Wotan’s fear of the truth, to produce those works which create and sustain a culture predicated on religious illusion, the waking dream of divine revelation, Valhalla. But if Alberich ever regained the ring, i.e., if objective thought ever gained control over mankind’s consciousness, as for instance if science supplants religion as an explanation of the world, Alberich would employ this knowledge to bring about a shameful end of the gods, in that Alberich would discredit faith by exposing the hypocrisy and self-deceit of religious man, and reveal the truths of nature which religious man had either ignored or censored.
What’s more, Wotan’s own heroes (whose archetype is the treacherous Loge) Alberich would turn against Wotan. These heroes are not only Wotan’s own heroes of religion and art, but also Alberich’s host of night who labor in the shadows of the dominant religious society to reveal the secrets of nature. Both sets of heroes eventually fight for individual freedom of thought, which will ultimately overthrow unthinking religious faith as these culture heroes gradually emancipate themselves from fear of subverting tradition and breaching faith, in order to access the new and unexplored dimensions of life. Wotan’s prophecy that Alberich will eventually make Wotan's own heroes disobey him is of course based on Alberich’s prophecies of Loge’s role in betraying the gods, and of Alberich’s eventual use of Wotan’s heroes to fight against him, and it looks forward to Alberich’s son Hagen’s manipulation of Siegfried to betray Bruennhilde’s love and restore the ring to Alberich. This potentially dangerous proposition, that Wotan’s heroes must in some sense fight for Alberich, in order to fight for Wotan, is embodied in Wotan’s subsequent description of the hero to whom alone the gods can look for redemption from Alberich’s curse, as the “friendly foe.”
But within our allegory there are rational explanations for this alleged betrayal. Since in earlier times the gods were presumed to control all things, as human societies mature many individuals originally committed to the old faith find themselves in a position to obtain objective knowledge of man and of the world which is not initially regarded as a threat to received opinion and religious faith, but whose long-term implications eventually threaten social stability which is predicated on the illusion of man’s transcendent origin and/or value.
On this subject, Feuerbach has much to say of interest, including his following remark concerning the learned, elite class of keepers of the faith, such as priests, who eventually find themselves in possession of the very knowledge which will ultimately undermine that faith:
“The original elements of the ancient religions are merely projections of the sensations, the impressions which physical and astronomical phenomena arouse in man so long as he does not see them as objects of science. Later, of course, even among the ancient peoples, notably in the priestly caste who alone had access to science and learning, observations – the rudiments of science – took their place side by side with the religious view of nature … .” [200F-LER: p. 36]
And eventually, even the reformers of religion, in winning their right to express their individual viewpoint and cause change from within, win for all thinkers the right to individual freedom of inquiry, which in the end will not only reform a given religion from within (with the intent of preserving the faith), but subvert faith in general, freeing those specializing in religiously authorized science and art to venture into new territory which ultimately threatens faith itself:
