Menninger’s prescient ironic “almost hitting the nail on the head” pays tribute to the difficulty of figuring out “what is going on” during the emergence of a new symbolic order.  Key features to look for are:

Certain words disappear (with no apparent replacement) or change meaning.

New institutions are formed. Established institutions are “captured” by “like-minded people”.

Individuals within institutions undergoing “capture” lose nerve.  They do not know how to “dissent”.

David Gelennter in American Lite (2012: Encounter Books) independently attests to the consolidation of the Public Cult of Progressivism during this period (from the 1960s on).   Gelennter calls this consolidation “the rise of the PORGI” (Post-Religious Global Intellectual).

The rise of the Public Cult of Progressivism (along with the private cults of the New Age Movement) accounts for the expansion of career opportunities for psychoanalysts (approximately, 1955-1965) and mental health workers (1960 on) plus the loss of nerve of seminarians at Princeton Theological Seminary (between 1965 and 1972).

Menninger did not know this.  However, as a psychoanalyst, he was trained to “listen”.  He chastised members of his own discipline for “sins of omission” (219), but that is the hazard of the profession.  Psychotherapy is difficult because the analyst does not know how to “label” what he is “hearing”.  Her interpretations must always be provisional.

Ironically, Menninger’s book came out precisely at the time when an answer to the “morality gap” (that he identified) appeared within the Progressive consolidation itself.

Menninger “heard” – with his “analytical ears” – that the word “sin” was disappearing.  This indicated that “something” was missing (hence, “the morality gap”).  He did not realize that the “something” was already being constructed, in various guises, without label.  Twenty years later, the replacement to the word “sin” was popularly referred to as “political incorrectness”.

The question in 1973: Whatever became of “sin”?

The answer by 1993: It was replaced by “political incorrectness”.

In my view, 40 years after Menninger published, a single phenomenon accounts for both observations: the social construction of the Public Cult of Progressivism.

Even though Menninger could not name the social construction, he picked up on key features.  That explains the eerie title.

Notably, Ted Peters, on the West Coast, writing in 1994 (20 years after Menninger), appeared completely unaware that the private cults of the New Age Movement complemented the Public Cult of Progressivism (or Secular Fundamentalism, the label is still yet to be fixed).  Both private and Public cults belong to the same emerging symbolic order.  Peters “saw” only one side of a Janus-faced phenomenon.

What does this indicate?  Individuals immersed in the historic social construction of the Public Cult of Progressivism did not recognize what was happening.

Menninger, a Freudian psychiatrist, wrote in America during the 1960s.  Two of his observations are the subjects of these first few blogs.  They set the stage for examining Menninger’s book in greater depth.

Page numbers come from the sixth printing of the paperback version in April 1977.

One observation described a (economic) bubble within a bubble that extended from 1945 to the time of writing (219).  The bubble started in the discipline of Psychoanalysis.   Early on, many students tried to enter the field.  There was plenty of opportunity.  But not enough analysts could be trained to meet demand.  Then, the “psychoanalyst” bubble was swept into a larger bubble in the field of mental hygiene.  Universities minted mental health “sub-professionals” who found ready employment in various state institutions.

A second observation portrayed the collapse of confidence at Princeton Theological Seminary.  When Menninger spoke there, presenting his 1966 book The Crime of Punishment, he found clergy students bewildered and disillusioned (224).  They asked: Had they embarked on the right career?

Menninger did not link these two observations.

However, he suggested a role for the clergy in addressing a “morality gap” (192) that could not be handled by psychoanalysts or mental care workers.  This book was intended to inspire clergymen (and now, women) to address this “morality gap” by recovering the Christian notion of “sin”.

Whether Peters knew it or not, his treatment of the topic was very narrow.  He examined Satanism as the opaque magic complement to the transparent magic of the New Age Movement.  He was not aware that both constitute the private cult complement to the Public Cult of Progressivism.

Because Progressivism claims that it is “not religious” that does not mean that its claim is true.  It means that the claim fits a “language” where “religion” is “defined in a particular way”.  This “language” deserves to be challenged.

