NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/alt/atheism/24281

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From: [e-mail] (Stephen Doe)
Subject: THE MIND OF THE BIBLE BELIEVER
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Summary: Part 4--The Evangelical Mind Control System, cont.
Keywords: Bible--psychology--fundamentalism
Sender: [e-mail] (Stephen Doe)
Organization: New Mexico State University
Distribution: world,public
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 10:20:41 GMT
Lines: 797



    [Before I begin, I apologize for the length of time between
this and the previous post--finals week has come and gone in that
time, and though I got royally stomped on, I did manage to "withstand
in the evil day, and having done all, to stand."  At any rate, I'll
have some time to concentrate on these posts.
    Also, I want to say that I have stopped attempting to post
these articles to alt.atheism.moderated and soc.religion.christian.
Posting to a.a.m is superfluous, as I assume that most who get a.a.m
also get alt.atheism.  And for some mysterious reason, the moderator
of s.r.c has decided to cull my postings. . . ]



    If we are mentally unbalanced because of spiritual
    despondency--and a lot of mental imbalance comes from
    this--the fear of hell and mental imbalance can be an escape
    mechanism to escape the reality of having to face the judgment
    throne. . . anything of this nature still leaves man a
    sinner. . . --Harold Camping, 1985


                    Devices 4-7


    Now I will outline Devices 4-7 and conclude this discussion of
the Evangelical Mind Control System.


    Device 4:  Assaulting Integrity


    I know that labelling this device "Assaulting Integrity" will
strike Christians as an insult.  Before I begin, let me offer this
little caveat from Dr. Cohen's book:

    There is no group around, whose people as a rule are more
    sincere, well-meaning, generous, natively tolerant if no one
    inveigles them into being otherwise, and free from saying one
    thing while intending another than the conservative
    Evangelicals.  It will seem incongruous and even mean to claim
    that impairment of integrity has to do with their believing as
    they do.  The reader versed in the mental-health professions
    will note drawing a blank as to technical understanding, there
    having been little written, and no consensus, on what is meant
    by integrity.--Edmund Cohen, The Mind of the Bible Believer,
    p. 234.

    Thus our first step is to make up for this deficiency on the
part of mental-health officials and define "integrity."

    . . . with the complex model and varieties of psychopathology
    in mind, we perceive that all psychological conditions other
    than integration and relative cooperation of the
    ego-personality with the other complexes involve impairment of
    integrity.  An ego-personality with control over its own
    boundaries, communicating with and continually integrating
    what lies in those reaches of the psyche beyond those
    boundaries, has a measure of integrity that the "psychotic" or
    the  "neurotic" lacks.  One who can use his capabilities to
    come to continually better terms with the circumstances of his
    existence we would say has integrity.--Cohen, p. 234.

The main idea is that the believer uses the knowledge process to
maintain self-deceptions rather than to make the conscious attitude as
well informed as possible.  It becomes like a journalist who makes
selective use of information to make propaganda seem credible instead
of communicating information fairly.  An example of this assault can
be seen in the case of the hysterically blind soldier patient that Dr.
Cohen discusses.  This soldier had seen a friend die in combat, and
naturally began to wonder if he had done all he could to save his
friend.  Eventually an hysterical symptom manifested
itself--blindness.  In a demonstration Dr. Cohen once witnessed, such
a patient was led into a room, and in his path was a stool.  The
patient was led so that he could not avoid stumbling over the stool,
if he were truly blind; yet the patient avoided the stool.  On one
level, the patient knew he wasn't blind, but to maintain his illusions
he repressed that information.
    Now the knowledge process keeps on trying to work properly;
assaulting integrity requires energy.  The inducement to expending
this energy is avoiding the pain that goes with bad conscience, as we
can see in the example of the hysterically blind soldier.  How does
the Bible induce one to expend that energy?  Basically, the believer
is subtly encouraged to repress any tendency he might have to think
critically about his beliefs.

    The point of the stratagem of assaulting integrity is inducing
    the believer, for the sake of obedience, to affirm teachings
    that are inherently incredible, not germane to, and in discord
    with, the rest of the Bible.  He violates his conscience, his
    common sense, his good inclination to tell the truth as it
    occurs to him, to call things as he sees them.--Cohen, p. 241.

