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by Harrison Koehli
January 18,
2024
from
Ponerology Website
The Wild Hunt of Odin,
by
Peter Nicolai Arbo
A
pathological pantheon,
and how
pathology
shapes culture
and religion...
The annoying thing about stereotypes is that they exist for a
reason.
I may not think of myself
often as a typical Canuck, but every once in a while I will say or
do something that is undeniably "Canadian," to the amusement of my
not-Canadian friends.
Whether it's the
compulsion to say "sowrry" at almost entirely random times or to
share old YouTube clips of Wayne Gretzky during some down-time (the
gravitational pull of hockey is strong), some things aboot
one's culture just go deep.
And they're not
always flattering.
It's not just
language, or climate, or shared pastimes, either.
It's entire complexes
of ideas, feelings, and behaviors.
Andrew M. Lobaczewski
highlights one such contributor to what we might call national
character, cultural quirks, or even flaws:
the "quantitative and
qualitative composition" of the fraction of any given population
who are personality disordered.
Every country will be
slightly different.
Some might have a lot
of psychopaths, another might have more
schizoids, another more
anankastics.
Some might have a
relatively large proportion of such individuals, while another
might have relatively few.
Lobaczewski wrote (Political Ponerology - The Science
of Evil, Psychopathy, and the Origins of Totalitarianism):
This [fraction] may
be represented by a single-digit percentage in some nations, in
the teens in others.
(Poland had a relatively low burden, but this share has
grown alarmingly; Scandinavian countries, especially Norway,
have the lowest burden in Europe; in the U.S., a nation
built on the immigration of difficult people, this share is
relatively high.)
Said quantitative and
qualitative structure influences the entire psychological and
moral climate of the country in question.
(pp. 138)
So the next time you say,
"Typical [descriptor
of person from country x]!", you may just be picking up on
something important, ponerologically speaking.
Put simply, your culture
just may be more psychopathic than others, more schizoidal,
more anankastic, more paranoid, more antisocial,
or more histrionic.
Whatever it may be, it
will be a unique blend, a potpourri of pathology that, while not
necessarily approaching anywhere near the level of personality
disorder in any given member of your people, will still color your
basic psychology.
This got me thinking.
How might this affect
the expression of religion in various contexts...?
As Lobaczewski writes in
a later chapter on
Pathocracy and Religion, there
are at least two major ways in which religion goes wrong:
Since religion is an
essential part of the "psychological and moral climate" of any given
country, there's no doubt that this psychopathological fraction will
shape religious expression over time.
Kazimierz Dabrowski thought something like this.
For him,
religion manifests
differently according to the developmental level of each
individual. A person's religious expression reflects their own
psychology.
To give some examples,
summarized from his magnum opus,
Multilevelness of Emotional
and Instinctive Functions,
an individual,
at level 1
(primary integration, which includes
psychopathy) may conceive of
the forces of good and evil in an overly anthropomorphic way
(bearded dude in the sky, horned Pan/faerie as the devil) and
one's interaction with them as purely transactional:
provide me with
food, help me win this battle.
Success may stoke a
belief in one's superhuman nature or demigod status.
The religion of
survival and supremacy.
At level 2 (unilevel disintegration, where there is "no
way out"), one may cycle between belief and disbelief, personify
one's conflicting states as warring gods, or,
"there may be a
feeling of an exclusive contact with the divinity symbolized
by a ritual of betrothal to a divine personage, often
followed by a feeling of letdown, or lack of favor (grace)."
Ups and downs, highs
and lows, but with no stable resolution.
Level 3 (spontaneous multilevel disintegration) shows the
appearance of an inner hierarchy of religious values, the
differentiation of a personal conception of the divine
(immanence) and God as external and higher (transcendence).
"The search for
grace is experienced as coming from two directions at once:
from the
subject and from higher reality.
Sometimes one
observes deviant forms of devotion of the divinity
characterized by artificiality, excessive self-criticism and
self-abasement or spiritual narcissism."
