Let us evaluate the insights into statism and political servitude as found in The Undiscovered Self by Dr. Carl Jung, continuing our series from previous articles. Last week we explored how believing the erroneous belief that science reveals truth instead of discovering facts ultimately undermines belief in individual rights and encourages submission to the political and social experts who claim to be able to use science to right all of the problems of existence. In this article we build on those insights and explore farther how those in power use their control over the fact producing institutions of science to undermine humanity and liberty.
Whereas the man of today can easily think about and understand all the “truths” dished out to him by the State, his understanding of religion is made considerably more difficult owing to the lack of explanations. (“Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless some one guides me?” Acts 8:30.) If, despite this, he has still not discarded all his religious convictions, this is because the religious impulse rests on an instinctive basis and is therefore a specifically human function. You can take away a man’s gods, but only to give him others in return. The leaders of the mass State cannot avoid being deified, and wherever crudities of this kind have not yet been put over by force, obsessive factors arise in their stead, charged with demonic energy – for instance, money, work, political influence, and so forth. When any natural human function gets lost, i.e., is denied conscious and intentional expression, a general disturbance results. (Pgs. 45-46)
The mechanistic facts of science are easy to comprehend. One can see fire and feel the force of an explosion, which makes it easy for us to comprehend how the combustion engine would use those powers to propel a vehicle. But the deeper truths of meaning, purpose, person, relationship, humanity, and eternity are hard to comprehend. We spend our lifetimes studying them only to discover by the end that we have only ever seen the tip of the iceberg. Thus, it is easy to trust all those numbers and wordy pronouncements from our political masters when they promise everything to us if we would but bow down to them. They can always manipulate those numbers we have been taught to trust to show how their perfect world is just around the corner.
It is much more difficult to understand religious leaders when the experiences needed to understand religion are extramundane – outside of our normal experiences and which come from the Divine – and are intensely personal. As a consequence, religious experiences resist being reduced to a base lump of stuff that can be easily studied by others. We need both a teacher – a Prophet who can expound the Truth – and our personal experiences with Divinity to lead us along the way. If we don’t have these things, then it becomes very difficult to find our way through the mists of darkness of life.
For those who refuse to walk the path or revelation and discovery or for those who are merely members of a creed – that is they go to church but are not truly religious because they are not wholly dedicated to the experience of God – it then becomes very easy to the utopian promises of politicians. They make their promises seem plausible through the manipulations of statistics and facts and because we have been taught to accept anything with the aura of the scientific around it, we conclude that promises really are omnipotent and omniscient, all wise and capable of the impossible. They really can end all war, all crime, all poverty, all pain, all suffering, all hate, all evil. In short, whether we do it consciously or not, we begin to treat them as gods.
In a secular society, the psychological necessity of worship doesn’t disappear. The State assumes that role absent of a true reliance upon God, with the result being the worship of the State and its politicians as prophets, messiahs, and gods. This is unavoidable as the religious impulse in us looks for something greater than ourselves to which we can belong and follow. We become disturbed mentally and emotionally anxious and fearful, until it is satisfied, and we believe we have Something which can Save us. That thing, for most everyone, is the State, the government.
If you have ever wondered why so many could support such an obvious liar and fraud as Politician X, then you now have your answer. Without God or the gods, humans worship other humans, political parties become our religious sects, political meetings become our revivals, its national legal documents become our scriptures, questioning it becomes our heresy, and government participation becomes the religious rites through which our psychological impulse to worship is fulfilled. The cult of the state develops and, in the words of the great abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, “the most terrible form of idolatry” develops and the government is “placed above all other things—above honour, justice, freedom, integrity of soul, the Decalogue and the Golden Rule—the Infinite God himself.”
It is no wonder then that there is chaos in the streets and hatred in our homes. The Cult of the State is built by and maintained on just such violence and hatred. Denying Heaven, humans turn their society into Hell.