Thursday, August 28, 2008

Demasking the Messiah on the Road to St. Paul

National Socialism was a religion and Hitler was its Christ. --John Toland

One of Bion's central ideas was that each of us has a part of the mind that is psychotic. Therefore, people who are actually psychotic are not so different from you or I. It's just that they have no sane part. Others seem only to have a sane part. They're the most insane, since they can get more done.

A corollary of this is that you can learn a lot about the sane by studying the psychotic mind. This is because the psychotic person uses all of the same defense mechanisms as the normal person, except that they are grotesquely exaggerated, distorted, and hypertrophied. As a result, these mechanisms become quite vivid and easily discernible, whereas for a normal person they will be more subtle and hidden -- even (or especially) from the person employing them.

Let's take an obvious example, projection. We all project. In fact, we can't help it, as it is one of the necessary (but not sufficient) conditions of our humanness. For the infant, projection is one of the primary means they use to manage their psychic contents. For example, they can use it to "expel" uncomfortable or frightening thoughts and emotions, but at the same time, employ it as a means of "connecting" with mother. The fact of the mater is, in the absence of projection, you would be all alone in this world. It is as necessary to the mind as the immune system is to the body. To extend the analogy, mental illness often comes down to an autoimmune disorder in which the immune system (i.e, psychic defense mechanisms) goes haywire and turns on the host, and either can't recognize real enemies or attacks the wrong entities.

Look at the Democrat convention. A big part of it involves a bunch of losers who don't feel so alone because they are able to share the experience of similar "good" projections into Obama or the Clintons on the one hand, as well as bad projections into President Bush, or Dick Cheney, or Evil Corporations, or Global Warming Hoax Deniers, or God knows what. Nothing unites a people so much as fear around an identical demonology. You know, the same way that conservatives such as you and I are so afraid of homosexuals, negroes, furriners and revinooers.

Who can say what goes on inside the head of someone who idealizes these phonies, knaves, liars and and con artists? The key point is that these processes primarily take place in the head. But when you're in a group of thousands of others sharing the identical projections, it no longer feels as if it's in the head. Rather, it feels real. And the whole point is to make the fantasy seem like reality, which is why people get so glassy-eyed and ecstatic at these events. But enough about the MSNBC hosts. (Although I can't wait to see their heads explode next week, when they have to enter the "hell" of St. Paul.)

The projectors obviously felt that Joe Biden delivered a wonderful speech last night. But if you apply even a rudimentary degree of skepticism -- i.e., if you analyze the speech with the sane part of your mind instead of the psychotic part -- you're left with nothing but a lowly plagiarist and his imaginary world. What do you call someone who steals his delusions from someone else? A coprophagic psychic vampire, I guess.

I think you can apply this same idea to Hitler. That is, it is not as if he were analogous to a psychotic person whose symptoms seem to make no sense. Rather, what if we look at him as Bion would, and consider the possibility that he was engaging in the identical processes as the "sane" politician, only in an exaggerated, distorted and hypertrophied form? Because Hitler used the usual psychic processes so vividly, perhaps they can reveal something about the dynamic between so-called normal groups and their politicians.

The most prominent pre-existing template Hitler relied upon was that of the "messiah" and the "group." Obviously Hitler invented neither of these categories. Looked at in a certain way, the group is a function of the messiah, and vice versa. (I'm using "messiah" as a psychoanalytic term of art, not in a specifically theological sense; it would be even better if I could develop abstract symbols for group and messiah, as in the new testavus for the restavus.)

On the one hand, the messiah is produced out of the collective longing of the group; but on the other hand, the group coalesces and organizes itself around the nonlocal axis of its founding messiah. All cultures -- even wholly secular ones -- will have a messianic figure at their foundation (a culture is always a cult). Look at what the Soviet Union did with Lenin, the Chinese with Mao, or Cuba with Castro. At some point, the human slides off into the messianic, just as reality shades off into fantasy and projection.

For example, in the Islamic world, Mohammed serves the messianic function. Obviously Mohammed is a very different sort of figure than Christ, and was "conjured," so to speak, by a very different mentality (i.e., Jews vs. pagans). But once in place, the messiah exerts an enduring influence on the group. As a result, Muslim values are very different from the Judeo-Christian values that hold our culture together from within.

Look at America. Our messianic figures are the founders, or Abraham Lincoln, or a few others. Our country -- half of it, anyway -- is still unified around those figures. But the other half either distorts those messianic figures (e.g., they were nothing but slaveholders, or self-interested elites), or else creates new messiahs around which to coalesce.

Who are the messiahs of the left? Frankly they are too numerous to mention. Remember what I mentioned about how genuine religions serve as a kind of absolute defense against bad ideologies? For example, yesterday a friend asked if perhaps Ronald Reagan wasn't a savior to conservatives. Yes, to a certain extent. But no conservative would confuse him with the actual Messiah. Rather, one of the things that made Reagan so great was that he humbly conformed himself to our actual messiahs, both religious and political. In fact, you might say that this constitutes the essence of that which the conservative wishes to conserve: the proper messiahs! We want to worship and revere only that which is worthy of it.

By definition, the left is going to be more prone to messianic fantasies (as opposed to messianic realities). Which is highly highly highly ironic, being that the realitybasedcommunity likes to flatter itself about being so realitybased. But one cannot be rooted in reality if one is a materialist who denies the very basis of the Real. And a (or "the," if you prefer) messiah comes down precisely to reveal the nature of the Real, in a way that unaided reason never could. The messiah is a person first, an argument second. Or the argument is a Person. Which is why you can't argue with an Obamaniac, since Obama is the argument. Either you "see" Him or you don't. I don't see him at all. To me, he's just an unsuccessful community agitator.

Coonsider the demonic Deepak, who ardently wishes to purge politics of religion (by which he means Christianity); but at the same time, he is one of the most strident useful idiots trumpeting the arrival of the Obamessiah and the "quantum leap" of "evolutionary consciousness" he represents. This makes sense, for again, Christianity is an absolute defense against the false messianism of an Obama.

It is surely no coincidence that Obama was a member of a deeply false and heretical Christian church for all those years, so he has no psychic defense against his own ridiculous grandiosity. You will have no doubt noticed that the Reverend Wright's sermons are most memorable for their crude demonology, which is entirely consistent with the abiding demonology of the left. As such, it is clear that Obama hasn't left that particular church at all, but is running for its messiah. Biden is also a member of that church, as he mentioned all the familiar demons in his speech last night: torture, Bush, tax cuts for the rich, Bush, global warming, Bush, Gitmo, Bush, Katrina, Bush, fortymillionuninsured, incomeinequality, etc. (Here is the actual recipe.)

And liberals like to say conservatives "play on our fears." Ho! Leftism is nothing but a coalesced group projection around Fear Itself.

This post was supposed to be about Hitler, wasn't it? I should probably stop now and continue tomorrow. Well, just a little more.

It so happens that Hitler was very interested in religion, spirituality, mysticism and the occult. What survives of his library contains many such books. He clearly read them carefully, as they are filled with underlining, exclamation points, and margin notes. In one of them, he underlined the following passages:

Where did Jesus derive the power that has held his followers for all eternity? Through his absolute identification with God.... God and I are One.... His life is mine; mine is his. My work is his work, and his work is my work.

Watch the new messiah become one with his entranced, teary-eyed, and drooling people tonight. But enough about MSNBC.

31 comments:

Gagdad Bob said...

This is pretty funny -- via American Digest, P.J. O'Rourke, On God.

Gagdad Bob said...

If I were Obama and I read this, I'd just sheepishly apologize and get out of the race. "Sorry. I'm much stupider than I thought."

julie said...

"A big part of it involves a bunch of losers who don't feel so alone because they are able to share the experience of similar "good" projections into Obama or the Clintons on the one hand, as well as bad projections into President Bush, or Dick Cheney, or Evil Corporations, or Global Warning Hoax Deniers, or God knows what."

They're trying awfully hard to transfer all that Bush hatred straight onto McCain, as well - anything to keep those angry fires stoked. If McCain gets elected, we can expect four more years of McCain-by-proxy BDS.

Anonymous said...

In the end of George Hills article he concludes that history will look back and realize the mistake the West made in dealing with Russia and other nasty regimes. I'd say he doesn't realize that there probably won't even be a fair and balanced history if such regimes suceed. In Orwellian speak he who controls the past controls the future.

Susannah said...

Oh for a true statesman at this hour in politics.

I miss Reagan.

julie said...

One more alarming program, should the Obamessiah get elected.

Anonymous said...

>>All cultures -- even wholly secular ones -- will have a messianic figure at their foundation (a culture is always a cult). Look at what the Soviet Union did with Lenin. All cultures -- even wholly secular ones -- will have a messianic figure at their foundation (a culture is always a cult). Look at what the Soviet Union did with Lenin . . . <<

The Soviets even provided for the "resurrection" of their messiah Lenin by chemically preserving his remains in a glass box. When it comes to aping authentic religion, the materialists really pay attention to detail.

>> . . . Obama was a member of a deeply false and heretical Christian church for all those years, so he has no psychic defense against his own grandiosity<<

But he can imitate religious humility - ape it - by sticking a prayer in Israel's Wailing Wall and making sure its contents are leaked to the newspapers.

Warren said...

Interesting that you used the word "coprophagic" in a post about Hitler, even though you didn't apply the word to him. Was this semi-intentional? I don't know if the book you're reading mentions it, but a number of American psychiatrists studied Hitler before the war (at the behest of the US government), and at least several of them independently came to the conclusion that Hitler was a masochist, probably with coprophagic tendencies. (It's also known that he was homosexual, at least during his days as a bum in Vienna - as was most of the early Nazi movement.)

A very screwed up ex-Catholic indeed - but aren't they all? :-)

Anonymous said...

I real messiah would be as wise as a serpent but as innocent as a dove. Coonversely, a false one is as innocent as a snake and as wise as a pigeon.

Van Harvey said...

Will said
"The Soviets even provided for the "resurrection" of their messiah Lenin by chemically preserving his remains in a glass box."

Heh, speaking of which, have you seen Jeremy Bentham's? "...best known for his advocacy of utilitarianism, for the concept of animal rights,[1][2] and his opposition to the idea of natural rights, with his oft-quoted statement that the idea of such rights is "nonsense upon stilts."[3] He also influenced the development of welfarism...",

...also a huge influence on J.S. Mill and little 'r' republicans (probably Ray too, but probably unknowingly. Fitting).

He had himself preserved, sitting down, in a glass box - the pictures on the wiki link. It used to contain his actual head, but after students removed it a few times and kicked it about the hall, it's now a wax head.

Should reanimate with the rest of him without any noticeable reduction in sense.

Anonymous said...

Cooking With Ace of Spades: Today’s Recipe is "Narrative au Gratin"

Anonymous said...

Meanwhile, VDH tries to warn Obamessiah

But perhaps the greatest consideration is Obama’s Hellenic hubris, which is different than simple arrogance. Hubris is a sort of fit, a haughtiness steeped in delusions of grandeur and divinity that takes over a weak individual, and soon encourages recklessness and overreaching (atê), all culminating in ruin and divine retribution (nemesis).

(snip)

Isn’t there one sane person on his staff who can stop this divine madness, a single henchman who can whisper in his ear as puts on his golden crown not Vero possumus (”Yes! We can!”), but as was true of returning heroes during Roman Triumphs—”Respica te, hominem te memento” (”Watch behind you; remember you’re just a man!”)?

Anonymous said...

Well, Van . . that gives whole new meaning to the phrase "giving good . . . - " ah, nevermind.

But ya know - the whole scientific exploration of ways to extend biological life ad infinitum is a false religion in itself. Someday there will be no more death, but it won't be achieved on a purely material basis - or if it is, it will be grotesquely unnatural with terrible consequences. Sort of like if they came up with a drug that allowed one to permanently go without sleep. Well, we have to sleep, we have to dream and renew ourselves. Similarly, in this fallen state of ours, we have to die and renew ourselves.

But . . . I guess I wouldn't mind if Ted Williams gets re-animated, gets back in the bigs. "He's aHEAD on the count, 2 and 1 . . . . "

robinstarfish said...

Psychotic fun in the streets of Denver. Don't miss the video.

I heart Michelle.

Van Harvey said...

Will said "Well, Van . . that gives whole new meaning to the phrase "giving good . . . - " ah, nevermind."

LOL!

Anonymous said...

the stadium production tonight may have a few viewers i can only hope for a janet jackson wardrobe malfunction around halftime

mushroom said...

Good clarification on hubris, ximeze.

The difference between the Greek gods and Jehovah is that the Lord laughs when you try Him -- at first. (The Message just cracks me up sometimes.)