At level 4 (organized multilevel disintegration) we find
efforts to make the transcendent a concrete reality, to search
for the objectivity of higher realms, the need for,
"faith in the
uniqueness of God and his personal attributes," and "valuing
divinity as an embodiment of love",
...all
associated with systematic contemplation and work at
self-perfection.
And at level 5 (secondary integration), such qualities as
an,
"all-encompassing
empathy and universal love," and "an intuitive synthesis of
one's personal relationship with the divinity."
"In this level
religious attitude is marked by clarity and simplicity which
is nourished by great depth and complexity of religious
experience.
It is also
characterized by an effort to make the relation between
immanence and transcendence understandable, to make God a
concrete experience, to carry with him a dialog in place of
his monolog."
Every
religion, and the body of its practitioners,
will show the influence of all these levels, whether in the
inspiration provided by its saints and mystics,
-
those working
towards their own development and self-perfection
-
those struggling
and falling away
-
those deluded
about their own special status
-
those limited to
cloaking basic drives and instincts, with no real conception
of higher realities
Every religion
has its con artists and its exemplars, and everyone in
between. And all contribute to the overall worldview and practice of
the religion in question.
With this overall framework in mind, I want to do something slightly
more granular and look at the hypothetical religions of some
of the chief personality disorders discussed by Lobaczewski, in
order of their ponerogenic virulence.
What follows is my first draft of a taxonomy of religion under the
influence of "the pathologic god."
The Anankastic
God
The anankastic god has created a complex world of arbitrary
order, and his injunctions on his creatures are just as complex and
arbitrary.
His world is
structured like a giant puzzle box.
Perform the correct
movements and gestures, in the proper order at the right time,
and access is granted to the next box.
The complexity and
arbitrariness is not simply because the anankastic god is having fun
- he is a joyless god, driven by compulsion.
Every action performed by one of his creatures is a part of the
puzzle, and nothing less than perfection is required to solve the
puzzle. It is not his concern what becomes of those who fail.
However, the
anankastic god is not completely impassive when it comes to
humanity.
The rules must
be followed, and that requires subjects to follow them.
The perfect follower of
the anankastic god is perfectly obedient.
He obeys all of the
several thousand rules governing all facets of life ordained by
his god, to the letter - rules for the days of the week, the
hours of the day, and the activities of the hour.
He does this
conscientiously, with single-mindedness and an air of unflagging
self-sacrifice.
While the puzzle box is
of ultimate value, all that is not covered under these rules is of
little importance, to be ignored and repressed, or even approached
via loopholes and exceptions to the rule, as when the rule becomes
too onerous or even impossible to obey.
There is no spirit to the
law, only its letter.
Thus,
the perfect follower
is not necessarily wise, insightful, understanding, or kind.
Those traits are
secondary, and perhaps even obstacles on the path to perfection.
The anankastic
apostle makes it his mission to evangelize the divine
instruction manual, enforce its rules, and impose them on others.
To those who do not
follow the rules, he may come across as stubborn, mean,
obsessive, and over-meticulous when it comes to matters of
lesser importance.
But for the anankastic
god, the devil is to be found in the most mundane details.
It is the
unbeliever's hierarchy of value that is inverted, placing value
on things unrelated to the arcane procedures.
The anankastic god's
chief delusion is that his complex order has real meaning.
His chief fear is
that he is deluding himself - a fraudulent god...
But having invested so
much of himself in this order, and lacking in any self-awareness, he
paradoxically believes ever more strongly in his abstract vision,
doubling and tripling down on it, devising ever more baroque rules
and enforcing them ever more cruelly.
His final vision is one
of perfect order, every state transition of reality contributing to
a picture only he can see and appreciate:
cold, perfect, and
devoid of any life...
The Schizoid
God
The schizoid god is a hyper-rational god with no room for
sentiment.
His order is precise, but
he has created an abortion. (Even he is not quite sure if this was
on purpose.) Most of his creatures are irredeemably corrupt, weak,
and dirty.
