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(proxy, ersatz...) of the sacred blood tribesmen shed in the defense of some higher good.

The pathetic fallacy sits on the cusp between the imaginary and symbolic stages:

Anthropomorphism then consists in fantasizing some object, real or not, as an appropriate target on which to vent a feeling. It is a safety valve for excessive emotional pressure. (Guthrie 1993:76).

The fixation with blood – and its ersatz, suffering- is pervasive. Even today, Kumaris -the pre-pubescent girls chosen as virgin embodiment of the goddess Durga in Nepal- shall lose their superhuman status in case of blood loss (cuts, menstruation...):

The leaking of bodies through ejaculation, defecation, urination, or bleeding were emphasized actions in Sade’s writings. In three images, and possibly others that are not as legible, Desrais depicts a woman defecating on a plate (fig. 29), and a man bleeding from lacerations on his back, while sitting on a toilet as two women insert hot pokers in his ears (fig. 30). Another image shows a man with bruised and bloody buttocks as he ejaculates in a woman’s face (fig. 31). Images of active bodies either through sexual prowess or the release of fluids demonstrated libertine philosophies of embracing the natural, biological body, instead of complying with gender constructions and privatized oppression of natural instincts by the Church (Nacol 2008:22-23).

Medical authorities link copious amounts of semen to female satisfaction. In describing the benefits of a potion to increase seminal volume, Caraka [core text for traditional Hindu medicine ayurveda, possibly a few centuries BCE] states that a man who ingests it will fully satisfy a woman with a seminal discharge like that of an elephant (Powers 2009:129).

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There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. ( Ezekiel 23:20).

(Sexual) contact with menstruating women might harm their partners.

Much as Kumaris are chosen according to a strict list of requirements, so was the ancient Greek priesthood of arrephoroi (custodians of unnamed things), 21 noble girls aged seven to eleven serving Athena on the Athenian Acropolis, who transited upon reaching puberty to Aphrodite's domain through a rite of passage.

At the Jain Indian high place of Shatrunjaya, warnings inform that menstruating women are not permitted to climb even one step on the sacred site: an high sin; in Bali, menstruating women (or people with bleeding wounds) are not supposed to enter temples. Japanese Shinto temples are also off-limits to people deemed “impure” such as those suffering from certain sicknesses and injuries. India's Bishnois consider women impure for five days as they're cycling. Menstruating women may be prevented from approaching the sacred (places, rites, scriptures...), or to carry on specific activities -such as drawing water or cooking food- in many cultures ranging from tribal Nigeria to ancient Hebrews, Greeks and today's Hindus.

Even Christianity in its early age included similar taboos:

The idea of pollution by blood, for example, seems to have been a long time dying, if we judge by some early Penitentials. See the Penitential of Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury, A.D. 668–690 -...-He also requires from women 40 days of purgation after the birth of a child, 452

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and enjoins penance of three weeks’ fast on any woman, lay or religious, who enters a church, or communicates during menstruation (McNeill & Gamer). Needless to say, these rules were not adopted as part of the Corpus of Canon Law, and now it is difficult to find instances of ritual uncleanness in Christian practice. Injunctions, which in their origin may have been concerned with removing pollution of blood, are interpreted as carrying only a symbolic spiritual significance. For example, it is usual to reconsecrate a church if blood has been shed in its precincts, but St.Thomas Aquinas explains that ‘bloodshed’ refers to voluntary injury leading to bloodshed, which implies sin, and that it is sin in a holy place which desecrates it, not defilement by bloodshed. (Douglas 1966:61-2).

And so does Islam:

In traditional Islam, a menstruating woman was considered vulnerable, weakened, and polluted; therefore she could not pray, fast, or have intercourse. Menstrual blood was najis, polluted, haram, very dirty, as were all blood, excrement and reproductive fluids. Islamic tradition emphasizes that Allah values people who are clean and pure, whereas malevolent jinn, predatory evil spirits, are not repulsed by filth, blood and decay, and may even find it attractive. -...-Running water and a thorough scrub purified a woman at the end of her menstrual cycle or other reproductive blood flow, so she could resume prayer, fasting and intercourse, and dispel malevolent jinn.

When she bathed, she also applied henna to her hands, feet and hair. Henna stained her skin and hair dark blood-red, and remained visible for several weeks, showing that she had a purified body, worthy in the eyes of God and her husband, and repellant to malicious jinn. (Cartwright-Jones no date:2-3).

Myths tend to coalesce: a menstruant's stare could unleash a flood, wither plants, cause livestock to die and so forth. Women were deemed historically impure to take part in Shinto processions, and the production of Japanese sake, the national alcoholic beverage, also an offer to the gods of Shinto, and a sacred beverage consumed in Shinto worship. Due to a shortage of manpower at traditional 453

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breweries, this taboo is increasingly been overlooked. Women nowadays work to turn fine Japanese rice into sake, and have started joining Shinto processions in recent decades also.

Campbell473 relates how Ice Age hunters used weapons no woman was allowed to ever get in touch with, lest the thought of a woman might distract the hunter from his task. Women are also not supposed to even approach the shrine of

tio (uncle, chap), or the devil 474 -with a giant, erect phallus- Bolivian miners in the Potosi region worship in order to maintain their safety, and the mine's yield.

As with any such case, some may reverse the polarity and cathect menstruation with gnostic, and symbolic, values of redemption, for example among partisans of new age thought, mother goddess fads and 'magical feminism'.

Orphic mysteries represented a province of much earlier (and more extreme) Bacchic/Dionysian475 mysteries, which included the images of Bacchus as a man with a dark, flowing beard; with the cup of wine as the sacrificial offer of his blood; in communion with his mother Semele (another face of the mother goddess), and the grain -today possibly replaced by the holy host equally made of grain- as

4731972-1.

474 Mexican miners working in semi-abandoned, high-risk mines honor El Tio (the uncle, chap), or the Christian devil under the guise of a mischievous but handy fellow in a miner's attire they try to appease in order to lessen the tribute of blood and lives that the mine (=earth) exacts from workers. Idols very similar to El Tio, including a passion for tobacco and a giant, erect phallus, are found in the voodoo religion of Benin.

475 Bacchus is the roman name of the Greek Dyonisus.

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Bacchus' mystical sacrificial body476. As well, both Christian and Muslim mystics -including Ayatollah Khomeini- hail god as intoxicating liquor.

Jews keep the Sabbath by reciting prayers over bread (two loaves of bread with strands possibly recalling the 12 tribes) and wine. The eating of bread and beer was also associated with Osiris' mystical body.

Dionysus (=son of god) represents another divine son of the almighty god (in Latin the root for Jupiter is Iovis as in Hebrew Yahweh) by a mortal woman 477.

Bacchus was also celebrated during springtime rites: this imagery has probably played a significant role in the shaping of Christianity. In Achilles Tatius (possibly II century CE), Dionysus turns water into wine just as Jesus had professedly done at Cana.

One of the very earliest human ideas must have been cannibalism.

Though it may seem bestial and horrific, it is indeed an idea. First of all, cannibalism is rarely practiced for nourishment. Throughout the world, it has been much more commonly practiced for moral reasons, in order to appropriate the virtues of the people the cannibals ate.

Most often, cannibals believe that eating the dead shows them honor, or that by eating the dead, you stand to gain their powers or prowess.

We determine that cannibalism is one of man’s original ideas because under the stones of every civilization lie the bones of cannibal feasts.

In most societies, cannibalism has been a normal practice at some 476 Some mystery religions are believed to contain the ceremony of the presentation (exaltation, etc) of an ear of grain/grain wafer. Even religions far away from ritual cannibalism and ensuing mentalities -such as Buddhism Zen in Japan - conserve vestigial ritual meals during which disciples share food with the spiritual master. At Saidaiji temple in Nara (Japan), a vestigial offering of tea to the Buddha has translated into a mass liturgy.

Attendees drink tea sipping in turn from 5kg bowl. Shinto rituals also include vestiges of sacred meals where food offered to the gods is shared among devotees.

477 Fears 2011:Myth And Athenian Drama. Of course, superlative virgins of myth can either be considered mortal, or as the embodiment or incarnation of some quintessential god or higher principle.

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stage of their past, going as far back as 400,000 years. While cannibalism is rare among other mammals, it is a defining characteristic of humans. (Fernandez-Armesto 2004:8).

By the sixteenth century Egyptian mummies, usually in broken pieces or powder, could be found in the shops of all European apothecaries as a drug for prescriptions. That the embalmed bodies of ancient Egyptians, and even the "mummified" bodies of those more recently dead, became a valued drug was due to a complicated and confusing process of transference and substitution involving originally the use of bituminous products in medicine (Dannenfeldt 1985:163).

Medicinal use of the body has, in all likelihood, been practiced since the beginning of time, continuing to this day in many cultures. But it has largely been ignored as cannibalistic in Western medical histories.

Especially in its modern forms, medicinal cannibalism has been removed to the technological realm. The difference between a blood transfusion and drinking blood seems on the surface quite dramatic.

But in one form or another the practice of utilizing human body parts or fluids for medicinal purposes has persisted. (Himmelman 1997:185).

A man was a man because he did not eat other men. This action was so connected to the monstrous that almost anything which ate humans was considered permanently a monster. The Plinian races were frequently given this terrifying attribute. The frightening Anthropophagi for example combined cannibalism with patricide by devouring their elderly parents (Kovatch 2008:22).

Because human mind's proclivities manifest in circular fashion across ages, regimes and continents, U.S transcendentalist Thoreau (in Walden) draws a compelling lesson from the rotting carcass of a horse that mixes intuition and vitalism with proto-evolutionary ideas already well in the air.

It won't elude readers how such imagery would find a speedy -and tragic- adaptation under the Nietzschean regimes of the XX century:

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There was a dead horse in the hollow by the path to my house, which compelled me sometimes to go out of my way, especially in the night when the air was heavy, but the assurance it gave me of the strong appetite and inviolable health of Nature was my compensation for this. I love to see that Nature is so rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and suffered to prey on one another; that tender organizations can be so serenely squashed out of existence -...and that sometimes it has rained flesh and blood! With the liability to accident, we must see how little account is to be made of it. The impression made on a wise man is that of universal innocence. Poison is not poisonous after all, nor are any wounds fatal. Compassion is a very untenable ground. It must be expeditious. Its pleadings will not bear to be stereotyped. (1854:no page) The connection with blood also circularly returns. The Moche (prehispanic Peruvian civilization, 100-800 CE) also presented familiar rituals. Prisoners in battle would be maltreated, bound, taken on a procession to a sacrificial high place (pyramid, Huaca478) in order for their blood to be drawn, and for their bodies to be dismembered. Priestly figures would then ritually offer the prisoners' blood -mixed with a vegetable anticoagulant- to a warlord/supreme chief. In the lore of Lombardy, drinking a wolf's blood was considered a treatment against rheumatism, and affections the Moon (=lycanthropy) caused.

The Lindow Man found in England in 1984 also confirms the obsession with ritual dismemberment to be a powerful one. The remains were radiocarbon dated to the I century CE, on the cusp between pre-Roman and Roman times in Britain. This Celtic druidic sacrifice saw an healthy upper-class youth having a ritual meal in order to be subsequently murdered multiple times. He was hit on the 478 “Sacred place�, a word applied to various areas.

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head; his back was pierced; he was garroted, and finally drowned in the bog: the chain of misfortune becomes all too real.

The goddesses Sekhmet (Egyptian) and Kali (Hindu) are summoned to dispel a great threat. They get so violent in their fury they get drunk on their victims' blood (Kali), or are served blood-colored beer/wine, which they drink thinking it to be blood (Sekhmet, 7.000 jugs according to legend); in her drunkenness, Sekhmet sleeps for three days (=common mytheme). Not linked to threats to dispel but angry at humankind's fickleness 479, Ugaritic goddess of war and love480 Anat also goes on a murderous spree as the oceans turn to blood.

When their rage subsides, the goddesses revert to their gentler, motherly self as Durga (Kali) and Hathor (Sekhmet). In Kali's case (in one version), only trampling her husband Shiva (=the doppelgaenger motif) brings her back to her sense of Hindu lajya, the Greek epimeleia (vigilant self-control), thus linking supreme transgression and ultimate virtue.

Still sophrosyne and its cognate forms were so closely identified with the feeling for harmony and restraint which governed every phase of Greek life that they were bound to appear occasionally in literary criticism. Their use serves to illustrate the constant interchange between ethical and aesthetic spheres in ancient civilization, for the process by which sophrosyne found its way into criticism is typical of the development of many such terms.

479 She accused humans of not having sided with chief god Baal (=lord) against the dragon Yamm. The turncoat dilemma goes back to the dawn of civilization..

480 The commingling of erotic and martial arousal at the dawn of civilization might be at the core of Greek soldiers' sacrifices to eros (=procreative instinct) and sayings such as “all is fair in love and war�.

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-...-[Sophrosyne] reflects the equally Greek demand for fitness and propriety in speech and action (North 1948:2) Although the “heroes” of Homer’s Iliad and the central protagonists of Thucydides’ the Peloponnesian War possess the Homeric excellences of skill in battle and the ability to inspire other warriors, they lack the introspective natures necessary to cultivate a sophron state of being or moral excellence. Many of these characters are akratic because when they do have moments of clarity or revelation, they often do not have the strength of will necessary to act upon the insight they have gained, or they sometimes act in direct opposition to what they know on some level is the greater good. (Higgs 2004-5:43).

Like monsters, women were not bound by the order of man's world and, even more unsettling, had the ability to manipulate this world. (Kovatch 2008:41).

Psychopaths often come across as arrogant, shameless braggartsself-assured, opinionated, domineering, and cocky. They love to have power and control over others and seem unable to believe that other people have valid opinions different from theirs. They appear charismatic or "electrifying" to some people. Psychopaths are seldom embarrassed about their legal, financial, or personal problems. Rather, they see them as temporary setbacks, the results of bad luck, unfaithful friends, or an unfair and incompetent system.(Hare 1993:38-9).

Adam's first wife Lilith also represents a liminal woman slipping out of society's fabric. Lilith becomes a blood-thirsty demon much as Hathor and Durga embody demonic powers once out of the societal bounds of vigilant self-control, which for some equals patriarchal control, or society planting a policeman in everybody's head through internalization of social norms specific to a given culture.

Blood is omnipresent in various kinds of lore. Roger Bacon, a XIII century friar and proto-scientist, applied alchemy to blood in an attempt to distill 459

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quintessence, or a life elixir. High-ranking SS members were rumored to practice neo-pagan rituals, which possibly involved drinking drops of Hitler's blood, and/or other prominent leaders'.

Mormonism, too, considers the shedding of blood a pivotal aspect of doctrine:

If there was a note of panic in the resumption of Mormon piety, it ran from the rhetorical extremes of the Reformation. Although they were deemphasizing the mysteries, the Mormon leadership nonetheless did preach on the mysteries as religious sanction, specifically the doctrines of "blood atonement" and the "second death." "Covenant-breakers" and "transgressors," the "Sons of Perdition," were said to be beyond the power of Christ's atonement; only death and their spilled blood would allow their salvation. The rhetoric of "blood atonement" mingled hermetic notions of condensing vapors, which carry us back to the "Old Rodsman" and to Ranter Lawrence Clarkson, with the Old Testament rituals of blood sacrifice, perhaps implicit in the Mormon restoration of the temple. Young presented the doctrine in full in September 1856:�I do know that there are sins committed, of such a nature that if the people did understand the doctrine of salvation, they would tremble because of their situation. And furthermore I know that there are transgressors, who, if they knew themselves, and the only condition upon which they can obtain forgiveness, would beg of their brethren to shed their blood, that the smoke thereof might ascend to God as an offering to appease the wrath that is kindled against them, and that the law might have its course. . . .There are sins that can be atoned for by an offering upon the altar, as in ancient days; and there are sins that the blood of a lamb, of a calf, or turtle doves cannot remit, but they must be atoned for by the blood of man.�. The "second death" awaiting the unrepentant sinner also had alchemical connotations. As Heber C. Kimball put it in 1857, body and spirit would be denied eternal life, but in a "second death" would "go back into their native element, the same as the chemist can go to work and dissolve a fivedollar piece, and throw 460

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it into a liquid."(Brooke 1994:285).

In Iran, the “pond of blood” was built to honor the martyrs of the IranIraq war: a fountain would spurt water dyed red. Purple in antiquity was a garment fit for heroes, dignitaries, Kings and Emperors. Purple's greatest glory was -precisely- that of looking like congealed blood 481: “They stripped [Jesus] and put a scarlet robe on him” (Matthew 27:28); “They clothed [Jesus] in a purple robe ” (John 19:2).

Wrestling, too, brought forth a version of the shedding of the sacred blood - referred to as blading- whereby wrestlers -with concealed objects and suchlike- procure themselves cuts in order to lend credibility to the match's brutality, thus ending up as most savior-heroes do: covered in a shower of blood...

Gandhi wished

he could achieve Hindu-Muslim unity in India by

cementing it with his blood (=blood->sparagmos->covenant). The imagery related to sacred blood -irrespective of the often laughable or purely mythical premises- is a widespread one found everywhere and not only among '...ists' and other cranks, revered in awe or laughed at depending on accessory details such as whose 'sacred blood' it all is about.

The skeptical Ovid refuses to believe that mere water can wipe away bloodstains. Some Romans believed that blood was the seat of the soul. The ancient Hebrews also believed that the life resided in the 481 It won't escape readers how here the virtue is in the imagery of congealed blood, whereas Marx posited the supreme quality in the amount of congealed labour.

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blood. The dangerous character of blood is further suggested by the common accounts of rains of blood. -...-. The juice of the grape was considered blood because it was red and looked like blood; and it was believed to contain the spirit . Moreover, wine was intoxicating, and so the soul of the vine could be felt actually at work in the person who drank the wine. -...- Blood, too, had a magic part in religious rites.

-...-. The blood of foreigners, especially of enemies, was felt to be dangerous. -...- Blood was considered the seat of the soul of man; it was dangerous to have the blood of a living person over one's head; bloodstains were considered dangerous; prodigies involving blood were held to be especially ominous; blood was believed to have a mystic power to wipe out blood-guilt and to seal covenants of crime.

If a soldier's actions were bad, his blood was believed to be bad, and hence it might be drawn off to allow good blood to take its place.

(Burriss 1931:17-24).

Such taboos are measures tending to protect individuals and the community against dangers that are most often imaginary, taboos that present themselves under diverse forms, but that in our opinion derive from a common source. the dangerous quality of blood. When it is not invested with a specific significance that wards off danger, spilt human blood is considered to be the malignant, frightful, and dangerous element among all human beings. A particularly acute fear is demonstrated toward the blood of the female sexual functions, the blood of the menses, defloration, and childbirth -...- The fear of blood is extended likewise to fetal materials (placentas, umbilical cords, membranes, -...- to newborns -...- and finally to anything whatsoever coming from a cadaver. All these materials are subject to taboo: that is to say, they are removed from contact with or the proximity of others, or even from public view. because of the danger they represent to the community. -...- But the frightful and malignant effect that the imagination imparts to blood's impurity appears reassuring and benignant when its destructive powers turn against that to which it is adverse: a hostile army, influences that cause illness, all that threatens and harms and ought therefore to be driven away and destroyed. -...In pressing our analysis a bit further, we learn that from such a conception of the negative power of blood-which could be summed up by the formula "blood banishes all that is bad"- one passes imperceptibly over to belief in the positive power of blood-"blood provides all that is good." While we might say that the first formula has a rational basis, the second is an extension of the benignant power ascribed to blood , which ends in overdetermining its power and 462

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attributing to it the capacity of producing all desirable results and effects, and of dispensing every good thing.(Makarius in Hynes & Doty 1993:68-69).

So Moses and Aaron did just as the LORD commanded them. As Pharaoh and all of his officials watched, Aaron raised his staff and struck the water of the Nile. Suddenly, the whole river turned to blood! (Exodus 7:20, emphasis added).

Anxieties are at times present about relating to the hero-savior's mystical body. As reported482, a cohort of hardcore, high-ranking aficionados celebrated Berlusconi's 77th birthday at Naples with a giant cake on which the hero's image and the party's symbol were represented. While elated partisans hailed Berlusconi as another Einstein, and related how the superlative Jewish-German physicist had in 1940 declared that mediocre minds always oppose great spirits, a moment of anxiety arose about using the knife to cut into (=goring) the hero's face and/or the beloved symbol. The hero-savior's mystical body was then ritually consumed in a secular copycat of religious rites.

The hero and his doppelgaenger the anti-hero go through similar experiences. In October 2013, Italy witnesses a squabble around the funerals and burial of E. Priebke, a German officer during WWII involved in a slaughter of civilians in a military reprisal.

As soon as Priebke's coffin gets sealed, a(nother) life sentence is meted out in relation to a(nother) WWII misdeed: the butcher is a(nother) 90yo (former) 482 Corriere Della Sera, 30 September 2013:5.