Some are suggesting that the Obamessiah is not building a Greek temple but a structure reminiscent of the Lincoln Memorial -- on the 45th anniversary of King's "I Have A Dream".

Sadly, Dr. King's vision of an America that judges by the content of the character rather than the color of the skin was derailed by Democrat victimology.

Dougman said...

This is pretty funny -- via American Digest, P.J. O'Rourke, On God.

From the artical:
"Religious zealots can’t blow up the world the way scientists can."

That's why Man is the only animal that needs to be contained, is contained.
Necessity.

I heard it,I heard it,
I heard it on the X,

We can all thank Dr. B who stepped across the line.
With lots of Whats? he took control, the first one of his kind.
So listen to your radio most each and every night
....
Slack is FUN!!!

robinstarfish said...

Watching the DNC feed out of the corner of my eye...just saw peeps dancing to "nothin's gonna change my world" (Across the Universe), then Sheryl Crow took the stage to sing "a change would do you good."

Uh, which is it?

Then she answered the question with "Out of Our Heads."

This is gonna be fun tonight.

Anonymous said...

Dougman (& the other Raccoons),

Ever wondered who the "Doctor B" of that song was?. (Check the links as well. A fascinating story -- someone should make a movie about this guy, and cast Johnny Depp as "Doctor"!)

Van Harvey said...

Aquila... ooh... gives new meaning to being a Hero or a Goat...

(yikes)

Anonymous said...

"Isn’t there one sane person on his staff who can stop this divine madness,"

They're the ones creating it. It's all he has, plenty of smoke and lots of mirrors. He certainly hasn't accomplished anything of real substance. He has pretty much created no real change in anything he's done and just moved along to the next political level.

Susannah said...

Listening to pop-py up-py music by Chris Rice is a great antidote to Obama gloom-n-doom.

"Thanks for the lemonade!" "So much for my sad song." :)

Anonymous said...

Consider this an expression from anonymous archetypal joker in recovery: (I am id.)

(this is not just addressed to the without, but to the within, sadly. Actually, I'm embarrassed to post this, but maybe what's going on within me has bearing on the without. If not anything, since I am a 'forsaken poet,' at least it's an example of psychosis!, and holes in happiness! Perhaps this just makes sense to me.)


"Silent night. Unholy night. All is quiet; all is restless. Days are born, of conservative fever. Denver Colorado is an aversion of astral ether!

HO!

Round yon whore--unholy virgin! False infinite, so hardened and blight! The darken spiral doth consume--you dumb-down Shepard!
Die in hellish consummation! Be consumed and relish oblivion. For thou aren't made for criticism, fool!

HO!

Unholy infant! The ungraceful mother considers you an impingement! The convention is a convenience of a gratifying platitude--you stupid madness; and mass!

HO!

At least your 'death wish' will come true! How exciting! For thou aren't an O-bamanation: an archetypal expression of downward no-nothing! Oh my!

So, pick off your scabs and scales. You see the horror of the wasteland! Glories from below appear as afar--below has become above. Oh no!

We must re-member the Mass, and unto death the promise is herein contained--Die--martyr white, martyr red—it’s a tragic somnambulism; and within bloodstained histories, it begins and ends.

Unholy infant! You’re just a death away! To be completely in love with oblivion is romantic to the bone!—for if love is a fire, consider yourself white ash, and all your demons amorphous outcast of spiritus mundi! Smear it upon your forehead!

HO!

Resist the night, infant of light; overall, inertia and her distractions are but minor obstacles to Transcendence—Believe! “The fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom”—unwise! We shouldn’t turn our back Him because of the symptoms, and the horror of a blank stare.

Onward and upward!"

HO!

Anonymous said...

Why are the anonomii around here such fuck-tards?

Anonymous said...

The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.

Anonymous said...

I'm thinking you could jab and tease your latest foray into Obama as Hitler into some kind of new musical genre a la Bob Wills or Django. I've never heard petulance expressed with such pedantry and puffoonery. Rich, Bob! You, like the Coen Bros, Barry Blitt, Will Rogers...are often misunderstood, but there are those of us who perceive the deep comedic chord running beneath the hara kiri swipes at your underpinnings.

Urge your readers to tap into some of that musical theory that flourishes in the comments like roadside litter to produce something audible and marketable. I think the world is ready for this new sound. I know I'm enjoying it immensely!

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

I find it amazing what anonymity does to the immature.

