Christianity - The hole in the Stairs
One
can say that in the Mediterranean realm Christianity was the end-product of a
long civilizing development and therefore became a spiritual and differentiated
religious form – that on the basis of the Roman civilization it was possible for
people to understand the Christian symbolism, and so, wherever Christianity was
superimposed on a Romanized background there was the possibility of a
transition. In areas where Romanization was lacking, the
historical continuity of evolution was interrupted and Christianity superseded
something very different. Using a metaphor, you could say
that north of the Main, people have “a hole in the staircase” – a lower story
and an upper story and in the middle an open space. TPoPA 246
Africans
who have been Christianized have that same hole in the stairs.
The problem exists also among the Americans who fell, when they went West
as pioneers, into a primitive civilization, namely, that of the American
Indians. Survival in that primitive environment could only be
achieved by becoming as tough and as primitive as the natives; on the other
hand, the pioneers had a Victorian Christian past, and this explains why the
North Americans have in many ways the same hole in the stairs (or a variation of
it) that the Germans have.
Such
a hole is not only a disadvantage, however. The inner
polarity and tension which such a cultural situation creates makes people
dynamic, efficient and active. It can be said that if the
electric plus and minus poles are very far apart and very strong, then the
electricity is also much greater. So it creates more dynamic
and active personalities, with the drawback of a certain tendency to dissociate
easily in mass movements, the nucleus of the personality and its balance being
more easily disturbed. TPoPA 251
Naturally,
this hole in the stairs (…) is only relative. It could only
be said to be relatively different, and naturally when you make such sweeping
statements about nations, there are many exceptions. This is
just an attempt to characterize it in a general way. TPoPA
251