Please note: The Daily Meditations are penned by both Matthew Fox (MF) and Gianluigi Gugliermetto (GG). On Monday, Matthew offers a video teaching in addition to a DM. On Sunday, we offer a summary of the prior week’s meditations.
July 14, 2025: Heschel, the “Demon of Power” & The New Budget Bill (MF)
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel tells us that “the world is not just here. It shocks us into amazement.” Daily, we can receive awe-inspiring images from around the universe—if we let it. But Heschel also said: We have achieved plenty, but lost quality; we have easy access to pleasure, we forget the meaning of joy. But what is more serious is the fact that man’s worship of power has resurrected the demon of power…. Yes, the demons of lies and greed and unchecked billionaire privileges are alive and well, as the passing of the recent big, bad budget bill makes clear. Why are Republicans and MAGA folks choosing to follow the path of the Antichrist?
July 15, 2025: Demons of Power & MAGA: Alligator Alcatraz (MF)
Rabbi Heschel wrote that “man’s worship of power has resurrected the demon of power.” We need look no further than the abomination that is the so-called Alligator Alcatraz. Detainees are basically living in “flimsy tents” surrounded by chain-link fencing. And the hurricane season is fast approaching. What could possibly go wrong? Meanwhile, environmental laws are being ignored—no environmental impact study was made before this Dachau-like camp was hastily erected and environmental groups are suing. The endangered Florida panther is also jeopardized. Says one commentator: “This is not America. This is a grotesque perversion of justice, governance and basic human decency.”
July 16, 2025: René Girard and Human Violence (GG)
MAGA folks, like J.D. Vance, bend the teachings of Christianity to fit their views. The late Pope Francis responded by issuing a public rebuke of his interpretation of the meaning of Christian love based on St. Augustine. (See DM April 28.) Is this willful or are they ignorant? It’s difficult to tell sometimes. Another person whose words are sometimes twisted is the late René Girard (1923-2015), a world-renowned literary critic turned philosopher. Christianity comes into play in Girardian thought because it is a religion which celebrates symbolically the martyrdom of a human scapegoat, namely Jesus. However, the policies of the Trump administration are completely opposite to what Girard suggested. Their policies basically consist of scapegoating the immigrants, the progressives, the transgenders, etc.
July 17, 2025: Alligator Alcatraz and Jung on Evil (GG)
Another person who can help us to understand our current state of affairs is Carl Jung and his work on archetypes. During the rise of Nazism in Germany, Jung spoke about the archetype of Wotan, the ancient god of the Germanic tribes, suggesting that his qualities of rage and frenzy were taking hold of the German people. Jung also spoke about the approaching of the Age of Aquarius (sometime between the year 2000 and the year 2200) as a time in which it will no longer be possible to write off evil as the mere privation of good; its real existence will have to be recognized. In our era, of course, the collective shadow is manifesting itself in the cruelty and the lies of the current administration, as well as the MAGA people who do things such as pose gleefully in front of the signs for “Alligator Alcatraz,” the nickname for the inhumane detention center in Florida. As spiritual people, we cannot afford to unsee what we have seen, and what we see every day, painful though it may be.
July 18, 2025: The Speck and the Log in Jungian Terms
We’ve been exploring the concept of archetypes. We can help avoid unconsciously being swayed by them when we do shadow work. Jung’s position can be probably best summarized by a well-known Gospel teaching: Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye? Jung’s suggestion to start working first from individual consciousness sounds impractical, especially when the house is on fire, but at the same time it sounds correct. The proverbial evangelical log is still very much an unavoidable psychological reality. Shadow work is important because it helps prevent us from projecting onto others that which we do ourselves.
July 19, 2025: The Shadow & MAGA’s Eagerness to Shut Down NPR & PBS
In a recent DM, GG reported how Carl Jung warned of the antichrist as an archetype that can take over a society. This underscores the spiritual dimension of evil. Evil appeals to unattended personal trauma and outrage that can easily get projected onto others as scapegoats and objects of hatred “worthy” even of sadistic measures. This week the MAGA congress is voting to gut public funding of PBS television and NPR radio. Why? Because their news broadcasts upset their leader in the White House. In an editorial entitled “This Is Why America Needs Public Media,” the New York Times compares the public media to the US Postal Service and to public libraries because without public funding small communities would not have mail service or libraries.* Furthermore, as more and more local newspapers and TV stations fold around the country, public radio “can be the sole source of information.” Worst of all, for fascism to succeed, one needs a dumber and ever less critical society.
*
Banner image: “hitler trump.” Image by jfxgillis on Flickr.
Recommended Reading
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation
Authors Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox encourage us to use our talents in service of compassion and justice and to move beyond our broken systems–economic, political, educational, and religious–discovering a spirituality that not only helps us to get along, but also encourages us to reevaluate our traditions, transforming them and in the process building a more sacred and just world. Incorporating the words of young activist leaders culled from interviews and surveys, the book provides a framework that is deliberately interfaith and speaks to our profound yearning for a life with spiritual purpose and for a better world.
“Occupy Spirituality is a powerful, inspiring, and vital call to embodied awareness and enlightened actions.”
~~ Julia Butterfly Hill, environmental activist and author of The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods
