Imagine

Throughout history there has been a belief in the ability of man to reach his humanistic potential. Today, there are others that favor a nationalistic ideology. This essay contrasts these two ideologies with religious examples. I shall not address the why, the how or the dynamics underlying the forming of these narcissistic religious groups.

We know that the young are first faced with uncertainty, anxiety, dependence, and require sustenance, a protector for survival. We also know the importance of narcissism in the development of man. Man has a great capacity and drive for survival. He realized that a union with another, as in two heads are better than one, were to his advantage. Man further realized that becoming part of a group, group narcissism, increased and bettered his chances for engaging in the world.

Let’s begin our story by taking a snapshot at a few of the religions of the world. The Hebrew Scriptures, prophets and kings like Abraham, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Samuel, David, and Saul go back over 5,000 years. According to Moses, God identified, in the 10 Commandments, a number of inappropriate behaviors between man and man: honor thy father and thy mother; thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; thou shall not kill; thou shall not commit adultery; thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor; thou shall not covet [neighbor’s house, neighbor’s wife, slaves, or anything else] and thou shall not steal. Clearly, these are sadistic behaviors. It wasn’t until the Exodus, when these slaves wandered in the desert for 40 years, believed in the Lord and became his chosen people. This resulted in the 10 commandments forming the basis of Jewish law or right and wrong. Not only that, these Hebrew slaves became one. They belonged to a special group of Homo sapiens and are referred to as Jews and group narcissism.

Roughly 2,000 years ago there was a Jewish prophet, preacher, leader called Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was a Galilean Jew, was baptized, began his own ministry and was called Rabbi. He debated other Jews about God, engaged in healings, taught in parables and gathered followers. He was arrested, tried, and turned over to Pontius Pilate. He was crucified. After his death, his followers believed that he rose from the dead, and Christianity followed. Now, we have another group of Homo sapiens called Christians and group narcissism.

In Islam, Jesus was considered one of God’s important prophets and a Messiah. They believed Jesus was born a virgin, but was neither God nor a begotten God. They stated that Jesus never claimed divinity and they don’t believe he was killed or crucified .They believed that he was physically raised into heaven by God. In Islam, there are Sunni, Shia, and a number of other narcissistic groups within that religion.

Judaism does not believe that Jesus was the awaited Messiah, neither fulfilled Messianic prophecies, nor was he divine or resurrected. In Judaism, there are three main narcissistic groups, the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform.

In the 15^th and 16^th century there was a rebellious, anti-Semite, sadomasochistic German professor of theology named Martin Luther. He was excommunicated by Pope Leo X and condemned by the Holy Roman Emperor. An angry, hateful temper driven Luther called for the death of the Jews and burnings of their synagogues. His anger and hatred was also directed toward Roman Catholics, Anabaptists, nontrinitarian Christians and sometimes at God. He was extremely superstitious and had a strong belief in spirits and the devil.

Luther taught that salvation and consequently external life are not earned by good deeds, but are received only as a gift of God’s grace through the believer’s faith in Jesus Christ as Redeemer. He challenged the authority of the Pope by teaching that the Bible was the only source of divinely revealed knowledge. He opposed sacerdotalism and considered all baptized Christians to be a holy priesthood. His narcissistic group are called Lutherans and he was instrumental in the Protestant Reformation. Today, about one third of Christians are Protestants.

A short deviation pertaining to Luther follows. There is a controversy as to whether or not Luther, the priest, at the age of 23 in 1507, while celebrating his first mass, had a “fit in the choir.” Was Luther mentally ill, possessed by demons or both when he fell to the ground in the choir of the monastery and roared with the voice of a bull “it isn’t me or I am not” depending upon the German or Latin translation. Early biographers have different interpretations of this event.

