The Power of Myth
The Power of Myth
Heresy Today, Dogma Tomorrow
Several years ago I read John Van Hagen’s Rescuing Religion and was surprised to learn that modern biblical scholars are pretty sure the Old Testament patriarchs never really existed. They’re part of a fabricated back-story created years later to give the downtrodden Israelites a myth to live by.
At first, this was a difficult pill for me to swallow, because it rattled what was left of my fundamentalist Catholic programming; but then I realized it was such a good story that it didn’t really matter whether it was historical or not. What a great plot! As a conspiracy buff, the idea of God conspiring with Abraham and Moses to create an Israelite Super-race really works for me.
It was a more difficult pill for Van Hagen to swallow. Realizing that an unexamined cornerstone of his faith was probably more mythical than historic created a lot of cognitive dissonance for him, so he spent the rest of the book using his psychological training to patiently shepherd himself and us away from the comforts of belief, through the dark streets of doubt, to the unfamiliar refuge of humble agnosticism. He handled his crisis of faith with much more maturity than I did, fifty years ago.
My crisis happened back in the seminary, two years before I was supposed to be ordained. I read Honest to God that year and suddenly everything about the Catholic Church began to feel like idolatry. I started deconstructing the whole enterprise, and got very pissed off when I didn’t find many allies.
Finally my bewildered and long-suffering confessor, Father Nicolas, said to me, “Greg, I can’t claim to understand what’s going on with you, but I know that when you lose your sense of humor, something’s wrong . . . and you’ve definitely lost your sense of humor!”
Those words, no doubt bland and inadequate in his mind, struck me right between the eyes. He was right! I had become so angry and judgmental, that I had lost both my humor and my heart. His words caused me to experience a metanoia. Suddenly, I started seeing people as people again, not as enemies; and I realized that I was wasting most of my time attacking the old god I had rejected - the finite, anal, God-out-there - rather than embracing the all-inclusive, playful, Elan Vital that I had chosen in its stead. Once I realized that, I was slowly able to turn my anger into humor again.
The same thing happened to me again about three months ago. I had gotten to the point where, every time I heard Donald Trump’s voice, it was like listening to a cat clawing on a blackboard. It was driving me crazy. My friend Steve Grosse told me I was suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” He was right. I was totally reactive and pissed off, hating both Trump and his supporters: “How can anyone support this guy? He’s a racist, sexist, narcissistic, homophobic, crooked piece of shit!”
I decided I needed another metanoia. I needed to try and understand, if not Donald Trump himself, at least his supporters. They couldn’t all be bad people; they must see something good in the guy. Man never chooses evil as evil, always under the guise of good.
I started by asking Steve about Trump. He, being a committed Evangelical, directed me to the first book of Kings.
“David was definitely a flawed human being,” he explained, “and sure, he lusted after Bathsheeba; and then seduced her; and then arranged for her husband, his best friend, to be killed in battle; but still, flawed though he was, God raised him up and made him Israel’s greatest king. God’s ways are not our ways.”
“Oh please!” I said. “That’s supposed to make me feel better about Trump?” “Yes,” he said.
“Well, it doesn’t,” I said.
That was several months ago. A few days later, I was working my volunteer job, driving a woman to her doctor’s appointment. We’d been having a stimulating conversation in the van, and in the course of it I made some snide comment about Trump. She looked over at me and quietly said, “Yes, but he’s the only one who can stop the deep state.”
The only people I’d ever heard talk about the deep state were old radicals who were badmouthing corporate America or the military industrial complex. This woman had been raised a strict Baptist, and now appeared to be some sort of New-Age type, all woo-woo and visualizing; hardly a radical. I was confused. Where was she coming from?
We talked a little more, and then, as she got out of the van, she told me she’d send me some websites. When I got home I found a batch of them on my computer. That’s when I began to understand why a lot of people are still supporting Donald Trump. There’s a new myth out there that’s almost as compelling and dramatic as the Old Testament myth about God conspiring with the Israelites. Like any viable myth, this one’s all about good and evil. And guess who’s been chosen to lead the forces of good against the deep state - Donald Trump.
The trippy thing about this myth is that its main narrator is somebody called “Q.” (“Q” from quelle, German for “source,” was widely used in biblical criticism). Q made his/her appearance in 2017 through a heavily encrypted social network platform and has been sending out coded messages ever since. S/he is supposedly a well-placed intelligence agent who’s privy to a high-level battle going on between the “white hats” and “black hats” – two warring factions within the world’s governments, militaries, intelligence agencies, central banks, and NGOs. The white hats are working from within their agencies to protect human freedom, whereas the black hats are trying to control the entire planet via surveillance, sexual blackmail, phony money, addictive drugs, germ warfare, artificial intelligence, and mind control. This struggle has been going on for years, and all our leaders have been co-opted by the black hats - with the one exception of John F Kennedy, who actually recognized the cabal for what it was and set out to destroy it. (Fittingly, it’s a former close friend of JFK Jr., Donald Trump, who has been chosen by the white hats to do battle with the deep state cabal.)
The battle heated up recently when the black hats attempted to sneak one of their engineered viruses out of the Wuhan lab in China, hoping to release it in the United States and foil Trump’s re-election. Luckily, the thief dropped the vial containing the virus on a street in Wuhan, so the virus hit there first, enabling the white hats to counter the cabal’s perfidious plans. Things are in Limbo right now but the next desperate attempt of the cabal will be mandatory vaccinations, designed to give them absolute power over the earth’s population. True patriots will resist. Armaggedon will ensue.
So there you have it. Remember, this myth, like the Old Testament myth before it, is being written during a time of profound disillusionment, and has a strong ring of hope. That’s its appeal. (It also features many exciting video game types, like reptilians, extra-terrestrials, bots, and Satanists. Something for everyone.)
I have no idea if there’s any truth to this myth or not. Cognitive dissonance reigns. But it’s a very engrossing story, so I’ll put it up on the shelf with all my other stories and watch what unfolds.
In the meantime, I’m able to smile again at people in MAGA hats.