Spirituality in Politics — Introduction
I was recently invited to give a talk on the theme of spirituality in politics. This was in the form of a conversation with Tim Wyatt of the Leeds branch (in England) of the Theosophical Society. It has now been uploaded to youtube (click here).
What I am doing here is to provide a transcript of my parts of the conversation for those who prefer to read rather than watch, or if anyone would like to have a copy of the content.
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I began with a brief introduction about who I am:
Before I begin, it might be helpful and relevant to today’s talk, for those who don’t know me, to give some brief details about myself. This should help to put the talk into context.
I am, like Tim, a singer/songwriter, both of us as yet unknown to the majority of the world’s population, although I assume we both live in hope.
I’ve written several hundred articles on the themes of spirituality, religion, new paradigm science, the reunification of science and religion, Carl Jung and much more besides. And relevant to today’s talk, I’ve been a student of traditional Japanese martial arts for over half my life.
I am an ordinary member of the Theosophical Society, which means merely that I subscribe to the three founding principles. I am not therefore a dedicated theosophist, although I’m obviously interested, and I’ve been a friend of Leeds TS for several years. This is my sixth talk for them. The best label I can think of to describe myself from a spiritual perspective is a Gnostic Christian in the tradition of Carl Jung. Tim of course is a more conventional theosophist.
My website is called spirituality in politics. In current political terminology I think of myself as a centrist, because I believe balance and homeostasis are the best options, avoiding extremes. This seems to be a Taoist way of thinking.
I hope that all this will make for an interesting discussion.
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Here is the text of my main introduction:
Given that he was enthusiastic when I suggested this topic to him, I’m guessing that Tim and I are going to agree that spirituality, thus a spiritual perspective, is the solution to the problems facing the world.
However, an important question is whether there is any point at all to considering the possibility of society being organised politically from a spiritual perspective. What exactly would that mean? After all, the mere idea of spirituality in politics seems to go against Eastern ideas — Buddhism, Hinduism, also Gnosticism. All focus there is on escaping the world of illusion, maya, suffering, thus liberation from the material level, in modern language, waking up from and escaping the matrix. Also, in our modern more secular times, there is speculation that our world is some form of computer simulation, possibly created by aliens, and discussion about what to do about this. This seems to be a reformulation of the concept of maya and the Gnostic theory of an inferior Demiurge.
In Christianity the focus is on the afterlife and the reward there, thus a form of escape from this world. While obviously not the same as in Buddhism and Hinduism, where the goal is to escape the need to reincarnate, the focus in all these traditions is on the afterlife, thus a rejection of the material world. It tends to see nature as at best pagan, and at worst vile or corrupt.
If spirituality in politics is indeed a meaningful concept, then we are saying the opposite to all this, that human society is in need of transformation, that this is important, and we are working towards that end. Superficially at least, this would seem to go against Eastern ideas. We would have to say that we are currently being incarnated for the purpose of transforming society, that the material level is actually important from the Divine point of view, which seeks its transformation, not something to be escaped, at least not at this stage of our evolution. Therefore by seeking such transformation, we are serving the divine will.
The current state of affairs is somewhat nightmarish; it seems, as Tim has noted in his recent talks, that we are living in the age of Kali Yuga. Hope is centred around the arrival of the Aquarian Age, which some believe has already begun. There is much optimism surrounding such an idea. Let’s remind ourselves of the lyrics of the song from the 1960s musical Hair:
When the moon is in the seventh house
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, Age of Aquarius
Harmony and understanding, Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions, Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation. And the mind’s true liberation
Aquarius! Aquarius!
Along similar lines, here are some quotes from a book called Flowering Into Awareness by Pathik Strand:
“Imagine that you are living in a world where there is no war, conflict, violence, hate, dishonesty, fear, greed, exploitation, poverty, pollution or any of all the other horrors that our world is presently so full of. Imagine that your home planet is one of harmony, joy, love, peace, freedom and boundless creativity. Everybody is kind, helpful and cooperative, and nature is treated with love, respect and sensitivity, instead of being exploited, raped and destroyed. Imagine what a joyous, beautiful and fulfilling life this would be for everybody”.
