To return to ‘static religion’: so far as its supposed origins are concerned, it will be seen that Bergson trustfully accepts all the tales of the all too well known ‘sociological school’, including those that are most worthy of suspicion: ‘magic’, ‘totemism’, ‘taboo’, ‘mana’, ‘animal worship’, ‘spirit worship’, and ‘primitive mentality’, nothing being missing of the conventional jargon or of the accustomed trivialities, if such expressions may be allowed (as indeed they must be when discussing matters so grotesque in character). The only thing for which he is perhaps really responsible is the place he assigns to a so-called ‘fable-making function’, which seems to be much more fabulous than that which it seeks to explain: but he had to invent some sort of theory to allow of the comprehensive denial of the existence of any real foundation of those things that are commonly treated as ‘superstitions’, a ‘civilized’ philosophy, and more than that, a ‘twentieth-century’ philosophy, evidently considering that any other attitude would be unworthy of itself. In all this there is only one point of present interest, that concerning ‘magic’; magic is a great resource for certain theorists, who clearly have no idea of what it really is, but who try to find in it the origin both of religion and of science. Bergson’s position is not precisely that: he seeks for a ‘psychological origin’ in magic, and turns it into ‘the exteriorization of a desire that fills the heart,’ and he makes out that ‘if one reconstitutes by an effort of introspection the natural reaction of man to his perception of things, one finds that magic and religion are connected, and that there is nothing in common between magic and science.’ It is true that later on he wavers: if one adopts a certain point of view, ‘magic evidently forms part of religion,’ but from another point of view ‘religion is opposed to magic’; he is clearer when he asserts that ‘magic is the opposite of science’ and that ‘far from preparing for the coming of science, as has been supposed, magic has been the great obstacle against which methodical learning has had to contend.’ All that is almost exactly the reverse of the truth, for magic has absolutely nothing to do with religion, and, while admittedly not the origin of all the sciences, it is simply a single science among the others; but Bergson is no doubt quite convinced that no sciences can exist other than those enumerated in modern ‘classifications’, established from the most narrowly profane point of view imaginable. Speaking of ‘magical operations’ with the imperturbable self-assurance of one who has never seen any,[136] he writes this remarkable sentence: ‘If primitive intelligence had begun its dealings with such matters by conceiving principles, it would soon have had to give way to experience, which would have demonstrated their falsity.’ One can admire the intrepidity of this philosopher, shut into his private room, and well protected against the attacks of certain influences that undoubtedly would not hesitate to take advantage of him as an auxiliary no less valuable than unwitting, when he denies a priori everything that does not fit into the framework of his theories. How can he think that men were stupid enough to have repeated indefinitely, even without ‘principles’, ‘operations’ that were never successful, and what would he say if it should be found, on the contrary, that experience ‘demonstrates the falsity’ of his own assertions? Obviously he does not even imagine the possibility of anything of that kind; such is the strength of the preconceived ideas in him and in those like him that they do not doubt for a single instant that the world is strictly confined within the measure of their conceptions (this in fact being what allows them to construct ‘systems’); and how can a philosopher be expected to understand that he ought to refrain, just like an ordinary mortal, from talking of things he knows nothing about?
Now it is particularly worthy of note, and highly significant as regards the reality of the connection between Bergsonian ‘intuitionism’ and the second phase of anti-traditional action, that magic, by an ironical turn of affairs, is now cruelly avenging the denials of our philosopher. It has reappeared in our days, through the recent ‘fissures’ in our world, in a form that is at once the lowest and the most rudimentary, in the disguise of ‘psychic science’ (the very thing that some people prefer to call, rather unfortunately, ‘metapsychics’), and it succeeds in securing admission thereto, while avoiding recognition not only as something very real, but also as destined to play a leading part in the future of Bergson’s ‘dynamic religion’! This is no exaggeration: he speaks of ‘survival’ just like any common spiritist, and he believes in a ‘deepening of the range of experiment’ making it possible to come to a ‘conclusion as to the possibility and even the probability of a survival of the soul’ (what exactly does that mean, and is it not apparent that he is thinking of the phantasmagoria of ‘psychic corpses’?), but without the possibility of knowing whether it will be ‘for a time or for ever.’ But this last annoying limitation does not prevent him from proclaiming in dithyrambic tones: ‘No more than this is needed in order to turn into a living and active reality a belief in a life after death such as is met with in most men, though it is usually verbal, abstract, ineffective.... Indeed, if we were sure, absolutely sure, of survival we could no longer think of anything else.’ The ancient magic was more ‘scientific’ than this, in the true sense of the word, if not in the profane sense, and it had not the same pretensions; but in order that some of its most elementary phenomena should give rise to interpretations of this kind it was necessary to wait for the invention of spiritualism, which could not come to birth until a late stage of the modern deviation had been reached. It is in fact the spiritualist theory concerning such phenomena, that and nothing else, that is finally accepted by Bergson, as it was by William James before him, with ‘a joy’ that makes ‘all pleasures pale’ (this incredible statement, with which his book ends, is quoted word for word). His ‘joy’ establishes for us the degree of discernment of which this philosopher is capable, for as far as his good faith is concerned, that certainly is not in question, and profane philosophers are usually not suited to act otherwise than as dupes in cases of this kind, thus serving as unconscious intermediaries for the hoaxing of many others: but apart from that, talking of ‘superstition’, never before has there been so good an example of it, and it is this fact that gives the best idea of the real worth of all the ‘new philosophy’, as its partisans are pleased to call it!
34
The Misdeeds of Psychoanalysis
In passing from philosophy to psychology it will be found that identical tendencies appear once again in the latter, and in the most recent schools of psychology they assume a far more dangerous aspect, for instead of taking the form of mere theoretical postulates they are given practical applications of a very disturbing character; the most ‘representative’ of these new methods, from the point of view of the present study, are those grouped under the general heading of ‘psychoanalysis’. It may be noted that, by a curious inconsistency, their handling of elements indubitably belonging to the subtle order continues to be accompanied in many psychologists by a materialistic attitude, no doubt because of their earlier training, as well as because of their present ignorance of the true nature of the elements they are bringing into play;[137] is it not one of the strangest characteristics of modern science that it never knows exactly what the object of its studies really is, even when only the forces of the corporeal domain are in question? It goes without saying too that there is a kind of ‘laboratory psychology’, the end-point of the process of limitation and of materialization of which the ‘philosophico-literary’ psychology of university teaching was but a less advanced stage, and now no more than a sort of accessory branch of psychology, which still continues to coexist with the new theories and methods; to this branch apply the preceding observations on the attempts that have been made to reduce psychology itself to a quantitative science.
136
It is most regrettable that Bergson was on bad terms with his sister, Mrs S. S. L. MacGregor Mathers (alias ‘Soror Vestigia Nulla Retrorsum’) who might have been able to give him a little instruction in such matters. [S. S. L MacGregor Mathers, author of
137
The case of Freud himself, founder of ‘psychoanalysis’, is quite typical in this respect, for he never ceased to declare himself a materialist. One further remark: why is it that the principal representatives of the new tendencies, like Einstein in physics, Bergson in philosophy, Freud in psychology, and many others of less importance, are almost all of Jewish origin, unless it be because there is something involved that is closely bound up with the ‘malefic’ and dissolving aspect of nomadism when it is deviated, and because that aspect must inevitably predominate in Jews detached from their tradition?