So are we all lost in a world of “make-belief”? Do our unspoken and probably unconscious assumptions invalidate all our thought processes? No, because in the practical world of affairs, your conduct and its underlying assumptions either result is success, or you find they fail and you have to readjust. This is why Jung reflected in Psychological Types that the big transformations overtaking mankind were never brought about by intellect alone. They are brought about by certain ideas working, and other ideas failing. Nothing is more explosive than a valid idea; but it has to work in practice. This in part explains the limitations of academic thought; so often reading academic philosophers, the examples they give to illustrate their ideas are absolutely trivial. So much so, that it detracts from the persuasiveness of their argument. The practical person may find it much harder to come up with an idea; but when he does think of something which is pre-eminently successful, depending on the conditions it may prove devastating. And my original idea is that a Theory of Consciousness, and an understanding of the relevance of the assumptions underlying any attitude of mind, enables you to bridge the gap between an indwelling with the Creator, and an indwelling with fellow man (or woman), and so enables you to live an effective life in the world of affairs without any disloyalty to either. The clergy of the C.of E. would call it an attempt to serve two masters, an impossible compromise; my legal colleagues would say it was “fairy-tales”; but I think one can disregard both opinions, with impunity. This idea is what my first book, “Man’s Relationship with God”, is all about.
The relationship of God to man, and man to God, is far too delicate ever to be reduced to formulae. So much is in the play of the imagination, that the cynic says it is all imagination. It is impossible to pin it down even in one man; absurd to suggest there is the same relationship for one man as for another. For every man and woman it is different. So their concept of immortality too will be different; and also their relationships with each other. So it is that almost inevitably immortality, either in a literal or metaphorical sense, is rejected. Besides it is not something which you can accept; you can submit to immortality, but not self-consciously accept it. Anything which you accept must be mortal, or limited in time. Eternal things are too precious to allow people self-consciously to accept, or to reject them. You cannot choose to fall in love; or if you do, it is a travesty of the real thing. So the only chance of getting immortality accepted is if those who believe in it demonstrate by their conduct, how much it means to them and what their way of life is like. Jesus of course realized this, when he set his face towards going to Jerusalem, and as his disciples saw – to inevitable death.