Excerpt from Jesus, the Christ, in the Light of Psychology, Vol. 2

These phenomena raise the question which was first elevated to importance by the school Of Durkheim, viz., as to whether in such phenomena the individual or the groupleads. Very many phenomena connected with the various Mana theories now seem to indicate that the most primitive phenomenon is a sense Of one great unifying principle which springs out Of the collective soul when tribes celebrate together, in which case the soul Of the individual is completely submerged in that of his community. Messianic phenomena, however, would seem to indicate that it is the individual that in¿uences the group. He strives to take into himself the social mind Of his community, and mould and guide it, for without him the group would be blind and dumb. The group makes the Messiah possible, but in him scattered rays, too dim to be otherwise e¿ective, are focussed, and although his power is wholly psychic, it may become hardly less complete than that Of the soul over the body. In Messianity we have, then, the most per feet Of all paradigms Of the relation between leader and led. Each creates and depends upon the other. In no psychologically essential aspect did Scriptural Messianity di¿er from that Of a more primitive type. In the former, however, the phenomena are far more clearly wrought out and more adequately recorded, and especially the e¿orts Of the Messiah are given a higher spiritual interpretation, which rises far above the material or political sphere in which the cruder forms Of Messianism find their field Of interpretation. Wallis sums up by saying, The social seems merely a polarity or a dimension in which personality finds meaning and by which it is conditioned in its expres sion. Social in¿uences are responsible for the ability Of the leader to grasp their meaning, and each is equally creative Of the other.

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