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This book has as its leading motif the belief that “true religion is not a duty, nor is it a relief from mundane life, it is a process of change”. The whole drama is understood as an internal one (possibly too much so, for after all we do live in the world) in which Christ in his dual nature stands for both ego and the self, and Mary “represents the individual as a starting point for new growth”. The theme, taking St Matthew's gospel word by word developed on these lines with a wealth of introverted interpretation, is well worth reading from this point of view. The whole process is thought of as demonstrating the purposeful workings of a design operating in man, can he but perceive it, for his psychic good.
In this respect the concept is not unlike that of the opus of analytical psychology. But the author is not well read in modern psychology, although its repercussions have doubtless influenced him. He thus talks of “two selves …, a little self which is ego and a greater self which is God”, the latter being “the whole from which this little self is formed”, but as his theme develops it would not always be clear to the uninformed reader just which is which. The employment of the word “personality” for what most of us might think of as the personal psyche is also somewhat confusing, since at first sight his use of it appears to indicate that all individuality should be eliminated, whereas what it turns out to be is more like a superego hindering awareness of what the opus is trying to bring about.
Difficulties arise also from the book's basic assumption of a necessary and implacable struggle between man's “lower (animal)” and “higher (spiritual)” nature, which the latter must win, to the elimination of the former, if man is to realize his destiny. It is true that the idea of reconciliation is sometimes mentioned, but only in passing, so that the lesson of Christ's teaching as being levelled more against the Pharisees than against the woman taken in adultery seems to ha