    An extreme example comes from Luke:

    And he [Jesus] spake a parable to them to this end, that men
    ought always to pray, and not to faint [shirk]; Saying, There
    was in a city a judge, which feared not god, neither regarded
    man:  And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto
    him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.  And he would not
    for a while:  but afterward he said within himself, Though I
    fear not God, nor regard man; Yet because this widow troubleth
    me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary
    me.  And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith.  And
    shall God not avenge his own elect, which cry day and night
    unto him, though he bear long with them?  I tell you he will
    avenge them speedily.  Nevertheless when the Son of man
    cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?[Luke 18:1-8]

    Here God is likened to a wicked judge, lazy and infirm, tiring
easily.  The notions of God's perfection and faithfulness, and the
selflessness the believer strives for, are turned topsy-turvy in this
passage.  By passively accepting passages such as this, by being
encouraged to see them as enhancing those notions of God's perfection
and faithfulness, though they seem in discord with those notions, the
believer subtly attacks his own integrity.
    There is an amplification of this "vicious cycle" of
continually repressing the bad conscience caused by assaulting
integrity, by loading some biblical content with lurid, scandalous
implications.  The biblical content implicates both relatively neutral
things, made taboo only by biblical doctrine, and aspects of the
personality that would be taboo in any civilized society.  Thus a very
powerful dissociation is triggered.
    We can see here the sadistic and masochistic activities the
believer is supposed to partcipate in.  We are so hardened to these
topics that we must pause and reflect to see them clearly.  How many
stop to really think about the fact that Christianity takes as its
main symbol a Roman instrument of terror?  There are many aspects of
Christianity that we would deem nauseating, if it were part of a
tradition outside our culture.  One example is the communion ritual,
in which believers are urged to eat Christ's flesh and drink his
blood.  This goes way back to ancient beliefs in the ingestion of
totem animals or enemies.  The biblical image of ". . .having their
conscience seared with a hot iron[1 Tim. 4:2]" is ironically an apt
metaphor for the state of mind a believer must be in, desensitizied to
the unappetizing notion of eating flesh and drinking blood.
Christians of course characterize this as a deep, spiritual mystery,
but this doesn't change the character of the communion ritual.
    Another example is the idea of substitutionary atonement, the
remedy for the sin affliction.  The premise of the idea is that man is
so wicked and depraved that there is nothing he can do to please God.
For some reason, God requires propitation for sin, which man comes
into the world totally saturated with, yet somehow becomes
supersaturated by the inevitable bad deeds.  So Christ had to be
sacrificed in man's stead.  The enormity of Christ's sufferings are
supposed to guilt-trip the believer into obedience.  But how enormous
were those sufferings?  The Father sacificed his "only begotten son,"
but unlike mortal fathers he had his son back safe and sound in three
days.  Christ's sufferings began with his anxiety attack in the Garden
of Gethsemane and ends with his death on the cross.  (The Bible hedges
on the question of whether Jesus was even *conscious* before
resurrection.)  Viewed objectively, the suffering seems about on par
with what after all must have been the fate of many a Jewish partriot
of the time; certainly one begins to question if it really equalled
all the sins of humanity!
    We should also note here another method of assaulting
integrity, which is the call to evangelize others.  Many of the most
intelligent men in Christianity's history spoke of how terrifying God
can be for those who know the Bible too well.  Luther for example
described his state of mind before hitting on the notion of "grace":

    Is it not against all natural reason that God out of his mere
    whim deserts men, hardens them, damns them, as if he delighted
    in sins and in such torments of the wretched for eternity, he
    who is said to be of such mercy and goodness?  This appears
    iniquitous, cruel, and intolerable in God, by which very
    many have been offended in all ages.  And who would not be?
    I was myself more than once driven to the very abyss of
    despair so that I wished I had never been created.  Love
    God?  I hated him![1]

Frequently these men had mentors who recommended that they go out and
preach as a means of getting themselves to believe.  Luther's mentor,
Dr. Staupitz, arranged for Luther to preach, and to succeed to his
university chair of Bible[2].  Wesley also encountered such advice, as
his Journal entry of March 5, 1738 illustrates:

    Immediately it struck into my mind, "Leave off preaching.
    How can you preach to others, who have not faith yourself?"
    I asked Bohler whether he thought I should leave it off or
    not.  He answered, "By no means."  I asked, "But what can I
    preach?"  He said, "Preach faith till you have it; and then,
    because you have it, you will preach faith!"