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German soldier; a third (former) German soldier is about to be sentenced to life in prison when he dies at 97 years of age.

The strategy can be applied from all provinces of the political spectrum: Communist North Korea detains a 85 yo U.S citizen as war criminals: he is accused of atrocities committed as he served his country during the Korean War 483. The U.S government urges an immediate release on compassionate grounds lamenting the prisoner's advanced age. Readers might hear more of the same if North Korea could pull the strings of a row of debased client States the world over. As Quintilian very well put it: the same words may be received as signs of folly, freedom or pride on the sole basis of who is uttering them.

ANSA reports on January 19, 2013, that a crowd saluted P.Gallinari, a

brigatista rosso and unrepented member of an erstwhile revolutionary left-wing faction responsible for a series of murders and terror attacks. Fists clenched in the Communist salute, red scarves and eulogistic poetry greeted the coffin during the public funeral. In this case, topography triumphed in the presence of labour and political leaders of party Rifondazione Comunista, whose executives shared power in a number of governments axed around the former Communist party:”un atto di umanità” (acting out of human compassion). People trying the same 'compassion card' in Priebke's case were either silenced, or threatened with ritual defamation or legal action.

483 Reuters, November 30, 2013.

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T. McVeigh, the Gulf war U.S bronze-star recipient and later author of the bloody Oklahoma City terrorist bombing in 1995, was executed in prison: his ashes were scattered at an undisclosed location. Overzealous military sociopaths on the right are not the only target.

After a coup in 1889, the progressive and

abolitionist Imperial family of Brazil was exiled, and expressly forbidden from reentering the country.

Mythology also presents such dilemma: rioting Polynices (Antigone's brother and Oedipus' son) is left unburied and unmourned outside Thebes' wall. The hero's body has distinct medicinal and reliquary qualities 484: at Aiud485 (Romania), the Orthodox Church collects in a monastery the remains of many victims of the Communist regime as martyrs of the faith. A supposedly miraculous ointment is produced from/with those mystical bones.

Noted Tibetan Buddhist Lama Norsang died. During the cremation ceremony supernatural signs -such as rainbows around the sun- manifested; after cremation his heart, tongue and eyeballs had purportedly remained fused into one special relic. The corpse of mahasiddha Karma Norbu, another notably proficient Tibetan Buddhist master, professedly disappeared after his death.

If no body -remains etc- are available for possible medicinal use, images 484 A Swiss firm offers to turn one's deceased loved ones into diamonds. Using patented technology, the carbon from the corpses' ashes is extracted, then turned into a diamond.

485 Ubication of a notorious Communist prison.

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might also do as ersatz (=the holy host as Jesus' body). At Renate (Italy), it was customary to use in the healing process fragments of a painting of thaumaturge San Mauro -whose cult had displaced Sant'Alessandro's 486 -, a beloved Benedictine Saint believed to heal body pain.

The opposite can be said about anti-heroes, whose body is pathogenic.

Remains of anti-heroes have to be disposed of immediately, lest ritual pollution unfolds: Polynices' unburied body causes thus a plague as animals tear it apart.

“Historical ‘heroes’ are ten-a-penny, but some have a distinct ‘reliquary’ association”. DeVoss writes about Gavrilo Princip, the Serbian terrorist who killed the Austrian archduke chasing foolish myths of grandeur folklore had fostered, thus putting the world in motion for about 30 years of war, spoliation and slaughter if we consider WWII a sequel of WWI:

But Franz Ferdinand’s death was more enviable than the life that faced Gavrilo Princip. He was taken to Theresienstadt, an old Bohemian fortress north of Prague that had been converted into a military prison and later would serve as a Jewish concentration camp during World War II. Chained with shackles weighing 22 pounds, the 145-pound prisoner was kept in solitary confinement in an unheated cell. Tuberculosis consumed him, and on April 28, 1918, Princip died weighing 88 pounds. Fearing his bones might become relics, Princip’s Austrian jailers took the body in secret to an unmarked grave, but a Czech soldier assigned to the burial detail made a map, and in 1920 Princip and the other “Heroes of Vidovdan” were disinterred and brought to Sarajevo, where they were buried together beneath a chapel “built to commemorate for 486 Allegedly a martyred knight, but not a thaumaturge.

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eternity our Serb Heroes” at St. Mark’s Cemetery. -...- Shortly before his departure to Theresienstadt, Princip was told that the war he had started, to free all South Slavs, was, in fact, consuming them. Although Belgrade had fallen to Austrian troops, he remained positive. “Serbia may be invaded but not conquered,” he told one of his German guards. “Serbia will one day create Yugoslavia, mother of all South Slavs.” (2000:5-6), emphasis added.

The symbolism of Kosovo and of [King] Lazar’s [the hero of the Kossovo battle, 1389] commitment to the heavenly kingdom have been frequently used, and more often misused, in recent political discourse. This applies equally to the glorification of the Kosovo myth by Serbian nationalists, who saw it as the confirmation of the idea of the “Heavenly Serbia”, that is, the entire nation’s commitment to metaphysical values and heroic death, and to Western authors who referred to it as the source and explanation of much of the troubles and atrocities in the Balkans (Pavlovic 2009:2).

Of course, applying such “possibly wrong but terribly romantic” treatment to the 'wrong' hero, that fragile and diminutive creature, might see one prosecuted under this, that or another law, precedent or statute, not haranguing the unwashed from the gilded podium of the incensed patriot.

XIV century Serbian King Lazar entered the myth accordingly. In the lore487, 40 years after the Turks defeated and decapitated him at the Battle Of Kossovo (1389), Lazar's severed head488 magically reattached itself to the intact body: he was venerated as a Saint.

The piercing element (the body of the savior-hero being pierced) plays 487 The Miracle Of Tsar Lazar.

488 Even Orpheus' severed head took on a life of its own. Severed lims coming magically alive (hands, eyes, phalli...) is a common mytheme.

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an important role as part of the ritual dismemberment constellation. The obsession with goring the hero's body is circular. A constellation of accounts exists of Fascist forces in the 1940s -or the Khmer Rouge for that matter in the late 1970sbayoneting their way through legions of opponents, babies and foes in the era of industrial warfare, poison gas and machine guns. At times, the item is pushed to the point of bayoneting the hero to the consistency of steak tartare.

In Congo, Nkisi Nkondi (=ritual idol) are figurines into which nails are hammered to either negatively curse or to positively “activate” the spiritual power within the idol. XVI century Christian missionaries effectively identified the ritual as one of “crucifixion” (=the piercing motif).

Gautama Buddha's pierced ears, and elongated ear lobes, are unmistakable signs of royalty. Hindu devotees pierce various parts of their bodies to atone for their sins, or to please the deity. An important ritual of the Arakambut tribe of the Amazonian jungle in Peru involves nose and lip-piercing, after which males are recognized as accomplished members of the community eligible for marriage:

And in Australia, about a year following the ordeal of the circumcision, the candidate for full manhood undergoes a second ritual operation-that of subincision (a slitting open of the underside of the penis, to form a permanent cleft into the urethra). The opening is termed the "penis womb." It is a symbolical male vagina. The hero has become, by virtue of the ceremonial, more than man (Campbell 1949:142).

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We're now hearing that in the jungle tribes of Brazil these initiations of breaking a man, smashing him, giving him pain are called "the male menstruation." That is to say, something is now living through his life that's not simply his personal intention. This happens naturally with a woman. -...-In the Sudan there are a number of examples not only of circumcision but also of clitorectomy where there is an incision of the clitoris in the young woman. The idea is that they're born androgyne, male and female, and what the circumcision is meant to do, according to this interpretation, is to release the full manhood from occlusion in the mother womb. It's symbolically interpreted that way. Similarly, with the removal of the clitoris from the female organ, the male element is removed and the person is fully female. The ritual takes place at puberty. (Campbell&Boa 1989:72,77).

We would like to offer another explanation for the subincision ritual.

The ritual is an increase ritual with sexual aspects, based on the keen observation of the aboriginal that the kangaroo has a bifid penis, with the outer surface comparable to an externalized urethra -...-However, the male kangaroo also squats, and his urinary stream flows from a point identical in location to a subincised urethral tract. Of course, without knowledge of the male kangaroo’s anatomy, it would be natural to think in terms of the human vaginal similarities.

(Singer&Desole 1967:356).

For the Walbiri the dream does not signify the beginning of an actual pregnancy as dreams do for some [other] Australian peoples, but "piercing" nevertheless has procreative-sexual overtones, and a certain parallel between becoming pregnant and receiving y awalyu designs is implied (Munn 1973:91).

There are further literary allusions to Odinic sacrifice.-...-All of these accounts maintain the central motif of hanging as well as piercing.

(O'Donoghue 2007:65).

Gnostic experiences are similar to piercing in nature. Mythicist David Icke describes one of his presumed initiatic/gnostic trips to Peru thus:

They’re like magnets pulling my feet to the ground. I think, oh crikey, I recognize that, here we go, and then I felt, like a drill going on the top of my head and through my body, through my feet into the 469

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ground and another one coming the other way.

Now at that time [Gautama Buddha's] foot had been pierced by a stone sliver. Excruciating were the bodily feelings that developed within him — painful, fierce, sharp, wracking, repellent, disagreeable — but he endured them mindful, alert, & unperturbed. ( Sakalika Sutta).

Icke is not alone, for the Hindu Mundaka Upanishad ( several centuries BCE) renders the supreme spiritual awakening/experience in such terms:

The Syllable Om is the bow: one's self, indeed, is the arrow. Brahman is spoken of as the target of that. It is to be hit without making a mistake. Thus one becomes united with it [Brahman] as the arrow becomes one with the target.

Mythological motifs may easily co-exist. A brother of mythical Cuzco Kingdom founder and lawgiver Manco Capac (“royal founder”) had been turned to stone during a fabulous journey from Tamputoco to Cuzco, thus inaugurating the ear-piercing custom, which might go back to the Huanacauri shrine. During the Hindu festival of Thaipusam, devotees pierce their mouth, cheeks etc in order to commemorate how the god Muruga with his magical spear defeated a demon.

Manco Capac himself had appeared out of lake Titicaca (=body of water connection489): a child of the Sun god Inti, he married his sister. Various AmericanIndian tribes practiced piercing rituals ( Sun Dance). Oedipus (“swollen foot”) had his feet pierced at birth (=mythology of the foot), and pierced his own eyes after the crucial moment of recognition.

489 Aphrodites, too, was born in the sea around Cyprus.

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In some variants of the Red Riding Hood story, allusion is made to needles -through which threads pass- as symbols of sexual maturity and bridal readiness. The Hebrew Deuteronomy advises thus:”then take an awl and push it through his ear lobe into the door, and he will become your servant for life. Do the same for your maidservant. ” (15:17). What did Robocop undergo, if not a form of extreme body piercing?

Various quintessential heroes (Achilles, Balder, Siegfried...) are special just because their bodies cannot be pierced, and so is Superman: bullets 'bad guys' shot ricochet on his steel body. Chinese martial artists strive to document the power of Chi, and Indonesian transgendered Bugi shamans ( Bissus) try to stab themselves with sharp knives (spears...): no blood is drawn. Chinese Boxer insurrectionists in 1900

also purportedly shot themselves with firearms to document how spirit

possession made them invulnerable.

Hero-saviors have an inverted doppelgaenger: the undead (vampires, zombies etc) have often to be pierced and/or dismembered/burnt in order to end their unholy existence; an obsession surfacing from the bottomless pit of time:

Four types of dead were commonly thought in the ancient [GraecoRoman] world to be dangerously ‘restless’, i.e. tended to haunt the place where they had died: those who had died prematurely (Gk. aōroi), those who had died violently (Gk. biaiothanatoi), those who had not received proper funeral rituals (Gk. ataphoi, Lat. insepulti), and those who had died before they were able to marry for the first time (Gk. agamoi, Lat. Innupti). Given that fear of revenants or morts 471

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malfaisants is well attested in antiquity, and that iron nails were believed to be able to ‘fix’ dangerous supernatural forces, some scholars have suggested that this type of magic may also have served to protect the living against the dead (Alfayé Villa no date:445).

The post mortem mutilation of corpses, where decapitation –to be referred to later on- should be included, may also be interpreted as a magic action intended at preventing the spirit of the dead, by means of its immobilisation, from taking revenge from the Otherworld, since there are numerous anthropological parallels which document its funerary use with this purpose. Mutilation of corpses in the Ancient world has been linked by several scholars to the idea of the Greek maschalismos, a selective amputation exerted on the defeated or the murdered person which, apart from having an unquestionably vexing nature, prevents the dead from returning from the tomb and taking revenge on the living. The idea of immobilisation – both physical and symbolical- of the individual by means of their mutilation is also present in the ancient “voodoo dolls” who were beheaded and/or whose limbs were amputated or twisted (Alfayé Villa no date-1:21011).

Since myths can coalesce, vampires, werewolves and zombies, too, can come back as sanitized pop-culture mannequins with fantastic faces for the 7 th series airing on cable TV: if felons, half-wits and outcasts are heroes fit for the masses, so are the undead.

Werewolves have been associated with “alpha male status” 490 since antiquity. Vampires, too, steep into bestial sexuality since time immemorial. No wonder Victorians prigs and dolts restyled the Vampire, originally an hideous monster with a fetid breath, into an emaciated, mysterious foreign nobleman 491 who goes around piercing (=a form of penetration) women's necks with his hard fangs.

490 Meineck 2005-1:Arcadian Fantasies.

491 Readers may recognize here another cherished motif: the 'arriving outsider'; the hero (or villain) as a liminal figure coming from some place far away as in Greek myth, or Western movies for all that matters..

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The undead shall be prevented from being reborn from the grave, whereas many important deities were saluted as 'born again', 'twice born' and the like. Dionysus before birth gestated in Zeus' thigh; Zeus' siblings were swallowed by their father Kronos, only to be regurgitated alive when Zeus intervened (Red Riding Hood and many religions still include this plot device).

Many cultures (China, India, Africa etc) include(d) rites of passage intended as “second births�, often associated with a journey, quest or withdrawal element. Some Protestant denominations revive the concept: born again Christianity. Campbell quips:

In sum, then: The inward journeys of the mythological hero, the shaman, the mystic, and the schizophrenic are in principle the same; and when the return or remission occurs, it is experienced as a rebirth: the birth, that is to say, of a "twice-born" ego, no longer bound in by its daylight-world horizon. (no date:131).

In the schizophrenic situation the affect doesn't find an image; and the image yields no affect. There is a dissociation of image and affect so that these poor people [=schizophrenics] have affects, emotions, experiences, which they cannot communicate -...- because they don't have the image to let their consciousness know what -...- is going on down there (Campbell 1968c).

He himself has experienced the Second Birth. He has gone through the Virgin Birth and been born again. (Campbell&Boa 1989:38). hard to find are those beings who can claim to be mentally healthy for even a moment except for those [arhats] whose mental cankers are destroyed. (Gautama Buddha, Roga Sutta) In summary, commitment therapies can be distinguished from 473

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analytic therapies. The latter arise in an historical period concomitant with the rise of democratic individualism. Commitment therapies, however, operate by returning the individual to the cosset of his natal community or by retraining him for membership in a new community, with a more effective pattern of symbolic integration; the therapeutic effort is transformative; the therapist is characteristically either a sacral or an exemplary figure. (Rieff 2006:63).

In contrast, present-day industrial and post-industrial societies, as well-described by Clark (1989), Toffler (1970), and others, feature long and stressful workdays and commutes, incessant time demands, rapid change, reduced sleep (now estimated at less than seven hours per day), transient emotional/social relationships, compulsiveness in seeking secondary rewards (material goods, status symbols, fame, power, information etc.), intense competition, and financial uncertainty. In turn, the drive to acquire incentive-based rewards and the constant decision-making and control strategies associated with succeeding in modern societies all lead to an extremely high “futureorientation” (Bentley, 1983; Zimbardo, 2002). -...-What does it mean for a modern society to be labeled “hyperdopaminergic”? Based on the dopaminergic personality profile in Chapter 3, the hyperdopaminergic society is above all, an extremely goaldriven society in which achievement is highly rewarded in a highly competitive and uncertain environment. (Previc 2009:149-50).

Campbell492 for one interprets the second birth in symbolic terms as the person 'graduates' from the 'second womb' of mythological imagery ready to take his place according to immemorial, universal blueprints that vary slightly according to localized societal structures (the Indian divide between desi and marga, or the anthropological divide between elementary and ethnic ideas):

In general, all cultures have a therapeutic function, insofar as they are systems of symbolic integration-whether these systems be called religious, philosophical, ideological, or by any other name. (Rieff 2006:56).

492 1969-1.

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To follow Campbell, the taming (framing, rationalizing, channeling...) of affects takes places through very specific sets of images:“Pictorial representation of psychic processes”493. Unnatural pregnancies were part of free-floating folk beliefs the world over indeed. Buddhist Saint Padma Sambhava is “untainted by a womb”; Jesus', Mwindo's (born from his mother's finger), Gautama Buddha's and other such figures' birth was as unnatural and prodigious as Bacchus':

In Chinese mythology, considerable gods, demigods, and heroes are described as having been born after their mothers experienced a miraculous phenomenon: they became pregnant without having sexual intercourse with men. Instead, these women became pregnant because they swallowed an egg, were exposed to the sunshine in a special way, drank divine water, swallowed mythical pearls, consumed certain plants (such as red hawthorn or Job’s tears), dreamed of devouring the suns, responded to a divine animal (a dragon, for example), touched a piece of wood, or reacted to the air, and so forth. Chinese scholars classify these kinds of myths as “Gansheng myths,” in which the gods’ mothers miraculously became pregnant after they responded to certain outside influences and incidents, which may refer to animals, plants, or astronomical phenomena. (Yang et alii 2005:64).

The results of a long-term study of reproductive health, published in the British Medical Journal, have revealed that one in two hundred US women claim to have given birth without ever having had sexual intercourse [nor in vitro fertilization].The findings were based on a study of 7,870 women and girls aged 15 to 28, as part of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which ran from 1995 to 2009. (Williams 2013: no page, emphasis added).

For behold, from henceforth: all generations shall call me blessed.

(Christian Song Of Mary).

As soon as he's born from the dust on her body, goddesss Parvati orders 493 Jung, cit. in Angelo 1992:74.

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her son Ganesha to prevent people from entering her house. Obeying his mother, youngest Ganesha then proceeds to defeat Shiva's retinue of demi-gods; he finally succumbs to Shiva (Parvati's consort) himself, who wants to enter his house after all494. Newborn god Hermes manages to steal Apollo's cattle. Medieval legends told of Virgil's prodigious birth: the Roman poet would in fact be the son mighty Jupiter sired on a Celtic sorceress without intercourse: he began to walk as soon as he was born, and natural wonders unfolded to celebrate the event.

One real woman named Cleo in the IV century BCE seeks the miraculous intervention of the divine healer Aesculapius 495:

after already five years of pregnancy, she [Cleo] came as a suppliant to the [god] and went to sleep in the innermost sanctuary. As soon as she came out of it and was outside the sanctuary, she gave birth to a boy who, as soon as he was born, washed himself from the fountain and walked about with his mother. (Austin 1981:126).

And [Eve] bore a son and he was shining; and at once the baby rose up and ran and took a blade of grass in his hands, and gave it to his mother, and his name was called Cain. ( The Books Of Adam And Eve496, cit. in Charles 1913:138).

1.

We find (1) what follows in the book of Joseph the high priest, who lived in the time of Christ. Some say that he is Caiaphas. (2) He has said that Jesus spoke, and, indeed, when He was lying in His cradle said to Mary His mother: I am Jesus, the Son of God, the Logos, whom thou hast brought forth, as the Angel Gabriel announced to thee; and my Father has sent me for the salvation of the world. ( Arabic 494 Shiva beheads Ganesha with his trident. That's how Ganesha receives an elephant's head, and how he's proclaimed as leader of Shiva's retinue. Of course, Shiva had no idea his opponent was his wife Parvati's son.

495 Son of Apollo.

496 Constellation of texts known under different titles across traditions and languages that also relay different content: possibly between I century BCE and CE.

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Infancy...no date: no page).

According to the legends about this birth, the baby [Gautama Buddha] began to walk seven steps forward and at each step a lotus flower appeared on the ground. Then, at the seventh stride, he stopped and with a noble voice shouted: "I am chief of the world, Eldest am I in the world, Foremost am I in the world. This is the last birth.

There is now no more coming to be." ( The Birth Of The Prince no date: no page).

Two important observations are necessary: firstly, in the cures performed by Epidauro, belief is subsequent to the prodigy, an after effect, not as a prophylactic,as is to be seen, as a general rule, in the evangelical prodigies performed by Jesus. Rather, it normally precedes a persistent skepticism, obviously destined to be overcome, all in honor of Asclepio, his shrine and of his priestly class. Then, secondly, the cures are directly performed by the god in the total absence of the human miracle worker, similar, from that point of view, to those performed in the present day cures in Lourdes. (Barbaglio 2009: 29).

