信念的滤网

此段摘自《个人与群体事件的本质》第五章“经验的运作机制”,第八三一节

你们可以从实验的角度来想事情。你们可以尝试这个尝试那个。你们可以从一种宗教跑到另一种宗教，或从宗教跑到科学，或反过来。从某方面说，这的确是中世纪的民众不可能做到的。光是通讯方法的改进就意味着你们到处被形形色色的学说、文化、狂热教派和学派所包围。在一些重要的领域，这意谓着经验的运作机制实际上变得更加明显，因为那机制不再隐藏在一个信仰系统之下了。

你们的主观选择要多得多，然而正因如此，把那些主观经验放进有意义的诠释自然就更有必要了。如果你相信你形成自己的实相，那你立即就面对一大堆的新问题。如果你们确实构筑了自己的经验，从个人到群体，又为何有那么多经验看起来是负面的呢？你创造你自己的实相，还是你的实相是替你创造好了的？这是一个偶然的宇宙，亦或不是？

在中世纪，有组织的宗教或有组织的基督教，提供了一道信念的滤网，每个人透过它来看自己。无法透过滤网感知的那部分自己，对这个人而言几乎是隐形的。所有的困难都是上帝发出的惩罚或警告。经验的运作机制隐藏在滤网后面。

现在，达尔文与佛洛伊德的信念已合起来形成了一张不同的滤网。经验只有通过那张网的筛选才会被接受和感知。如果基督教把人看做是被原罪所毁，那么达尔文和佛洛伊德则把人看做是一个有缺陷物种的一部分，在其中，个人的生命不稳定地存在着，随时听命于物种的需要，而以苟活为主要目标——却是一个没有意义的苟活。心灵的伟大被忽略了，个人对大自然的归属感也被削弱了，因为仿佛是人类需要牺牲大自然才能苟活。一个人最伟大的梦和最深的恐惧都变成是腺体分泌不平衡的结果，或是童年创伤所致的神经症造成的。

然而，就在这些信念的包围中，每个人都试图找到一种令生命有意义的环境，一个能激发自己去行动的目的，一场个人行为在其中有重大意义的戏剧。

人生有理智上的价值和情感上的价值，而有时情感性的需要是必须被满足的，不论理智的判断如何。教会提供了一场宇宙的戏剧，在其中就连罪人的生命也有价值，纵使只是为了彰显上帝的慈悲。可是在你们的社会里，枯燥乏味的心灵环境常常导致反抗——人们采取行动将意义和戏剧带入他们的生命，即使在理智上他们拒绝去了解其背后的缘由。

You can think in terms of experiments. You may try this or that. You may run from one religion to another, or from religion to science, or vice versa. This is true in a way that was impossible for the masses of the people in medieval times. The improved methods of communication alone mean that you are everywhere surrounded by varying theories, cultures, cults, and schools. In some important areas this means that the mechanics of experience are actually becoming more apparent, for they are no longer hidden beneath one belief system.

Your subjective options are far greater, and yet so of course is the necessity to place that subjective experience into meaningful terms. If you believe that you do indeed form your own reality, then you instantly come up against a whole new group of questions. If you actually construct your own experience, individually and en masse, why does so much of it seem negative? You create your own reality, or it is created for you. It is an accidental universe, or it is not.

Now in medieval times organized religion, or organized Christianity, presented each individual with a screen of beliefs through which the personal self was perceived. Portions of the self that were not perceivable through that screen were almost invisible to the private person. Problems were sent by God as punishment or warning. The mechanics of experience were hidden behind that screen.

Now: The beliefs of [Charles] Darwin and of [Sigmund] Freud alike have formed together to give you a different screen. Experience is accepted and perceived only as it is sieved through that screen. If Christendom saw man as blighted by original sin, Darwinian and Freudian views see him as part of a flawed species in which individual life rests precariously, ever at the beck and call of the species' needs, and with survival as the prime goal — a survival, however, without meaning.The psyche's grandeur is ignored, the individual's sense of belonging with nature eroded, for it is at nature's expense, it seems, that he must survive. One's greatest dreams and worst fears alike become the result of glandular imbalance, or of neuroses from childhood traumas.

Yet in the midst of these beliefs each individual seeks to find a context in which his or her life has meaning, a purpose which will rouse the self to action, a drama in whose theme private actions will have significance.

There are intellectual values and emotional ones, and sometimes there are needs of an emotional nature that must be met regardless of intellectual judgments. The church provided a cosmic drama in which even the life of the sinner had value, even if only to show God's compassion. In your society, however, the sterile psychic environment often leads to rebellion: People take steps to bring meaning and drama into their lives, even if intellectually they refuse to make the connection.

——摘自《个人与群体事件的本质》（The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events）Laujenny 校译

《赛斯说●第四十九期》

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