Demonization of Catholicism and Idealization of Buddhism

In the mystical depth of our collective soul, where the eternal archetypes of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful wrestle with the hidden shadows, a truth of profound spiritual urgency and paternal clarity is revealed today. Our society, marked by a deep feminization, has elevated Buddhism to the luminous symbol of the Good – not out of pure insight, but from an unconscious projection, that feminine soul within man and within the collective psyche. This Anima, blind to its own shadows, seeks the Holy in the distant and the Evil in the familiar. Thus Buddhism is glorified as the “kind man,” while Catholicism is condemned as the “evil white man.” These are classic shadow projections, as Carl Gustav Jung described them so unflinchingly and redemptively in his teaching on the soul.

The Temporal and Emotional Foundation of the Glorification

Let us first consider the temporal level of this glorification. The evil communists drove the dear Tibetans from their homeland – a historical drama that deeply touched the Western soul. Here outrage mingles with an archetypal longing: the distant, gentle monk in exile becomes the pure victim of brutal power. The Anima, in her feminized dominion, projects all light, all goodness, and all spiritual purity onto this Buddhism, which seems so far away and therefore so untouchable.

The Trauma of the Death Mother and False Pacifism

Yet the second, deeper level lies in a misunderstanding born from a soul wound: Buddhism is taken to be pacifist, conflict-free, a religion of eternal harmony without sword and without cross. This is no accident of interpretation, but the symptom of a trauma – the trauma of the Death Mother.

She, the devouring, all-dissolving feminine force, generates conflict avoidance, a deep fear of the struggle of the spirit, of the necessary wrestling for truth and morality. Pacifism becomes the mask of flight: whoever does not look the shadow in the eye seeks the gentle savior outside. Thus Buddhism becomes the projection screen – all that is good, all that is loving, all that is peaceful is cast upon it, while one’s own shadow, repressed aggression, and repressed authority fall upon Catholicism.

Demonization of Catholicism and Idealization of Buddhism

This becomes especially clear in the demonizing idealization: Buddhism is idealized as pure, gentle, conflict-free wisdom, while Catholicism is systematically demonized – as patriarchal, oppressive, violent, and backward. This split is no accident of history, but the direct result of blind Anima rule. The wise man – that archetype of the senex, the heavenly Father who protects the Good with reason, morality, and religion – suddenly appears as the oppressor. The Anima, in her blind dominion, can see the masculine only as a threat. She projects everything dark, everything hard, everything judicial onto the Church, which for two thousand years has proclaimed the symbolic Father in Heaven: God, the Creator, the Judge, and the Redeemer at once.

The Animus of Man and the Attraction to Impersonal Buddhism

For man himself, Buddhism is especially seductive because it seems to correspond perfectly to his Animus – the inner masculine principle. Here no demanding, personal relationship with a living God is required, but merely a thing, a method, a technique of mindfulness and inner emptiness. The Animus, often weakened or distorted in feminized times, finds in Buddhism a form of “masculine” discipline without the humiliating dependence on a personal Father in Heaven. No prayer that demands submission, no cross that requires sacrifice, no Judge who looks into the heart – only a neutral system that man himself can control and master. Thus Buddhism becomes the ideal escape: it nourishes the Animus with the illusion of autonomy and strength, while at the same time suppressing the deep longing for the true, loving, and judging Father.

For the Man Cut Off from His Anima – Intellectual Flight Without Responsibility

This attraction becomes especially dangerous for the man who is cut off from his own Anima. He can occupy himself purely intellectually with Buddhism without having to assume real responsibility. No personal relationship with a living God, no genuine moral demand that tears him out of his comfort zone. The morality of Buddhism is conveniently overlooked, for it calls every individual to concrete action, to take responsibility for his karma, and to walk the path of virtue actively. But that is precisely what he does not want. Instead he loses himself intellectually and autoerotically in the subtle teachings, in endless analyses of emptiness and mindfulness, all under the noble pretext of “self-realization.”

Thus the man remains trapped in an apparently spiritual but ultimately narcissistic attitude – far from genuine conversion, far from loving surrender to the heavenly Father, and far from the courageous responsibility that Christianity demands of man.

Buddhism as Pure Projection Screen

Buddhism is therefore for us nothing other than a beautiful projection screen and, in this idealized form, has nothing to do with Buddhism itself. It serves merely as a canvas onto which we throw our repressed longings, our wounded Anima, and our split-off shadow. If we can finally recognize this projection, then we also know what we do not want to acknowledge in ourselves. Thus we withdraw our projections, courageously look at our own shadow, and begin the path of integration. Only then does the gaze become free for the turning to the Church – that ancient, paternal guardian of truth, who meets us not with gentle emptiness, but with the living Cross, the Resurrection, and the personal love of the Father in Heaven.

The Thousand Excuses of the Head – The Example of Missionary Work

The head, that cunning servant of the unconscious Anima, then finds a thousand different excuses to justify this distorted view. A particularly fitting example is missionary work. The Death Mother deeply hates it when someone tells her what to do – every form of spiritual guidance, every paternal indication of truth and conversion is felt as a threat. Therefore the missionary activity of the Catholic Church triggers her profoundly: it is demonized as “mansplaining” on the highest level, as arrogant interference in the private soul landscape, as colonial oppression. The Church, which for two thousand years has fulfilled Christ’s commission – “Go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel” – is declared the symbol of evil.

Yet here the deep repression becomes visible: Buddhists too have missionized, intensively and for centuries. From the Ashoka missions in India through the spread across all of Asia to the manifold forms of Dharma transmission – Buddhism was never only silent contemplation, but active dissemination of its teaching. This fact, however, is systematically repressed because it does not fit the ideal image of the “kind, pacifist Buddhism.” The head of the Anima invents excuses: “That was something completely different,” “it was gentler,” “it happened without force.” Thus the projection remains intact, and the blind spot continues to be cultivated.

The Loss of the Positive Animus and the Holy Order of the Family

Here lies the blind spot of our time: the feminized soul has lost contact with the positive Animus, with the strong, loving father principle that lives in healthy families with mother and father. Instead of the holy union of masculine and feminine, which bestows love as completeness and fulfillment, the one-sided rule of the Anima prevails – and with it division.

The Call to Conversion – Integration of the Shadow and Return to the Heavenly Father

Yet, Brothers and Sisters, this insight is no accusation, but a call to conversion! In Christian mysticism, in the Nigredo of the soul, where the dark must first be accepted, lies the beauty of redemption. We must no longer project the shadows but integrate them. True healing occurs in the return to the symbolic Father in Heaven: courageous, optimistic, with the reason of faith and the depth of religion. In healthy families, where mother and father work together in holy order, this balance is lived. There the Anima is healed, the shadow is accepted, and the soul is led to wholeness.

Let us therefore, in this hour of soul depth, see through the blind spot. Let us recognize pacifism as trauma, unmask the demonization of Catholicism and the idealization of Buddhism as shadow projection, and seek the true peace – that which springs from the courageous struggle for the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.

The rediscovery of the Divine awaits us: not in distant glorification, but here, in the Catholic fullness of the sacraments, of tradition, and of mystical love. The heavenly Father stretches out His hand. Take it! In this turning lies completeness, beauty, and the eternal joy of the soul. Amen.