There is certainly something more than a mere question of vocabulary in the fact, very significant in itself, that present-day psychology considers nothing but the ‘subconscious’, and never the ‘superconscious’, which ought logically to be its correlative; there is no doubt that this usage expresses the idea of an extension operating only in a downward direction, that is, toward the aspect of things that corresponds, both here in the human being and elsewhere in the cosmic environment, to the ‘fissures’ through which the most ‘malefic’ influences of the subtle world penetrate, influences having a character than can truthfully and literally be described as ‘infernal’.[138] There are also some who adopt the term ‘unconscious’ as a synonym or equivalent of ‘subconscious’, and this term, taken literally, would seem to refer to an even lower level, but as a matter of fact it only corresponds less closely to reality; if the object of study were really unconscious it is difficult to see how it could be spoken of at all, especially in psychological terms; and besides, what good reason is there, other than mere materialistic and mechanistic prejudice, for assuming that anything unconscious really exists? However that may be, there is another thing worthy of note, and that is the strange illusion which leads psychologists to regard states as being more ‘profound’ when they are quite simply more inferior; is not this already an indication of the tendency to run counter to spirituality, which alone can be truly profound since it alone touches the principle and the very center of the being? Correspondingly, since the domain of psychology is not extended upward, the ‘superconscious’ naturally remains as strange to it and as cut off from it as ever; and when psychology happens to meet anything related to the ‘superconscious’, it tries to annex it merely by assimilating it to the ‘subconscious’. This particular procedure is almost invariably characteristic of its so-called explanations of such things as religion and mysticism, together with certain aspects of Eastern doctrine such as Yoga; there are therefore features in this confusion of the superior with the inferior that can properly be regarded as constituting a real subversion.
It should also be noted that psychology, as well as the ‘new philosophy’, tends in its appeal to the subconscious to approach more and more closely to ‘metapsychics’;[139] and in the same way it cannot avoid making an approach, though perhaps unwittingly (at least in the case of those of its representatives who are determined to remain materialists in spite of everything), to spiritualism and to other more or less similar things, all of which rely without doubt on the same obscure elements of a debased psychism. These same things, of which the origin and the character are more than suspect, thus appear in the guise of ‘precursory’ movements and as the allies of recent psychology, which introduces the elements in question into the contemporary purview of what is admitted to be ‘official’ science, and although it introduces them in a roundabout way (nonetheless by an easier way than that of ‘metapsychics’, the latter being still disputed in some quarters), it is very difficult to think that the part psychology is called upon to play in the present state of the world is other than one of active participation in the second phase of anti-traditional action. In this connection, the recently mentioned pretensions of ordinary psychology to annex, by forcible assimilation to the ‘subconscious’, certain things that by their very nature elude it, only belong to what may be called the ‘childish’ side of the affair, though they are fairly clearly subversive in tendency; for explanations of that sort, just like the ‘sociological’ explanations of the same things, are really of a ‘simplistic’ ingenuousness that sometimes reaches buffoonery; but in any case, that sort of thing is far less serious, so far as its real consequences are concerned, than the truly ‘satanic’ side now to be examined more closely in relation to the new psychology.
A ‘satanic’ character is revealed with particular clarity in the psychoanalytic interpretations of symbolism, or of what is held rightly or wrongly to be symbolism, this last proviso being inserted because on this point as on many others, if the details were gone into, there would be many distinctions to make and many confusions to dissipate: thus, to take only one typical example, a vision in which is expressed some ‘supra-human’ inspiration is truly symbolic, whereas an ordinary dream is not so, whatever the outward appearances may be. Psychologists of earlier schools had of course themselves often tried to explain symbolism in their own way and to bring it within the range of their own conceptions; in any such case, if symbolism is really in question at all, explanations in terms of purely human elements fail to recognize anything that is essential, as indeed they do whenever affairs of a traditional order are concerned; if on the other hand human affairs alone are really in question, then it must be a case of false symbolism, but then the very fact of calling it by that name reveals once more the same mistake about the nature of true symbolism. This applies equally to the matters to which the psychoanalysts devote their attention, but with the difference that in their case the things to be taken into consideration are not simply human, but also to a great extent ‘infra-human’; it is then that we come into the presence, not only of a debasement, but of a complete subversion; and every subversion, even if it only arises, at least in the first place, from incomprehension and ignorance (than which nothing is better adapted for exploitation to such ends), is always inherently ‘satanic’ in the true sense of the word. Besides this, the generally ignoble and repulsive character of psychoanalytical interpretations is an entirely reliable ‘mark’ in this connection; and it is particularly significant from our point of view, as has been shown elsewhere,[140] that this very same ‘mark’ appears again in certain spiritualist manifestations — anyone who sees in this no more than a mere ‘coincidence’ must surely have much good will, if indeed he is not completely blind. In most cases the psychoanalysts may well be quite as unconscious as are the spiritualists of what is really involved in these matters; but the former no less than the latter appear to be ‘guided’ by a subversive will making use in each case of elements that are of the same order, if not precisely identical. This subversive will, whatever may be the beings in which it is incarnated, is certainly conscious enough, at least in those beings, and it is related to intentions that are doubtless very different from any that can be suspected by people who are only the unconscious instruments whereby those intentions are translated into action.
138
It may be noted in this connection that Freud put at the head of his
139
Incidentally it was the ‘psychist’ Myers who invented the expression ‘subliminal consciousness’, which was later replaced in the psychological vocabulary for the sake of brevity by the word ‘subconscious’.