Thus, the divine order
can only be maintained by a small group of hyper-rational minds
in the name of the schizoid god - a small group chosen to keep the
hopelessly flawed in check or to eliminate them as the case may be.
The schizoid god sees in only two colors:
black and white...
One is either one of the
chosen, or he isn't. Because these others are hopeless, they are
fair game, of little value.
Controlled by their
emotions, their emotions are free to be manipulated, even to their
destruction. The schizoid god is not an inclusive god, satisfied to
maintain an exclusive group of his own agents in a world hostile to
them and to him.
The perfect follower of the schizoid god knows that,
he is superior to all
the unbelieving drones and emotionally weak followers beneath
him.
He is hypersensitive
to perceived slights from the others and distrustful of them -
as they are hostile and untrustworthy by their very nature.
These others may find him
odd, but their opinion is of no value and only a sign of their lower
status.
As with his god, his
positions are extreme and black-and-white.
He is eager to
retaliate for minor offenses.
His superior
understanding of reality (which the others would call
emotionally dull, arrogant, and disdainful) leads him to
superimpose pejorative interpretations upon other people's
intentions.
This frequently leads to
difficulties in relations with these hostile others.
The schizoid apostle merely extols the virtues of his
people and his god, without concern for the inferior. He is not
overly concerned with gaining converts (what hope is there for the
hopeless?), merely with following the will of his god.
The good opinion of the
others is often helpful to him and his god, if not to the others
themselves.
The schizoid god's chief delusion is his detachment from his
creation. A god of inner contradiction, he is superior, and yet his
creation is flawed. He is hyper-rational, and yet fundamentally
detached from reality and thus fundamentally irrational.
His vision applies
universally, and yet he sees only a fraction of reality; one in
which his rule is accepted, and yet everything he does alienates
those who might come to accept it.
The
Psychopathic God
The psychopathic god claims to be the creator...!
In the moment, he may
believe that to be true. In the next, he may deny having done
so. He speaks contradictory words with equal conviction. He
speaks a lot.
In a moment of candor sparked by flattery, he may boast that he
merely took credit for the work of another, a sucker. For he
cannot truly create, only ape. He is the god of a thousand faces
and ten thousand lies.
And yet everything he
says is true, even the things that are not...
If one of his creatures
doubts him in any of his guises, this is an insult to his majesty,
and that being will be slated for destruction.
Inspired to believe fully
in his contradictory proclamations, his creatures devote their lives
to discovering the hidden threads that hold the contradictions
together, making them not contradictory at all.
Those who cannot see that
the contradictions are not in fact contradictions are also slated
for destruction.
He enjoys watching
the struggle to achieve this absurdity, which for some is
impossible.
He is the center of all creation, and all creation must remember
that.
A special fate awaits any
who deviate from his rule. For his creatures are his bride, and he
their groom.
Yet on the wedding night,
he reveals that his virtue was a mere pretense. She is designed only
to serve him, nothing more. And he is a jealous god. If he can't
have her, no one will.
This god is utterly without remorse or love.
He plays cruel games
with his creatures, amusing himself at their ridiculous
weaknesses, their alien fairy tales of honor and love and
justice, and holding a secret disdain for those foolish enough
to fall for his lies.
In one guise he will
puff up one group of his creatures and set them at war with
another, enjoying the sight of their complete slaughter, just
has he has puffed up that other group in another of his guises.
They offer him
heartfelt worship and he privately laughs at their pitiful
abasement.
There are no true
followers of the psychopathic god, only slaves. To truly live by the
law of this god is to be him.
He is his own apostle...
Those speaking in his
name and bringing others under his domain are simple tools,
holding no special place in his heart, which is desolate.
The psychopathic god's
chief delusion is his own centrality.
He is simply one of many,
each a pretender. He is the most deluded of the pathologic pantheon,
imagining himself the greatest when he is in fact the least.
His ultimate vision is
one in which he is served by all, an impossibility, but which taken
its logical fulfillment will lead him to being the center of
nothing, and thus nothing himself:
'Nihilum ex creatione'...
'Creation from nothing'...
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