the "parapsychology" thread got nuked but the discussion reminded me of a Return of the Repressed podcast episode I had listened to in December
it was a Q&A episode and in his typical style, the host Marcus went deep on a question posed by fan/collaborator Reid (@seriations on twitter) regarding the role of magical-religious (i.e. non-materialist) beliefs in proletarian revolution. We're all familiar with the ways the bourgeoisie promote and exploit these sorts of beliefs to their own ends (ex. Filipino aswang vampire psyops vs the Huk guerillas, Indonesian anticommunist "witch hunting" vs Gerwani feminists, Operation Wandering Soul trying to freak out Vietcong with "ghosts", etc etc etc, up to Qanon and the UFO-cult of today) -- and of course, how their own worldviews are often propped up by these sorts of beliefs (ex. social hierarchies are in fact justified by genetic blood-destiny) -- but what about the inverse? How might we use them, too?
(note with respect to the aforementioned "parapsychology" thread, this is not a question of whether some such belief might be substantiated, proven "real" or not, but rather of strategy)
Marcus explained his first intuition was to look at the history of accusations of vampirism lobbed at feudal European aristocracy (ex. Elizabeth Bathory), but abandoned this line of inquiry when his research suggested that these accusations actually tended to reflect intra-class conflict between rulers/institutions of the time, i.e. factional power jockeying.
Changing tack, Marcus then offers a long exploration of the contentious historical relationship between Chinese secret societies, magical-religious beliefs, martial arts, and rebellion.
To anyone curious about how these things might intersect (short version: it gets messy), I would recommend the episode and I'll drop some other related links below
https://podbay.fm/p/the-return-of-the-repressed/e/1703245745
SHOW NOTES
In these dark times its difficult to find reason for making believe, this will all change once you hit play. Answering Reid for almost two hours I will do my outmost to lift you spirits to unknown heights. Counterintuitively by taking a deep dive in to Chinese secret societies, covering thousands of years, culminating in a communist community exorcism by the black and red Dao.
We are talking apotropaic magic, the swallowing of protective charms, anti-fascist Kung Fu fighting, mystic mind-control and brain washing in the Tang dynasty, social tech of the Henan peasantry and the socialist Shaolin monks who would liberate Beijing from the compradors, the war and drug lords as well as imperialist invaders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_movement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Lanterns_(Boxer_Uprising)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Spear_Society
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Spears%27_uprising_in_Shandong_(1928%E2%80%931929)
➡️ The Red Spears, 1916–1949 Tai Hsüan-chih translated by Ronald Suleski https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.19970
➡️ The Red Spears Reconsidered: An Introduction Elizabeth J. Perry https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/166/oa_edited_volume/chapter/2707255
➡️ Secret Societies Reconsidered: Perspectives on the Social History of Early Modern South China and Southeast Asia: Perspectives on the Social History of Early Modern South China and Southeast Asia by David Ownby (Author), Mary F. Somers Heidhues (Author) https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781315288055/secret-societies-reconsidered-perspectives-social-history-early-modern-south-china-southeast-asia-mary-somers-heidhues-david-ownby
➡️ "Secret Societies" Reconsidered: Perspectives on the Social History of Early Modern South China and Southeast Asia (review) Scott Lowe https://muse.jhu.edu/article/396407/pdf
With all due respect this is pretty much a solved problem, and untill there is sufficient reason to revisit it it should be treated as such. I quote from here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1909/may/13.htm
"The philosophical basis of Marxism, as Marx and Engels repeatedly declared, is dialectical materialism, which has fully taken over the historical traditions of eighteenth-century materialism in France and of Feuerbach (first half of the nineteenth century) in Germany—a materialism which is absolutely atheistic and positively hostile to all religion."
[And yet...]
"Accusing the would-be ultra-revolutionary Dühring of wanting to repeat Bismarck’s folly in another form, Engels insisted that the workers’ party should have the ability to work patiently at the task of organising and educating the proletariat, which would lead to the dying out of religion, and not throw itself into the gamble of a political war on religion" (ibid.)
Let me put it this way: As dialectical materialists we must never settle into mere empericism as what appears before us must be understood in the historical relations that produce such a phenomenon. Therefore, when we talk of religion it isn't so much a discussion of particular religious ideas and how we can tactically intervene in them to better our goals, but rather a wuestion of where religious thinking comes from, what are its conditions, what is it an expression of. Another quote: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm
"The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form[...]. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion."
Indeed today we do see very little reflection of our ideas in the world, and it is understandable that in a desparate effort to remedy this one would try and popularize as much as possible. But at the cost of the very foundation of Marxism. That we see the fantastical mish-mash of half digested ideas upheld as a virtue of the diversity of thought speaks to the overwhelming lack of principle among so-called "leftists." The answer to the disorder of our camp is not to abandon it, but instead to rise to the occasion.