Miracles of the Gods: A New Look at the Supernatural (338 page)

'Activate pleasure procurement!' Campbell uses the concept 'pleasure' in a strictly scientific sense. By it he means the feeling arising from increased stimulation of the pleasure areas which occur in the higher brain layers. In such a sense, thought 'can lead to the setting up and transformation of preferred paths in the brain and thus give the individual the power to shape his mind with forethought'. What the individual registers and selects as procurement of pleasure for him-self, he himself determines according to inclination and taste. The work of Campbell, who worked as guest professor at the Max Planck Institute of Brain Research at Frankfurt, and the College de France, Paris, provides important hints for our theme.

From his first vague thoughts the Christian's presumptuous 'faith' forces him to believe that he is the Lord of Creation, 'chosen' before men of other faiths because the Redeemer died for him; that special mercies are reserved for him, because the heaven of the blessed is assured him in return for behaviour pleasing to God (and the Church); and on top of all this, that there is an infallible judicial tribunal over good and bad, namely the Pope, governing his earthly (Catholic) existence.

This doctrinaire 'upbringing' goes hand in glove with the suggestive visual infiltration of religious doctrine, e.g. by illustrations of the text of the rosary learnt by children, by Christ's stations of the cross, by gifts of sentimental coloured prints of Mary on the occasion of one's first Communion (children of eight or nine take part in the Eucharist for the first time). Church interiors present the whole pomp of a kingdom of heaven 'on earth' with images of Christ on the cross artistically carved in wood or sculptured in marble, the stigmata generally dripping with blood in a most realistic way. They display statues and pictures of Mary, with and without the infant Jesus, Mary kneeling at the cross in Gethsemane or sheltering the head of the sufferer in her lap. They offer statues and paintings of the saints. Martyrs and patron saints lie in state under countless glass cases. And everywhere we see the brilliant graphic emblems of the cross. Visual signals of the 'only true faith' follow the faithful everywhere, for it is a pleasure to partake of the holy life.

The vast size of the churches, in which man appears so minute, and the reverent atmosphere in small intimate chapels induce complete repose, relaxation, meditation. Prayers lull those kneeling in the pews. During the mass or high mass fascinating stage management forcibly attracts the attention of the congregation to the mystery of the transubstantiation, the changing of the wine into the blood of our Lord. The liturgy is the form of divine service, the 'religious realization of Christ's work of redemption through the Church'. Acoustic signals, with the antiphonal singing of priests and congregation, magnified and intensified by the peal of the organ (whose almost exclusive adoption is one of the church's cleverest 'effects'), sensitize the congregation, which is already receptive to the great spectacle. The texts of the hymns literally teem with painful suffering: indeed, they immerse the faithful in a feeling of perceiving pain as a pleasure to be sought for, so that thereby they can come closer to the Redeemer. Naturally they end, mostly in a chorus, with a promise of heavenly happiness!

It is a pleasure to suffer and participate in pain.

The visual and acoustic signals, as introduced by modern medicine in Bio Feedback, and the wish to procure pleasure programmed in the human brain demonstrated by Campbell provide illuminating explanations, in my view, of the detailed accounts which visionary children (and the few adult visionaries, too) put on official record. They are 'visions' of pictures and images that have followed them around since they were tiny. Their messages contain texts and vocables which are really childish simplifications of the theological double-dutch pumped into them from pulpit and schoolmaster's desk