The revolutionary faith, emerging from the French Enlightenment, embraced its roots in German romantic occultism while also utilizing the rational tools of the age. An impassioned pursuit of a “natural” salvation stirred a hunger for freedom. This was not a freedom brought by supernatural redemption, but rather brought by natural human depravity.

The revolutionary risings blended romantic occultism with humanistic rationalism. Visionaries sublimated erotically violent imagery and passionate propaganda through the printing press to suggest the emergence of a “New Man.” They conjured the literary myth of the “permanent revolution,” and they promised the creation of a New Society of Man, facilitated from festival frenzies, culminating in blood sacrifice by guillotine.

Prompted by this primal lost yearning for liberation, the eager youth waged constant war with the dimming old, polarizing into reactionary conflicts. Inner circle societies, with hierarchical advancements into secret knowledge, inspired violence at the expense of the Christian faith. They filtered and distorted the Church Gospel into theatrical and musical “illuminations.” These ideas, incarnated through cultural performance, preceded the violent physical revolution of might.

At the revolution’s close, the higher “illuminists” reeducated the people (the masses) by force as necessary. The oppressive methods were justified with the assurance that every small transitional “step” played its part in progressing toward the great Final Unification (F.U.).

The original romantic nationalist cause — Salvation of the Fatherland — clashed with the more modern rational socialist cause — Union of Welfare. The romantic nationalists better inspired the direct and local flesh-and-blood familial passions than could be achieved by the rationalist (communist) abstract heady call for “comrades (workers) of the world unite.” Always some form of competitive blending emerged, until fascist philosophers and rulers strategically merged German national romanticism with Marxist rational socialism — Hitler’s National Socialism.

Every revolution, regardless of the form, gains its power from a centralized, authoritarian state, with one exception. Joining with romantic and rational revolutionaries, Christians also fought and won the American Revolution. This Christian influence is carved within the founding documented constitutional primacy of person over state — especially in matters regarding speech and religion.

PAUL DOORIS

Montoursville

Submitted via Virtual Newsroom