravity makes things come down, wings make them rise. What kind of supercharged wing can make things come down without gravity? This created world is built from the downward movement of gravity, the upward movement of grace and the downward movement of supercharged grace.
Grace is the law of downward movement. To reach down of our own accord is to rise in relation to moral gravity. Moral gravity make us fall upwards.
When someone’s misfortune is too great it puts them down beyond the reach of pity. All that’s left is disgust, horror and scorn. Pity can reach down to a certain level, no lower. What can charity do to reach the depths? Do those who have fallen so low pity their own selves?
a wayfarer’s notes 
As with the previous post, I’ve uploaded my English version alongside the original French. You can find it here.
As before, don’t attempt to read it by clicking “open with Google docs”!
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I don’t know about her ideas about grace but her ideas about gravity seem pretty simplistic.
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Yes, Ellie, fair comment. There’s a risk that the jottings of a young woman in her private notebooks, never intended by her for publication in that form, may be treated as fully worked-out ideas.
I agree that her gravity is simplistic as presented here. I think it’s because she doesn’t clarify what she means by “every natural impulse of the soul”. We are left puzzled.
I ought to add that it’s not part of my task to paraphrase her words or come up with any interpretation. And certainly not to promote or defend her.
Enough to say that I find the translation exercise personally valuable; and hope it will be of interest and use to other readers when I’ve published all 39 chapters.
As ever, your comments provide valuable input and stimulus.
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The language of religious mysticism comes from religious experience.
I don’t think I’ve ever had what’s called a religious experience, so I can only dimly understand what the language refers to. I am probably below average in this respect, just as I am below average in my sensitivity to arts and music.
That’s not to deny that what Simone Weil is writing about is real. It’s just outside my frame of reference.
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Yes, my fault, Phil. She is much more than a mystic but I picked this exercise of a new translation of her notebooks because it’s so hard to express in English, and in many cases almost impossible to understand what she’s getting at.
Yet it could be said that she spent more of her energy being an activist, teacher and polyglot student of everything. Or a profoundly original and at times controversial thinker. My next post was going to be a translation of of her jottings about Evil which is giving me a hard time.
Instead of that I shall publish an extract from one of her essays, especially because it covers the same ground as many of your posts, while always viewing politics, justice, penology etc as requiring a spiritual approach.
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The earth is large and close so we notice it pulling us toward us. But everything with mass affects everything else no matter how small or distant. Up and down are relative to our own position not descriptive of the location of other entities.
I would prefer to think of gravity as a metaphor for how we are drawn together, and how space is shaped by the bodies present within it.
You are shaping my space, and I yours. Weil is drawing us into hers with her powerful thought.
ellie