Opening of the Way

Dark Star Rising : Magick and Power in the Age of Trump, by Gary Lachman

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Both Hitler and Mussolini wanted people to believe in them, and both found that fhis was precisely what many people wanted to do.  They, it seemed, were made for each other.  ow Hitler and Mussolini got millions of people to believe in them was by believing in themselves an d their respective causes, in Hitler's case National Socialism and in Mussolini's fascism.  They did not win this believing through argument, persuasive reasoning, or a convincing display of facts. They didn't force people to believe nor did they buy their compliance.  Something much deeper and more immediate was at work.  Something that is a part of the very fabric of our being.

Mussolini and Hitler gathered the masses beind them by fulfilling a need, a very powerful one, and also by meeting a desire.  The need is to believe that our lives have some meaning and purpose beyond that of fulfilling our basic animal appetites.  This is the essence of all religion.  We need to feel there is some reason for our existence.  This lack of belief leads to nihilism, that belief in nothing, a condition that postmodernism seems to hvae saddled us with today.  Man, we know, does not live by bread alone; if he did, any feasible plan for the equitable distribution of the planet's resources would solve the world's problems overnight.  As George Orwell, a witness to the rise of populist demagogues in pre-World War II Europe, "Hitler...knows that human beings don't only want comfort, safety, short working hours, hygiene, birth control and, in general, common sense; they also want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty parades."

... Hitler and Mussolini were adept at providing many people in Germany and Italy with the sense that they belonged to some larger reality beyond their everyday lives.  This is why all attempts to explain Hitler's success through economic, class, or some other "rational" reason are ultimately inadequate.  They leave what we might call the "existential" element out of their reckoning, the need for a meaning to life more significant that a full stomach.
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The desire Hitler and Mussolini met in millions of people was a simple one: to be free of the burden of giving meaning to their lives themselves, of fulfilling their hunger for "struggle and self-sacrifice," for some greater purpose than the satisfaction of their own appetites, though their own efforts.

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There seems to be an inverse ration between a people's lack of self-belief, and the enthusiasm with which they embrace a belief in someone else, provided he displays enough self-belief to fill the void within them.  The examples above refer to how "charismatic leaders," as the sociologist Max Weber called them, do precisely this.  For Weber such figures are set apart from ordinary men and are often seen as superhuman or supernatural.  Charisma is of Greek origin and means a "gift of grace."

Then it goes into endorsement of a book I have long admired,  "Feet of Clay" by Anthony Storr.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684834952/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3

 



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