Zoroaster's followers, holding ardently to this expectation, came to believe that the Saoshyant will be born of the prophet's own seed, miraculously preserved in the depths of a lake (identified as Lake Katsaoya). When the end of time approaches, it is said, a virgin will bathe in this lake and become with child by the prophet; and she will in due course bear a son, named Astvat-ereta, 'He who embodies righteousness' (after Zoroaster's own words : 'May righteousness be embodied' Y 43. r6). (Boyce 1979:42).

When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom (2 Samuel 7:12).

In Buddhism, Suppavasa (Suppavasa Sutta) remained pregnant for seven years, then endured childbirth problems. Thanks to both her saintly nature, and Gautama Buddha's wishes, she finally delivered a robust baby. The newborn immediately paid his respects to the Buddha, and revealed to Sariputta 497 how karma 497 One of Gautama Buddha's closest disciples.

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required that he'd suffer for so long in his mother's womb; he went on to become the arhat (=Saint) Sivali.

There is no doubt some (most?) sincerely religious milieus are (highly) embarrassed by the preposterous, supernatural, magic or sci-fi elements of their faith. Goldman498 compares the Bible favorably with other coeval middle-eastern narratives499: the Bible is less peppered with divine interventions and other supernatural feats. It is difficult to guess which version of the Bible was Goldman (Professor of Hebrew and Middle-eastern Studies) considering.

The present writer objects that removing divine interventions, grotesque feats and supernatural wonders from the Bible might leave behind only tasteless genealogies and factoids of little import:

Across the board, the evidence indicates that the clichés about the fringe nature of paranormal belief are wrong: paranormal beliefs are not at all uncommon; they are not restricted to people who are socially marginalized; nor are they a sign of low intelligence or poor mental health. -...-When polled about even very short lists of ten or so ideas selected from the hundreds of paranormal and pseudoscientific notions critiqued in the skeptical literature, large majorities of the population readily affirm that they hold one or more of those paranormal beliefs. In 2005, Gallup’s survey found that 73 percent of American adults affirm at least one paranormal belief from a list of ten; 57 percent believe in at least two of those ideas; and 43 percent believe in three or more. These numbers are not unusual, but are consistent with other findings. -...-In a strictly numerical sense, people who do not believe in anything paranormal are now the “odd men out” in American society. Less than a third 498 2003:Marriage, Divorce And Other Arrangements.

499 In the specific the Egyptian Tale Of The Two Brothers (XIII century BCE).

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of Americans (32%) are dismissive of all nine subjects.

-...-Involvement in one or more cultural organizations, fraternities, trade unions, sports, or civic or service groups had no discernable impact on the number of paranormal beliefs a respondent held or the number of paranormal experiences that person reported.

Regardless of community involvement, people affirmed their belief in an average of about two of the paranormal items included on the survey. -...-“As stakes in conformity increase, paranormal beliefs and experiences steadily and markedly decrease. A person with the highest stakes in conformity accepts on average only two paranormal beliefs. This is less than half the level of belief exhibited by those with the lowest stakes in conformity.”(Loxton&Prothero 2013:ch.7).

Yet all that has been instrumental in shaping a(ny) faith. Contrary opinions are also present -such as Joseph Campbell's-. Jefferson, too, edited (1804,

The Philosophy Of Jesus Of Nazareth and subsequent updated versions) a version of the life of Jesus from gospel passages that preserved most moral teachings -leveraged towards the milder side- to the detriment of the supernatural and the miraculous, which were foregone.

Talking about supernatural elements in Mahayana Buddhism, Della Santina comments: “it was a point of prestige; it was a selling point -...- that made people believe -...- it is our loss that we don't believe -...- we have narrowed our capacity to understand and to appreciate by demanding certain criteria ” 500.

One of the privileged ways to target a(ny) faith, party, creed or sect for destruction is to show beyond doubt how its leaders, founders and holy figures are

500 ME6102 no date: lecture 3.

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all too human in their transgressions, appetites, monomania and pathetic shortcomings. Something that should be welcome and go unnoticed by the very advocates of a desacralization of belief systems.

Let's take two books as an example: Curren's 2006 Buddha's Not Smiling and Falk's 2009 Stripping The Gurus that broadside oriental spirituality circles (Hinduism, Buddhism etc).

Pages from Falk's book read thus:

Ramakrishna was a homoerotic pedophile. His chief disciple, Vivekananda, visited brothels in India. -...- Krishnamurti carried on an affair for over twenty years with the wife of a close friend -...-. At other times, the boons of such “powers” included [Ram] Das’ waking up to a seventeen-year-old blond girl (Swedish) on one side of his Nepalese cowshed bed, and a silent, young Frenchwoman with long, black hair on the other side. (2005:2,70).

Mystics have also displayed some of the most extreme manifestations of the trickster. A number of them had ambiguous sexual orientations; some sexually abused their devotees; some simulated paranormal phenomena in order to lure followers. This association between mysticism and deception is long-standing, and many times it is difficult to tell the difference between a holy man and con artist, or even if it is meaningful to speak of any such distinction. Nevertheless, mystics have fostered important religious traditions. They have also demonstrated some of the most powerful psychic phenomena ever recorded, including instantaneous healings, immunity to fire, and levitation. (Hansen 2001:53-4).

Curren's book is replete with accounts such as:

Ole and Hannah Nydahl were two of the first Westerners to visit 480

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Rumtek and become students of the sixteenth Karmapa. The Danish couple met the sixteenth Karmapa in Kathmandu in the late sixties.

Beginning in the early 1970s with a single dharma center in Copenhagen, where they hosted the Dalai Lama on his first visit to Europe, the Nydahls have founded a network of more than four hundred Diamond Way Buddhist centers around the world. -...- For his part, Ole Nydahl has credited the Karmapa with reforming him from a boxer and casual marijuana dealer into a devoted, if unconventional, student and teacher of Buddhism. In the late sixties, Ole Nydahl was a short-tempered street-fighter from Copenhagen who had gotten into buying hashish in Nepal and selling it back home in Denmark. Shamar told me the story of how the Nydahls, in Nepal on one of their supply expeditions, first met the sixteenth Karmapa in Kathmandu in 1969. -...- Though Tibetan culture was imbued with Buddhism at every level, history belies the Shangri-La image of Tibetan lamas and their followers living together in mutual tolerance and non-violent goodwill. Indeed, the situation was quite different.

Old Tibet was much more like Europe during the religious wars of the Counter Reformation than a neighborhood in Berkeley, California where synagogue, mosque, church, and dharma center make cozy neighbors. During the European religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, forces of Protestant kings and princes fought armies of Catholic rulers or troops of the Church itself. Likewise, for hundreds of years in Tibet, lay followers of each religious school sometimes clashed with each other for control of the government of Central Tibet or rule over provincial areas. Lamas often had to defend their monasteries and other landholdings from supporters of the other schools. (2006: no page).

Triratna, a Buddhist movement (formerly known as FWBO) popular in the UK, was rumored to put a suspicious emphasis on same-sex activities, and to allegedly consider essential for spiritual practice to overcome taboos related to homosexuality.

The FWBO Files (1988) was much more explicit, alleging that Sangharakshita [Triratna founder D.P.E Lingwood ( known as Sangharakshita) ] was dismissed from the Hampstead Vihara for homosexual behaviour, that two of his disciples committed 481

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suicide, that homosexual abuse at the Croydon centre caused another suicide, and that the FWBO actively promotes homosexuality between Order members and their disciples. The FWBO’s response dismissed most of the allegations as rumour (and unconnected with the suicides), but admitted that Sangharakshita was sexually active for some years after the formation of the FWBO, and had a 2-year affair with a male disciple in the mid-1970s, only becoming celibate again in the 1980s (FWBO, 1998: 18–20, 34, 36). (Bluck 2006:168).

This state of affairs was short-lived. In December 1988 the movement learned that the [Vajradhatu] Regent [Osel Tendzin, born T.F. Rich, 1943-90] had developed Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and had infected a male partner, who had inadvertently infected a female partner. Although married, the Regent was openly bisexual and known to have numerous sexual partners, an aspect that members tolerated without judgment. In addition, the movement learned that many in the administration had long known of the Regent’s illness but had failed to make this information public. This was stated directly by one member (Eldershaw 2007:79).

In the 1960s, four major Zen teachers came to the United States from Japan -...-.And three of the four, Afable noted when we spoke, have caused major public sex scandals: first Maezumi, and more recently Shimano and Sasaki. -...-But there are many lesserknown yet just as randy Zen teachers (Oppenheimer 2014:no page).

The Secret Gospel Of Mark is an highly disputed and controversial hypothetical find of some ancient manuscript American professor Morton Smith -whom some qualify as homosexual- professedly found at the Mar Sabba Orthodox monastery in Palestine. At the center of a convoluted spy story and intrigue, the elusive manuscript that was never recovered details how Jesus spent what some qualify as a homosexual love night with a young man he had raised from the dead: most likely a forgery.

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If Buddhism could be turned into an emancipation tool for frisky homosexual hippies in spiritual suit, it could very well be restyled to serve atheist and rationalist purposes with a Stephen Batchelor, a former Buddhist monk who wishes to do away with the doctrines of rebirth and karma in favor of vanilla prescriptions to “live the good life now�: the socially binding and spiritually uplifting -yet empty- rituals of Confucianism; or the rituals that positive psychologists urge one to engage in so that one may feel more adjusted.

What Batchelor, Peacock (an academic and also former Buddhist monk) and others wish for is -often in their own words- to subject Buddhism to the kind of reverse engineering and inquiry Christianity has been increasingly subjected to since the Enlightenment: Buddhism as today's opium for the masses.

If certain minorities are believed to have colonized -or hijacked- such movements as the civil rights movement (ACLU etc) on the left, or the neoconservative movement on the right, the same profile can be drawn within the Buddhist -or oriental spirituality- community.

Many western Buddhist circles are just ACLU, SDS, ACORN copycats: garden variety lefties drop the Soviet (Cuban, North-Korean, Vietnamese...) obsession in favor of new-age spiritualism. Some oriental guru who looks like Gus Goose replaces Most, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Marx etc (= levantine image of bearded patriarch) as target of boyish devotion and girly infatuation.

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Popular Buddhist speaker -and nun- R. Courtin was in her youth a radical feminist, lefty and civil rights activist 501. If during the Belle Epoque, oriental spirituality was in many cases a fig leaf for Masonic cabals of conflicting persuasions, many oriental spirituality centres are today a mere front for the usual vanilla lefty, homo- and xenophile civil rights operation that allows to push the same social alchemy agenda without having to openly disclose a more or less embarrassing Marxist, Soviet or Social-Communist baggage that might alienate people.

Della Santina502 categorically disclaims Buddhism was ever cause of war, or violent in-fighting between Buddhist traditions. While it's always possible to tap dance around definitions, and to perform a comedy of innocence to deny -or affirmanything, it is just fair to mention the points of contact between various Buddhist monks and various equivocal situations (support lent to Japanese imperialism; infighting in Sri Lanka, Burma, Tibet etc).

On the other end of the religious divide, things aren't much better. One 501 Although improbable at first sight, significant points of contact between Marxist and Buddhist doctrines exist.

For example, both reject creationism in favor of mechanical explanations: karma with its seeds in (Mahayana) Buddhism; dialectical materialism with its congealed labour overlap. Both Buddhism and Marxism posit the adventitious nature of one's circumstances: one's actions and feelings are not supposed to define one, just like devil advocacy Marxists deploy in support of their pet categories oppressed by the economic structure, and the political superstructure. Courtin -as one might expect from her leftist background- also reduces Buddhist mind science to a sort of Freudian -Adlerian and what not- mind laboratory. Marxist universalization of human plights under the sign of labor and exploitation finds an hefty Mahayana Buddhist equivalence: interdependence. Marxist activists' obsession with so-called civil rights can easily be subsumed under the Mahayana “freeing all sentient beings from suffering�. Courtin swapped the T-shirt with Che Guevara's image with that of the Dalai Lama's: the rest is pretty much the same. Just as a garden variety U.S 'progressive', Courtin worked with inmates: the difference between ACLU and Buddhism becomes increasingly thin. Wright (2014) conclusively details how most tenets of Buddhism square perfectly with evolutionist and non-creationist doctrines; for that reason, Wright suspends judgment over karma and reincarnation.

502 ME6102 no date: lecture 14.

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of Mexico's new Santa Muerte cult's high priests (TutltitlĂ n temple), El Comandante

Pantera, succumbs in 2008 after more than 150 bullets hit him: he was allegedly involved with narco gangs. David Romo Guillen, the self-appointed bishop of the

Santa Muerte cult, is sentenced in 2012 to a 66 year prison term for theft, kidnapping and extortion.

Time Magazine wrote in 1991 about scandals that haven't stopped embroiling Catholicism ever since. It is quite a butterfly effect that the Catholic Church's integrity, left about unscathed throughout the cold war, was immediately at stake as the cold war order imploded:

Dozens upon dozens of priests have been accused of sexually abusing underage boys. -...- So widespread are the cases that by one informed estimate, Catholic institutions have paid $300 million in settlements -with no end in sight. "We could be sued out of existence," says Notre Dame philosophy professor Ralph McInerny. ( Sins Of The Fathers 1991: no page.).

It appears that [Mormon founder Joseph ]Smith used spiritual coercion as well as assurances of salvation to induce women to marry him. (Miles in Jacobson&Burton 2011:192).

Catholic priests are routinely exposed not only because of their sexual transgressions, but also for an uninterrupted series of financial wrongdoings that range from big-time billionaire affairs to countryside reverends embezzling or appropriating Church money or donations. In recent times, the Catholic Bishop of Novara forecast the need for centralized financial control in the diocese, possibly to counter the liberties priest-entrepreneurs typically take with the Church's finances 485

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or estates.

The basic problem with this approach is that -in spite of all likely factual truths- it betrays a longing for the superhuman, for those exaggerated virtues, feats and postures worth of a comic-book, whereby characters are so much chaster, wiser, stronger etc than the average human being. Oddly enough, that is the same point that attracts ridicule and scorn to start with: improbable comic-book figures who consort with spirits, walk on water, tame wild animals, fast for ages without dying, resurrect the dead etc. There is only so much one can expect from humankind, no matter which gown, armband, bonnet, skullcap or beard one's favorite savior-hero may sport.

One of the main characteristics of Orphic-Bacchic ideologies was that of rejection. Rejection myths explained how ministering preachers (saviors, founders, heroes etc) were persecuted and driven away in many instances. The imagery of the hero who comes back from the ordeal (war, prison, wilderness etc) sees things have changed, and is rejected and denied what's his jumbles the situation of the journey together with the rejection myth and is as evergreen as Robin Hood 503 driven underground as usurpers take over both his ancestral property, and the throne of England.

Ringo is a Confederate veteran in a 1965 spaghetti-western movie, who 503 In some of the many versions of course.

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comes home from the U.S Civil War and realizes Mexican bandits have taken over his ancestral property, and threaten his wife: doesn't it sound much like what happened to Ulysses?

And to tell you what you still have to endure In your own house. And you do have to endure, And not tell anyone, man or woman, That you have come home from your wanderings. No, you must suffer in silence, and take a beating. (Athena to Ulysses, Odyssey 13.315-321, emphasis added).

Rambo (Vietnam veteran) as well comes home from war, yet he's maltreated and denied what's his. Osiris, Dionysus and Orpheus themselves are slain. Rambo and Ringo barely escape death and – like Ulysses and Bacchus in some myths- exact bloody revenge upon their foes.

Myth(ologie)s tend to coalesce. Rambo and Ringo come back from war zones. In 1986 The Wraith, an youngster is back from death thanks to extraterrestrial technology (=sci-fi angle). He bloodily does away with the thugs who murdered him, and who threaten his fiancee (just like Ulysses). In The Crow (1994ss) and its many sequels, an unjustly murdered man resurrects (=comeback motif) to relentlessly liquidate criminals who -in the 1994 movie- had brutally savaged and murdered him and his lover (=Romeo&Juliet shtick).

As incredible as it may sound, Fears504 puts the James brothers, real-life Confederate guerrillas and frontier outlaws, on the same level as mythological 504 2011:Jesse James And The Myth Of The Outlaw.

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Robin Hood. Fears might have added Harry Callaghan or characters from Bruce Lee's movies for all that matters.

As this writing contends, history, pseudo-history and myth are essential to the weaving of stories, the calling card of the human self. Truth (statistical probability, consistency, verisimilitude...) is not a necessary component of any strategy wanting to capitalize on the above, but 'what feels emotionally true' is: the quintessence of every religious experience. In the James brothers' case, honest men driven underground by unjust laws and oppressive rulers, just like Robin Hood and Harry Callaghan.

Are readers tired of action movie story-lines? What about a Theravada Buddhist text? Arahat monk Ratthapala (Ratthapala Sutta) goes through what looks like a xeroxed Ulysses shtick. He goes away as he ordains (heroic journey), comes back to his parents' home and nobody recognizes him, but “instead of receiving a gift or a polite refusal — we got nothing but abuse ” 505. Then “a slavewoman -...recognized [Ratthapala's] hands, feet, & voice”, which sounds suspiciously like Eurycleia, Ulysses' slave nurse, who recognized him by way of his bodily features506.

As this writing contends, adventitious details are all that varies. In the

sutta, the slave is just “a slavewoman belonging to one of his relatives ”. In the 505 Ratthapala Sutta no date: no page.

506 “Eurycleia's heart Trembled with mingled joy and grief, Tears filled her eyes, and her voice Was choked as she reached out And touched Odysseus' chin” (Odyssey XIX:515-19).

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Odyssey, the slave is described with plentiful details; she rises to the rank of Laertes's sort of second wife507, and the palace's spiritual guardian. What sort of insight are readers to gather from these seemingly carbon-copied stories? Spiritual insight from the Buddhist religion? Elusive, manly insight from Bronze Age Greece?

It makes no difference but in the detail; the mind undergoes aesthetic arrest anyways, then details are filled in by current socio-political trends.

Just to prove that the narrative core ( marga, elementary idea) is what really counts, details (desi, ethnic idea) can be reduced to a bare minimum. Let's examine Il Riconoscimento (recognition)508. In that poem, “a poor chap” (un povero garzone) comes home from abroad. Unlike Ulysses or Ratthapala (Rambo, Ringo...), he's a nobody; no detail whatsoever is given about his journey; he has done no notable deed. Yet the journey has been literally etched on his skin the sun has turned black/dark (la faccia scura). His dearest friend doesn't recognize him, nor does his lover.

The thunder of insight strikes as his mother, finally, recognizes him (ché, sebbene ha scura la faccia, mamma sua lo raffigura) in spite of his dark skin. Even details reduced to a bare minimum are of adventitious importance: the elementary idea triumphs at any rate. The lover or friend might have recognized him instead, 507 “true-hearted Eurycleia, daughter of Ops And Peisenor's grandaughter. Long ago, Laertes had bought her for a small fortune When she was still a girl. He paid twenty oxen And honored her in his house as he honored His wedded wife, but he never slept with her Because he would rather avoid his wife's wrath. Of all the women, she loved Telemachus the most And had nursed him as a baby.” (Odyssey XIX:452-461).

508 which Ettore Toci translated from Vogl's German during the Belle Epoque.

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following the commodious whims of the shaman-writer: the effect on the public wouldn't change.

Roberto509 quips:” Why does it grab people's attention? Because it's unexpected. So if there's an unexpected element -...-, that can help you grab people's attention, and get them to adopt -and stick with- a change”.

Popular culture couldn't be far behind. A glurge story circulated over the internet time ago regarding a “friendly phone operator”. What this story celebrates is the irresistible compulsion to commemorate, be remembered and thus to find consistency over time510, just as the stories of Ulysses and Ratthapala show. A child (elementary or middle school: details vary) bruises his finger (or some other trivial event or need); nobody happens to be home at that time, so s-he dials the general info line on the phone: a friendly phone operator gives assistance 511.

Years later, when the former child is now about to go to college (or some other landmark moment), s-he calls the info line: there stands the friendly operator again who -of course- remembers very well that time the child called a long time in the past.

Years later again, as the child of yore is about to get married (or 509 2011:Making Change Stick.

510 Ceux pour qui le temps irréversible a existé y découvrent à la fois le mémorable et la menace de l’oubli (Those who experienced time as irreversible discover by the same token the reality of memorialization and the threat that oblivion poses. Debord 1967: point 133).

511 The friendly phone operator as ersatz parental figure.

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whichever rite of passage/landmark event one chooses), s-he calls the info line again. This time the friendly operator no longer answers the phone. A colleague does, who is of course privy to the details. This second operator relates how the friendly phone operator had recently passed away in whichever heart-rending circumstances, yet before doing so penned a message precisely for that child who ages earlier had called with a bruised finger.