“Human nature is most definitely not one of greed, hate, fear and all the rest of it. If anything, what is natural for humans is to manifest love, peace, cooperation, kindness, harmony and honesty… they are natural expressions of what we truly are”.
“The realisation of your true nature is the key to the transformation of human consciousness and the emergence of a new world of peace and harmony. The full flowering of humanity’s potential, in fact our ultimate destiny, depends precisely on the dawning of this realisation on human consciousness”.
My question is whether all this is a realistic ambition, or whether it is perhaps a naïve Utopian fantasy.
An opposing point of view is offered in this quote by Carl Jung, where he is talking firstly about the communist worldview, but has general relevance. He says that it “has one big myth (which we call an illusion, in the vain hope that our superior judgment will make it disappear). It is the time-hallowed archetypal dream of a Golden Age (or Paradise), where everything is provided in abundance for everyone, and a great, just, and wise chief rules over a human kindergarten. This powerful archetype in its infantile form has gripped them, but it will never disappear from the world at the mere sight of our superior points of view. We even support it by our own childishness, for our Western civilization is in the grip of the same mythology. Unconsciously, we cherish the same prejudices, hopes, and expectations. We too believe in the welfare state, in universal peace, in the equality of man, in his eternal human rights, in justice, truth, and (do not say it too loudly) in the Kingdom of God on Earth”.
“The sad truth is that man’s real life consists of a complex of inexorable opposites — day and night, birth and death, happiness and misery, good and evil. We are not even sure that one will prevail against the other, that good will overcome evil, or joy defeat pain. Life is a battleground. It always has been, and always will be; and if it were not so, existence would come to an end”. (in Man and His Symbols)
Along similar lines Joseph Campbell, the great mythologist, wrote:
“The first step to the knowledge of the highest divine symbol of the wonder and mystery of life is in the recognition of the monstrous nature of life and its glory in that character: the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think — and their name is legion — that they know how the universe could have been better than it is, how it would have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without life, are unfit for illumination. Or those who think — as do many — ‘Let me first correct society, then get around to myself’ are barred from even the outer gate of the mansion of God’s peace. All societies are evil, sorrowful, inequitable; and so they will always be. So if you really want to help this world, what you will have to teach is how to live in it. And that, no one can do who has not himself learned how to live in it in the joyful sorrow and sorrowful joy of the knowledge of life as it is”. (This is in Myths to Live By).
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Tim has written something similar to these ideas in one of his articles entitled ‘Conflict, Continuity and the Expansion of Consciousness’. Here are some quotes:
“As much as many spiritual people dislike and deny the fact — conflict has always been central to human existence and conduct. It’s been one of the painful but principal drivers of progress and a constant leitmotif of history. It would appear that without this constant interplay between discord and harmony, individuals, societies and civilizations would have remained static and non-dynamic. Individually we need challenges to perpetually push against”.
“Violence and cruelty are so deeply embedded in the human make-up — physically, emotionally and mentally”.
“It would appear that the ideal may be some sort of middle way to guarantee a degree of stability while embracing the dynamics of change and growth”.
“Those people who have deliberately chosen to accelerate their own spiritual development may initially be deluded into thinking that it offers a softer or easier option to the harsh and challenging world we live in”.
And in another essay Tim has written: “Perhaps our aspirations towards peace and harmony are naïve and unrealistic. Maybe war and conflict are the default factory setting for Planet Earth”.
I’ll say in advance that in what follows today I am siding more with Jung and Campbell than the other side. When I first suggested this topic to Tim, I didn’t know where he would stand, but in the light of these quotes, I conclude that he is also somewhat in agreement with Jung and Campbell. I therefore look forward to his response, possibly from a more Theosophical perspective, with interest.
What should we conclude from all this? What exactly are we trying to achieve in a spiritual society? Are we trying to create a society which is “reconciled to the nature of life on this earth”, as Campbell put it? Or are we trying to create what may prove to be merely a Utopian fantasy, along the lines of the Hair musical or Pathik Strand? Are we avoiding the problems of living life as it needs to be lived by pretending that we are living the life of the soul in the heavenly realm, and not spiritual beings which have descended into a world of good and evil, as the book of Genesis puts it?
