like counselors.
As I said, they’re congruent. . . . In all events, by keeping parents — and counselors — focused on the child, particularly on symptoms, I help them avoid the essential position at the beginning of a mature philosophy of parenting.
... and that is?
That the children who are doing best in this world — and by best I don’t necessarily mean the highest grades or the most awards but rather those who are working through the natural struggles of growing and being with the least amount of reactivity towards others — the children who are doing best in this world are those whose parents made them least important to their own salvation.
That sure is an interesting parallel between theology and therapy.
And let me add that the Creator himself struggled for centuries before he was able to work that one through. But, as I said, that’s what distinguishes the Holy One from all the other gods.
I’d like to hear how you go about diverting the human species from seeing what’s important.
As long as you give me my due.
Guaranteed, but before we leave the Garden I do have one trivial point of curiosity.
Yes?
I’ve always wondered what kind of fruit was really on that tree. I mean, ever since that damn painting everyone assumes it was an apple, but the text only says fruit. Was it a pear, an orange, a tangerine, a grape, a pomegranate, or was it really an apple?
It was an avocado.
An avocado? Why on earth — pardon the expression — an avocado?
I wanted them to have a yen for things that were fattening.
Your irreverence is outrageous.
Remaining authentic is very important to me.
Let’s get back to your methods. Just how do you ply your trade?
First, you must remember that I rarely do things head-on. Direct confrontation is not my bag. I saw immediately that this species with its immense intelligence and capacity for knowledge could never be led astray simply by ideas. Therefore, I always work with their intelligence rather than against it. Perversity is my game. In fact, I learned rather quickly that I could use their intelligence, and their good will, I might add, against themselves.
Could you give an example?
My primary tactic is to get flesh and blood to focus on the wrong information, on data, for example, rather than maturity, or on empathy rather than responsibility, or on self as a category of narcissism rather than a matter of integrity. I was going to say that things were different centuries ago when my main area of interest was religion. . . .
You’ve gone elsewhere?
Oh yes. Now I’m primarily into counseling, any kind of counseling — marriage counseling, family counseling, pastoral counseling, organizational counseling, family business counseling. The more I can get people to rely on expertise, the more it atrophies their capacity to be decisive. The rise of the consulting industry today is a direct result of my efforts to make people afraid to take a stand. I started to say that it was different back then, before I moved over into therapy, but as we speak I begin to realize it really wasn’t.
What is it that hasn’t changed?
I still infiltrate by seducing people into focusing on the wrong issues, and flesh and blood still responds in the same way. It absolutely cannot resist the temptation. Over the centuries, the institutions of salvation may change form (saints, holy works, sacred rites, criteria for heresy) but the problems are the same, the spectrum of approaches is the same — so insight vs. behavior replaces faith vs. works — those false dichotomies work every time. And the fact of the matter is I’m just as successful in thwarting growth now as I was then.
You were going to explain how you go about this.
To begin with, you must remember what I said before. The Creator of this universe, unlike other gods, was not content to clone his image. Being a God of process, the Holy One wanted his creatures to be constantly in the act of becoming. This necessitated a world of absolute freedom, and it meant that the key to life was the response to challenge, but — and I want to emphasize this or you won’t understand the method in my madness, so to speak — the issue of response was not simply of survival but of growth. The whole point of challenge was not simply that difficulties were to be overcome, or nullified, but to be experienced in such a way that the encounter with adversity actually fostered further growth, a higher development of the soul, increased maturity, and so on.
That’s the way the immunological system operates. It learns from its battles. You seem to be suggesting an internal focus rather than an external one.
Correct. Everything that’s true about immunology is true about self. That’s the great hidden message in creation. I’ll say more about that later. For the moment just try to understand that if what the Holy One wanted in his creatures was a constantly evolving state of maturity — which, since the Garden, the Creator has viewed in terms of the capacity to take responsibility for one’s own being and destiny — then it was clear to me that anything I could do to entice creatures away from that perspective would be successful in retarding the evolution of the soul.
A quick example here would help.
Well, a quick one would be making involvement in some cause an excuse for personal awareness.
I see.
But I don’t want to get all bogged down in method; that’s precisely what I’m always seducing others into doing. My game is much bigger than that. I have always known that one of the best ways to hinder evolution was to create societies of intimidation because that gets everyone to herd; it creates undifferentiated globbiness; it induces a big push for togetherness and community all right, but it’s more a stuck-togetherness, a togetherness that nurtures the kinds of communities that inhibit self-realization.
Yet you have the reputation of being against community and behind all acts of selfishness, egotism, narcissism, and pride.
One of my best tricks. Getting humanity to create communities is precisely what I want. It’s the kind of communities I want them to create that is the important issue. You see, it’s really quite easy to get flesh and blood to come together; all protoplasm loves to join. The problem for humanity is not getting close, it’s preserving self, by which I mean integrity, in a close relationship. That’s the basic issue. For years I used to bring about undifferentiated communities by fostering totalitarian regimes; there was always an infinite supply of self-aggrandizing organisms around to inspire to become false saviors. But it got too bloody. In recent years, however, I have come to realize that that approach is very inefficient and that you don’t need totalitarian governments to create monolithic societies.
What works better?
Raising society’s level of anxiety and encouraging PC.
Do you mean political correctness or pastoral counseling?
Sometimes