The sweet human soul screams its xeroxed pain in a hurricane of tears while a gigantic gastrointestinal or neurological syndrome impairs the frail little creature. The story is so preposterous512 and artificial that its only purpose can be that of tantalizing human mind's irresistible vortexes: to remember, be remembered, and to commemorate such remembrance as gage of consistency over time.

Not everybody can browbeat or blackmail discredited politicians into passing 'special laws' at the drop of a hat; not everybody gets to tell the U.S Congress about bayoneted babies; not everybody gets on prime-time TV and so forth.

Everybody can type an equally obtuse and preposterous story full of petrified myths and grotesque antics to post online, though.

Of course, different strands of the same original chain-mail may share different details; the list of tribulations -as well as the hero's name, background, 512 Everybody who has ever dialed such info lines in the good old days knows it is next to impossible to catch the same operator the first time one dials, and this over a period of several years. Furthermore, the chances such phone operator busy attending to ongoing calls as a matter of routine might remember such a trivial conversation from ages in the past is laughable at best.

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location or gender- may be somewhat different. It is the typical situation of the tall tale contest between hunters and fishermen, whereby the tuna they caught gradually gets to be the size of a sperm whale, and the hare they shot over time gets to be the size of a kangaroo. As well, details at times might not jibe. It is a safe bet items derive from separate sources some elated writer combined because they were too good to miss.

Things may have changed in many ways. Gautama Buddha realizes he cannot share his insight with his two former masters as they have passed away.

Xuan Zhang realizes he is no longer supposed to keep the engagement to a King who has disappeared along with his reign.

In one Celtic tale513, a knight lives happily with a fairy bride -the Queen of a fairy hill, or a version of the mother goddess- until he longs to visit his ancestral village. As no dissuasion proves effective, he's allowed the visit, but on the condition he never set foot on the ground. The knight reaches his village astride his horse, sees things have changed, and turns to dust as he sets foot on the ground trying to pick something up (or a variant of the 'turning back' motif). Centuries had gone by since he had originally embarked on his adventures, during which he had by happenstance discovered the fairy hill, and championed its Queen514.

513 Campbell 1967b.

514 Campbell derives from this story (also behind Wagner's Venusberg and Tannaeuser) a lesson about the triumph of patriarchy (the lone, valiant knight epitomized) over matriarchy and the mother goddess (the fairy Queen or Venus retreating to a secluded mountain abode).

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Mortals walk the earth, while immortals (also Kings and their ilk) hover in mid-air (walk on carpets/platforms etc). According to Balinese religion, infants are not allowed to touch the earth before they reach a certain age ( Nyambutin, 105 days ceremony). In Ethiopia, Christian Timket (epiphany) processions see priests walking on carpets unrolled before them as they carry the tablets of the law. In Hispanic countries -from Guatemala to Portuguese Azores- people prepare mats made of flowers to pave the way of a religious processions.

Could popular culture lag behind? Remo Williams (1985) is an action movie that sees a vigilante working for a secret, patriotic U.S cabal. An elusive oriental master trains him in the martial arts: the vigilante learns to run so fast he can walk on semi-solid bodies like a sea of fresh concrete. If that sounds good, the providential oriental master can literally walk on water. Neo in the Matrix movies can literally fly, just as Mahayana Buddhist Saints were rumored to.

Artificial kin members from all walks of life float in mid-air contemplating a white light in the video of international hit song One&One (1996).

White lights also constitute the essence of spiritual rapture in Tibetan Buddhism and much earlier Zoroastrianism (as the righteous soul journeys to heaven).

Fundamentalist Christians, too, shall be raptured to meet Jesus in mid-air (heaven etc) in order to be spared the tribulations of the upcoming end of days.

Top Gun (1986), Bloodsport (1988) and Kickboxer (1989) - although 493

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stewed in seemingly antithetical sauces- go through the basic high points. James Livingston identifies four main stages in renewal ritual, also similar to what happens in most action movies: mortification, purgation, invigoration, jubilation.

1. The duo of near and dear undergoes ordeal (in one case the sidekick dies; in the second, he remains disabled for life; in the third, he gets seriously wounded ).

2. The hero's journey (in one case a journey to Thailand; in the second, military men sail aboard an aircraft carrier, and fly in their jets; in the third, a journey to Hong Kong).

3. Arch-enemies galore (a brutish Thai boxing champion and Thai mafia on one hand; Soviets and bureucracts on the other; police 515, and a murderous, foulplaying opponent in the third case).

4. Various psychological complexes shall be dealt with and resolved.

5. The 'training montage' shtick ( learning Thai boxing in the first case; taking part in an elite navy program in the second; fighting a death tournament in the third).

515 As this writing reiterates, petrified mythologies and stale allegories fare better wholesale. In Bloodsport, one may find several ingredients of formula films, namely the couple of cops, one young and impulsive; the other older and more conciliative. The virile friendship item; the romance angle; the master-pupil angle; the bereavement angle (the Japanese karate teacher loses his own son); the conflicting duties/Antigone angle (the army officer disregards military discipline in order to honor commitment to his karate instructor and his clan) and others.

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6. The thunder of insight about what lies hidden (the rape of the boxer's love interest516, and the captive brother's liberation in one case; the truth about the father's death in the pilot's case; esoteric martial arts teachings resurface in the third case as the main character gets blinded ).

7. The comeback (the pilot's comeback in combat: doubt/hesitation and redemption shtick; the boxer's final match; the murderous champion's defeat at a blind opponent's hands517).

Now, there are several embattled scholars who fight the idea -and the concrete impact of- what is hereby referred to as the inescapable vortexes of the human mind -marma of the mind, or whichever other terms might be used-.

Regardless of what might -or might not- be the case with ancient inscriptions, papyri and old myths that scholars dissect exchanging learnt punchlines, it is difficult to understand how our culture might be literally awash in such petrified narratives, obtuse allegories and stale mythologies if that played no overwhelming role at all.

How the media, political and entertainment industry keeps thus milling 516 Another popcorn psychology item that recurs endlessly in popular culture fodder. 1996 all-star-cast Sleepers revolves around the (re)discovery of sex abuse meted out to juvenile delinquents in a reformatory. In 1986 Highlander, Lambert's character discovers his wife of a bygone age had been raped, and so forth. The public peeps aghast: that's the aesthetic arrest the dramatic mode (=the audience is excluded from the scene as mere witness) brings about.

517 Once again, popular culture (by)products often look like scraps from a Discovery Channel cutting room session than anything else. The martial art of Kalaripayattu -possibly the oldest martial art in existence- from Southern India in fact involves some kind of exercises to perform while blindfolded.

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carbon-copied versions of the same old plots in the sole attempt to provide the public with an irresistible commodity that -to them- translates into all too tangible box-office, cash-counter or ballot-box results that have nothing in common with the scholar's byzantine lucubration over fine points of doctrine the common man simply ignores or scorns.

It is interesting how George Lucas congratulated scholar Joseph Campbell, and credited Campbell's examination of myths as step-stone in the creation of Star Wars518. For all it's worth, even manuals advising the hopeful writer longing for success recommend to cram in as many of those 'myths' and petrified situations as possible. A professional international storyteller and an academic, Harvey519 advises hopeful storytellers that their story, whichever its magnitude, focus, genre or import might be, stands the best chances to connect with the audience if molded within the parameters of the hero's journey.

It took Darth Vader a while to recognize in Luke his son, in spite of his paranormal powers: the fact they bore the same family name just escaped him. Only later in the Japanese cartoon Great Mazinger does young Shiro Kabuto recognize in doctor Kenzo Kabuto he was living with his father he presumed dead: the fact they bore the same family name just escaped him.

The mythical script can be scrambled in all sorts of ways. 2009 book The 518 Campbell 1989:The Hero's Journey.

519 2013:Myth And The Hero's Journey.

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Lost Child Of Philomena Lee (and 2013 movie) offer a mother on a desperate search after a child the Catholic Church had snatched away from her as a single mother in Ireland decades earlier. The son is on a reverse quest as well: he's got a new name; he has become a White House politician; he's gay and dying of AIDS.

The sky is the limit, literally, when myths are involved. Even legendary captain Kirk can meet (Star Trek II, 1982) his own son, whose existence he ignored, now a top-scientist on a intergalactic quest to create life from the void. As early psychoanalysts suggested, the long lost relative is always high placed: a top-scientist (Kirk's son, and Kabuto's father); the Emperor's lieutenant (Luke's father); or a highranking politician.

What does this explain? The present writer suggests that certain myth(ologie)s -such as the quest after one's true self long-lost relatives epitomize etc- never stop paying dividends no matter how careless script-writers or editors happen to butcher them.

In both Star Wars (1977) and Great Mazinger (1974), the elusive, longlost father has changed. Both professor Kenzo Kabuto and Anakin Skywalker have been transformed into cyborgs in the aftermath of tragic incidents. Both have left their children in pursuit of higher goals; the establishment of the Empire under the sign of authoritarian peace for Darth Vader; the construction of defense mechanisms to fight the impending attack of the demonic forces of the satanic Emperor for 497

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Kabuto: originality is decidedly an elusive concept.

The famous medieval Tristan And Iseult cycle is but a clumsy salad bar of third-hand graeco-roman mythology

using the Theseus story (foreign king

exacting a tribute of youths) as a pivot around which a Medea angle (sorceresses who can heal or wound with their magic), Philoctetes (stinky wound 520), and Abelard angle (gifted teacher falling in love with female disciple) angle orbit.

It is all the more interesting as more or less direct knowledge of Greek -but even Latin for good measure- literary culture was nearly completely lost until the Renaissance and the fall of Constantinople (1453) brought about a new era of philological and literary studies. It is thus possible to argue how litterateurs in northern Europe just utilized third-hand allusions and folkloric imagery as King Arthur aptly exemplifies:

The story of love between two children, Floire and Blancheflor, enjoyed a great popularity in medieval and Renaissance Europe and versions of it survive in French, Spanish, Italian, German, Greek and Old Norse. The Old French romance Floire and Blancheflor (mid-12th Century) is often considered to be the oldest extant version of the story, although 19th and 20th century scholars of medieval literature have suggested its Germanic, Byzantine, Persian, and Arabic provenance. -...- These works are united by the theme of ‘idyllic childhood’, that is by the description of a boy and a girl who grow up together, fall in love, and after a number of trials are married 520 This mytheme recurs in the Japanese Buddhist tale of Ajase, a pseudo-Oedipal narrative. Arch-transgressor Ajase (he dethroned, imprisoned and starved his father; he also tried to kill his mother) was also beset by a skin disease that caused him to stink horribly. In the Buddhist Kokalika Sutta, a sinful monk slanders Moggallana and Sariputta in the Buddha's presence three times (=common mytheme). Stinky sores then appear all over the monk, who dies in the aftermath only to be reborn in hell.

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(Romanova 2004:1-2).

Meineck521 calls Dionysus (=son of god) “the god of arrivals� to convey how he was portrayed as 'always on the move' spreading his 'good news'. Historical figures -such as Buddhist Saint Milarepa- bestowed not only spiritual but material boons upon their arrival. Incidentally, salutations such as savior, son of god and god made manifest were commonly addressed to Hellenistic (323-30 BCE) monarchs and generals, much as they had been to Alexander. Even earlier:

Which requirements did the Messiah have to fulfil in the Jewish way of thinking? Beginning with Saul, the first king (1012 -1004 BC) Messiah (anointed one, in a closer sense: the one anointed by the Lord) had been the name of honour of all kings of Israel who did not hold the Semite title melek (=king).Messiah was more of a political term. In contrast to this, the prophets called the God sent one and herald of salvation the Prince of Freedom or Son of Man to exclude any political reference. Only in the 2nd ct BC, under the influence of the dynasty of the Hasmonaeans, and the view of the Qumran Essenes, the term Messiah is conferred to the spiritual and priestly level (priest -king). (Altinger 1995:701).

Up until recently, the Emperor of Japan was also considered divine in the Japanese mixture of traditional animism (Shintoism) and Buddhism that supplied an ideology to a world awash in animistic magic (mountains such as Fuji, groves, sea creatures...all is divine).

Still discussing 'gods of arrivals', it is known that Roman Republican

521 2005:Myth Into Politics.

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authorities met Bacchic mysteries with sheer opposition (the Bacchanalia affair of 186 BCE522) as harbingers of moral degeneration and anti-national weakness. The savior-hero has also often been persecuted since his childhood, and has thus to venture outside his homeland: Abraham, Krishna, Jesus, Perseus. Some wrap the same

high

points

around

historical

figures

such

as

Alexander

and

Charlemagne...Jewry rejected both Jesus and Mohamed as its prophets. The stories have it that Jesus died and Mohamed barely escaped.

Japanese Buddhist Saint Nichiren (1222-82) preached conversion in the perspective of an impending Mongol invasion he foretold. Ostracized, prosecuted, and barely escaping execution thanks to celestial prodigies, Nichiren was later canonized, and is hailed as founder of one Buddhist school still in existence.

Nichiren also heralded a doctrine whereby what goes between man and the divine is the physical scroll -and the sacred text it contains- of the Lotus Sutra523, much as in ancient Judaism the Torah was/is what acts as transmission belt between the human and the divine.

Since the VII Guru Har Rai (1630-61), Sikhs are expressly forbidden from altering the Sikh scripture Granth Sahib in any way. Har Rai disowned one of his sons who had modified a hymn in the Adi Granth in order to please a Muslim ruler. In Chinese Taoism, sacred calligraphy in the form of a talisman may be 522 Limoges:n.d.

523 “Passages in the Lotus and Prajnaparamita sutras stated that copying, preserving, reading, preaching, and honoring these texts would result in great merit.� (Hirakawa 1990:283).

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physically ingested (talismanic water) to heal one who consults a Taoist priest. Sikhs clinch: “the word [=hymn in the sacred book] is the guru”.

1863 British T.J. Barker painting The Secret Of England's Greatness shows Queen Victoria as she hands a Bible to an exotic, awestruck foreign Prince in a colorful attire as he bows down to her. Because he's very dark-skinned, this foreign dignitary might as well be either an Indian and/or an African nobleman as Britain scrambled for Africa on one hand, and 'pacified' India on the other. Here again, “The Secret Of England's Greatness” is supposed to rest entirely upon one book524.

Both orthodox Jews (the Aleppo Codex, X century CE) and Buddhist Mahayana scriptures several centuries older than the Aleppo Codex bless the endeavor of copying and diffusing the sacred text. Jews are supposed to inscribe the

Shema invocation on their houses' doorpost, although some Jews also put it in other places of the house on a mezuzah, a decorative, encased parchment. Vajrayana Buddhists as well may put simple or encased scrolls with invocations on doorposts and elsewhere indoor to gather blessings every time one passes under the sacred words. The sign -usually in a sacred language such as Hebrew, Sanskrit or Arabiccan be used to beautify and adorn: decorative Sanskrit in Tibet; calligraphy among the Chinese or Japanese (for example kanemochi), and verses of the Quran among 524 Victorian ethos is thoroughly preserved. Although she was the supreme ruler of a Constitutional monarchy, Victoria appears in a somewhat diminutive form, whereas Prince consort Albert (1819-1861) appears at her side as a sort of giant: gender roles are preserved as societal ethos demands.

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Muslims.

“Texts that defile the hands” are sacred Hebrew texts that require one to wash one's hands upon touching them. Jewish congregations follow the Torah with a pointer to avoid touching the holy parchment: “Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The LORD's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down, and he died there beside the ark of God”(2 Samuel 6:6-7). In ancient Japan, sacred objects were not handled or touched directly, whence the need for wrapping them up that evolved into contemporary gift-giving customs.

Gobind Singh, X and last Sikh guru passed leadership onto the XI and eternal guru in 1708: the sacred book Granth Sahib. Sikhs say that seeing the Granth Sahib is seeing the guru (=dispeller of obscurity), much as Mahayana Buddhists say that seeing the Dharma is seeing the Buddha. Sikh devotees are supposed to set a holy place apart in their homes as abode for the Granth Sahib, so that those who are unable to comply use a selection from the same as prayer book. The sacred book in gold often opens Orthodox processions; Islam always made allowances for “the people of the book”; a Bible often preceded French Protestant Huguenots in their itinerant ministry after the Reformation.

Mormon founder Smith took the concept of “religion of the book” to unprecedented new levels: he claimed to have received (and translated from ancient 502

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scripts) through divine intervention the golden plates of the Book Of Mormon, and scrolls with the Book Of Abraham. While no trace is left of the original Book Of Mormon, the (purported) Book Of Abraham was revealed to consist of conventional Egyptian papyri from the Book Of The Dead with no Hebrew connection whatsoever:

The Book of Mormon was the first book of scripture Joseph Smith produced and Mormons generally consider it the foundation scripture of their religion—Joseph’s greatest miracle. The Qur'an serves a similar purpose for Muslims. Critics of Muhammad noted that he did not perform miracles as other prophets had done.

(Harris 2007:86).

Witness reports were also filed to attest how such witnesses had indeed seen Smith's golden plates, and/or supernatural beings. Whether with their own eyes (as promoters affirm), or with “spiritual eyes” (as demoters emphasize) remains an open question in Mormonism: even some devout Mormon sources seem to have no problem with the “spiritual eyes” Smith translated the Book of Mormon professedly through. In our recent decades, most people also saw the crucified Canadian and the bayoneted babies...with their “spiritual eyes”, perhaps:”Contastemo tu, ou terei sonhado que o contavas? [Did you tell me that for real, or was it in a dream that you told me about that?]” .

Another fabulous mister Smith was purportedly spotted at several places in north-eastern Piedmont (Italy) in summer 2014525: noted Afro-American actor 525 Giornale Di Arona, August 8, 2014:39.

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Will Smith was photographed in front of landmarks here and there. Not only there are photographs to prove Smith had been at a certain place, but several people online claim to have personally interacted with him: it is all revealed to be a prank.

Just like UFOs, Elvis Presley, '...ist cabals', Men In Black and Madonnas might have, Will Smith would have appeared across Italy, with eye-witnesses and photographs to prove it: another hoax. The occasional bystander might be in a tizzy to part tomfools who deserve to be chastised or lampooned from 'authentic' eyewitnesses who deserve to act as vanguards of the party line: the liturgy looks identical.

Myth had already addressed such issues. Vishnu and Brahma quarrel over whose role is greater. At that point a fiery pillar (a symbol of Shiva, yet to appear) manifests. Brahma and Vishnu decide to seek the end of the lingam: Brahma flies higher and higher, and Vishnu digs deeper and deeper, but no end is in sight.

Brahma then cheats, invokes a divine flower as his witness to attest he has, indeed, reached the pillar's pinnacle. Vishnu humbly accepts defeat, but an angry Shiva materializes. The destroyer humbles and chastises Brahma and his minion: no temple would be dedicated – and no devotion paid- to Brahma ever; he also rewards Vishnu's good will with temples and worship to come.

Alternatively, some contend much of the same uncritical worship is paid to the British or U.S Constitution as 'sacred' system that enshrine quintessential 504

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principles of mystical origin and power (check and balances in the UK; the sovereign individual citizen in the U.S ). Former U.S Chief Justice W. Burger exhorted U.S citizens in 1987 to exalt the U.S Constitution in terms very similar to instructions to Jews regarding the Torah imparted in Deuteronomy. In our time and age, the holy writ might be some gnostic passage from xeroxed '...ist censorship' and/or 'just war' flapdoodle.

Such cases are plentiful. Mythical Chinese founder Fu-Xi (XXIX century BCE) as culture hero gave the primeval Chinese instructions about sustenance methods -fishing, cooking, hunting...-, folkways (institutionalized marriage and sacrifices), and he also devised a primitive alphabet that became the quintessential divination tool as I-Ching. On the cusp between legend and history, the Korean alphabet Hangul was allegedly devised in 1443 CE under visionary monarch Sejong the Great. Hangul underwent all the persecutions, reversals of fortune and ultimate triumph as all savior-heroes.

If Mormons consider their sages as the Saints of the latter days, Nichiren, too, is considered -by some of his followers- as the Buddha of the latter days. The figure of the prophet of doom is instrumental to soteriology, whether spiritual or mundane:”Muhammad is described as “a warner” (38:4), and the Quran as a book sent down “to warn the evildoers” (46:12).”526.

526 Prothero 2010:24.

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The core parable in Mahayana Buddhist Lotus Sutra is that of the house on fire: a father tries to get his many unaware children to leave the house that's on fire. His call goes initially unanswered because they're absorbed in their play, so the father tells a lie to insure his children get out as fast as possible, which they finally do. Who's the father? An elated minuteman peddling war propaganda? A patriotic hooligan? A meek redeemer? It's hard to tell the difference.