Such a self-deception would be obviously seen as illegitimate in any
other setting; yet these men freely accepted it.
    The basic idea behind this device is that the Bible's
unbelievable premises, which the believer strives to believe anyway,
are always accompanied by latent taboo content.  These premises remain
in the believer's blind spot, so that focussed thought about them
becomes less likely.  We can close this section with a quote from Dr.
Cohen:

    When Christianity comes on with the figure of the man in
    whose words the echoes of the best human achievements of
    the far distant future must have resounded, being tortured,
    mutilated, killed early in what should have been the prime
    of his life, for its central emblem, it is telling us
    plainly what it proposes to do to the corresponding tendencies
    in ourselves, and we are too desensitized to turn away in
    nauseated disbelief!  That emblem is, itself, an "integrity
    assaulting" piece of business, seen in that light.--Cohen, p.
    258.

    Now we come to the core of Dr. Cohen's work.  What does it
take to make a person believe that he believes?  What does it take to
turn a Luther from hating God to loving him?  The answer to these
questions is covered in our discussion of Device 5.


    Device 5:  Dissociation Induction


    This Device is the core of Dr. Cohen's work.  Here we at last
get into an intensive application of depth-psychology insights to
explain the Bible's power over people.  The previous devices set the
stage for the this one; the last two devices stablize its effects.
     In conventional Christianity the notions of "sin" and "faith"
are essential.  In Dr. Cohen's work they are also essential notions,
since dissociation lies at the root of the matter.
    What is "sin?"  In the Bible, we actually see two senses of
the word.  In the Old Testament, the majority of mentionings of sins
refer to epsisodes of disobedience to scriptural rules.  But there is
also a notion of sin portrayed in Genesis 2 and 3, and in the writings
of Paul, that have nothing to do with individual behavior--in other
words, original sin.  Individual sins only add to a sinful condition
that was already total from birth.
    To Christians, what was wrong with Adam and Eve's behavior was
simply disobedience.  It makes no difference that they violated
neither the Ten Commandments nor the Golden Rule--the law had not been
laid down at the time.  Although some might infer that sexuality is
part of God's curse, there is no indication that sex was unknown
before the Fall, or a result of the newly acquired knowledge.  The
implication one gets is that the desire for knowledge, for
self-awareness, is the essence of the transgression against God.  A
few more indications of this are present in the first eleven chapters
of Genesis.  One example is the story of the Tower of Babel.
Apparently the advance of human science and technology, and the drive
for mankind to cooperate as a single global community, usurps God's
prerogatives.
    One can interpret the first eleven chapters in terms of the
Jungian ideas of psychodynamics.  First there is the division of
primordial chaos into upper and lower parts, followed by the
appearance of dry land.  Then an innocent and naive male is created,
and out of him an anima figure, Eve.  Next a shadow figure, Cain,
appears, cursed by God but essential as the ancestor of Enoch and
Noah.  Consciousness gets restricted to Noah's ark, with the rest of
the human and animal imagoes swept into unconsciousness.  After the
Flood, the unity and concentration of human energies symbolized by
Noah's descendants is fragmented into many language groups, i. e.
complexes.
    What is sin then?  Clearly gaining self-consciousness,
psychological integration, is the essence of sin.  One is to believe
that there is nothing in the unconscious is worth redeeming, that it
is all, in Jungian terms, shadow, and that all one can do is to keep
the shadow in check.  Having one's energies unified and focussed for
an individualistic goal is essentially what the Bible abhors.  This is
what lies behind the idea that original sin makes one totally sinful,
that sinful acts are just the outwards signs of this inner condition.
Immorality or unethical behavior or thought is not even of the essence
of sin.
    We can see further hints as to the nature of sin by examining
the proposed remedy, faith.  The Bible gives the definition of faith
in the following verse:

    Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence
    of things not seen.  For by it the elders obtained a good
    report.  Through faith we understand that the worlds were
    framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were
    not made of things which do appear.[Heb. 11:1-3]

