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The Joachitic speculation comprises a complex of four symbols which have remained characteristic of the political mass movements of modern times.
The first of these symbols is that of the Third Realm—that is, the conception of a third world-historical phase that is at the same time the last, the age of fulfillment.
The second symbol Joachim developed is that of the leader, the dux, who appears at the beginning of a new era and through his appearance establishes that era.
God is understood by the secularist sectarians as a projection of the substance of the human soul into the illusionary spaciousness of the “beyond.” Through psychological analysis, this illusion can be dispelled and “God” brought back from his beyond into the human soul from which he sprung. By dispelling the illusion, the divine substance is reincorporated in man, and man becomes superman. The act of taking God back into man, just as among the older sectarians, has the result of creating a human type who experiences himself as existing outside of institutional bonds and obligations.
The third of Joachim’s symbols is that of the prophet.
With the creation of the symbol of the precursor, a new type emerges in Western history: the intellectual who knows the formula for salvation from the misfortunes of the world and can predict how world history will take its course in the future.
In the further course of Western history, the Christian tide recedes, and the prophet, the precursor of the leader, becomes the secularist intellectual who thinks he knows the meaning of history (understood as world-immanent) and can predict the future. In political practice, the figure of the intellectual who projects the image of future history and makes predictions cannot always be clearly separated from that of the leader.
The fourth of the Joachitic symbols is the community of spiritually autonomous persons.
In this free community of autonomous persons without institutional organization can be seen the same symbolism found in modern mass movements, which imagine the Final Realm as a free community of men after the extinction of the state and other institutions. The symbolism is most clearly recognizable in communism, but the idea of democracy also thrives not inconsiderably on the symbolism of a community of autonomous men.
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