If so, I suggest it is a form of spirit possession; I mean possession by a very unpleasant spirit.
So in saying religion in future must be about spirit possession, I am not being a prophet; I am only describing the prevalent trend in our society today. Jesus would, I think, have approved of my description. He accepted society, and its laws, as they were; and adapted them for his own purposes. The last supper, which he inaugurated into a ceremony, has such a striking parallel with the rituals of the corn and wine gods of antiquity, that I think Jesus must have intended it. After all, if John’s Gospel is accurate, his symbolism revolted many of his followers, so that they followed him no longer. And indeed the genesis of the idea goes back to tribal warfare in stone-age society: that you ate your enemy to take on his strength. This must have been a spiritual concept; they were not dieticians in those days. Then when things became a little more sophisticated, you ate your god to take on his strength. Until we come to the wine and corn gods, who were sometimes sacrificed symbolically in a sheaf of corn, and sometimes literally. A man was seized and made the incarnation of the god for a year; during that year he was feasted and sexually exploited, and at the end of it he was literally ploughed into the ground, so that his blood might fertilize it. The renewed fertility of the earth symbolized the resurrection of the god; and then another wretch was seized as the god’s incarnation, and he too had his year’s pleasure, before paying the price. The idea that the pascal lamb must be slain, so that his blood might expiate the sins of the world for all time, is remarkably close; and Christian belief is that the pascal lamb too had a resurrection. Whether you think that Christian ceremony has its roots in revolting tribal custom, or whether you think that the Creator was slowly encouraging men’s religious ideas to evolve towards the sublime truth of the Creator’s purposes, is a matter for you, the individual, to decide. But Jesus did not waste time denouncing idolatries of the past; he adapted what was available for his own purposes.
Kathryn says in Wuthering Heights, “I am Heathcliffe”; and we all understand what she meant. She did not mean that she was physically the same as Heathcliffe; she meant something much more subtle, and I think she was right that an indwelling spirit does modify the ordinary rules of human identity. A man or woman really is the dominant spirit within them. If Jesus was God, it was inasmuch as he was filled with the spirit of the Creator, as no man was before, or has been since. Similarly we should be manifestations of the Spirit within us, no matter what, or who, that spirit is. That doesn’t mean you can run around doing what you like; Augustine’s dangerous aphorism was, “Love God, and do what you like”, which is different. Nor does it mean that you can despise those who are law-abiding; my view is that those who refuse to be law-abiding should be sent to prison for longer and longer terms, until eventually they learn, or cease to grace society with their presence. Nor does it mean you can be discourteous to other people, and justify it by saying you are expressing yourself. People without manners should simply be shunned. You don’t mix with them, particularly not with the politically correct. But unless a man gives expression to the spirit within himself, he is just a cipher, obeying rules which he does not understand. And someone who lives by the Rule-book will always be outmanoeuvred by someone who doesn’t!
What it is essential to remember about Jesus, is that he was a man. He could only effectively give expression to the Spirit within himself, if he devoted himself to that single-mindedly. He could not possibly at the same time have got involved with the secular world. And during the last week of his life, Passion week, his nerves and emotions must have been stretched to breaking point. From the raising of Lazarus onwards, he must have considered that arrest and crucifixion were inevitable, despite brief moments of popularity. Some Greeks wanted to meet him during that week; but he replied in effect that he was preoccupied with more important things. One must remember that one curse towards his tormentors, would have half-spoiled his Ministry and ruined the example of his Passion.