Chapter XIII RELIGIOUS PRACTICES
Religion is, among many other things, a system of education, by means of which human beings may train themselves, first, to make desirable changes in their own personalities and, at one remove, in society, and, in the second place, to heighten consciousness and so establish more adequate relations between themselves and the universe of which they are parts.
Religion is this, I repeat, among many other things. For, alas, by no means all the doctrines and practices of the existing religions are calculated to ameliorate character or heighten consciousness. On the contrary, a great deal of what is taught and done in the name of even the most highly evolved religions is definitely pernicious, and a great deal more is ethically neutral—not particularly bad, but, on the other hand, not particularly good. Towards the kind of religion whose fruits are moral evil and a darkening of the mind the rational idealist can only show an uncompromising hostility. Such things as persecution and the suppression or distortion of truth are intrinsically wrong, and he can have nothing to do with religious organizations which countenance such iniquities.
His attitude towards the ethically neutral customs, rites and ceremonies of organized religion will be determined exclusively by the nature of their effects. If such things help to maintain a satisfactory social pattern, if they serve to facilitate and enrich the relations between man and man, between group and group, then he will accord them a certain qualified favour. True, he may recognize very clearly that such practices do not help men to attain to the highest forms of human development, but are actually impediments in the path. The Buddha put down ritualism as one of the Ten Fetters which bind men to illusion and prevent them from attaining enlightenment. Nevertheless, in view of the fact that most individuals will certainly not wish to attain enlightenment—in other words, develop themselves to the limits of human capacity—there may be something to be said in favour of ritualism. Attachment to traditional ceremonials and belief in the magical efficacy of ritual may prevent men from attaining to enlightenment; but, on the other hand, they may help such individuals as have neither the desire nor the capacity for enlightenment to behave a little better than they otherwise would have done.
It is impossible to discuss the value of rites and symbolic ceremonials without reopening a question already touched upon in the chapters on Inequality and Education: the question of psychological types and degrees of mental development. Significantly enough, most of the historical founders of religions and a majority of religious philosophers have been in agreement upon this matter. They have divided human beings into a minority of individuals, capable of making the efforts required to ‘attain enlightenment,’ and a great majority incapable of making such efforts. This conception is fundamental in Hinduism, Buddhism and, in general, all Indian philosophy. It is implicit in the teaching of Lao Tsu, and again in that of the Stoics. Jesus of Nazareth taught that ‘many are called, but few are chosen’ and that there were certain people who constituted ‘the salt of the earth’ and who were therefore able to preserve the world, to prevent it from decaying. The Gnostic sects believed in the existence of esoteric and exoteric teaching, the latter reserved for the many, the former for the few who were capable of profiting by them. The Catholic Church exterminated the Gnostics, but proceeded to organize itself as though the Gnostic belief in esoteric and exoteric teachings were true.[17]
For the vulgar it provided ceremonial, magically compulsive formulas, the worship of images, a calendar of holy days. To the few it taught, through the mouth of the mystics, that such external ‘aids to devotion’ were (as Buddha had pointed out many centuries before) strong fetters holding men back from enlightenment or, in Christian phraseology, from communion with God. In practice, Christianity, like Hinduism or Buddhism, is not one religion, but several religions, adapted to the needs of different types of human beings. A Christian church in Southern Spain, or Mexico, or Sicily, is singularly like a Hindu temple. The eye is delighted by the same gaudy colours, the same tripe-like decorations, the same gesticulating statues; the nose inhales the same intoxicating smells; the ear and, along with it, the understanding, are lulled by the drone of the same incomprehensible incantations, roused by the same loud, impressive music. At the other end of the scale, consider the chapel of a Cistercian monastery and the meditation hall of a community of Zen Buddhists. They are equally bare; aids to devotion (in other words, fetters holding back the soul from enlightenment) are conspicuously absent from either building. Here are two distinct religions for two distinct kinds of human beings.
The history of ideas is to a great extent the history of the misinterpretation of ideas. An outstanding individual makes a record of his life or formulates, in the light of his personal experience, a theory about the nature of the world. Other individuals, not possessing his natural endowments, read what he has written, and, because their psychological make-up is different from that of the author, fail to understand what he means. They re-interpret his words in the light of their own experience, their own knowledge, their own prejudices. Consequently, they learn from their teacher, not to be like him, but to be more themselves. Misunderstood, his words serve to justify their desires, rationalize their beliefs. Not all of the magic, the liturgy, the ritual existing in the historical religions is a survival from a more primitive age. A good part of it, it is probable, is relatively new—the product of misunderstanding. Mystical writers recording psychological experiences in symbolical language were often supposed by the non-mystics to be talking about alchemy or magic rites. Episodes in the inner life were projected, in a strangely distorted form, into the outer world, where they helped to swell the majestic stream of primitive superstition. There is a danger that the present widespread interest in oriental psychology and philosophy may lead, through misunderstanding, to a recrudescence of the grossest forms of superstition.
To what extent can rites and formularies, symbolic acts and objects be made use of in modern times? The question has been asked at frequent intervals ever since organized Christianity began to lose its hold upon the West. Attempts have been made to fabricate synthetic rituals without much success. The French Revolutionary cult of Reason and the Supreme Being died with the Thermidorian reaction. Comte’s religion of Humanity—‘Catholicism without Christianity,’ as T. H. Huxley called it—never took root. Even the rituals and ceremonies devised from time to time by successful Christian revivalists seldom outlive their authors or spread beyond the buildings in which they were originally practised.
On the other hand, new rituals and ceremonials have sprung up in connection with the cults of nationalism and socialism—have sprung up and continued to flourish over a long period of years.
Considering these instances, let us risk a few generalizations. Ritual and ceremonial will arise almost spontaneously wherever masses of people are gathered together for the purpose of taking part in any activity in which they are emotionally concerned. Such rites and ceremonials will survive and develop for just so long as the emotional concern is felt. It is impossible to persuade people who are not emotionally concerned in any given idea, or person, to make a habit of performing rites and ceremonies in connection with that idea or person. To create a ritual, as Comte did, in the hope that it will create a religious emotion, is to put the cart before the horse. Where the emotional concern exists, ritual will serve to strengthen it, even to revive it when enthusiasm grows weary; but it cannot create emotion. (To be more accurate, it cannot create a lasting sentiment. A ceremony well performed is a work of art from which even the sceptical spectator may ‘get a kick.’ But one can be deeply moved by Macbeth without being converted to a permanent belief in witchcraft—can be stirred by a Papal Mass or a review of Brownshirts without feeling impelled to become a Catholic or a Nazi.)
At the present time and in the industrialized West, there is not very much to be said in favour of the rites, customs and ceremonies of traditional Christianity. There is not much to be said for them, for the simple reason that they are demonstrably very ineffective. They do absolutely nothing to hold together the social pattern of Christendom, and they have proved themselves incapable of standing up to the competition of the new rites and ceremonies of nationalistic idolatry. Men are much more German or imperialistically British than Protestant, much more French or Fascist than Catholic. In the past, the fetters of Christian ritualism may have held people back from enlightenment; but these fetters did at least serve as strong ties binding individuals to the body of Christian society. To-day they have, to a great extent, outlived this social function. Indeed, it would be almost true to say that preoccupation with traditional religious rites and ceremonies is something which actually separates people from the society in the midst of which they live. There are only too many men