Many savior-heroes follow Machiavelli's suggestion, and try to branch their new gospel onto existing religions they want to avowedly 'reform': Brahma asks Gautama Buddha to teach; Joseph Smith incorporates the Christian Bible into Mormonism; Jesus is often hailed as son of David; Islam recognizes Jesus and the Hebrew tradition as anticipatory of Mohamed's ultimate ministry, whose revelation repeats -albeit in a perfect way according to god's will- that once delivered to Jews and Christians.

XIX century Japanese religion Tenrikyo saw a prophetess who introduced the cult of “god the parent�. In a revelation, this father-god figure (

Tenri-O-No-Mikoto ) branched the new religion onto traditional Japanese Shinto lore by claiming that he, the father-god of newly established Tenrikyo, had begotten the founding deities of Japanese Shinto (Izanami and Izanagi) in a time before time. Sai Baba may be seen as Krishna's reincarnation; Krishna compels the people of Braj to give up Indra's worship...

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John the Baptist might have been believed to be the messiah 527 as chief of one of the competing Hebrew sects in those ebullient times. Rising Christianity may have been led to incorporate a tradition that seemed important in those times and places by demoting a competing messiah to an ancillary role.

John the Baptist was construed to be related to Jesus, whether as a “cousin” or just a “relative” (Luke 1:36):”The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. -...-When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. ” (John 1:35-7). John the Just, Jesus' brother, might also be an(other) gnostic “teacher of righteousness” of Dead Sea Scrolls fame, whom Christianity co-opted into an ancillary position. Popular Hindu gods such as Ganesha easily transited to Theravada Buddhism in ancillary capacity (Vinayaka). Buddhists would do the same in Tibet at a later time by demoting Bon deities to ancillary roles in the new religion. Small groups -such as the Mandaeans- revere John the Baptist the most still today.

527 “The child is placed in the womb of Elizabeth, and John [the Baptist] is born. After the birth of John, Magi (wise men) from the east appear to pay homage to the Messiah, whose star they saw. The angel warns Zechariah of the plan of Herod to kill the child. The new -born John the Baptist is handed over to the White Mountain (Parwan) in a mysterious fashion. He only returns on a splendid cloud to Jerusalem to commence his mission at the age of twenty-two. -...-We thus perceive a partial transfer of the birth -story of John the Baptist to Jesus in the gospels of Matthew and Luke.-...-From all this knowledge, they inferred the point of time of the expected Messiah. The Messiah of the Essenes was a priestly figure who would have to experience affliction and humiliation. Other religious groups saw the king in the Messiah, coupled with liberation and political grandeur for the people of Israel. The Priestly Messiah, thereby, had to be the offspring of an old honoured family of priests descending in direct line from Levi, while the Royal Messiah was expected from the House of David.

-...-The by far greater number of his disciples, however, continued to see the messiah in John the Baptist, and, historically proved, existed as a religious community, respectively sect, until the 2nd ct AD. In this context, the already mentioned existence of the Sect of the Mandaeans has to be referred to that has its foundations in the disciples of John.” (Altinger 1995:17-19,81).

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At times the old establishment may try to reabsorb the heresy, for example considering Gautama Buddha as Vishnu's incarnation, or Jesus as an (Hebrew) sage, possibly linked to the rabbinical tradition ( Babylonian Talmud) as Yehoshua Ben Pandira (Panthera, Pandera...528), a disciple of noted Rabbi Ben Perachia who started his ministry in 154 BCE.

According to some sources 529, Ben Pandira's life in Talmudic literature (Babylonian, not Jerusalem Talmud) shares some high points with that of the conventional Jesus, notably ministry, a violent death at the hands of a Jewish mob under Queen Alexandra530 in 70 BCE, and an earlier flight to Egypt. In yet another Talmudic passage (and in Epiphanius, 315-403 CE), some Jesus (Yeshu; Yeshu the Nasarean (Nazorian)...) is stoned and hanged on Passover eve because he was a sorcerer under King Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 BCE).

Many other notable Jesuses (prophets, agitators, priests...) also populate the same historical period, such as Jesus Ben Stada, a II century agitator; or Jesus Ben Thebuth, a Temple priest who surrendered to the Romans in 69 CE during the war. Other sources may criticize and/or discard any or all the above:

The name Jesus was very common in this part of the world at this time. For example, there are twenty-one people named Jesus in one 528 Some claim Pandira (Panthera, Pandera) means “virgin”, hence “son of a virgin” (Ben Pandira) just as the lore claims about Jesus.

529 For a comprehensive summary, see Zuersher 2014:268ss.

530 A pivotal figure in Hebrew history. After her death, the Hasmonean Kingdom disintegrated in a civil war between her sons, whereas the Romans conquered Judea: the end of Hebrew sovereignty in the Middle East.

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history by Josephus, written in the first century CE, and one scholar has noted an ancient letter that was written by a man named Jesus to a man named Jesus about a man named Jesus. (Johnston 2010:55).

As Burton Mack has suggested, the political element in the Passion seems likely to represent an anachronistic confusion by Mark with the events leading to the fall of Jerusalem. When the Olivet Discourse warns its readers not to take any of a number of false messiahs and Zealot agitators for their own Jesus, does this not imply Christians were receiving the news of Theudas or Jesus ben Ananias or John of Gischala as news of Jesus’ return? You don’t tell people not to do what they’re already not doing. If they were making such confusions, it would be inevitable that the events attached to them would find their way back into the telling of the Jesus story. It looks like this very thing happened. One notices how closely the interrogation and flogging of Jesus ben-Ananias, in trouble for predicting the destruction of the temple, parallels that of Jesus, ostensibly 40 years previously. We notice how Simon bar Gioras was welcomed into the temple with palm branches to cleanse the sacred precinct from the “thieves” who infested it, Zealots under John of Gischala. Uh-oh.

Suppose these signs of historical-political verisimilitude are interlopers in the gospels from the following generation. (Price no date:no page).

Much as early Christians co-opted the figure of John the Baptist, possibly another originally independent messianic figure, so Jesus is also mentioned in nine chapters in the Quran (Islam's holy book) as messenger of god: 154 times, more than Mohamed himself as some say.

The apocryphal531 Arabic Infancy Gospel Of The Savior (VI century CE) explicitly links Jesus to the Zoroastrian tradition of Persia. The Magi who worship Jesus are in fact – at Ravenna (mosaic at Sant'Apollinare Nuovo) – garbed in Persian fashion, with Phrygian caps linked to Mithras: 531 The term simply means this -and many other gospels- are not received as part of the official tradition of Christianity in one or more denominations. There are gospels apocryphal in one tradition but accepted in another.

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7. And it came to pass, when the Lord Jesus was born at Bethlehem of Judaea, in the time of King Herod, behold, magi came from the east to Jerusalem, as Zeraduscht [Zarathustra] had predicted; and there were with them gifts, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. (Arabic Infancy... no date no page).

Echoes of the Arabic Infancy Gospel may also be found in the Quran (Surah 19:2934).

Some traditions argue that Jain Saint Mahavira and Gautama Buddha – or Confucius and Lao-Tzu- interacted in some way or another. For example Buddha may be seen as Mahavira's disciple; Confucius as Lao-Tzu's disciple; Jesus bows down to John the Baptist's spiritual authority; Zalmoxis was Pythagoras' slave.

Alternatively, Buddha is said to be either Lao-Tzu in disguise, or an incarnation of Vishnu. The human mind thus reflects the collective unconscious' proclivity to endlessly mill multifarious clones and variations of the same gnostic package:

As this observation implies, the [chief Taoist text] Zhuangzi is a mischievous text. Its reputed author has been described as “a mystic, a satirist, a nihilist, a hedonist, a romantic,” and “a profound and brilliant jester who demolishes our confounded seriousness.”

The words attributed to him run in all these directions, often at the same time. (Prothero 2010:100).

Caesar Augustus is no different. Dio Cassius 532 narrates how Augustus' mother Attia claimed her child had been fathered on her by Apollo: she was convinced to have had -just like Alexander's mother- intercourse with a snake.

Senator Figulus, a noted soothsayer (=the magus/wise man connection), prophesied 532 History Of Rome 45, 1.2-2.4

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to Augustus' father Octavius how the child was fated to rule supreme one day.

Seized by fear, Octavius -an Herod or Nimrod ersatz- contemplated killing the child (threat upon divine child mytheme), but Figulus dissuaded him.

According to Suetonius533, the Roman Senate proposed to kill any boy born around the time of Octavian's birth because prodigies announced the birth of the future king of Rome. The decree was not put into effect because Senators with pregnant wives hoped the prophecy foretold an imperial destiny for their own son soon to be born. Further prodigies - and mastery over natural elements just as it would be the case with Jesus- confirmed Octavian's imperial destiny.

Although in our time such explosive critique against whichever established socio-political order is typically equated with left-wing, pseudo-Marxist advocacy -nowadays simmering in the stale sauce war propagandists cooked -, leaders had been performing the exercise since time immemorial:

In this description of four castes, there is no intervention of God. The emergence of four groups was the result of the natural process that the people freely selected their professions in the society. God had no role to take on it. Therefore, the theory of varnadharma and svadharma also had no place to stay on it. (Abeynayake, ME6208 no date: Buddhist Critique Of The Social And Religious Institutions).

According to Indian thought in 6th century BC, if one wanted to be rich, he had to be Brahmin or Khattiya. Caste determined everything.

But the Buddha says that not the caste, but the economical condition determines the destiny. -...- According to the [Kutadanta] sutta, the 533 The Twelve Caesars, Augustus, 94:1-11.

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root of problems in any country is the problem of food. It is the duty of the government to provide food for workers and farmers. The reason is that workers and farmers constitute the major part of the citizens. They are revolutionary class. If the government gives them food, then the major problem will be solved.(Guang Xing, ME6208:Buddhist Attitude Towards Material Wealth).

This is what Buddhism did to the established socio-economic order of India. Joseph Smith, too, was busy both scandalizing the mainstream (for example polygamy ), and reforming it (for example his bid to become President). Jesus, too, followed suit:

Command the Israelites to send away from the camp anyone who has a defiling skin disease or a discharge of any kind, or who is ceremonially unclean because of a dead body (Numbers 5:2).

While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" And immediately the leprosy left him.

(Luke 5:12-3). the psychopath’s devil-maycare attitude toward social conventions.

(Dutton 2012:132).

Savior-hero-founders in fact turn the received socio-political order upside down:”things that give deep passions are your sword; rules and regulations have no meaning anymore ”534. Gautama Buddha explained the true “aryan” 535 was not536 the member of Hindu upper classes claiming unbroken lineages from 534 Lyrics from Rocky IV (1985) soundtrack Hearts On Fire.

535 “Whoever thus aspires, labours, battles, travels, ascends the hill of being is the Aryan (ārya, arya,ari with the various senses, to toil, to fight, to climb or rise, to travel, to prepare the sacrifice)” (Yatsenko, MAISI002 no date :lecture 4:9) 536 In perfect Hindu style, Gautama Buddha is described thus, however:”The ascetic Gotama is well-born on both

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mythological heroic ancestors, but the religious practitioner starting from an intermediate state of development.

Confucius explained the true “gentleman” (a term reserved for the nobility of the various Chinese States) was he who followed the moral code Confucius had expounded. Jesus followed in the same steps, for the ultimate Kingdom would belong neither to Hebrew priests or zealots, nor to Graeco-Roman imperial elites, but to the scum of the Earth. Marx scorched the upper classes to the advantages of the toiling have-nots, future rulers of a world of plenty. Mussolini hailed as future master race no other than the ragged Italian masses: austerity was their birthright.

Another of human mind's irresistible proclivities is -in fact- that of projecting self-important images of itself in stern, clear-cut roles abiding by moral codes cast in stone, only to be in perpetual neurotic flight from the same thereafter as it routinely gets caught 'with the pants down'.

Oedipus (an oracle); King David of Israel (prophet Nathan 537); Set (Isis) respond to either oracles, or a fictional story by getting on their high horse spouting off judgments that are then revealed as having been leveled at themselves: Set thus admits his nephew Horus is Egypt's rightful King; Oedipus discovers his crimes sides of pure descent to the seventh generation, unbroken, of irreproachable birth. -...-He is a wanderer from a wealthy family, of great wealth and possession.” (Abhayawansa, BH6103 no date: unit 8:2-3) 537 2 Samuel 12:1ss.

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brought a plague to Thebes; King David faces his godless behaviour:

Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: -...-Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? “ ( 2 Samuel 12:7-9) Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things (Romans 2:1) Almighties avowedly pass down divine moral codes, only for a later savior-prophet to dismantle them -in full or in part- under the sign of fighting prejudices, spreading forgiveness and reconciliation etc. Passing judgments is bad on one hand; on the other, apocalyptic judgment days of fire and brimstone are a fixture of religious projections...

Drout seems to counter the present writer's argument as he writes:

Related to the ad hominem fallacy is the tu quoque fallacy, or, as we used to use it in New Jersey when I was growing up, the “so’s your mom” fallacy. An example would be “famous actor X says that population control is a good idea, but he has eleven children.” Famous actor X may be a hypocrite, but that does not address the merits of the idea of population control, whatever they may be. The tu quoque fallacy is probably the most common in all of political discourse. It is worth noting that on the one hand, this is a very effective way of criticizing someone, because very few people (and even few politicians) manage to live up to every ideal they preach. The saying is that hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, and it is worth thinking of this when considering whether or not to engage in the tu quoque fallacy: It gives you short-term cover, but in the long run you are not likely to convince anyone. (2006:39).

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Following the close of the 104th Congress in 1996, a startling event occurred: Fourteen incumbent senators decided not to seek reelection.

Such an exodus was unprecedented in U.S. history. In contrast, the average was five and a half per session for the years 1946 to 1994.

Even more distressing, the voluntarily retiring senators were a particularly distinguished and respected group, widely agreed to be exceptionally thoughtful, fair, and moderate. In his introduction to a collection of farewell essays by thirteen of them, Norman Ornstein singles out a theme running through their remarks that also caught my attention: Many of the outgoing senators "lament the increasing level of vituperation and partisanship." Politics is partisan and oppositional by nature. Political parties vie for power and votes.

Legislation is proposed and either supported or opposed. Bills, like candidates, are either voted in or voted down. (Tannen 1998:96).

Drout's objection is not tenable. According to the same, people are a bunch of underachieving, lunatic hypocrites anyways, who love to stuff their big mouths with bombastic claims nobody really takes seriously in a sort of role-play where condescending adults try to take children's flights of fancy seriously.

If the vastest majority of people -if not everybody- cannot live up to (respect, abide by...) the standards of whichever great idea, moral code in stone or the like they embrace, what sense does it make to discuss it after all? It amounts to another sensational documentary detailing terra-forming on Mars as a feasible enterprise to be started soon; Drout's approach is pretty much equivalent. It is not about aiming high to achieve less: it is sheer nonsense.

As far as politicians go, cases lifted from everyday press in various countries show that interactions look more like a tragicomic operetta or a melodramatic pantomime as far as the public can see; or the unwritten chapter of a 515

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mafioso novel if one considers what goes on behind the curtain:

In mid-November assistant FBI director William C. Sullivan instructed the lab to compile a tape of "highlights" of King's sexual adventures collected over the preceding ten months.

Sullivan then added an anonymous letter. An agent took the tape and letter to Miami and mailed the package to King at SCLC headquarters in Atlanta. The staff assumed that it was a recording of one of his speeches and saved it for Caretta, his wife, who collected them. She picked it up after New Year's and played it. As Garrow wrote, she was "surprised and shocked" and immediately turned it over to her husband. The letter was both insulting and threatening. (Bernstein 1996:217).

Tannen, however, argues that:

What's wrong with this picture? In doing public service, a person makes a personal sacrifice to contribute to society. The notion that people must pay a high price for the privilege of making sacrifices makes no sense. But today the assumption is that people seek public office not to serve their country but to advance their careers and enhance their personal power. Looked at that way, it makes sense: You have to be willing to pay a price to enjoy the power and glory.

(1998:82).

Just in case more proof was needed, former Italian minister -and eminent executive of Italian right-wing party PDL- directed to some party officials what many perceived as a threat, whereby Scajola mentioned he knew so much about those officials as former head of a secret service State committee 538. The heated reunion apparently ended as Scajola traded with attending party officials reminiscences of the various scandals each had been embroiled in over the years.

538 Zunino 2012: no page.

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Broadly put, all prophets, saviors and founders challenge, undermine and ridicule the established order from four different angles:

1. Authority/tradition. They deny some -or all- validity to established authority.

They denounce the tradition upon which authority rests as an ideological masquerade. Buddhism and Jainism defy the laws of Manu 539 in India; Christianity challenges Hebrew laws; Mohamed overthrows idol worshipers at Mecca...

2. Rituals. For example they expose the dominant ritual system as ineffective, superstitious or blasphemous.

3. Philosophy and the essence of the mysterious. They expose the ultimate concerns of dominant philosophical systems as irrelevant: goalposts shift regarding the nature of mysteries.

4. The nature of grace. They deeply re-wire the circuits that supposedly connect the human and super-human realm.

Scandalizing the mainstream hasn't necessarily to take on an exceedingly dramatic tone; the savior-hero (of the moment, of course) hasn't necessarily to be violently mobbed and/or torn apart in agony. Porky's II (1983) lampoons a brash, hypocritical and deep down tainted fundamentalist Christian pastor in a comedy 539 In Sanskrit “The Man”. Even Jesus (for example Mark 2:10;Matthew 26:2;) -and before him Hebrew prophets such as Ezekiel (Ezekiel 2:1)- were called -or addressed as- “son of man”.

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movie that -once again- is a poor excuse for a barely disguised political manifesto:

People tell stories for the same reasons they share word of mouth.

Some narratives are about Social Currency. -...- Other stories are driven by (high arousal) Emotion. -...- People are so used to telling stories that they create narratives even when they don’t actually need to. -...-But this mostly informational content often ends up being embedded in a background narrative. -...-First, it’s hard to disagree with a specific thing that happened to a specific person.

What is someone going to tell my cousin, “No, I think you’re lying, there’s no way Lands’ End would be that nice”? Hardly. Second, we’re so caught up in the drama of what happened to so-and-so that we don’t have the cognitive resources to disagree. We’re so engaged in following the narrative that we don’t have the energy to question what is being said. So in the end, we’re much more likely to be persuaded. People don’t like to seem like walking advertisements.

(Berger 2013:94,96-7).

When we pity, we are, at least fur the moment, defenseless, and like so many of the other essentially positive human characteristics that bind us together in groups-social and professional roles, sexual bonds, regard for the compassionate and the creative, respect for our leaders-our emotional vulnerability, when we pity is used against us by those who have no conscience. Most of us would agree that giving special dispensation to someone who is incapable of feeling guilt is a bad idea, but often, when an individual presents himself as pathetic, we do so nonetheless. (Stout 2005:108, emphasis added).

Far from being uniform, empathy is schizophrenic. There are two distinct varieties: hot and cold. -...-But why? Greene believes he has the answer—and that it’s got to do with different climatic regions in the brain. -...-But in a psychopath, I would see only darkness.

The cavernous neural casino would be boarded up and derelict.

And the crossing from impersonal to personal [dilemmas] would pass without any incident. (Dutton 2012:21-2).

In 1984 Footloose -one of the slew of movies axed around the topic- an inner-city Chicago guy (=the outsider as savior motif) moves to a Midwest, puritan

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U.S town. A(nother) brash pastor has put a ban on dancing, which the guy sets about to defy electrifying other youngsters on the dance floor.

If dancing serves as an excuse to lampoon U.S conservatives and religionists, 1993 Swing Kids sees the same story-line – and related salad bar of ethical dilemmas- recycled to expose the NSDAP regime. Chocolat (2000) sees the usual, mimeographed story with a twist: instead of activist clods, this time a single mother settles in rural France (=the hero comes from afar and she's an outcast) to open a chocolate parlor, thus throwing the gauntlet to austere puritans a splenetic, embittered nobleman leads: readers can guess how it all ends. The movie supposedly filmed in a fairy tale France suspended in time was in reality filmed in the UK.

Religions and cults also assemble a salad bar of beliefs in an attempt to cater to different constituencies. The same can be argued about maltreated yet forgiving savior-gods, prophets walking on water 540 and resurrecting the dead, miraculous births, unnatural prodigies, mother goddesses with a child who dies but ultimately resurrects at springtime etc.

In a version of the tale, Red Riding Hood finally escapes from the wolf crossing a river (the walking on water and river motif) atop a sheet; Christian Saint Giulio in the IV century allegedly crossed the lago d'Orta (Orta lake, Northern Italy) 540 Italian conjurer Alfredo Barrago was in fact videotaped walking on water while a third party -up to his waist in water- walked around him to show there were no platform and no wires. Old footage still available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHLTSqNHBo0

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atop his mantle: what San Miro and San Gerardo did at other locations; future leader of Communist North-Korea, Kim Il-Sung was sung to have sailed across a river atop a tree leaf during his swashbuckling adventures as war hero. After an unsuccessful audience with Chinese Emperor Liang Wudi (502-49 CE), Buddhist patriarch Bodhidharma crossed the Yangzi river atop a reed:”About three o'clock in the morning Jesus came toward them, walking on the water. ” (Matthew 14:25).

