The Mass Psychology of Fascism - Anxiety Depression Self-Help

shown to be a simple pump, the forehead of many a saint, which the people were allowed to kiss for so and so
much money was shown to be a cleverly arranged piece of leather. The effect of this unmasking, in the presence
of large audiences, was prompt and radical. This propaganda was, of course, carried on with millions of
pamphlets and newspapers. The establishment of anti-religious scientific museums made possible the comparison
of the scientific and the superstitious concepts of life.
In spite of all this I heard in 1929 in Moscow that the only organized counter-revolutionary groups were the
religious sects. The connection between religious sects and the sexual life of the sect members as well as the
sexual structure of society in general, was almost completely neglected, both theoretically and practically, a fact
which had serious consequences.
The contention, then, that the church in Soviet Russia was "destroyed" has no basis in fact. The exercise of
religious beliefs was free. All that happened was that the church lost its social and economic hegemony. It could
no longer, beyond the circle of its believers, force people to believe in a God. Science and the unbelief in God had
finally acquired the same social rights as mysticism. No longer could a church hierarchy decide that a scientist
should be exiled. That was all. But the church did not let it rest there. Later, when the sexual revolution collapsed,
that is, from about 1934 on, it regained large masses of people. 2
3. SEXUAL HAPPINESS VERSUS MYSTICISM
Destroying the power of the church exercised beyond its own domain can eliminate only the worst of its
encroachments. Such a measure does not even touch its ideological power which is based on the receptivity of the
average superstitious human structure. For this reason, the Soviets used the influence of science. It
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2 [1945]: In 1944, the church was reinstated in its old Tsarist rights. Immediately, there were a number of reactionary marriage laws, non-recognition of
common-law marriage, difficulties in obtaining a divorce, etc. This is a development leading far behind that of say, American society. It is to be feared that
American reactionaries will be quick to make capital of this.
[152] should be remembered, however, that scientific information and unmasking of religion does no more than
set an intellectual—though strong—force over against the mystical feelings; the rest is left to the fight between
intellect and mystical feeling in the individual. This fight succeeds only in relatively rare individuals who already
have matured on a different basis. That it fails not infrequently even in them is shown in that even clear-cut
materialists give in to their religious feelings in one way or another, such as compulsive praying. The clever
advocate of religion will argue from this that it proves the eternal and ineradicable character of religious feeling.
The argument is faulty. Such phenomena show only that, while the religious feeling is opposed by the power of
the intellect, its sources have not been touched. The mystical feeling could be eradicated if not only the social
hegemony of the church were eliminated and the mystical feeling were countered by an intellectual force; if, in
addition, the emotions which feed the mystical feeling were themselves made conscious and capable of being
expressed. Clinical experience shows beyond any doubt that religious feeling stems from inhibited sexuality, that
mystical excitation is the result of inhibited sexual excitation. From this follows the incontrovertible conclusion
that full sexual consciousness and a natural regulation of sexual life mean the end of mystical feelings of any
kind, that, in other words, natural sexuality is the deadly enemy of mystical religion. The church, by making the
fight against sexuality the center of its dogmas and of its influence over the masses, confirms this concept.
Saying that sexual consciousness is the end of mysticism means reducing extremely complex facts to the
simplest formula. We shall soon see that, as simple as this formula is, its basis and the conditions for its practical
realization are extremely complex; that it takes all the scientific data at our disposal, and the deepest conviction of
the necessity of the most relentless fight against mysticism, if one is to meet the artful apparatus of mysticism
with adequate countermeasures. But the final result will one day repay the effort.
[153] In order to evaluate properly the difficulties which stand in the way of the practical realization of this
simple formula, one has to understand some fundamental facts in the psychic organization of the average