Integration and Dissociation
Is Conservative propaganda "a universal" in all human societies and all ages of mankind? If it a universal is it something which can or should be better understood?
Oh Blackmail, how we have missed you. But to address the issue -
There has never been a civilization not based on a religion. And it seems to me that religions operate below the level of rational thought and operate beautifully in the world of trance.
The Gospels were written in a trance and induce a trance in the reader. And the repetitive rituals of religions are trance inductions.
And trance reaches down into our deepest fears and hopes. And trance forms our very identity. And trance forms the very basis of our institutions.
We wake every morning to the biting of ants, so to speak, as we make our way rationally through the day and reality. But at night we slip into the arms of morpheus who gives us the trance of sleep to refresh us for the rigours of the day ahead. No wonder we love trance. Trance provides us relief from pain, fear and suffering. Trance is indeed our beloved.
So during our waking hours we long for our beloved, and our beloved longs for us, and our beloved is our God, and we are God's children.
"Thy Kingdom come", we pray. We want to create heaven on Earth. We want trance to suffuse our daily reality.
'Religio', means to rebind. We are split creatures. We are split between waking and sleeping. Our deepest and most profound desire is to integrate the two. And religion, religio, binds the two together. Religion binds up our wounds. Religion heals our sin. Religion is the promise of integrity. Religion is the heart in a heartless world.
The Saints show us the way by living in both trance and reality at the same time. For the rest of us, we wake and sleep, wake and sleep, longing for the integration of the Saints but living in this vale of tears, dissociated.