Faith is belief in that for which there is no direct evidence, only
hearsay evidence--i. e., the Bible.  The nature of faith is ultimately
subjective.  References to faith as a mystery[1 Tim. 3:9] and as a
supernatural gift[1 Cor. 12:9 and Eph. 2:8] rule out the notion that
it is somehow an extension of human intuition.
    In many places we find the Bible exhorting the believer to do
something, or to adopt a certain mental attitude.  If faith is a gift
bestowed by God, why exhort the believer to do something?  The things
the believer is exhorted to do are arranged so that the connections
between them and the subjective experiences the believer goes through
are cleverly obscured.  All these exhortations basically boil down to
fostering dissociation.  We can divide them into four categories:  1)
Explicit Devotional Program Instructions--concrete acts that the
believer is commanded to do.  2)  Implicit Devotional Program
Instructions--exhortations to do an act not meant to be done
literally.  3)  Direct Suggestions--allegory that serves to illustrate
the mental state wanted of the believer.  4)  Reverse
Suggestions--some allegory, particularly those involving animals,
demons and disasters, serve to illustrate the negative psychological
effects of being a believer, subtly providing the believer with
feedback.
    The most explicit instructions deal with prayer.  The Bible is
very specific about the sort of prayer it requires.  Prewritten or
rote prayers, and liturgy in foreign languages, are not really waht
the Bible authors had in mind.  Instead, intelligible content,
engaging the believer's conscious mind, is the key.  (The Lord's
Prayer [Matt. 6:9-15, Luke 11:2-4] is presented as an example, not as a
rote formula.)  By continually telling God what he thinks God wants to
hear, the believer internalizes biblical doctrine and forces the
conscious mind to conform to it.  Prayer boils down to
self-brainwashing.  As a result, the God-complex, if nourished with
enough psychic energy, causes the believer to experience the illusion
that another presence possessing personality is there.  Hence the
declaration that believers experience a "personal" relationship with
God.  Constant prayer is necessary to keep the God-complex energized,
hence the need for church twice on Sunday, constant prayer and
devotion, and maybe having a religious radio station playing in the
background, to keep the God-complex pumped up.
    Also the various instructions to "put on" certain qualities,
and to "put off" others, constitute Explicit Devotional Program
Instructions.
    Earlier we examined the biblical definition of "love," and
found it be little more than following the rules laid down in the New
Testament.  If we look at statements involving faith and love, we see
further clues to the nature of faith:

    . . .[F]aith . . .worketh[energeo, has effect] by love.[Gal.
    5:6]

    . . .[Y]our work[ergon, expenditure of energy] of faith, and
    labour[kopos, toil] of love, and patience of hope in our Lord
    Jesus Christ, in the sight of God. . .[1 Thess. 1:3]

    . . .[W]e pray always for you, that our God would count you
    worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of
    his goodness, and the work[ergon] of faith with
    power[dunamis]:  That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be
    glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our
    God and the Lord Jesus Christ.[2 Thess.  1:11-12]

While these passages do not explicitly define faith, we are notified
that it requires effort and labor, that it is difficult.  The Greek
words highlighted, besides being the roots for words like energy, erg
and dynamic, hint at a notion psychic energy in accord with that we
have developed.  Faith consists of a constant outpouring of energy;
obsessive conscious concentration is lauded, and mental relaxation,
shunned.  Let down your guard, and that could be the moment Christ
returns "like a thief in the night," and sends you to Hell.  This
tense, on-guard sense of faith is further elaborated by Paul:

    Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power
    of his might.  Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may
    be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. . .Stand
    therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and
    having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet
    shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all,
    taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to
    quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.  And take the helmet
    of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word
    of God. . .[Eph. 6:10-17]

The Bible's cynicism about human nature, supposing he can rise no
higher than passive follower, is expressed here.  The believer is to
be in uniform and cumbersome military attire, submerging his
individuality, restricting freedom of movement, and insulating him
from all but a few kinds of approved stimulation.  The objective of
the campaign is to use "the sword of the Spirit," the word of God, tp
pierce others, and to use the shield of faith to avoid being pierced
by any other insight.  Faith is a barrier against unapproved psychic
content.
    One Bible incident brings these themes together, which also
comes closest to defining the true nature of faith:

    And straightaway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a
    ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent
    the multitudes away.  And. . .he went up into a mountain apart
    to pray:  and when the evening was come, he was there alone.
    But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with
    waves:  for the wind was contrary.  And in the fourth watch of
    the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea, they were
    troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out in fear.
    But straightaway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good
    cheer; it is I; be not afraid.  And Peter answered him and
    said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.
    And he said, Come.  And when Peter was come down out of the
    ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.  But when he saw
    the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he
    cried, saying, Lord, save me.  And immediately Jesus stretched
    forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of
    little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?  And when they were
    come into the ship, the wind ceased.  Then they that were in
    the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art
    the son of God.[Matt. 14:22-33]

