Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes

lems inherited from centuries of ponerological nescience is

possible whenever a given religion represents a current of

gnosis and faith which was originally authentic enough. A

courageous approach to remedying conditions caused by pres-

ently perceptible poneric processes, or by chronic perseverance

of survivals from such states far in the past, thus demands both

acceptance of this new science and a clear conviction of origi-

nal truth and basic science. Doubts will otherwise block any

such intent by means of insufficiently objectified fear, even if

they have been repressed deep into the subconscious. We must

be convinced that the Truth can endure such a washing in

modern detergent; not only will it not lose its eternal values,

but it will actually regain its original freshness and noble col-

ors.

With regard to the second above-mentioned situation, when

the ponerogenic process leading to pathocracy has affected

some secular and political movement, the situation of religion

in such a country will be completely different. Polarization of

attitudes with regard to religion then becomes inevitable. The

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

275

social religious organization cannot help but assume a critical

attitude, becoming a support for opposition on the part of the

society of normal people. This in turn provokes the movement

affected by this phenomenon to an ever more intolerant attitude

toward religion. Such a situation thus places a given society’s

religion before the specter of physical destruction.

Whenever pathocracy emerges in an autonomous process,

this means that the religious systems dominating that country

were unable to prevent it in time.

As a rule, the religious organizations of any given country

have sufficient influence upon society to be able to oppose

nascent evil if they act with courage and reason. If they cannot,

this is the result of either fragmentation and strife among vari-

ous denominations or of internal corruption within the religious

system. As a result, religious organizations have long tolerated

and even uncritically inspired the development of pathocracy.

This weakness later becomes the cause of religion’s disasters.

In the case of an artificially infected pathocracy, the relig-

ious system’s joint liability may be lesser, albeit still generally

concrete. It is justified to exonerate a country’s religious sys-

tems for the state of affairs if the pathocracy has been imposed

by force. Specific conditions emerge in this situation: the relig-

ious organizations have the morally stronger defensive posi-

tion, are able to accept material losses, and can also undergo

their own recuperative process.

Pathocrats may be able to use primitive and brutal means to

combat religion, but it is very difficult for them to attack the

essence of religious convictions. Their propaganda proves

overly primitive and brings about the familiar phenomena of

immunization or resistance on the part of normal people, with

the final result being the opposite of the intended moral reac-

tion. Pathocrats can only use brute force to destroy religion if

they feel the latter’s weakness. The principle of “divide and

conquer” can be used if there are various denominations with a

long history of enmity, but the effects of such measures are

generally ephemeral and can lead to unity among the denomi-

nations.

The specific practical knowledge collected by the society of

normal people under pathocratic rule, together with the phe-

276

PATHOCRACY AND RELIGION

nomenon of the psychological immunization, begin to exert

their own characteristic effect upon the structure of religious

denominations. If some religious system succumbed to ponero-

genic infection sometime during its history, the effects and

chronic survivals thereof persevere within for centuries. As

already adduced, remedying this by means of philosophical and

moral reflections meets with specific psychological difficulties.

But under pathocratic rule, in spite of the abuse suffered by

such a religious organization, the latter organism specific anti-

bodies are transfused which cure the ponerogenic survivals.