Religion and Psychology
Atheism that resides only in the Intellect will ultimately fail because it can sink no deep roots into the wellsprings of Human Psychology. Yes, there has been an informal Philosophical Assumption, since the days of Voltaire and Locke, that humans can be trained by education to be entirely intellectual – to live only in the Head, and then only upon the surface. But looking around, we can conclude that they must have been mistaken, as it just never caught on to any deeper Reality.
But does Religion have a better chance? Well, look at the Psychological Archetypes. Much in our Psychologies – the Archetypes and Dream Motifs – follow along with a Pre-Christian Pagan library of Characters and Symbols, but to a Civilized end no less. Greece, Rome, and Babylon, after all, were Civilizations. It was just one of those many things that made me suspect Paul of being the Antichrist, that he was able to direct Christianity outside the boundaries of Psychological Significance. If Paul’s Doctrine’s were in fact True then why would they not have any Psychological Parallels? In the vast library of Dreams, no dreamer has ever yet dreamed anything that in any way conformed to any Paulist Doctrine or which modeled any Paulist view of the Universe, Material or Spiritual. We need to suspect why the Paulist Vision finds not resonance in Human Psychology, or with the Traditions of Spirituality or Mysticism. Anything that is True should not stand in such stark isolation to everything else. But Falsehood can.
This is one Area where Marian Catholicism was able to undo much of the Pauline Damage. The Blessed Virgin is able to slip in seamlessly into much of our Mythologies and Psychological Archetypical milieus. One reason I find it so reasonable to believe in the Marian Dispensation is that I have had a number of dreams of Mary the Blessed Virgin. One may dispute the importance of Dreams, but one cannot dispute their Psychological Objectivity, considering that people are powerless to control the created the content of their dreams. This is why we call the Subconscious Mind ‘subconscious’, as it is beyond the conscious mind’s abilities to control and manipulate the Messages that come out of it. And we can see that the Marian Motif is as old as Civilization itself. Observe that there really is not much of a difference between Mary the Virgin and Diana the Virgin? The One is B.C. and the other is A.D. But both are upholders of Civilization and Religion.