This story contains the central psychological paradigm of the Bible.
In the Bible as well as in our psychology, water represents the
unconscious, a mountain or high place a particularly lucid state of
consciousness, and stormy weather to passion and emotion.  In other
verses the believer learns that by faith he can make mountains go into
the sea, i. e., he can rearrange psychic contents so unbiblical
thoughts or attitudes are submerged into the unconscious.  Here he
learns that by faith he can strengthen the barrier between conscious
and unconscious.  But if his concentration is diverted, as Peter's was
when he failed to tune out natural stimuli (i. e., his own emotions),
then the barrier reverts to its usual permeability.  Failing to be
obsessed with Jesus results in a rapid deterioration of faith, and
then one has to confront one's unconscious, mischaracterized as a
stormy sea in which to drown.  But it only seems that way when one
bottles it up, forcing it to express itself too turbulently.
    On another occasion Jesus and his disciples cross the sea.  In
the stern, Jesus lies asleep, and an afternoon storm arises.  The
disciples, becoming afraid, awaken Jesus, who orders the sea to calm
and chides them for their lack of faith.  (One wonders at the
disciples apparent lack of faith, when they could see and hear Jesus,
and, being relatively provincial and uneducated, would have no trouble
believing in the supernatural premise of Jesus' ministry.)  Again the
fluid boundary is smoothed over, and troublesome emotions gotten out
of the way by faith, which seems to be enhanced if Jesus is in the
forefront of attention.
    There are other references to water and to boats that pertain
to fishing and the casting of nets.  Jesus' disciples were "fishers of
men."  Paul describes loss of faith as "shipwreck."  Mark and John
also tell us what the disciples were doing in the boat before Jesus
arrived, that is, rowing against the wind in a troubled sea.  Here we
see another image of the work that faith really entails.
    An image of heaven, according to our analysis, might that of a
solidified membrane, so that proscribed mental contents are kept down
without constant effort.  Such an image is contained in the following
passage:

    And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven
    angles who had seven plagues, which are the last, because in
    them the wrath of God is finished.  And I saw, as it were, a
    sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who had come off
    victorious from the beast and from his image and from the
    number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, holding
    harps of God.  And they sang the song of Moses the bond-
    servant of god and the song of the Lamb. . .[Rev. 15:1-3]

The sense of a peaceful, restful state, yet one that takes constant
effort, is expressed in the mixture of solid, inert glass and gaseuos,
active fire.
    The theme of personality fragmentation is also symbolized by
images of bodily fragmentation and division.  Hence references to
those who eunuchs "for the kingdom of heaven's sake"[Matt. 19:12],
figures of plucking out an eye, a hand or a foot, rather than entering
hellfire whole, and division between left and right, "let not thy left
hand know what thy right hand doeth,"[Matt. 6:3.  Also passages
refering to this left/right theme include Matt. 25:31-37, 40-41, 46,
Matt. 27:38, Rev. 10:1-2, Matt. 20:20-23].
    The true biblical program is one that promotes this state of
inner dividedness.  Paul gives us an outstanding example in the
following passage:

    . . .[W]e know that the law is spiritual:  but I am carnal,
    sold under sin.  For that which I do I allow not[i. e., don't
    understand]:  for what I would, I do not; but what I hate,
    that do I.  If then I do that which I would not, I consent
    unto the law that it is good.  Now then it is no more I that
    do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.  For I know that in me
    (that is, in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing:  for to will
    is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I
    find not.  For the good that I would I do not:  but the evil
    which I would not, that I do.  Now if I do that I would not,
    it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.  I
    find then a law that, when I would do good, evil is present
    with me.  For I delight in the law of God after the inward
    man:  But I see another law in my members, warring against
    the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law
    of sin which is in my members.  O wretched man that I am!
    who shall deliver me from the body of this death?  I thank
    God through Jesus Christ our Lord.  So then with the mind
    I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law
    of sin.[Rom. 7:14-25]

Apparently the peace that passeth understanding doesn't come until the
next life; hence Paul's explanation of the old nature remaining as an
outer shell.  Alienation from the world, others outside church, and
oneself are in view here.  Putting noncomplying mental content into
the unconscious does not get rid of it.  We can see this in two other
biblical themes:  that of evil spirits and the Trinity.
    If we make the connection between complexes and spirits, then
the Bible shows if people do not integrate the unconscious to the
conscious attitude, then they are doomed to live out the implications
blindly, perhaps as weird neurotic symptoms.  This is expressed in
this reverse-suggestive passage:

    When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh
    through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.  Then
    he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out;
    and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and
    garnished.  Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven
    other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and
    dwell there:  and the last state of that man is worse than
    the first.  Even so shall it be also unto this wicked
    generation.[Matt.  12:43-45]