Is it possible that our top priority should be to try to deal with what Freud called the id, what Jung called the shadow, and what Nietzsche and Adler called the will to power?
There is much reference in current spiritual writings to dissolving the ego in order to discover our true nature. Is this a realistic proposition for the majority of the world’s population? Or perhaps this is just vanity, the Western ego-consciousness believing it is ready for such an endeavour, thus in itself an inflated, egoistic attitude?
Becoming enlightened or seeking enlightenment may be a possible goal for some individuals, but how is that going to help humanity in general and the planet? Perhaps the opposite is needed, a great strengthening of ego, in order to be able to withstand the forces of the unconscious and deal with and integrate its contents. Think of Jung and his Confrontation with the Unconscious, as recorded in his Red Book. Also the psychiatrist R. D. Laing, and his recognition that what he described as schizophrenia was the ego being overwhelmed by the archetypal contents of the unconscious. This resembled the journey into the underworld, as recounted in ancient myths, where the traveller sometimes remains trapped and cannot escape. As Joseph Campbell put it: “a person cracks off and sinks into the abyss of his psyche, and gets lost there. What he encounters there are exactly the archetypal forms and motifs that are the basic forms and motifs of the religious traditions of the world… these forms are the same everywhere, basically the archetypes of religion”.
What is needed therefore for those Westerners who can cope with all this is an enormously strong ego which can withstand and integrate all these forces.
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The next question is, why is a spiritual society the solution to the current situation?
I’ll return to Jung, who elsewhere is more optimistic than in the quote above. In The Undiscovered Self there are two particularly interesting chapter headings: ‘The Plight of the Individual in Modern Society’, and ‘Religion as the Counterbalance to Mass-Mindedness’. He says: “In order to free the fiction of the sovereign State — in other words, the whims of those who manipulate it — from every wholesome restriction, all socio-political movements tending in this direction invariably try to cut the ground from under the religions. For, in order to turn the individual into a function of the State, his dependence on anything beside the State must be taken from him. But religion means dependence on and submission to the irrational facts of experience”.
Marx believed that communist governments should reject religion. Jung explains why they want this, and why such attempts should be resisted at all costs. At the time of writing, he was referring primarily to the totalitarian Communist regimes, of which he is highly critical: “The Communist revolution has debased man far lower than democratic collective psychology has done, because it robs him of his freedom not only in the social but in the moral and spiritual sense”.
His comment is still relevant, because seventy years later we see similar authoritarian threats arising in our own Western societies, or that is at least what various so-called ‘conspiracy theorists’ believe. George Orwell’s 1984 offered a serious warning about the direction of society. Most educated people have read it, and think it’s a great book, but many remain oblivious when it’s happening right under their noses.
As Jung said, we see alongside this the attempt to cut the ground from under religion — physicalist science, atheism, Humanism, and the trend towards secularism are obvious examples.
According to Jung, the religions claim to give an external point of reference. They “teach another authority opposed to that of the ‘world’. The doctrine of the individual’s dependence on God makes just as high a claim upon him as the world does”. “It may even happen that the absoluteness of this claim estranges him from the world in the same way he is estranged from himself when he succumbs to the collective mentality”.
It is therefore a connection to the divine, something transcendent, which can help someone stand up to all the oppressive forces at work in society. In this context there is a battle between the individual and the collective which the individual must win. And that is perhaps why we need spirituality in politics. This is also the goal of my particular vision for the future.
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At this point Tim Wyatt gave his response, which can be found in the link above. I then returned in the talk to more specific policies: a revolution in the education system, the resurrection of the ancient Mystery traditions, and how to achieve the Theosophical Society’s first founding principle (which is to form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or colour).
I’ll provide transcripts of those in future articles.
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I hope you have enjoyed this article. I have written in the past about other topics, including spirituality, metaphysics, psychology, science, Christianity, and politics. All of those articles are on Medium, but the simplest way to see a guide to them is to visit my website (click here and here). My most recent articles, however, are only on Medium; for those please check out my lists.
