Totem, tribal, racial, and aggressively missionizing cults represent only partial solutions of the psychological problem of subduing hate by love; they only partially initiate.  Ego is not annihilated in them; rather, it is enlarged; instead of thinking only of himself, the individual becomes dedicated to the whole of his society.  The rest of the world meanwhile (that is to say, by far the greater portion of mankind) is left outside the sphere of protection of his god.  And there takes place, then, that dramatic divorce of the two principles of love and hate which the pages of history so bountifully illustrate.  Instead of clearing his own heart the zealot tries to clear the world.  The laws of the city of God are applied only to his in-group (tribe, church, nation, class, or what not) while the fire of a perpetual holy war is hurled (with good conscience, and indeed a sense of pious service) against whatever uncircumcised, barbarian, heathen, “native,” or alien people happens to occupy the position of neighbor.
The world is full of the resultant mutually contending bands: totem-, flag-, and party-worshippers.  Even the so-called Christian nations—which are supposed to be following a “World” Redeemer—are better known to history for their colonial barbarity and internecine strife than for any practical display of that unconditioned love, synonymous with the effective conquest of ego, ego’s world, and ego’s tribal god, which was taught by their professed supreme Lord:

I say unto you, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you.  Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.  and unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also.  Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.  And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.  for if you love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.  And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.  And if ye tend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.  But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.  Be ye therefor merciful, as your Father is also merciful.

——

Compare to the following Christian letter:

In the Year of Our Lord, 1682

    To ye aged and beloved, Mr. John Higginson:

    There be now at sea a ship called Welcome, which has on board 100 or more of the heretics and malignants called Quakers, with W. Penn, who is the chief scamp, at the head of them.  The General Court has accordingly given sacred orders to Master Malachi Huscott, of the brig Porpoise, to waylay the said Welcome slyly as near the Cape of Cod as may be, and make captive the said Penn and his ungodly crew, so that the Lord may be glorified and not mocked on the soil of this new country with the heathen worship of these people.  Much spoil can be made of selling the whole lot to Barbadoes, where slaves fetch good prices in rum and sugar and we shall not only do the Lord great good by punishing the wicked, but we shall make great good for His Minister and people.

Yours in the bowels of Christ,

Cotton Mather

——

Once we have broken free of the prejudices of our own provincially limited ecclesiastical, tribal, or national rendition of the world archetypes, it becomes possible to understand that the supreme initiation is not that of the local motherly fathers, who then project aggression onto the neighbors for their own defense.  The good news, which the World Redeemer brings and which so many have been glad to hear, zealous to preach, but reluctant, apparently, to demonstrate, is that God is love, that He can be, and is to be, loved, and that all without exception are his children.  Such comparatively trivial matters as the remaining details of the credo, the techniques of worship, and the devices of episcopal organization (which have so absorbed the interest of the Occidental theologians that they are today seriously discussed as the principal questions of religion), are merely pedantic snares, unless kept ancillary to the major teaching.  Indeed, where not so kept, they have a regressive effect:  they reduce the father image back again to the dimensions of the totem.  And this, of course, is what has happened throughout the Christian world.  One would think that we had been called upon to decide or to know whom, of all of us, the Father prefers.  Whereas, the teaching is much less flattering:  “Judge not, that ye be not judged.”  The world savior’s cross, in spite of the behavior of its professed priests, is a vastly more democratic symbol than the local flag.