    Unclean spirits represent the unconscious from the conscious
standpoint.  The attribute most clearly identifying them as so is
their knowledge; they know much more about Jesus than human
onlookers[Matt. 8:28-32, Mark 1:23-28; 3:11 and Luke 4:33-35].  They
are characterized as legion[Mark 5:9, Luke 8:30] and yet speak with
one voice, exhibiting unity of mind.  They do not cease to exist when
cast out, but must go somewhere else, such as swine--symbolizing a
lower, more primitive level of the psyche[Matt. 8:28-32].  Negative
images of the unconscious are once again conveyed.
    The personality fragmentation expected of the believer is also
conveyed in passages about the multiple personality of God:

    And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto
    thee; take away this cup from me:  nevertheless not
    what I will, but what thou wilt.[Mark 14:36]

    Jesus saith. . . I am the way, the truth and the life:  no
    man cometh unto the Father but by me. . . Believest thou
    not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?  The
    words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself[i. e.,
    on my own initiative]:  but the Father that dwelleth in me,
    he doeth the works.[John 14:6-7, 10]

    I and my Father are one.[John 10:30]

    But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the
    angels. . . neither the Son, but the Father.[Mark 13:32]

    The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is
    sent greater than he that sent him.[John 13:16]

    . . .[W]hen he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide
    you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself[i. e.,
    on his own initiative]; but whatsoever he shall hear, that
    shall he speak. . .He shall glorify me:  for he shall receive
    of mine, and shall shew it unto you.[John 16:13-15]

According to Scrpiture, Jesus determined who would receive saving
knowledge of God, and the Father determined who would sit on Jesus'
left and right hand.  Jesus and the Holy Spirit only serve as parrots
in declaring God's Word.  Yet they *are* God's Word and were with him
from the beginning.  Jesus apparently does not know the hour of his
own second coming.  All three persons of the Godhead are endowed with
God's power, yet the Father is apparently more omnipotent.  This
picture of God resembles nothing so much as a case of multiple
personality disorder.
    Another source of dissonance concerns God's moral nature.
Although the "lovingkindness" of God is often touted, the Bible
contains many examples of God's apparent wickedness.  In the book of
Job for instance, God lets Satan torture Job, a righteous man,
apparently so that he can win a bet with Satan.  Job is unequivocal
about making God responsible for evil, whether he does evil actively
or by allowing evil angels to persecute his chosen.  One also gets a
sense of such hand-in-glove cooperation between God, Satan and other
evil angels in other passages[2 Chron. 18:17-21, 1 Kings 22:20-23].
God sends lying spirits to those he chooses to harden, ". . .God shall
send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie."[2 Thess.
2:11]  Yet despite these many references to God's evil, despite
references to God blinding people *spiritually* as well as causing
physical suffering, believers overwhelmingly continue to perceive God
as good, loving and just.  Why?  Because the believer is conditioned
to project all his more positive qualities onto the God-complex.
    Psychologically the images of the good cop/bad cop God, and
the trinitarian, three-faces-of-God God cancel each other out.  The
pull of one image keeps the other from coming into focus, leaving one
with the task of identifying with an indescribable blob.  That
God-image is the ideal stumbling block for the "related" flow of
psychic energy.  Other descriptions of God can be understood as
metaphors for mental activity:

    God is a Spirit:  and they that worship him must worship
    him in spirit and in truth.[John 4:24]

    . . .God is light, and in him no darkness at all.[1 John 1:5]

    God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God,
    and God in him.[1 John 4:16]

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
    and the Word was God.[John 1:1]

    . . .[R]eceiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have
    grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and
    godly fear:  For our God is a consuming fire.[Heb. 12:28-29]

God turns out to be nothing but a psychological complex.  The goal is
to give the God-complex so much psychic energy that other complexes
are drowned out.  The believer thinks he is free of them, but actually
he has covered them up with the shared psychopathology, as Freud
indicated.  Thus the Christian claim to a transformed outlook is true,
in a rather ironic sense!
    Dissociation Induction consists of stratagems to get a person
to inwardly divide his awareness, to project his better qualities onto
a God-complex and to occupy his mind with biblically prescribed
artificialities.  There are secondary gains as a result of this
strategy, such as relief from whatever neurotic symptoms may be
present (at least, in the short run), but so much energy goes into
stifling one's authentic humanness, that it is no exagerration to say
that this is a case where the cure is worse than the disease!


