Yesterday we considered Otto Rank’s medicine for an ailing democracy. Rank was living at a time like ours, the rise of fascism and the dangerous irrationality of culture and politics in the late 1930’s. Just before WWII broke out.
He was alert to what he called the “violent distortions” of the far-right politics of his time (and what we are seeing in ours). And a weakening of democracy. His remedy has to do with calling on the “irrational.” He is calling our attention to the excessive rationality of the modern era and its science of mechanism and reductionism, of Freud, of Newtonian causality—indeed of patriarchy itself.
What would Rank categorize as “irrational”? Consider the following: Dreams, music, dance, art, ritual, sex, lovemaking, babies, laughter, play, massage, drumming, singing, the smell of new cut grass, the tastes of spicy food, silence, grief, color, creativity, peace, clowning, nature, wilderness, prayer, fear, animals, angels or spirits, children, beauty, paradox, myth, stories, games, campfires, chant, darkness, tenderness, forgiveness, meditation, God, birds, trees, plants, flowers. And anger. And, Rank adds, “legitimate foolishness,” the folly that accompanies wisdom. Holy folly.
What would life be without these? Where would we derive our reasons for living, our zest for carrying on? The irrational includes, he says, the “dynamic forces governing life and human behavior.” In our rationalized culture, the forces are often stigmatized as ‘irrational,’ and he is trying to remove the stigma and find the gold there.
Humor and satire are irrational—and effective. Yesterday the satirical newspaper The Onion bought Alex Jones’ Infowars at auction with help from Sandy Hook families whom Jones had mocked on his website devoted to conspiracy theories. Jones had declared bankruptcy and been fined over $1 billion for his taunts.
Our lives (and elections too) are far more irrational than modern science and modern education would have us believe. Rank talks about how “vital human values”—ethics itself—derive from the irrational, from what is truly vast and wonderful and catches our attention and curiosity. What leads to adventure. In other words, what is truly marvelous. The irrational is that which “does not fit into our scheme of things.” He and Einstein are on the same page, that values come not from the “rational brain” but from the “intuitive brain” as Einstein puts it.
Rank declares that “the epitome of the irrational is the marvel of creation itself.” It is in nature. Creation.
Wonder is irrational, not rational. It is wonder that moves us most deeply. This Jewish spiritual consciousness, shared by Rabbi Heshel and Jesus himself, Heschel calls “radical amazement” and he reminds us that “awe is the beginning of wisdom.” The rational gives us knowledge—and that is important; but wonder leads to wisdom. Rank sought both.
Rank does not propose that the irrational replace the rational, but that they need to be balanced. Otherwise “violent distortions” result which manifest themselves individually as neurosis and culturally as various forms of revolutionary movements which succeed because they are irrational and not in spite of it. A “constructive and dynamic relationship” between the rational and irrational is required. Rank believes that Karl Marx succeeded because he offered hope to the poor. Hope is irrational. It keeps people alive in dire times.
We need, says Rank, a whole new civilization—one that includes the irrational—because “human nature is at bottom irrational.”
*Otto Rank, Beyond Psychology (NY: Dover Publications, 1958), pp, 289-291.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, “Psychotherapy and the ‘Unio Mystica’: Meister Eckhart Meets Otto Rank,” in Fox, Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior for Our Times, pp.139-156.
See also Fox, “Otto Rank on the Artistic Journey as a Spiritual Journey, the Spiritual Journey as an Artistic Journey,” in Fox, Wrestling with the Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life, pp. 199-214.
And Fox, The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human.
And Fox, Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election.
Banner image: Beauty, Magic, and Mysticism. Image by Raziel Janeway on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
How do you understand the “irrational” or “more-than-rational”? Do you recognize this as part of the role that mysticism plays in our lives? And the anger that often fuels politics?
Recommended Reading
Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Time
While Matthew Fox recognizes that Meister Eckhart has influenced thinkers throughout history, he also wants to introduce Eckhart to today’s activists addressing contemporary crises. Toward that end, Fox creates dialogues between Eckhart and Carl Jung, Thich Nhat Hanh, Rabbi Heschel, Black Elk, Karl Marx, Rumi, Adrienne Rich, Dorothee Soelle, David Korten, Anita Roddick, Lily Yeh, M.C. Richards, and many others.
“Matthew Fox is perhaps the greatest writer on Meister Eckhart that has ever existed. (He) has successfully bridged a gap between Eckhart as a shamanistic personality and Eckhart as a post-modern mentor to the Inter-faith movement, to reveal just how cosmic Eckhart really is, and how remarkably relevant to today’s religious crisis! ” — Steven Herrmann, Author of Spiritual Democracy: The Wisdom of Early American Visionaries for the Journey Forward
Wrestling with the Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life
In one of his foundational works, Fox engages with some of history’s greatest mystics, philosophers, and prophets in profound and hard-hitting essays on such varied topics as Eco-Spirituality, AIDS, homosexuality, spiritual feminism, environmental revolution, Native American spirituality, Christian mysticism, Art and Spirituality, Art as Meditation, Interfaith or Deep Ecumenism and more.
