Last week Lake Drive Books and I put out a call announcing the updated version of my book, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Antichrist: Recognizing the Archetype of Evil in Our Times. The book appears October 13—just in time for the November election.
A new Appendix lists numerous references to MAGA politics and the Antichrist happening in the media since the book came out two years ago. We are not alone anymore.
We are inviting folks to become helpers in spreading the word by joining our Launch Team. Already, 196 volunteers have stood up to do exactly that. People see it as a practical contribution they can make toward this critical and potentially game-changing election, so we want to put out the invitation again if you care to get on board.
A launch like this significantly impacts a book’s visibility in this age of social media. (See press release.)
I am excited about this book because we need new language to stand up to evil today. As I’ve written elsewhere, evil is not dumb, it is very smart. It does not shine light on itself, it lives in the shadows—our own personal shadows and collective shadows. It especially likes to hide in places of power whether it be pentagons or supreme courts or media or corporate headquarters or white houses.
We need to name evil and its archetypes in order to understand it, expose it, and face it. So we need artists to assist us, as evil is as much about symbols and metaphors as it is about rational analysis. This is why I invoke Hildegard of Bingen’s powerful painting of the Antichrist from the 12th century, as well as Luca Signorelli’s fresco on “The Preaching and Deeds of the Antichrist” from the early 16th century to help tell the story of Evil today.
It was the latter painting that so captured the imagination of Sigmund Freud that on three different occasions, he visited Orvieto Cathedral to study it. This powerful story constitutes the first chapter of my book. Nicholas Fox Weber, author of the brilliant book, Freud’s Trip to Orvieto, called my book “a lively and fascinating journey into the forces of evil and into the warped mind of the world leader who is their incarnation.”
I also include recent paintings by MAGA influencers in this new edition.
I maintain that the opposite of Evil is not the good strictly speaking. The opposite of the good is the bad. The proper opposite of Evil is the Sacred. A discussion of Evil should pave the way for a resurrection of the Sacred and vice versa.
That is one more reason we need artists to assist us. The artist speaks to our deeper selves, touches our imaginations, intuitions and dreams whether one is seeking to name the Sacred or its opposite. “Art seduces us in the struggle against repression” says Norman Brown.
The Gospels and Epistles are works of art and poetry and dreams, as well as concrete stories of factual happenings. The same is true of the psalms and the wisdom books of the Bible which stretch the soul into the realm of mystery and vastness. The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, etc., birthed some of the finest poetry in the world. The Vedas and the Upanishads of the East do the same when speaking of life’s big mysteries, evil included.
In waking up to our powers of greatness and also our powers of doing evil, we have choices to make: Imitate the divine? Or play out the demonic?
The chaos in our culture today provokes such questions and invitations as these. I hope my book assists the decisions we make.
Banner image: The devil whispers to the antichrist, from Luca Signorelli’s 1501 painting “Sermon and Deeds of the Antichrist,” from the Orvieto Cathedral.” Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you recognize Evil alive and well in today’s politics around the world? What more can we do about it? Do you feel it swirling about, causing chaos in our world including in our upcoming elections?
Related Reading by Matthew Fox
Prayer: A Radical Response to Life.
Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet.
Trump and the MAGA Movement as Antichrist
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society.
Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation.
Charles Burack, ed., Matthew Fox: Essential Writings in Creation Spirituality.
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ.
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
5 thoughts on “Launching a New Version of MAGA/Antichrist/Evil Book”
I do recognize that evil alive and well in the world today, but I also fully adhere to what a man who had first-hand knowledge about it wrote in The Gulag Archipelago: “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and Le same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close to being a devil, at times to sainthood. But his name doesn’t change, and to that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil. Socrates taught us: Know thyself!”
Fighting evil (internal and external) is critical because, as Solzhenitsyn also writes: “In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousandfold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.”
Yes! The evil of spiritually unbalanced patriarchy seems to have grown in power in human history the last eight thousand years with its’ continued wars, social injustices, greed, racism,
matricide, and ecocide of Our Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth/Her Living creatures/Graceful abundance. Our own human species is even being threatened with extinction. We must continue struggling wth the Spirit and Power of the Divine Feminine — as many of our past spiritual ancestors did, Our Indigenous cultures continue doing, Our Lightworkers of Truth & Just, and Our spiritual collaborators in the subtle spiritual realms…— in Our Eternal Human/Cosmic evolution….
These responses are spot on. When I began to look at my entitlement I was/am appalled. Thank you all. I couldn’t have expressed it that well.
In my mind, capitalism is the true evil in our world. It masquerades as a pseudo religion, its only objective to optimize wealth. It has no conscience, or ability to choose right over wrong. It simply does what works to make money.
Donald Trump is a problem – but I also have sympathy for him as he’s living with narcissistic personality disorder and our culture (capitalism) so marginalizes mental illness that he was able to rise to power as an alleged icon of “success”.
The anti-immigrant backlash seen recently in Spain and the German elections and across the world is also fueled by capitalism. There is fear that if “they” are among “us” then there will not be “enough” for everyone.
I feel this is all reaching a crescendo and is likely to get worse until enough of us make different choices to change course. We need an antidote to capitalism, another way of being. It’s going to be tough to exorcise that beast, but it’s the struggle of our era.
Greed is an instrument of evil. It is greed that has put cruelty in national policy. The love of money is the root of all evil. It is what is common to all violence because of the desire for power over others.