Dougman said...

"gives new meaning to being a Hero or a Goat..."

I'd be more than happy to play the part of the goat.
With testicles intact of course :)

Van Harvey said...

River said "I find it amazing what anonymity does to the immature."

They're just getting in touch with their inner ninny.

Anonymous said...

I made some lines more explicit for seeing how they could mean different things in different context. I'm not so sure that what I wrote was bad...or immature. Just out of the blue, and anon. There's nothing wrong with anonymity, says Meditations.

Anyway, here it is again with commentary:

Silent night; and an unholy night. All is quiet and restless. And days are born of conservative fever—Woe to those who are of aversions of ether! (my own devils)

Round yon whore--you unholy virgin! False infinite, so hardened and so blight! The darken spiral doth consume--you dumb-down She-devil!
So, die in hellish consummation, and be consumed and relish oblivion (for it is your will). For thou aren't made for criticism, fool!

(Being that she is the prototype of (-n), an internal object of my own making, albeit one of originally external source, at least in part)

Unholy infant! The ungraceful mother considers you an impingement! The convention is a convenience of a gratifying platitude--you stupid madness; and mass!”

(Convention here is not only a referral to outward social habits, but the inscape and tensions between (L) and (H), or love and hate. Hence the “convention here is a mass of downward (n).)

At least your 'death wish' will come true! How exciting! For thou aren't an abomination: an archetypal expression of downward no-nothing!

(The death wish is a fiction. (H) is necessarily dependent on (L), and through time will be consumed by the fire, wherein it will be purged of all freedom that was not inalienable. Freedoms that are not inalienable are not free, for they are not anterior to the world. “Where there is spirit, there is liberty.”)

“So, pick off your scabs and scales (you defeated reptile-mind). You see the horror of the wasteland! Glories from the (stand point of) here-below appear as afar (upward is projected outward)--below has become above.”

And we must re-member the Mass (conversion of (H) into (L)), and unto death the promise is herein contained--Die--martyr white, martyr red—it’s a tragic somnambulism; and within bloodstained Histories (the father of history, or those who in general split history for the better), it begins and ends. (Alpha and Omega)

Unholy infant! You’re just a death away! To be completely in love with oblivion is romantic to the bone!—for if love is a fire, consider yourself white ash, and all your demons amorphous outcast of spiritus mundi! Smear it upon your forehead!

("Smear as upon our forehead!? Excerpt from Sivananda’s “All about Hindus”: “Tilaka (caste symbol) is applied at the Ajna Chakra, the space between the two eyebrows. It has a very cooling effect. Application of sandal paste has great medicinal value, apart from the spiritual influence. Application of sandal paste will nullify the heating effect when you concentrate and meditate at the Bhrumadhya. Tilaka indicates the point at which the spiritual eye opens. Lord Siva has a third eye at the Bhrumadhya. When He opens the third eye, the three worlds are destroyed. So also, when the third eve of the Jiva is opened, the three kinds of afflictions - Adhyatmika, Adhidaivika and Adhibhautika - are burnt to ashes. The three Karmas - Sanchita, Prarabdha and Agami - and also all the sins committed in the countless previous births, are burnt. When you apply the Tilaka, you mentally imagine: - I am the one non-dual Brahman free from all duality. May my eye of intuition open soon. - You should remember this every time you apply a Tilaka.”)

Resist the (dark) night, infant of light; for overall, inertia and her distractions are but minor obstacles to Transcendence—Believe! “The fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom”—you who are unwise! We shouldn’t turn our back Him because of the symptoms, and the horror of a blank stare.

(But inertia and her distractions are major obstacles to transcendence within the realm of substance. In essence it is already defeated, hence (T).)
(The blank stare can be seen as after effect of the initial impingement to the infant’s personality by the mother who could not provide the “transitional space” necessary for the atom of personality to differentiate out of prima materia. The blank stare is the shock of the primary stare into the false infinite, otherwise known as the she-devil of a witch! The stare was necessarily split off and banished to a state of “tragic somnambulism,” or I am id :)


I was just having really bad night, feeling kind of possessed on the night of Democratic convention. Couldn't help but see myself in it all. I’m sure it’s insignificant bad poetry, but I admitted to being a forsaken poet. Oh yea, here are the HO!s: HO! HO! HO! HO! HO! Kind of Christmasy sounding, ya think?

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