    Device 6:  Bridge Burning


    In several ways the New Testament seeks to make the gap
between believers and outsiders so wide the believers do not get out,
though outsiders should get in.  Passages against family and
association with unbelievers, and passages suggesting that believers
are to be blind, deaf and dead to worldly things, all work together to
keep believers from even considering outside influences, even when
exposed to them constantly.  To accomplish this, something a lot more
powerful than that which attracts a few a susceptible people to
sequestered cults is needed.  The dissociated state of mind is that
powerful.
    Here is a passage illustrating that gap between believers and
unbelievers:

    Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers:  for
    what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?
    and what communion hath light with darkness?  And what
    concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that
    believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple
    of God with idols?. . . Wherefore come out from among them,
    and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean
    thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you,
    and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord
    Almighty.[2 Cor. 6:14-18]

Muted disgust is to be the the reaction to the world outside the
flock.  Also, the life of the believer is described in terms of
hating those members of his earthly family who do not come along, of
leaving them and all one's possessions behind to be a follower.  One
is to burn all bridges behind one, to make it as hard as possible to
return.  Besides the flock, one is to have on other place to go.
    If the believer were to notice how convenient for controlling
him it is for him to perceive outside ideas as emanating from Satan,
he would first have to give himself permission to think such a
firbidden thought.  But he needs to entertain such thoughts first,
before he could give himself that permission.  The well-indoctrinated
believer can't quite get himself to do either.  To see his position in
perspective, he needs to clear away all the biblical irrelevancies he
is presently occupied with; but to identify the irrelevancies, he
would already have to have that perspective.  This paradox produces
intellectual deadlock in the believer.  The believer fixates on this
paradox, and thus adds one more irrelevancy to the many already
occupying his conscious thought.  An impasse in rational thought is
created.
    Thus Bridge Burning strengthens Dissociation Induction by
splitting the believer's psychological reality into the realms of
believers and unbelievers, and widening the gap so much that it remains
uncrossable.  This can be done by poisoning his mind against
unbelievers, or placing logical conundrums in his path out of the
Bible's semantic labyrinth, or bluffing him with the prospect of how
harmful anything that would dispel this biblical intrusion from his psyche
would be.  Bridge Burning can't create the gap, but it can keep it
open and widen it, lending stability to the mind control already in
place.


    Device 7:  Holy Terror


    Basically, frightening people into compliance with biblical
doctrine is what it is all about.  Every other issue we have examined
is transformed into something radically different from the
superficial, Device 1 form.  The initial promise to transform mundane
life is modified later on by the knowledge that in this life, we will
experience persecution.  Evangelicals disparage the "relativism" they
see in non-biblical beliefs; but we have seen that the notion of the
punishment fitting the crime is "spiritually naive."  All that
biblical "justice" comes down to is dwelling on offenses that pertain
to keeping indoctrination in place, ratifying any existing secular
state decrees, and maybe incorporating any prohibitions against theft,
murder, etc. that all human groups invent anyway; it's only thanks to
the rhetorical style that there seems to be anything more to it.  What
of the "love" a believer is to receive?  We have seen that "love"
boils down to an obsessive self-discipline in accord with the
devotional program.  The "hope" a believer receives is that there is
some small chance that he won't spend eternity getting worked over in
God's torture chamber.  And as for the Bible being "pro-family"--the
best it does is to provide some pro-family verses to cancel out the
anti-family verses.  Only the fear appeal remains the same as the
indoctrination deepens.  (Of course, pastors have developed the habit
of saying that "fear" really means awe or reverence, just as "hate"
really means psychological distance.  Unfortunately, there's not much
in the way of contextual, thematic or etymological justification for
such an approach.  This is a variation on the theme we have developed
of selective dissociation, of isolating emotion from the idea that
elicits it.)
    The Bible threatens non-elect with the worst fate
imaginable--namely, eternal punishment coupled with the catastrophe at
the end of the world, i. e. the destruction of everything the
non-elect loved in this life.  The punishment is described in terms of
corporeal punishment, so that even densest of the rank and file will
get the point.  Thus the references to burns inflicted eternally[Matt.
25:41, 46; Luke 3:9, 17; 16:24; John 15:6; Heb. 10:27; Jude 7; Rev.
14:10; 19:20; 20:10 and 21:8], being deprived of rest, and being
whipped [Luke 12:47-48].  Whatever happens takes place in darkness,
elicits weeping and gnashing of teeth, and will be worse than what
happened to Sodom and Gomorrah.
    How does this fear appeal help foster dissociation?  The Bible
authors state that though heaven and earth pass away, it is with their
earthly bodies and present psychological makeup that the unsaved are
resurrected.  Not only does the punishment consist of pain being
inflicted upon one's now indestructible body, but also the denial of
all creature comfort to creatures that still desire it.  The saved on
the other hand, get "incorruptible" bodies.  The Bible doesn't say a
lot about the way the saved will live in the new heavens and new
earth, but apparently the "joy" of their existence will be release
from creature wants and bonds of affection that only seemed important.
The saved will be like the angels--no gender, no intimate bodily
functions, no ordinary human feelings or compassion.  The image one
receives is that heaven is mainly the received ability to sit through
an eternal church service without getting bored or without getting an
aching posterior.