However, Progressive’s grasp of Sovereign power makes a challenge difficult for many reasons.  One of those reasons is step 6.  Without a doubt, individuals who crave the thrill of domination without conscience have been entering into Progressive Institutions for the past few decades.  The more Progressives consolidate power, the more attractive their Institutions become to these perverted individuals.

In as much as Progressive Ideology defines “Higher Goods” that “One may become the Instrument of”, there will be no deficit of cruelty.

What does this mean?

This means that Peters’ intuitive schema has general applicability.  It certainly extends beyond his narrow treatment of the topic.

This concludes my blogs on Ted Peters Sin: Radical Evil in Soul and Society (1994).

In addition to fitting into a Peircean system, many of the features of Peters’ discussion resonate with ideas in An Archaeology of the Fall, especially the notion that the serpent was a reification of Eve’s own unconscious thoughts and the notion that we project referentiality into words that are only systems of differences.  Both these themes deserve more consideration.  They form a novel scaffold onto which we may hang Peters’ insightful nested steps.

At the same time, one of the plot elements, the jinn that Keller made a deal with, did not come to mind.  This deserves further thought.

At this point, Peters proceeded into Chapter 9: Forgiveness: Grace, Love and Unfinished Business.

I here also begin to wrap up.

My conclusion is that Peters seven steps to Radical Evil may be systematized using the nested formalism of Normal Context(Actuality(Possibility)) where:

Possibility makes Actuality possible.

Actuality situates Possibility.

Actuality makes the Normal Context appear actual.

Normal Context contextualizes Actuality.

Steps 1, 2 and 3 may be formalized as Pride(Anxiety(Faith^UnChristian))

Steps 4 and 5 may be formalized as Justification^self(concupiscence())

Concupiscence encompasses actuality(possibility) and may be described as “the state of being(with Cupid)”

Steps 6 and 7 may be formalized as Blasphemy(Cruelty()).

Cruelty encompasses actuality(possibility) and may be described as “the thrill of acting(without conscience)”.

These nested formalisms fall within planes that may be described as “setting the stage” (steps 1,2, and 3), “doing” (steps 4 and 5), and “perverting” (steps 6 and 7).

The “call to shed innocent blood” indicates that Satan is present.

Is Satan the personification of blasphemy(cruelty())?

Yes.

So blasphemy is more than just “stealing symbols”.

Blasphemy is investing certain symbols with such authority as to be “beyond question” or “beyond uncertainty”.

In doing so, these symbols button down a symbolic order or “language” that cannot be consonant with the symbolic order or “language” of Christianity.

Those who tried to justified cruelty with the “language” of Christianity have always never quite succeeded.  Even the worst of the Inquisition was a mixed bag.  Consider Jonah Goldberg’s The Tyranny of Clichés, in that regard.

Those who tried to justify cruelty with the “language’ of Science, on the other hand, have succeeded so well that Modern History stands as a testament to the delusional powers of the Symbols of Science.

Now, Modernism transcends itself.  Modernism has shed its old skin. Postmodernism sets forth in a new skin, with a new “language” defining a new symbolic order.

Progressivism will justify its cruelty with the “language” of the Social Sciences.

Is Satan the real interiority of a society that idolatrously pursues its own self-enhancement, as Peters claimed?

Say “yes” and beware of Peters’ warning against those simplistic Christians who confound Satanic and New Age Cults.  As noted before, both are private cults that complement the Public Cult of Progressivism.  Yet, Peters was not aware of the Public Cult.

Say “no” and realize that the word “society” and “interiority” are slippery symbols.  Peters looked through the lens of his own narrow research. What did he mean by “society”?  “Society” is placeholder in a system of differences – a symbolic order – that belongs in a “language” once Christian, but now co-opted by Progressivism.

“Society” now defines “the Greatest Good” for this faith^UnChristian.

As such, “Society” is “the Good” that the Thrill Seekers may become the Instruments of.

And there are no thrills as vibrant as political – or military – contest.

Perhaps, the answer to Peters’ claim can be formulated as such:

“Society” is the real interiority of a religion – that denies that it is a religion – idolatrously pursuing its own self-enhancement.