The description of an advanced pre-columbian Christian civilization recurs for example both in Francis Bacon's XVII century utopia New Atlantis, and in Smith's Mormonism. Hale541 suggests that such preposterous legends flared up in the XVIII century. As the United States originally started their expansion, seizing land from American-Indians was best justified by portraying them as “uncivilized savages” with no link to various remains, burial grounds and artifacts that were being observed.

Civilisational vestiges of Native-American cultures were thus interpreted as remains of mythical predecessors (Israel's lost tribes, Egyptians, Phoenicians...).

Oden542 also suggests Puritans drew ample parallels between U.S founding figures and ancient Israel: Washington as the “American Moses”; the Atlantic as another Red Sea, and Queen Elizabeth as another Pharaoh. Native Americans, then, could only play the role of the sinful Canaanites, who deserved to be dispossessed and 541 2009:lecture 1.

542 1998: Bringing It All Back Home.

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killed:”the need to make the experience of the past into the present”; “ancient events continually held up for emulation”.

In 1823, E. Smith (U.S pastor, not a relative of the Mormon founder) published A View Of The Hebrews, whereby he -much as theosophists, Freemasons and other occultists in other directions- argued that American-Indians descended from Israel's lost tribes, in turn splintering into warring factions (=good versus evil=great war mytheme) on American soil, just as the later Book Of Mormon would explain. The savage faction would eventually obliterate the civilized faction, just as theosophical doctrines preach, and just like the storyline of H.G. Wells 1895 The

Time Machine goes as he describes a dystopia from a far-flung future.

In Wells' story, both the meek Eloi and the threatening Morlocks are but the two sides of a coin predicating decadence and vileness; readers can safely evince the collapse of human civilization to have been rather swift. Consequently, in the book Eloi are always described in positive and condescending terms, whereas Morlocks -brutish cannibals who devour the Eloi- are characterized in terms emphasizing their grotesque looks, their criminal intentions, and how repulsive they are543; both seem to be equally denied the full status of persons. For once, tomorrow's utopia is not the paradise of today's visionary.

543 Here Wells employs a device typical of ancient Greek drama, kalokagathia, that is outward appearance reflects one's moral, intimate world. The Eloi are generally portrayed as diminutive, friendly, pleasant to look at and engaged in childish and Arcadian behaviour; The Morlock are slimy, treacherous, unpleasant to look at, busy scheming in the dark of their caves.

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Archeological vestiges of Israel's lost tribes is not the only thing coming back. The 'comeback'/second birth motif is very handy:”This belief is usually held concerning some god or demi-god, whose second coming is awaited by the faithful.

It is found in most parts of the world, and is not peculiar to any one of the great religions”544.

Arthur -for one- was hailed as “once and future King”; a parliamentary decree named deceased North-Korean Communist leader Kim Il-Sung “eternal president”. Italian Lega Nord leader Bossi, in spite of numerous financial and embezzlment scandals pending in court, is named Presidente a vita (President for life) in June 2015. During WWII, both Fascist authorities and Douglas MacArthur pledged they would return to the territories the enemy had seized. At Ise (Japanese Shinto sanctuary) main temples and religious objects are remade and installed (Shikinen Sengu) at a slightly different location every 20 years.

Isn't the famous Terminator punchline “ I will be back”?

The folk tales commonly support or supplant this theme of the exile with that of the despised one, or the handicapped: the abused youngest son or daughter, the orphan, stepchild, ugly duckling, or the squire of low degree. (Campbell 1949:301).

The psychological "gift" or appeal of the Ugly Duckling story is that it reflects a deep yearning we all feel from time to time: If only they knew how good or how smart I am deep inside, if only they understood the real me, I' d be accepted, promoted, loved, etc.

544 Thompson 1977:264.

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(Mark&Pearson 2001:295).

In some cases, child(ren) hated, despised or abandoned by their parents come back with a vengeance. Kronos barely escapes death at the hands of his father Ouranos; the mythical protector of Japanese fishermen; Nyatri Tsenpo is abandoned because he is ugly: he finally establishes a reign in Tibet.

Alternatively, the birth of the savior/hero can fulfill a wondrous destiny: Jesus ( for example John 10:36545 ), St. Paul (Galatians 1:15546), prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:5547), Isaiah (Isaiah 49:5548) and many others emphatically announce how the almighty had set them apart even before birth.

Let's just include Zoroaster (the mythical founder of possibly the oldest Indo-european religion ):

This was the first of a number of times that Zoroaster saw Ahura Mazda in vision, or felt conscious of his presence, or heard his words calling him to his service, a summons which he whole-heartedly obeyed . 'For this' (he declares) 'I was set apart as yours from the beginning' (Y 44. I I). (Boyce 1979:19).

I was formed long ages ago, at the very beginning, when the world came to be. (Proverbs 8:23).

Gautama Buddha, too, was set apart as Buddha Vipankara had -in a remote, bygone 545 “what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, 'I am God's Son'?”.

546 “But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. Then it pleased him”.

547 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations ”.

548 “And now the LORD says-- he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD and my God has been my strength ”.

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age- predicted the future enlightenment of a person -the future Siddhartha- going under different names.

Perhaps someone like mythicist Jordan Maxwell might satisfy the contemporary taste better, for he as well claimed divine beings -aliens from the Pleiades- had contacted him to inform him he had been set apart ages earlier in order for him to serve them as mouthpiece for some higher purpose, possibly a world government or new world order scheme of one sort or another. Mythicist David Icke also indirectly refers to himself as a sort of Christ fit for the media age.

The narrative comes with all bells and whistles one might expect. Along with positive psychologists (=be authentic and 'things shall start happening to you'), Maxwell enters into a sort of relationship similar to biblical ones with his alleged extraterrestrial grantors:”And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. ” (Philippians 4:19); “The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. ” (Psalm 23:1). If Jesus called upon disciples to “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ” (Matthew 11:29), Maxwell becomes a disciple of the extraterrestrials.

In Argentina, more or less talented impersonators (Gardelitos) go around as living images of tango superstar Carlos Gardel (1890-1935) who -they claim in some cases- called upon them to follow his path:”To this you were called, because 524

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Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. ” (1 Peter 2:21).

Popular culture is -again- never far behind. Irene Cara's soundtrack for box-office hit movie Fame (1980), recites:”You ain't seen the best of me yet -...- I'm gonna live forever. I'm gonna learn how to fly -...-I feel it coming together. People will see me and cry -...-I'm gonna make it to heaven Light up the sky like a flame -...-Remember my name”.

Semi-literate vagrants and stoned groupies are not the only possible targets. (German born) Tibetan Buddhist monastic Kelsang Wangmo, billed as the first woman to receive a Geshe549 degree, claims she burst in tears of joy when she was finally able to approach the Dalai Lama.

Of course, Fame was about juveniles wanting to take the world of entertainment by storm with songs, acting and dance steps. Yet, the same song could describe Rambo, Ringo, Ulysses, Hercules; Jordan Maxwell, David Icke and their extraterrestrial cabals; pencil-necked sweat-hogs, and the 'mind magic' they just learnt at that posh positive psychology seminar...one and the same.

In one instance, Maxwell claims he was introduced to this extraterrestrial leader by whom he characterizes as a charming little girl he met in a

549 Rough equivalent to a doctorate of divinity in the Tibetan monastic tradition.

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restaurant on one occasion; in another instance, the girl becomes a girlfriend of his ( no longer a child but about his age, possibly a romantic interest) he was seeing regularly for some time before she -and her intergalactic family- disappeared into thin air: inconsequential notes for inconsistent stories to sell to cable TV producers.

Maxwell's alien cabals may merge with David Icke's pastel-colored vibrational theories axed around cosmic rays -the theosophical doppelgaenger of deep space radiations-, ascended masters, new ages and world orders. Ruminating about possible world orders is not exclusive to our day's westernized I.T. society, for

Her followers danced and sang, spoke in tongues, and waited for Mansren, an old man who had long ago captured the Morning Star and been given magical powers. He had sloughed off diseased skin, become new, and, in the company of a young wife and miracle childextnote, created the lands of Papua. His return would herald the new age. From the 1860s, stories about Mansren and his cargo were known to European missionaries. -...- Angganita continued the contests. She was arrested by Dutch officials in 1942. but both she and her successor Stephen Simopyaref had reasons to be optimistic: Japanese forces landed, announcing a new Asian empire. As they pushed out the Dutch, it appeared Mansren had returned. The excitement did not last long. Angganita was taken away by the Japanese, and colonial exactions continued, worse than ever.

Simopyaref organized warriors to liberate the prophetess, and to drive away all foreigners. His army united as Koren, the new order, under the sign of the Morning Starextnote. (Matsuda 2012: 293-4, emphasis added) e xtnote Very similar to the St.Joseph, St.Mary and baby Jesus imagery. (note of this writer). e xtnote It is not surprising to find Jesus and Horus (“O Morning Star, Horus of the Duat, divine falcon ”) at times associated with the morning star imagery. “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this message for the churches. I am both the source of David and the heir to his throne. I am the bright morning star. ” ( Revelation 22:16). Mahayana lore has it that even Gautama Buddha saw the morning star just before his enlightenment.

Japanese Shingon Buddhism also practices “the morning star meditation” to commemorate the mystical union with the universe Buddha had experienced. (note of this writer).

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Setting aside mountebanks and TV personalities, the newly established religion of Cao Dai (formally established in 1926) presents in fact another jumble of

Belle Epoque commonplace motifs, and heavy theosophical influences the likes of Icke, Maxwell etc recycle as well.

Cao Dai's spiritual covenant-signers include French writer/reformer V.Hugo and Chinese revolutionary and reformer Sun Yat-Sen. Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Jesus, Joan of Arc, Tolstoy, C.Flammarion. Mythical founders, and a slew of 'great men' from history, complete the syncretic pantheon of a religion presenting a hierarchy molded upon the Catholic one.

Masonic influences, seances and spirit-mediumship are present as a way to gather revelations and messages from god: Cao Dai's founders all dabbled in the occult. Cao Dai presents a pantheon headed by “god the father”, “the holy mother” and a series of “heavenly beings” under the motto that all religions share the same principles and origins. Between 2 to 6 million people worldwide adhere to Cao Dai.

It is not a matter of personal opinion how successful the motif/cliche of 'the rejected/persecuted kind savior who willingly dies for us' might be. It is enough to ponder it has been applied to all sorts of situations since time immemorial.

Muslim Sufi mystic Hallaj was tortured and crucified in 922 CE for preaching to be one with god, but -so goes the account- he remained calm and forgave his tormentors. Nationalist or religionist heroes die at the hands of Social-Communist 527

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regimes; lefty resisters die at the hands of Fascist regimes: one and the same.

Naturally -as it is typical in these cases- a way is to simply understand Hallaj was one with god not because of his preeminent status, but because the scriptures said only god is entitled to true existence and all things just reflect this; it is just another rendition of primeval Hindu anatman, on pair with 'the 99 names of god' (108 or 1000 names as in Hindu tradition) and other religious trappings.

As many other meek saviors (Orpheus, Jesus...) did, Hallaj preached a doctrine without class barriers, open to all, traveled to spread the good news, and was eventually killed. All in all, Socrates -whom all consider a major philosopher, and many the founder of the western philosophical tradition- went through the high points of the life of the hero-founder (an oracle's prophecies, ministry, reversal of fortune, unjust death, eternal fame etc). Musonius Rufus -whom many considered the Roman Socrates -whose life is shrouded in mystery 550- also went through the high points.

Plato (in the Gorgias) advised men who practice virtue to take whatever emotional or physical abuse might come their way without fear, much as Gautama Buddha (in the Dhammapada) does551: the resilience of positive psychologists

550 As with most of these characters, different sources emphasize different trajectories their life would have followed; as a result, some high points may be present or missing according to individual instances.

551 “He who without resentment endures abuse, beating and punishment; whose power, real might, is patience — him do I call a holy man. ”

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becomes Hebrew lore's turning of the other cheek 552; or Athena's advice to Ulysses:”No, you must suffer in silence, and take a beating. ”.

Dio (40-120 CE) described the philosopher in a way that much resembles the meek savior-hero:

But to find a man who in plain terms and without guile speaks his mind with frankness, and neither for the sake of reputation nor for gain makes false pretensions, but out of good will and concern for his fellow-men stands ready, if need be, to submit to ridicule and to the disorder and the uproar of the mob — to find such a man as that is not easy, but rather the good fortune of a very lucky city, so great is the dearth of noble, independent souls and such the abundance of toadies, mountebanks, and sophists. (Discourses, 32, no date: no page).

Therefore this is what the LORD God Almighty says: "Because the people have spoken these words, I will make my words in your mouth a fire and these people the wood it consumes. (Jeremiah 5:14).

People pursuing the yoga -from the root that means “to yoke together”, akin to Latin religio, religare, to give overall sense to one's life- of Aurobindo 553, the 552 “If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. ” (Luke 6:29). “Let them turn the other cheek to those who strike them and accept the insults of their enemies. ” (Lamentations 3:30).

553 It is not difficult to superpose Aurobindo's extensive and deep thought with the diverse Victorian primordial soup made of theosophy, occultism, world government, spiritual and physical breakthroughs supposedly ascended masters had heralded, which -according to various hierarchies- include even notable spiritual figures of the philosophical and religious lore alike such as Hesiod, Plato, Jesus, Maitreya, Rakoczy (Francis Bacon as ascended master) often dubbed Saint Germain, and Aurobindo according to his circle:“Henry Olcott, cofounder with Helena Blavatsky of the Theosophical Society, constructed such a lineage in his first presidential address, in which he referred to Albertus Magnus, Alfarabi, Roger Bacon, Cagliostro, Pico della Mirandola, Robert Fludd, Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa, Henry More, the Chaldeans, kabbalists, Egyptians, hermeticists, alchemists and rosicrucians.” (Hammer 2004:86). Conflicting forces were at work among theosophists and Freemasons holding otherwise similar beliefs. Aurobindo retreated under French tutelage at Pondicherry incidentally a renowned centre of international Freemasonry since the late XVIII century-, whereas Blavatsky allegedly harbored anti-French sentiments. Rudolf Steiner, a prominent Theosophist, left the Society to band a new one (Anthroposophical Society) when it was announced Indian J.Krishnamurti had been selected as living god. While the departure of Steiner and other German Theosophists signalled racialist preoccupations, Steiner ran into conflict with NSDAP over his anti-nationalism. Albert Pike (1809-91), U.S lawyer, Confederate

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Indian activist and philosopher devotees regard as prophet (seer etc), are thus advised:”If you can accept the ideal whole-heartedly, face all the difficulties, leave the past and its ties behind you and are ready to give up everything and risk everything for this divine possibility, then only can you hope to discover by experience the Truth behind it. ”554.

the martyr was the quintessential Christian preacher, uniquely able, in his or her complete sacrifice of flesh to the Word, to serve as the medium of what might be called divine ventriloquism. The martyr's gift of endurance in the face of death was accompanied by a gift of speech: that of delivering words sent by the Spirit of the Father.-...- I have argued elsewhere that in the period before the conversion of Constantine, Christian writers made imaginative use of the conventions of Roman forensic practice to describe and interpret the seemingly miraculous fortitude of the martyrs as a guarantee of the truth of their belief The martyr's willingness - and ability - to die an unflinching death for Christian conviction was offered as proof that Christian belief was founded in an incontestable reality -...-. After Constantine's conversion, martyr narratives continued to be produced despite the end of persecution.(Cooper n.d:22-4, emphasis added).

In 1991 FBI director William Sessions announced that "The implementation of the hate-crimes program will continue to be a top priority of the FBI." However, Sessions also commented that while there appeared to be an increase in hate crimes, the rise may be due partly to required reporting. (Wilcox 1994:21).

But in the face of these obstacles, blows, intrigues and persecutions, assaulting us from every direction, having this terrible feeling of General and Sovereign Grand Commander of Freemasonry, declared in 1875:” I took my obligation to White men, not Negroes. When I have to accept Negroes as brothers or leave Masonry, I shall leave it”. In German territories in the early XX century a flurry of national-popular, esoteric societies flourished adopting structures similar to conventional Freemasonry they considered under Jewish (= anti-national) control. It won't elude readers how this persistent acrimony between a string of masonic, national-popular, theosophical, and occult cabals -for those who can tell the difference- is not inconsistent. Acrimony has existed since the beginning between a string of Christian groups, sects and Churches, irrespective of the common ground core Christian beliefs represented.

554 MAISF001 no date:ch.5.

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aloneness, having nowhere to turn, opposed all this with a firm determination to die. "The death team" is the expression of these inner feelings of the legionary youth throughout the whole country, to receive death; its determination to go forward, through death.

(Codreanu555 1976: the death team, emphasis added).

Je fais don de ma personne à la France pour atténuer son malheur (I give myself to France in order to lessen its misfortune) (Marshal Petain on 17 June 1940).

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. (Matthew 16:21).

Imagine not the way is easy: the way is long. Arduous, dangerous, difficult. At every step is an ambush, at every turn a pitfall. A thousand seen or unseen enemies will start up against thee, terrible in subtlety against thy ignorance, formidable in power against thy weakness. And when with pain thou hast destroyed them. other thousands will surge up to take their place. Hell will vomit its hordes to oppose thee -...-: Heaven will meet thee with its pitiless tests and its cold luminous denials. Thou shall find thyself alone in thy anguish ( MAISF001 no date: The Law Of The Way).

Unrepentant Belgian Fascist leader (and Waffen SS General) Degrelle resumed the ethos of non-German Waffen SS volunteers as one of offering themselves up for sacrifice to save ungrateful kin members from Communism.

The sirens of reformism, too, adopted the lore of the meek, rejected savior: “the sole object of my efforts is to do you good” proclaimed in 1817 Robert Owen, a reformer/industrialist of socialist 556 persuasion who founded townships and 555 Romanian Fascist leader; he was arrested and murdered in prison in 1938.

556 “The Socialist and Communist systems, properly so called, those of Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen, and others, spring into existence in the early undeveloped period, described above, of the struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie “ (Marx 1848:28) and ““Home Colonies” were what Owen called his Communist model societies.”

(Marx 1848:30, note 8). The difference between Marxist Socialism and Owen's is thus explained:”When we

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Utopian communities557. Owen lobbied at and influenced558 the highest levels of British society:

[Owen] wrote his autobiography at age 86, where he remarks that he was communicating (in seances) with the spirits of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and the late Duke of Kent -...- where they all discussed ways to reform the world and to unite the population as look at what Owen, Thompson and Wheeler meant by socialism, we find something that is rooted in a specific theory of society that is "utilitarian" in the sense that it is about human beings following their "interests". -...Marx and Engels argued for a materialist interpretation of society and history. The idea that human societies change the material world in order to exist, was used as the key to explaining everything that humans do. ” (Roberts 2001:n.p). It shall be emphasized, though, that most thinkers believed their 'system' to be 'scientific' and rational, in spite of eccentricities that are present in Marx as well. Jones (1890 vol.II:64) states: “ The advocates of Socialism were not violent men. They had pleged themselves by their public declarations against violence of every kind. They had made known, as widely as they could, and with the strongest emphasis, their firm conviction that the wrongs they condemned could not be rectified by disturbance of the peace.”. Miliband (1954:238) reports Owen's severe critique of revolutionary movements of 1848: “Owen was totally devoid of a later proletarian mystique. ” (Ibid.). “Owen's proposals differed from later socialist and communist programs in many ways. First, Owen was concerned not only with the economic well-being of the laborers, but also with their morality, behavior, and intellect. Second, Owen first formulated his theories at a time when the working class had no real cohesiveness. He thought of himself as a benefactor of the poor and did not think in terms of class unity. Third, in Owen's time the concept of government being responsible for the welfare of its citizens had not yet been developed. Therefore his assertions that the government must find useful employment for the poor were viewed with suspicion. Since the government was not thought to be responsible for the welfare of its citizens, Owen did not believe that the government necessarily had to be involved in his schemes, but rather that his plans could be effected by any charitable group. Generally thought of as a utopian socialist, Owen had an idyllic vision of a peacefully changed world. He did not believe in revolution or radical organizations of any kind.” (Altfest 1977:37).