More recently, Erikson, a clinician, was unable to give a clear diagnosis regarding that behavior. Erikson believed that Luther was undergoing an identity crisis at the time. It was known that Luther‘s father was a miner. Luther’s parents were rigid, hard, thrifty, and superstitious and both caned their boy. Luther’s school years were monotonous, cruel and exploitive. Needless to say this resulted in making this child fearful for life. Luther was troubled, defiant and stubborn. This factored in his conflict with his identity. Should Luther show obedience to his father {and become a jurist} or obedience to the Father in heaven?  First, Luther had to endure melancholy, depression and/or psychosis in silence and meditation for the next 10 years in that monastery, until 1507. Perhaps, he recovered, perhaps not.  In any event, the rebel, reformer and spiritual dictator nailed 95 theses on the church door in Wittenberg.

Born in 1509 was the French theologian John Calvin. Within Calvin’s theology, are the doctrines of predestination, absolute sovereignty of God’s salvation, the human soul, and death or eternal damnation? He was a reformer during the Protestant Reformation and influenced many congregations .Calvin broke formally from Roman Catholic Church around 1530. Now, we have another religious narcissistic group.

We have a lot of religious groupings and it’s safe to say, that belonging to a religious group is an example of group narcissism. All these groups say that there is one God. From there, there are differences per each group and each group clings to a belief that they have the true or only answer. Not only that, but they are right, true believers and anyone having a different opinion are not as righteous. In fact, there have been numerous sadistic and hateful battles and killings between the groups.

The hate propaganda states that “Jews are killers of Christ” so they are the enemy. English kings went to the holy land to fight and kill the infidels numerous times. Shia and Sunni seem to have little difficulty murdering each other. Do not forget the 30 years’ war from 1618 to 1648 when the Protestants and Catholics battled in response to the election of Pope Ferdinand 11. 8 million deaths, hunger, disease and the devastation of entire regions followed.  

The European wars of Christian religions were waged in Europe during the 16, 17 and early 18^th centuries. These wars essentially disrupted the religious and political dominance of Catholic countries in Europe. Much later battles between the Ireland Catholics and the Great Britain surfaced. This also resulted in many civilian casualties.  Thus, we have a number of narcissistic groups.

 I purposely used only a few religious groups because they provided numerous concrete and historical examples for division, hatred and the significant problem as in” my group is better than your group,” It can also be argued that these wars were the result of revenge, power, accumulation of money, acquiring geographical space, destroying the world of Islam, challenging medieval learning by the philosophical and scientific ideas of Arabic thinkers and political control. These explanations or reasons do not seem to be divinely inspired nor for moral and ethical purposes. It goes back to man versus man under the umbrella of religion but not the religious teachings of humanism.

We have humanistic teachings of “love thy neighbor” and “love thine enemy.” However, during those times and in the times of Socrates and St. Augustine, the world, as known by man, was very limited. Years, later from the 19^th century on, the existentialists Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Jaspers, Heidegger, Sartre and others extended those ideas and emphasized man fully developing. This meant a more humanistic man, with man relating to man very differently than historically. Humanism is diametrically opposed to narcissistic groups.

In fact, you may be surprised by the writings of the German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, and socialist revolutionary Karl Heinrich Marx. In collaboration with Frederick Engels, their writings can be found in the reading room of the British Museum.

Marx has been discredited by propaganda perpetuated by the United States by falsely accusing him of being the creator of the economic policies of Russian and Chinese socialism. So far from the truth. Marx was true humanist and believed that one’s personality is highly influenced by the economic and social conditions in which one must live, and not with ideas and slogans. His ideas were to liberate man from the pressure of his economic needs so he could become fully human. In other words, he was concerned with the emancipation of man’s individualism by overcoming his alienation because of the monotony of his work. Then, he would be able to restore his capacity. By doing so, man could relate to himself fully, to fellow man and to nature. Man had to have more control over production. Marx was opposed to an economic system based on materialistic practice, the greedy desire for money, maximum profit, material gain and property. He didn’t believe that the absence of private property was inhuman nor bad. He believed that man makes his own history and he should be his own creator.

