I see your analysis as very insightful and accurate.
But beyond the realm of mental activity in human affairs, there exists another domain of non-substancial phenomena. Our awareness of this realm predates Freud and the study of psyche. It is the spiritual world.
Freud sought to redefine that world in term of quasi-substantial elements. But his placement in the history of science limited his capacity to fully explain the spirit in terms of the psyche.
There is a spiritual component — beyond the mental — in the human being, and in human history. The biblical canon of Jewish history identifies and documents that spiritual activity in human history, through the eyes of that particular tribal group. The bible of antiquity was the Enlightenment of our earlier human times.
Adolf Hitler’s detestation of Jews and Communists was beyond mere irrationality and mental dysfunction. It went much deeper than that; it was demonic. Furthermore, the depth of Hitler’s hateful depravity was not a spiritual presence limited to him alone. There have been others in history whose obsession against Jews and other groups dragged them into the depths of extremely destructive transgression. . . Nero, Antiochus Epiphanes, Torqamada . . . The prophetic scriptures refer symbolically to any manifestation of such decadence in a man or in mankind as “the beast.”
In human history, sometimes the extremity of dire conditions brings out the beast in us. Within that vortex of of hyper-descent into (please excuse the antiquated terminology) evil, a lightning rod of conduction is periodically manifested in one person. Adolf Hitler was a such a conductor, by his own depraved will, of that extreme “demon.”
And yes, Andrew, authoritarian manipulation is a primary component of that personality type. And yes, the little German with the odd moustache was mentally ill. . . extremely mentally ill, to the point of a deeper component — the demonic — superceding his former humanity.
Work, hope and pray toward a circumstance that there should, nor could, ever be another beast like Hitler. Good luck with that.