557 “Yet, when it was written, we could not have called it a socialist manifesto. By Socialists, in 1847, were understood, on the one hand the adherents of the various Utopian systems: Owenites in England, Fourierists in France, both of them already reduced to the position of mere sects, and gradually dying out; on the other hand, the most multifarious social quacks who, by all manner of tinkering, professed to redress, without any danger to capital and profit, all sorts of social grievances, in both cases men outside the working-class movement, and looking rather to the "educated" classes for support.” (Marx 1848:38-39); “but have developed a particularly interesting critical perspective on a certain kind of socialist doctrine which Marx and Engels christened "Utopian Socialism". In particular, where many other kinds of socialism have been viewed as little more than a collection of errors of analysis and political strategy, Marx and Engels were excited to point to major anticipations of their own thought in the works of Robert Owen, Charles Fourier and Claude-Henri de Rouvroy Saint-Simon. ” (Brooke 1998:n.p).

558 “Engels in turn had been in association with Robert Owen, who may be taken as the pioneer of the British working-class movement and is generally recognised as the founder of the Co-operative Society Movement which has grown from trivial beginnings to its present imposing dimensions.When Engels met Marx in Paris his outlook on social problems was mainly of the Owenite stamp, but the two men formed a life partnership which resulted in the formulation of a Socialist theory with a philosophic and scientific basis and with a revolutionary method and objective. “ (Maxton 1933:23-24) and “The first attempt to carry out the idea was made in September 1864, when the International Working Men's Association was founded in London by leaders of the workers living there. It adopted as its principles a statement written by Karl Marx entitled ' An

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one family. The end of his life was taken up with Millennium ideas, not in the specific Christian sense, but rather something like the brotherhood of humankind, with you know who as its prophet, a strangely religious idea from this lifelong atheist. (Bloom 2003:281).

Author Sam Vaknin explains that the psychopath's quintessential finishing move is the same as Robert Owen's (and so many other meek saviors and redeemers):“the sole object of my efforts is to do you good”. Vaknin (himself a diagnosed psychopathic narcissist) claims that framing (psychopathic) abuse (for example insults directed to other people) as “well-meaning” increases such insults' hurt and mileage as it exploits the intrinsic self-criticism and doubt smoldering inside every human being.

Psychopaths are in good company as they jockey the human mind's bumbling, atavistic fears:

but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for Address to the Working Classes,' in preference to proposals put forward by the followers of Owen and others proposed by the disciples of Mazzini. ” (Maxton 1933:101).”Owen when he went to London delivered addresses in Exeter Hall, at which members of the royal family thought they were doing a public duty by attending ; and it was at one time rumoured that the Duke of Kent intended to give the princess who is now the Queen of the British empire the benefit of instructions, in social science, by Robert Owen.” (Burton 1854:40). “In 1803 Owen became a member of the Committee of Management of the board representing the cotton industry and took an active part in seeking to alleviate the economic and social problems confronting the industry. In 1815 he called a meeting of Scottish manufacturers to consider asking the government to rescind the tax on cotton imports and to discuss the plight of children and older workers in the textile factories. At this time he advocated, in addition to tax abatement, several specific measures for the benefit of employees -...-. Nonetheless, undaunted by negative reactions to his ideas, Owen persisted until he prevailed upon Sir Robert Peel to sponsor a bill in Parliament for the relief of working children. That bill, a modified version of Owen's original proposals ” (Altfest 1977:27-28). “When he began in 1813 to make his views public, he was solidly established as a wealthy factory owner. The reforms in education and factory conditions that he had introduced at New Lanark had given him a wide reputation as an enlightened and practical philanthropist. For the next few years he enjoyed the friendship and approbation of princes, prelates and ministers. ” (Miliband 1954:235).

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it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell (Matthew 5:28-9).

Approaching a national election in early 2013, Italian right-wing party

PDL, which most considered annihilated in the wake of defections, multiple scandals and in-fighting, slowly but assuredly gains points in polls day by day, as leader Berlusconi serenades the masses, cracks jokes, outsmarts opponents on air with his gift of gab, and relentlessly pushes the buttons of the mind nodding to a salad bar of myths. According to polls various agencies ran, PDL is the first Italian party in May 2013: quite an accomplishment:

[Assassin of U.S President Garfield] Guiteau scores in the 99th percentile of psychopathy (37.5 out of 40)-...-Dr.Spitzka, who testified for the defense during the assassination trial, went a little beyond moral insanity and stated that Guiteau was “a moral monstrocity.” Guiteau’s behavior at trial was theatrical, to say the least. He testified using poems he had written, he openly and repeatedly sought to represent himself in court, and he berated his defense team. Sentenced to death, he requested an orchestra play during his execution (the judge denied the request). On his way to the hangman, Guiteau continued to display psychopathic exuberance, as he danced up the stairs, waved to the audience, shook hands with the executioner, and, as a last request, recited a poem he had written. (Kiehl 2014:72).

Fictional Jedi559 knights and Paul Atreides, too, can use their voice to subjugate or defeat so easily that it's paramount to prevent them from speaking; the failure to use his voice at its best -as seen earlier- costed Orpheus his life. Chinese Maoist thugs would gag Tibetan Buddhist monks they were about to torture and/or 559 Djed was the pillar symbol of stability in ancient Egypt. It was associated with Osiris and the tree that grew around the sarcophagus he had been surreptitiously locked into. Djedi is also a mythical sage and magician in Egyptian mythology supposed to have joined the court of King Khufu (XXVI century BCE) at 110 years of age..

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to execute avowedly in order to prevent them from using sacred sound against them:”Fire energy when you say "Hi" to someone -...-They will notice something special about you—some might call it "star quality."”560;”[King David of Israel said]Foreigners came cringing to me; they obeyed as soon as they heard me.”561.

Popular culture couldn't lag far behind. If the idea of fictional Jedi Knights looks once more like scraps from a Discovery Channel cutting room session, the analogy is not lost. NLP and persuasion expert Kenrick Cleveland hails his followers on his website thus: “you guys rock- all you JEDI warriors!”. Strivers can get a personal consultation with “master persuader” Cleveland for a modest US$ 794 fee: a real bargain so that the hopeful may reach “the next level”.

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) guru Sikes promises to teach you swiftly “how to get people to do what you want without begging, pleading, guilttripping, or nagging -...- Effectively use non-verbal communication to get what you want -...-Use good voice tonality in your sales pitch with hypnotic results ”: US$ 299, a real bargain on Sykes' website. NLP has often being linked to “hypnotic abilities” and the “trance” it induces in potential subjects.

Heart-rending scenes exist of the representative of this, that or another regime, idea etc being prevented from using his divine voice. Going to the guillotine, Louis XVI's voice was drowned: insensitive Jacobins played drums to 560 Boothman 2000:18.

561 2 Samuel 22:45.

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prevent him from haranguing the crowd. Equally, gagging laws were applied to the Danton process to prevent the disgraced French statesman from bloviating in front of the crowd. Fascist henchmen assaulted Italian antifascist Pietro Gobetti, who died later in Paris of the aggression's aftereffects.

Using their mouths, mountebanks and their kin sell dreams that tend to work out unbearably expensive in the long run:

oral story moves an audience more profoundly. -...- Because their bodies are touched as well as their minds, receptive audiences experience a oneness with a teller. -...- Teller and told, mind and body, are one: mutually possessed by the power of story (McCool 1998:iii, emphasis added).

And if the story told has been effective -...- the act of transmission resembles the psychoanalytic transference, where the listener enters the story as an active participant in the creation of design and meaning, and the reader is then called upon himself to enter this transferential space (Brooks 1994:51).

Again, the power of stories is their ability to emotionally engage people. It grabs people by the brain and it grabs people by the heart. It slams the two of them together so that they can listen as one. The result is that [people] are moved by the stories you tell. (Lakhani 2005:61).

Perhaps this is the crux of the matter: somewhere in the story of the psychopath is a meeting place for the compulsions of writer and reader, actor and viewer. (Weber 1991:no page).

Second, we’re so caught up in the drama of what happened to so-andso that we don’t have the cognitive resources to disagree. We’re so engaged in following the narrative that we don’t have the energy to question what is being said. (Berger 2013:94,96-7).

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Surviving a slasher movie, just like surviving an urban legend, scars the narrative’s protagonists at the point of diegetic closure. (Koven 2008:114).

Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, "I have put my words in your mouth. (Jeremiah 1:9).

The magic sentence "Let me tell you a story" seems to have the power to command attention in groups around the world. For some reason, people seem to find stories powerfully attractive. Indeed, studies find that 35 percent of our conversation with friends involves exchanging stories. • Further, most nonfiction writers rely heavily on the power of story. What's known as creative nonfiction is based on the idea of stringing together multiple stories, mostly in novelistic form, to craft a more engaging narrative. Speakers note that public speaking also amounts to connecting stories together with principles in between.

Great teachers, such as Confucius, Aesop, and Jesus, as well as great leaders, such as Lincoln and Reagan, were all highly skilled storytellers. • Storytelling is powerful for a number of reasons. It engages listeners, almost like a movie, creating a vivid and memorable experience. It has the ability to cut tension and to humanize situations. It also illustrates ideas in a way that invites listening and allows listeners to draw their own conclusions. In contrast, telling your listeners facts often prompts them to argue. (Freeman 2014:118).

Inflicting the supreme suffering upon the savior-hero may have deep gnostic resonances, however. Hercules' bow and arrow (instrumental to end the Trojan war much later) went to Poeas 562 who had the courage to obey, thus lighting the pyre on which dying Hercules' lied563.

As the apocryphal Gospel Of Judas (II century CE) would have it, Judas 564 562 Alternatively to Poeas' son Philoctetes, one of the Trojan war's heroes.

563 Nero assertedly made the myth become fact as he turned foes into human torches wearing the tunica molesta (= a sort of flammable garment) in imitation of what had happened to Hercules for the entertainment of the crowd.

564 “remarkable and undoubtedly totally in dependent parallel to the tale of the Oedipal Mahâdeva in the medieval Europe an story of Judas Iscariot. This is a tale the earliest known versions of which may be securely dated to the twelfth century, although they very likely had appeared sometime earlier. The best-known version of the story is preserved in the Legenda Aurea (Golden Legend) of Jacopo da Voragine, composed around 1265

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(or his equivalent in the Hallaj story) was the most intimate of disciples, chosen to bring about the savior's mystical sacrifice, thus 'freeing' the savior's divine essence from the shackles of time and flesh:

Knowing that Judas was reflecting upon something that was exalted, Jesus said to him, “Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal. -...- Jesus answered and said, “You [Judas] will become the thirteenth, and you will be cursed by the other generations—and you will come to rule over them. In the last days they will curse your ascent to the holy [generation].”” (The Gospel Of Judas, n.d:1-4).

Gautama Buddha not only forgave, but extolled the merit of Kunda, the oblivious blacksmith who had served him tainted food, thus ensuring the Buddha's final demise; Krishna also forgave the hunter who accidentally shot him in the foot, thus causing his death, but allowed him to ascend bodily to heaven; ”Jesus answered [the compassionate criminal who was crucified next to him], "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."” (Luke 23:43).

Herakles' death – which his wife Deianira 565 had brought about by mistake- was after all the occasion to ascend to heaven to be with his father Jupiter.

Isis and Demeter had wanted to turn the child prince they were looking after into an immortal by burning his mortal body so that his immortal one could shine;

or slightly thereafter and the most widely known text in Europe during the Middle Ages after the Bible. ” (Silk 2009:189). This clearly shows -as this writing contends- not only that myths tend to coalesce, but that various costituencies tend to interpolate (pseudo)historical characters of choice in the petrified mythologies and obtuse allegories that obsess the human mind.

565 Her name means 'destroyer of men'.

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purifying flames are sculpted to adorn the gateway to temples of Buddhist tradition.

In recent times, the cyclist Weylandt “died for us” according to a newspaper announcing the professional athlete's accidental death during a competition 566.

Illegal immigrants being (rarely percentage-wise) deported

-or

accidentally dying in their journey- are often lionized as wanting to meekly 'save' the host country's tax and pension Ponzi schemes slaving away doing (so goes the 'accredited' version) the kind of jobs that locals no longer want to take up, yet meeting with rejection or slaughter.

As

much sense as this may (not) make, all governments count on

presently incoming funds to pay for retirement and pensions due to people who contributed in past decades (=the precise definition of a Ponzi scheme), whose retirement funds have disappeared in the drain of the Belle Epoque nation-State Moloch under a cloud of social alchemy Robin Hood rhetoric propelled. The humongous healthcare and welfare bill immigration instantly 567 generates is not 566 Those were titles the present writer read while casually reading through newspapers at a supermaket newsstand.

567 It was fairly obvious to at least a few how immigrants (and their dependants typically present) might start availing themselves of whichever healthcare and welfare facilities might be present well before they might start contributing into the system by working regular, registered jobs that may -or may not- be offered. Also -at least in Italy- certain alien groups and minorities benefit from particular subsidies and other provisions in place to atone – so the story goes – for nameless crimes the mainstream community committed in a mythologized past or present time. The same logic of alleged atonement justified Italy directing billionaire amounts -under the guise of reparations, emigration control fees and so forth- to the Gaddafi regime just before said regime was violently overthrown. Illegal emigration never stopped, and Italy -along with other countries- was soon burying Libya under a deluge of bombs: so much for the reparation angle. Readers shall come to their own conclusions regarding which accounts did those billions from the Italian taxpayer settle. A conference at U.S Center For Immigration Studies reported the following:”Again, about 7 million uninsured illegal immigrants; that number is about 8 million when we count their U.S. Children -...-. our best estimate is that we’re spending about $4 billion a year providing health care to illegal immigrants. ” (The Elephant...2009: no page).

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even mentioned, thus jeopardizing the Ponzi scheme the welfare State runs.

The alleged boom in construction work -or other niches- was a preferred argument to push the item, until recently the midsummer dream came crashing down well beyond the point of collapse in Spain or the USA, or nearing the same in Italy. New neighborhoods morph into ghost towns as distressed home-owners relinquish en masse their half-paid, heavily refinanced homes (cars, gadgets...) in flight from the now unbearable obligations of this, that or another debt or credit scheme, the hallmark of affluence in post-war western mass-democracy; a ricochet of sharp losses in real estate value, stock-market crashes, collapse of pension and welfare funds, credit crunches and unemployment ensues.

As Giornale Di Arona reports ( May 24, 2013), in Italy in 2012 the percentage of temporary jobs -as opposed to full-time jobs- rose from 62,1 to 66,8%.

Short before the bursting of the economic bubble no regulatory agency could foresee, President Bush, Jr. signed in 2005 a bankruptcy bill revised to make it harder for insolvent debtors to slip through the net presenting it as a measure to curb abuses: synchronicity, indeed. Well before the 2008 economic meltdown:

“PWC [PricewaterhouseCoopers] global survey that experienced fraud rose from 37 to 44 and then to 45 in 2005. PWC suggests that corporations should be on the watch for the executive who:

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• Engages in activities indicative of a lack of integrity

• Is prone to engage in speculative ventures or accept unusually high business risks

• Displays a poor attitude toward compliance with regulatory or legislative obligations

• Is evasive, uncooperative, or abusive of the audit team • Lacks a proven track record “(Babiak&Hare 2006:136).

One may wonder about minutemen's appeals of recent decades: the great nation(s) had just won the cold war: its awesome destiny had once more become manifest. Economic -and social- meltdown constitutes thus a fatal happenstance the providence/nanny state -and its hydra of over-staffed regulatory agencies- couldn't possibly foresee, nor prevent.

In June 2014, Italian news announce a scandal embroils high-ranking

finanza members (an armed tax police unit in military uniform). A rogue protection racket was allegedly in place to remotely control internal revenue surveillance processes in exchange for princely kickbacks. Uniformed Italian taxmen thus lived a celebrity lifestyle awash in money concerned parties such as entrepreneurs supplied under the table. Because all the above went unnoticed by the many regulatory and due diligence agencies, the government proposes a drastic measure: the creation of yet another regulatory body.

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In July 2014 dignitaries occupying key position in regulatory agencies are either detained or arrested: they remotely controlled the due diligence process against princely kickbacks. The hydra of due diligence regulatory bodies also failed to notice this row of suspicious deals: the frazzled masses are distracted watching the world soccer cup on TV as the noble Italian flag flies on.

Woe betide those drawing unspeakable conclusions about the regime and its values; no angry mob storms in demanding the overthrow of the gods that failed: best of all causes oblige. The same rose-colored fable about plentiful jobs and greener grass can be spun even though domestic labour unions are marching at the same time to denounce unemployment or economic collapse; if the myopic, headstrong flock had any clue about what's good for them, there would be no need for saviors and social alchemists.

It does not really matter whether it is internal migrations involving

BrĂŠtons flocking to Paris, Sicilians flocking to Turin or external migrations, whereby people from Togo or Morocco flock to Europe; Hispanic people flock to the USA, or Burmese and Laotians flock to Thailand. The same image banks, obtuse allegories and petrified mythologies make sentimental chicanery evergreen because the main goal -after all- is just to send the public into conniptions in order to emote its overwhelming emotional experiences alternatively going berserk, gasping for breath, weeping itself asleep, clamoring for or against.

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The activist-shaman shall first of all shatter the public's perception or consciousness through artful recourse to sentimental and infantile chicanery, then s-he will macadamize the same under new auspices by way of some more chicanery:

Most of us have a strong desire to be correct—to have "the right" opinions and to perform reasonable actions. When someone disagrees with us, it makes us feel uncomfortable because it suggests our opinions or actions may be wrong or based on misinformation. The greater the disagreement, the greater our discomfort.

(Pratkanis&Aronson 2001:ch.22).

Our brains are programmed to try to agree, to try to get along; we are definitely programmed to be agreeable when it's possible to us (Drout 2006: The Enthymeme).

The reduction of dissonance is a part of everyday life; this is used to advantage by propagandists in what we call the rationalization trap.

The trap goes like this. First, the propagandist intentionally arouses feelings of dissonance by threatening self-esteem—for example, by making the person feel guilty about something, by arousing feelings of shame or inadequacy, or by making the person look like a hypocrite or someone who does not honor his or her word. Next, the propagandist offers one solution, one way of reducing this dissonance —by complying with whatever request the propagandist has in mind.

The way to reduce that guilt, eliminate that shame, honor that commitment, and restore your feelings of adequacy is to give to that charity, buy that car, hate that enemy, or vote for that leader.

(Pratkanis&Aronson 2001:ch.4, emphasis added).

Remember that people want to hold right opinions, beliefs, and attitudes. A conflict arises between their own beliefs and a continuous flood, a shower, of homosexual-positive messages that cannot be turned off. The emotional price (the exaction price) is an uncomfortable mental state of perpetual cognitive dissonance through forced compliance. By comparison, the idea of accepting homosexuality is presented as a prestige product, only for those who, by inference, do not want to be seen as any of the above "…ists"-type negative personalities. The favorite exaction-pricing weapon is to accuse anyone who publicly expresses competing ideas of being a 543

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homophobe. Its complexity is particularly effective; by definition it includes unnatural fear plus all the mechanisms of an "…ist" label.

The exaction power of the tactic is even more powerful as it is often coupled with the idea that most homophobes use anti-homosexual attitudes as a smokescreen to disguise their own homosexual feelings.

(Rondeau 2002:464).

Famous historical figures are considered especially useful to us for two reasons: first, they are invariably dead as a doornail, hence in no position to deny the truth and sue for libel. Second, and more serious, the virtues and accomplishments that make these historic gay figures admirable cannot be gain said or dismissed by the public, since high school history textbooks have already set them in incontrovertible element (Kirk&Madsen, cit. in Rondeau 2002:449).

This dissertation stems from a long-held fantasy of mine that the philosophers of Western civilization were what we today would call homosexuals, bonded through the distant ages by Plato's declaration in his literary Symposium (Plato, trans. 1999b) that same-sex love is of the celestial and procreative sort. (Sadownik 2006:1).

The alleged rejection, of course, causes red and swollen eyes in a hurricane of tears and jittery emotional meltdown because it is the inverse twin of the cherished motif of arrivals: arrivals equal births and new beginnings, departures (deportations etc) equal death that makes the beautiful human soul agonize.

Roxette's popular 1988 song Listen To Your Heart

delivers another

cargo of melodramatic sentimentalism, for listeners can almost hear Luke Skywalker howling in despair in the background: “Your little piece of heaven turns to dark-...Listen to your heart When he's calling for you Listen to your heart There's nothing else you can do I don't know where you're going And I don't know why But listen to your heart Before you tell him goodbye ”. In April 2014, it's Pope Francis I who

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muses upon the same themes.

It was so emotionally devastating when wrestling 'heel' (=bad guy) manager Bobby 'the brain' Heenan cast wrestler Red Rooster out of 'the Heenan family' because he lost a match; a dejected, limping Red Rooster left the scene holding his wounded chest.