There were Communities of Work programs based on a communitarian movement that took place in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Holland. Founded by Marcel Barbu, who owned a watch case factory. Briefly, he hired atheists, Catholics, Protestants, materialists, humanists and Communists and they all worked together, found common cause and created  an ethical code: thou will love thy neighbor; thou shall not kill; thou shall not take thy neighbor’s goods; thou shall not lie; thou will be faithful to thy promise; thou shall earn  bread by the sweat of thy brow; thou shall respect thy neighbor, his person, his liberty; thou shall respect thyself; thou shall fight first against thyself, all vices which debase man, all the passions which hold man in slavery and are detrimental to a social life; pride, avarice, lust, covetousness, gluttony, anger, and laziness; thou shall hold that there are goods higher than life itself: liberty, human dignity, truth, justice etc.

These men vowed to treat self and each other their best every day. The group also wanted to educate themselves. Within three months, their productivity grew so much that they saved nine hours in a 48 hour work week. They now had nine hours to use for education. They were paid for the full 48 hours. They took courses in engineering, physics, literature, Marxism, Christianity, dancing, singing and basketball.

The following principles on which the Communities of Work are based: 1. In order to live a man’s life, one has to enjoy the whole fruit of one’s labor 2. One has to be able to educate oneself 3. One has to pursue a common endeavor within a professional group proportioned to the stature of man-100 families maximum 4. One has to be actively related to the whole world.

 Following this humanistic practice, psychologists like Gordon Allport, Kurt Goldstein, Carl Rogers, Rollo May, Abraham Maslow, Martin Seligman wrote about man’s ability to self-actualize. They saw this as being very important for man. It’s important for man to become a human being .Only then is he able to function fully, constructively so he can become trustworthy. Man has to be free from defensiveness, open to experience, have the ability to socialize, communicate with others in order to develop new heights of happiness and achievement.

Abraham Maslow researched a variety of individuals and was able to theorize about humanistic psychology. Some of his subjects were alive and some were not alive. In his theory he came up with 15 characteristics that described an individual that reached self-actualization. This didn’t mean that they were perfect. They could be ruthless, alienate others, and detached. A brief overview of a few of their characteristics are as follows: 1. They tolerated uncertainty and ambiguity more easily than others. As a result, they lived closer to reality and to nature 2. They were especially spontaneous in their thoughts, other covert tendencies, and unconventionality 3. They were not ego centered, but are oriented to problems outside themselves, important problems to which they are devoted as in a mission in life 4. They derived ecstasy, inspiration and strength from the basic experiences of life 5. They experienced identification, sympathy and affection for mankind 6. They respected people, learned from them, and related to them, irrespective birth, race, blood, family etc. 7. They tended to be philosophical and non-hostile in their humor.

Moses, Jesus, Mohammed and other prophets gave humanistic messages to their followers and thus individual narcissism was transferred to group narcissism. However, the Roman Caesars, Popes, English and French Kings, Queen Isabella and her Inquisition, Protestant Reformation figures and others with their slick marketing, power, and narcissistic styles had no difficulty converting the masses or group narcissism to their whims. It was like sheep following the wolves. It was not about rationality, objectivity, and reason, it was about having the” love “and protection from powerful father figures. When this happened, the likelihood of my group is supreme, the best, the most religious and the only one to follow occurred. This resulted in prejudice, hate and sadistic destruction of others.

Unfortunately, the behavior of the masses do not follow the modeling of Moses, Jesus and Mohammed. The devil and group narcissism continues to be a major threat to humanism. However, there is hope as Einstein said “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.”  I don’t know if this quote influenced John Lennon and Paul McCartney for their classic “Imagine.”  “Imagine there is no heaven  it’s easy if you try  No hell below us  Above us only sky  imagine all the people living for today

 Imagine there’s no countries   It isn’t hard to do  Nothing to kill or die for   And no religion too   Imagine all the people living in peace, you

You may say I’m a dreamer  But I’m not the only one  I hope some day you’ll join us  And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions  I wonder if you can  No need for greed or hunger  A brotherhood of man  Imagine all the people sharing all the world, you

You may say I’m a dreamer    But I’m not the only one   I hope someday you’ll join us  And the world will be as one.

References

Erikson, Erik H. Young Man Luther A Study in Psychoanalysis and History .WWW Norton and Company Incorporated.

Fromm, Erich. The Sane Society. Fawett Publications Incorporated.