Episode 33 - Church and State

Talk given in Liverpool, UK, circa 1960s. 

"Now church...means assembly. Now this assembly of individuals is for the many who feel not strong enough to stand alone. When they go into this church they participate, and therefore declare themselves a part in the ceremony. They are apart from the people who don’t go in, but they are a part of people who do go in." 

"Outside us we have men making propaganda, acting continuously upon us, and declaring that we, and they mean our body, belong to an organisation — trade union, static church or whatever it is — and that they are requiring us to go into that thing and join…at the body level. And the state organises itself a church, and gets people to belong to it, because when it gets people to belong it can manipulate them. Remember the church is the left arm of the state...". 

But, we are not merely a body; we have inside ourselves immanent spirit. By identifying with this immanent spirit, which is essentially creative, we can actively put ourselves in resistant situations to awaken our volitional urge and enable our further development. 

A transcript is available at www.eugene-halliday.net.