    And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto
    crystal:  and in the midst of the throne, and round about the
    throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind.
    And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast
    like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and
    the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.  And the four
    beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were
    full of eyes within:  and they rest not day and night, saying,
    Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and
    is to come. . . The four and twenty elders fall down before
    him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for
    ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne,
    saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour
    and power:  for thou hast created all things, and for thy
    pleasure they are and were created.[Rev. 4:6-8, 10-11]

(Here we can see the four beasts representing the despised
unconscious, three parts animal and one human, and fragmentation
indicated by the multiplicity of eyes, representing complexes.  The
beasts both regard the throne and are superimposed on God the Father,
who occupies the throne even while the beasts are in the "midst of the
throne."  Also God here is protrayed as receiving power from the
twenty-four elders worshipping him, which is consistent with the
notion of a God-complex being constantly energized by believers.  Once
again, the conclusion is that God consists of pieces of oneself,
projected and energized with one's own energy.)
    This contrast between saved and unsaved modes of existence in
the afterlife--which really represents the state of the psyche--is
just another way of pitting conscious against unconscious, where
unconscious is once again negatively portrayed in terms of the shadow.
Christianity comes down to a destructive, wasteful effort towards the
goal of keeping the conscious and unconscious estranged; fear of hell
is a metaphor for the fear of the consequences of letting the two
mental realms communicate.  If the dissociation should weaken, the
fear of hell drives the believer to redouble his efforts, to perfect
the dissociation, perhaps by praying more, going to church to get peer
re-assurance, more Bible readings, etc.
    What keeps this fear from getting out of hand?  The great
genius of Christianity lies in the fact that it protects itself with
intricately contrived non-disprovability.  That which could disconfirm
Christianity is is (conveniently) out of reach, beyond the grave as it
were.  Thus even though, like our hysterically blind soldier, the
believer knows on some level he has no real proof for the belief, and
so must dissociate this awareness to maintain the belief, he also
knows that nobody has any direct basis for declaring the belief false.
This "double orientation" keeps the fear remote enough for it not to
get out of hand, and accounts for the mind knowing, at some level,
what to expel from conscious awareness.
    Also it must be admitted here that there will be an enormous
difference in effect on "inner-directed" and "other-directed"
individuals.  "Inner-directed" individuals are mainly guided by
conscience, where "other-directed" individuals take their cues from
other people.  Most people are really more "other-directed" than we
would like to think.  The Devices we have been describing have a much
greater impact on such "inner-directed" individuals than they do on
the rank-and-file, who just "go with the flow" in any event.  The
great danger for the "other-directed" believer is to spend most of his
life working into a position where the superficialities of Device 1
wear off and the true implications of the Bible make themselves felt.



    Because of the Protestant tradition of the last couple
centuries of obscuring the Bible's true import, of making the Device 1
"sales pitch" into the whole religion, present-day Evangelicals have a
potential crop of clientele almost as unsuspecting as those of the
first century must have been.  Once again, people are "open" to the
concept that a kind of weakness, i. e. inner dividedness, really
represents strength.  Part of the blame lies with the failure of
secular ideologies to provide a satisfactory answer--they all made
falsifiable promises, and they were all, indeed, falsified.  Add an
underlying end-of-the-world hysteria, fostered by biblical images
resembling a nuclear holocaust, and the approach of the year 2000, and
it becomes quite conceivable that a socially dangerous situation could
be brewing.  Even in the best-case scenario, the new biblicism is
probably resulting in needless fear, manipulation and mental anguish
being spread all over our country.


    In my next post I will elaborate somewhat on Dr. Cohen's
thoughts concerning the mental health implications of the Evangelical
Mind Control System.


[1]  Bainton, Roland H.  Here I Stand (Nashville, Tenn.:  Abingdon
Press, 1978), pp. 44-45.

[2]  Ibid.