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Dear Peter,

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You ask :

« There is little possibility that we will revert to a time of superstition … will we suffer more from the diseases of existential dread ? Are the drug culture, our materialism and the rise of anxiety and depression symptoms of unmanageable freedom and lack of orientation? Do we need a transforming figure who will set us free from the false freedom that we have embraced ? »
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The Pew Research Centre estimated that, in 2010, 84% of the world population was religiously affiliated. I don’t think this can be interpreted as a sign that people are no longer superstitious. Quite the opposite. Much of humanity has never ceased being superstitious and, apparently, “need a transforming figure to set them free …”.

The OED defines “superstition” as :

« Excessively credulous belief in and reverence for the supernatural »

In “Of the Nature of the Gods”, Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC), considered to be a model of Classic Latin, had this to say :

« … for our ancestors, as well as the philosophers, have separated superstition from religion. They have prayed whole days and sacrificed, that their children might survive them (ut superstites essent,) were called superstitious, which word became afterwards more general; but they who diligently perused, and, as we may say, read or practised over again, all the duties relating to the worship of the Gods, were called religiosi, religious, from relegendo “reading over again, or practising;” as elegantes, elegant, ex eligendo, “from choosing, making a good choice;” diligentes, diligent, ex diligendo, “from attending on what we love;” intelligentes, intelligent, from understanding, for the signification is derived in the same manner. Thus are the words superstitious and religious understood; the one being a term of reproach, the other of commendation. » [The treatises of M.T. Cicero On the nature of the gods, …/literally translated … by C.D. Yonge. (Bohn’s classical library) 1853, book 2, section 28, page 71].

Religion also has the characteristics of a drug : a little stimulates; too much enslaves; an overdose dehumanises.

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