The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human
The A.W.E. Project reminds us that awe is the appropriate response to the unfathomable wonder that is creation… A.W.E. is also the acronym for Fox’s proposed style of learning – an approach to balance the three R’s. This approach to learning, eldering, and mentoring is intelligent enough to honor the teachings of the Ancestors, to nurture Wisdom in addition to imparting knowledge, and to Educate through Fox’s 10 C’s. The 10 C’s are the core of the A.W.E. philosophy and process of education, and include: compassion, contemplation, and creativity. The A.W.E. Project does for the vast subject of “learning” what Fox’s Reinvention of Work did for vocation and Original Blessing did for theology. Included in the book is a dvd of the 10 C’s put to 10 video raps created and performed by Professor Pitt.
“An awe-based vision of educational renewal.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
6 thoughts on “Love, Mysticism, Anger: Healing of Democracy via the Irrational?”
We need Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Mystery to stir our hearts, minds, bodies and souls to the zeal and zest for ‘Life’. Too many allow themselves to get caught up the emotions stirred by both the rational and irrational politicians. In doing so we have essentially turned control of our lives to external parties and forces of the rational and irrational. Both sides of the coin or forces in this stand-off believe themselves to be rational and the other side most irrational. Is it not so. And as we have seen millions of people [ as defined by not voting] have either ‘checked-out’ or rejected ‘the subservient control of taking sides’ and they may have been correct in doing so. We only believe that a ‘non-voter’ is irrational because it could have ‘supported’ the rational side to which we belong.
All belong and there is room in Christ’s world for all to belong eventually. As it stands right now many of the rational and irrational that ‘claim’ to follow Christ do so falsely for political reasons and do not share in Christ’s mind, heart, and consciousness. Jesus the Christ’s Kingdom is ‘not of the world’. Although for now we live in and ‘of the world’ for Christ’s sake, lasting creation itself is ‘not of the world’. The rational mind cannot conceive of this Mystery, which can only be arrived by faith in the unseen and unknown which in the parlance of ‘of the world’ living is totally irrational, but there nevertheless. – BB.
I believe in extraterrestrials. There was even a hearing in Congress about the matter earlier this week with testimonies from a former Admiral and NASA administrator that such craft clearly exist and that they are intelligently manned. Personally, I go further in believing that more evolved intelligences from other worlds have visited us throughout our history. “In my Father’s House there are many mansions.” I believe Jesus and the Buddha came from Venus, albeit a higher dimension of the planet. Sri Krishna came from Saturn. All utterly irrational to our common way of thinking, or is it?
I wrote a book about it: “Maya Mire – A Spiritual Journey into Cosmic Truth and the Dawning of a New World”, available on Amazon should anyone wish to know more.
In yesterday’s DM Comment section, I mentioned being shocked by the ignorance and complacency of 87 million voters who were eligible to vote, but did not vote. I forgot to mention that many of us continue to be shocked (and now grieving) by the ignorance of the many MAGA cult followers of wannabe dictator Trump and by the greed of his billionaire followers (7 to 1 supported him and helped finance his brainwashing and lying media campaign). Otto Rank, prominent psychiatrist, writer, and thinker, tried to warn the German people (in circumstances similar to our own in the US with Trumpism) about the rise of Hitler and his authoritarianism before he died in 1939. Are most Americans really that complacent, ignorant, brainwashed, and materialistically greedy that we want our own version of Hitler and an authoritarian violent anti-democratic society?Hope our democratic institutions and leaders remain strong the next four years, and that most Americans begin waking up morally/intelligently/spiritually for the sake of not only American society, but for humanity in a more just world, and for our Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth/Her living creatures/Her essential graceful abundance. May God’s Spirit of DIVINE LOVE~TRUTH~WILL… continue growing within, through, among Us in LOVING DIVERSE ONENESS in the Sacred Process of the ETERNAL PRESENT MOMENT….
Amen. Thank you Damian for this impassioned prayer.
Consider too this very sobering commentary from a very solid source: The Hartmann Report
Saturday Report 11/16/24 – In an authoritarian regime it’s important to cow and control the news, and here we go…
I’m surprised that the situation in Florida was not mentioned in the report, where the governor threatened the media for showing ads on an amendment that he tried everything to defeat–using taxpayer money. He was unable to stop the ads but did manage to ensure that the amendment did not pass. I have mentioned before that what has been happening in Florida is but a foretaste of Project 2025. We should not be surprised at anything that the new regime does. We do need positive ways of dealing with the fallout, and Damian’s prayer is needed and appreciated.
Kann es sein, dass uns vor allen noch die Fähigkeit zum vernetzten, ganzheitlichem Denken fehlt?
Die Freude daran, ALLES von allen Blickwinkeln her zu betrachten und gleichzeitig über das Augenscheinliche hinaus denken.
Seit dem ich versuche, die Weisheiten/Mystik aller Religionen mit einander vernetzt auf mich wirken zu lassen, fühle ich mich befreit von der Enge meiner katholischen Erziehung.
Ich glaube, vernetztes, ganzheitliches Denken schließt weder das irrationale, emotionale, spirituelle, sentimentale, intuitive, rationale, komplexe, ja nicht einmal das wissenschaftlich sezierende Denken aus sondern gewinnt aus all dem die Essenz des großen Ganzen.
Michaela aus Deutschland