Nothing is more challenging than seeing the next of (artificial) kin (tovarish, comrade, compatriot, brother, common humanity fellow...) limp away, his vision impaired by a thick layer of mucous tears (sweat, etc), bumping into things -thus hurting himself more- while trying to look back – a motif alone worth a treatise, that of looking back 568 - to see whether the jeering crowd perchance switched to bear-hug mode so he can faint into their open arms for one of those unforgettable reunion scenes (= the social sacrament of reconciliation, “the spontaneous act of a noble heart”) filmmakers and salesmen have been milling for ages, which would be just right to boost the sales of that malt liquor, corned beef or underwear brand:

They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the social structure.

Whatever attitude one chooses to take toward this condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives -...-. No serious sociologist any longer believes that the voice of the people 568 The fact of looking back is the pivotal point of several myths. Orpheus goes to hell to recover his wife. He is told he is not supposed to look at her during the ascension to the world of the living, yet he does so, and she vanishes. The same story repeats itself in the Japanese myth of Izanami and Izanagi and in Genesis 19:26 (Lot's wife looks back and is turned into a pillar of salt).

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expresses any divine or specially wise and lofty idea. The voice of the people expresses the mind of the people, and that mind is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion. It is composed of inherited prejudices and symbols and cliches and verbal formulas supplied to them by the leaders. (Bernays 1928:Ch.I,VI).

Does changing the descriptive frame alter how the product tastes?

Yes. Participants in one experiment were first shown a label indicating either the leanness or the fat content of ground beef, and then they were given a small freshly cooked sample.Everyone sampled the same ground beef, so any differences in taste could only be attributed to what the label said. After they tasted the meat, people who had read labels indicating leanness rated the meat as leaner, of higher quality, and as less greasy—compared to people who had read about the fat content of the meat. (Huettel 2014:160).

Though business practitioners of psychoanalytic theory badly mangled and conflated the work of Sigmund Freud, Gustave Le Bon, John Watson, and other important theorists, there emerged by the early 1920s a popular consensus among advertisers that humans were rarely, in writer Everett Dean Martin’s words, “governed by reason or consideration.”Rather, “instinctive impulses determine the ends of all activities and supply the driving-power by which all mental activities are maintained.” (Zeitz 2006:155).

From Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989) to Leon (1994) and countless songs, the situation of the unobtrusive yet deeply grieving, sullen, suffering etc character, whose plight goes unnoticed -either accidentally or maliciously- by others, is awfully common, and paves the way to 'illumination' scenes of various kinds: 'if I only had known', comeback, reunion, reconciliation etc.

The wrestler Red Rooster would in fact be back to exact his revenge upon the insensitive manager who had cast him out while he was in agony.

An entire category of preposterous chain spam-mails preys upon the 546

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chain of misfortune(s) leading one artificial kin members to the brink of self destruction, and then over. The atmosphere is -unsurprisingly- that of many precooked news releases.

The atmosphere is also that of a Tom&Jerry cartoon, yet people are supposed to choke, gasp for breath and sulk instead of laughing. In quite a few cases, it was possible to discover how any particular story started in the real world as a creative writing or fiction project coming alive when released over the internet: that's how true stories have to be in order to be believed.

There is no reason why Oedipus' misfortune (Mahadeva's, Dharmaruci's, Gregorius'...) couldn't become a comedy -or pseudo-comedy- moment. The M.J. Fox's character in 1987 The Secret Of My Success unwittingly ends up in bed with his aunt, for example.

On one end, people laugh; on, the other -when socio-political preconditions are in place- they go through their Skywalker recognition routine screaming:”Nooo!” in an emotional meltdown (=tragic urgency shtick):”The same myth may be taken as seriously as some Puritans took the story of Pilgrim's

Progress, or played with as casually as the animated adventures of Godzilla and Kikaider”569. The hero that dodges bullets can be a fashionista in a sci-fi movie, or a forensic Wojtyla. The nonesuch who “becomes human just like us” can be either 569 Goodman 1993:109.

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Jesus, or Pinocchio: people are elatedly ready to garner life lessons and gnostic truths from all.

Screams of recognition are everywhere. Pagnol's Manon Des Sources screams as the oedipal tragedy unfolds: her father is harassed and finally killed by his own father unaware of their bond. The anti-hero in Maupassant's 1884 Garçon,

Un Bock! also screams as a scene he happens to witness in his youth shatters his psychological integrity forever:”Et je me mis à crier de toute ma force, sans savoir pourquoi, en proie à une épouvante, à une douleur, à un effarement épouvantables”.

A man falling downstairs may be a comedy moment with the appropriate soundtrack and background; or the moment to ponder life's meaning with a sad soundtrack and a background informing the viewer (listener, reader...) that the victim belongs to an outcast group: the rabid henchmen of a vile dictator harbinger of absolute evil are committing murder. As the Inigo Montoya character says in The

Princess Bride (1987), “That is the sound of ultimate suffering. My heart made that sound when the six-fingered man killed my father. ”.

Such archetypal images -like Rorschach inkblots- can become mostly what one sees fit. The story of Eve's Unequal Children570 may return nearly 570 According to Grimm, Eve parted her children in two groups as god announced he would be visiting. She hid the ugly children from god's presence, and presented the good-looking ones to god. After the event, god spoke.

The good-looking children would become well-to-do (nobles, scholars...); the ugly children would become the toiling community (fishermen, servants...). In Icelandic lore, Eve divides her children in two groups: those she could wash and groom, and those she had been unable to wash and groom before god's visit. The shift is apparent, for ugliness is an in-born trait, while the fact of being dirty is just by happenstance.

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verbatim in a Grimm variation to justify social classes; in Icelandic lore to explain how Huldufolk (secret people) came to exist; in Norse mythology to explain the existence of demons; In Tagalog lore571 to explain -again- how a social hierarchy -with racial overtones this time- came into being. It may seem that the situations discussed in this writing are manifold, whereas in reality it is just the circular return in disguise of the same bunch of obtuse allegories and petrified mythologies.

The more ancient Hinayana Buddhism does not include a revelation -although some documentaries incorrectly refer to it as such-, for Gautama Buddha came to awakening all by himself. Buddha explicitly disclaims his role as savior. As one might expect, later developments such as Mahayana introduced revelations of one form or another. Mahayana texts are explicitly linked to supernatural sources such as the celestial Buddhas, or mythical sources such as the Nagas (serpent-beings) that transmitted sacred texts to a series of sages.

Parallels continue: emphasis could be placed upon individual struggle towards salvation/enlightenment in relative isolation and withdrawal with no stakes neither in direct supernatural intervention, nor in allowances supernatural forces might make (Theravada/Protestantism). Emphasis could alternatively be placed upon group dynamics, social engagement and collective progress that irreversibly enmesh individuals as possible beneficiaries of a bounty of supernatural grace and intervention (Catholicism/Mahayana). Chinese Buddhist master Dao'An (312-85 571 Here it is not about Adam and Eve, but simply mankind's first couple.

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CE) expressly linked individual salvation (Mahayana-style) with that of the collectivity, especially one's nation.

Only a limited number of people572 might receive Gautama Buddha's teaching at one particular moment (Hinayana/Christian gnosticism); or huge, at times limitless, crowds of both human and divine beings could be in attendance as one Buddha preached (Mahayana). Are those motifs too broad?

What about the great physician? Gautama Buddha in both Hinayana (Four Noble Truths) and Mahayana (for example the “wise physician” parable from the Lotus Sutra) is hailed as physician, but so is Jesus (Mark 2:17573; Luke 4:23574):

Plato’s theory of disease in Timaeus, Thucydides’ explanation of the cause of the plague in Athens, Nicias’ speech to the Athenians advising them that they “will be acting as the physician for [their] misguided city,” all confirm that the Greeks were preoccupied with disease at the individual, social, and political level. These examples also suggest that the philosopherkings or the orator-statesmen were conceived as diagnosticians of sorts for the individual, society, and state, as well as prescribers of regimens for returning these entities back to their healthy condition. More recently, this same sentiment has been expressed by the philosopher, Frederick Nietzsche, who was a self-appointed physician attending to the culturally ill, as well as

by Richard Weaver, who in the Ethics of Rhetoric imagined the orator serving a similar purpose (Roth 2008:8-9).

572 “The Buddha did not have large gatherings in order to present his doctrines. Normally he preached to individuals or small gatherings.” (Abhayawansa, BH6103 no date: unit 8:1).

573 When Jesus heard this, he told them, "Healthy people don't need a doctor--sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.".

574 Then he said, "You will undoubtedly quote me this proverb: 'Physician, heal yourself'--meaning, 'Do miracles here in your hometown like those you did in Capernaum.'.

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Finally, according to Mahayana Nichiren Buddhism, Gautama Buddha is hailed as the eternal savior of the world, just as Jesus is, whereas the founder Nichiren is hailed as Buddha's earthly messenger, just as Mohamed is.

Is either of these theologies right, wrong or in-between? Did Christian elements influence Mahayana? Did Theravada elements influence Christianity?

Both? Neither? Aren't those circularly recurring approaches rather the reflection of human mind's ghosts and circular proclivities that -indeed- have remained the same across regimes, ages and continents?

It is the same logic behind the deluge of 'glurge', typically anonymous chain-emails that contain stories -at times with religious overtones 575-, whereby heroes are busy putting nooses around their necks; barely escaping from rapists and murderers thanks to divine intervention; wasting away of chagrin on their deathbed; screaming -like Tolstoy's Ivan Ilyc- after the sudden realization of some existential truth576; sulking or pouting as target of endless indignities. There are loving mommies, dutiful daddies, sweet children and adorable puppies: all meet an horrendous fate.

The public is thus irresistibly electrified to draw fiery analogies -no 575 The author or scribe in his capacity of shaman decides what's next. The same story may unfold in all its doom and gloom, or divine intervention may at the last minute avert the catastrophe: angels safely escort a woman walking through a back alley past a rapist's reach; the phone or doorbell rings, and a suicide attempt is averted barely on time, etc.

576 In Tolstoy's story, the character realizes his own mortality on his deathbed. In those stories it may be just about any occurrence of possible spiritual or existential value.

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matter how stretched and preposterous- to its own peculiar life stories:“A great and interesting story is about everyone or it will not last ”. Teaching a Christian approach to counseling at Westminster Theological Seminary (USA), Powlinson 577 repeatedly refers to the Bible -and to the Christian worldview- as “lenses”, “grids” and so forth, through which reality has to be interpreted.

Referring to case studies in counseling he presents, Powlinson makes the explicit point that -although many details of one's case in point may certainly find no parallel or answer in the Bible- certainly core aspects salient to the matter do find relevant solutions in the Bible: gnosticism is human psyche's skeleton key, the present writer concludes.

There are stories purported to bring aesthetic arrest about as one's mind gets 'in the zone' by contemplating transcendental truths. For example, a beautiful soul tells his entourage how they are not supposed to tend to him the next day. The thunder of realization strikes the next day as the keeper realizes the person just died. What sort of transcendental truth could this herald? Any one might see fit; aren't people jerking tears and gasping for breath already? Who's this candid soul?

Any one might see fit.

The same story circulated online about a sick child in a hospital, who said he'd be going home the next day; or about a middle-aged, illiterate laborer 577 1995:lecture 5.

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ISBN 978-1-329-44282-5 Di-Xian (1858-1932) had ordained as a monk, and

dispatched to a remote, empty temple to chant Amitabha Buddha's name. The monk one day said there would be no need to cook for him the next day: he was found standing in the temple in his death; master Di-Xian remarked upon seeing him how he surely had attained blessed rebirth in Amitabha's place of bliss, thus surpassing many accomplished monks.

Much as Amitabha's name the monk chanted varies according to reports, so the sweet child in the story's other strand claims to be going home, whereby he departs to be with Jesus or any punchline that might be used to make one's adorable soul scream... Of course, there were many who avowedly met the sick child, or the dutiful monk, much as many claimed to have seen Jesus walking on water; Belgian or Kuwaiti babies slaughtered en masse; Gautama Buddha planting a stick into the ground, which instantly grew into a giant tree...

In the copycatted movies Karate Kid (1984) and No Retreat No

Surrender (1986), the juvenile heroes pour their heart out, either snapping back at one's mother (1984), or lamenting “they're out to get me -...- I can't handle it” before Bruce Lee's tomb (1986).

All this unfolds as the knot of readers/viewers/bystanders peeps aghast:

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identities (Brown 2005:6) If something is easy, there’s no tension, and without tension, there’s little incentive for an audience to keep watching. Tension is the feeling we get when issues or events are unresolved, especially when we want them to be resolved. -...- We need to know, because it makes us uncomfortable not to know. (Bernard 2007:25).

At times, such stories are invented out of thin air; at times they relay just another version of immemorial myths; at times they relay real stories camouflaged (abridged, condensed, novelized= hyperreal) to play the part so readers can be swept off their feet in a tide of sentimentalism in tune with the infantile, melodramatic register:”those worthless, gaseous, sacred texts”578.

Glurge chain-emails circulated around 1998 bearing evocative, selfencompassing titles: “The caves of sorrow have mines of diamonds”; “forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that crushed it”;”los recuerdos son de agua, y a veces nos salen por los ojos”. Titles evocative enough to cause aesthetic arrest579 -whereby the mind goes still awestruck by some quintessential emotional or spiritual truth-, yet broad enough to make room for personal interpretations, creeds and circumstances a narrower focus might upset or disparage.

Popular culture is never far behind. Miguel Bosé's 1982 Spanish hit

Bravo Muchachos

was launched in Italy in a nearly literal translation (Bravi

Ragazzi). Originally intended as a generational anthem for those -like Bosé- born in 578 Euripides Hippolytus 1063.

579 James Joyce originally utilized the concept referring to the effects of great beauty upon the mind.

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1956 (“todos poetas los del 56”, all poets those born in 1956) replete with gnostic punchlines (“Mira adelante que no hay nada detrás Y no se puede regresar -...-Colgando del tiempo En crisis desde una eternidad -...-Héroes y delincuentes Buenos chicos, buena gente ”580), translated perfectly in a cash-counter and popular culture success in both Italy and Spain. With insignificant edits, Bosé's song could be revamped to serve as anthem for any and all generations and age ranges: gnostic truths constitute the ultimate emotional currency. It is difficult to guess, however, whether such terrific gnostic punchlines were originally on a papyrus carbon-dated 3.000 BCE, or a chewing-gum wrapper's fortune.

It is a circular, never-ending rendition of stiff Greek drama and its cardboard-cutout characters alternatively rising in anger, collapsing in supplication, sullen in anticipation, besotted with love or hate. They may be otherwise drolly disguising or crassly parading their identity, groveling in recognition, exchanging solemn oaths or Homeric insults while grimacing and gesturing like the stereotypical overexcited troglodyte on a caffeine overdose.

It is no different from the taunts Gilgamesh exchanges with the monster Umbaba before the combat...or the exchange between the Chinese and Japanese characters on screen as Bruce Lee (in Chinese Connection, 1972) raids the Japanese

580 “Look ahead, there is nothing behind and there is no way back-...- hanging from time in a crisis going on for an eternity -...-heroes and scoundrels, good guys, good folks”. It is useful to ponder Spain had undergone a regime change in the late 1970s leaving Francoism behind.

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Bushido school581. Goldman aptly compares the taunts Ugaritic deities Baal (god of rain and fertility, known as Marduk in Mesopotamia) and voracious Mot (god of drought and death) exchange to a Clint Eastwood movie 582. In Hindu mythology as well, Indra (Zeus' counterpart, sky-god) defeats the serpent Vritra, thus releasing the cosmic waters.

Why does the hero waste time with taunts? He might just do splits in mid-air, fire the grenade-thrower and win the battle, yet it would turn out to be a short story -or movie- indeed. A number of broadcast series exist(ed) to allow wrestlers to keep the tension up by exchanging taunts, and fueling feuds. Among the many Japanese giant robots of the 1970s, Daitarn III sees the cartoon hero exchange ritualistic taunts with enemies before each battle.

On the opposite end of the entertainment spectrum,

Meineck 583

explicitly compares contemporary sit-coms on TV to their direct -and identicalancestors: Graeco-Roman comedies (Greek Menander and Roman Plautus):” the plot structure is almost exactly the same”:

explorations of the moral and emotional implications of exclusion and marginality illustrate the genre’s predilection for ‘testing to destruction’ the concepts and categories of ordinary -...- life. By dramatising the experiences of individuals driven out of their usual frameworks for living, tragedies depict actions which are 581 Examples are limitless, for example the taunts exchanged between the various Chuck Norris or Steven Seagal characters and the villain(s) of the moment.

582 2003:Epics Of The Gods.

583 2005-1:The Making Of Myth.

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simultaneously extreme and representative. (Woodard 2007:172).

These highly physical farces were modeled primarily after the “New Comedy” of Athenian dramatists such as Menander, whose plays had first been performed in Athens in the fourth century and had spread across the Hellenistic world to the Greek cities of southern Italy.

Although most of the plays are domestic situation comedies with stock comic characters, the texts are full of mythological references and one play has survived that was even based on a popular Greek myth (Meineck 2005-1:12).

Each night, a near-majority of the population of Britain, in an action which plainly has no parallel in the previous history of our island race, sits down to watch actors simulate situations which the producers devoutly hope millions of people will recognise. What does it matter whether we call it art or not ? Nightly, we expose ourselves to countless myths, both uniform and uniformed. Our representatives, those chosen from our tribe for their talent or for their beauty, pull on blue serge or green scrubs to appear before us as doctors, as policemen and as vets. But strangely, although this development is so singular and peculiar to our age, although we experience so many more of these artefacts than any large human group before us, we rarely pause to ask ourselves not just whether the consumption of endless parallel narratives to our own is necessary, but what on earth we think we are doing when we indulge in it, or rather when we indulge in it to such extraordinary excess. People seem, in the twinkling of an eye, to have gone from finding everything in one book – the Bible, the Koran - to finding very little in very many. -...- Why fabulate ? Because if we do not, everyone else will. (Hare 2004, 1-7, emphasis added).

You would be surprised how many absolutely contemporary political speeches have the same structure [as medieval sermons], though instead of going to the Bible for their commentary, they turn to texts like the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. But the key is in fact the exemplum, the story. The minds of human beings are hard-wired to be interested in other human beings, and the brilliance of the structure of medieval sermons is that it allows a speaker to tell a story and then make that story have the point that the author wants.

(Drout 2006:25, emphasis added).

This potential of violence, for the on-screen characters in slasher movies and for the “friends of a friend” of urban legends and for us 557

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listeners/viewers, underlines that these narratives are predicated upon what is possible and that, assuming we do not wish to end up as grist for these killers’mills, we need to heed their narrative interdictions.

(Koven 2008:127).

Today's networked I.T society is still at it more than ever, crassly parading (social networks...) or drolly disguising (multiple IDs, monikers, identities associated with alternative mobile phone numbers...) one's identity on par with both ancient, XVIII century romanesque and telenovela heroes.

Quite (un)surprisingly -again- the entries of such fabricated 'logs towards hell' have their victim-heroes suffer all sorts of losses, rejections and indignities before taking the final leap to self-destruction; the quintessential savior-hero has never been healthier.

In one of such chain-mails, a girl is dumped by her boyfriend in a cruel manner; 'hip' classmates reject and insult her, only to set her later up for a date that turns into another cruel prank; her parents get in a car accident: her father dies, whereas her mother survives disabled for life 584; she finally commits suicide. The chain-mail ends with a moral lesson about the importance of being nice, and the promise everyone who forwards it to as many people as possible shall be rewarded with a random act of kindness.

Much as early psychoanalysts suggested, many such situations and

584 In other variants, the mother dies and the father survives disabled.

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imagery obsessing the human mind mimic infantile (or juvenile) fantasies. Tannen 585 discusses male children at play trying to outperform one another in a conversation ritual: if one can kick a ball this or that high, the last will claim he can kick a ball up to god; or if a couple children have visited Disneyland for 2 or 3 days, the child having the last word claims he is moving to Disneyland.

In adult life goal posts shift, yet only so much. Tall tales revolve around the quantification of one's presumed masculinity/femininity, connections, bank account, drastic tax cuts and/or fabulous subsidies one's 'honest' party shall grant, and so forth. If most children may make stories up about striking a friendship up with imaginary superheroes, most adults endlessly brag about this billionaire friend of theirs; the twenty euro a cup coffee they routinely drink; the secret service, millionaire club or special forces badge that identifies them; or that top-model they dated in college, whom -some add for good measure- was a top dollar feminist lawyer, too...

Bragging harlequins, whether on- or offline, are in good company of both Bronze Age heroes of lore, and of this chap who's “Presently serving time for murder, he has been denied parole four times -...-Needless to say, this man's score on the Psychopathy Checklist was very high.”. He “

• left home at age eight 585 2003:lecture 2.

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• started flying at age eleven; pilot's license at age fifteen

• was a commercial pilot with twin-engine and full instrumentation

experience

• lived in nine different countries in four continents

• managed an apartment building

• had his own roofing company

• ran a ranch for a year

• worked as a forest-fire fighter for six months

• spent two years in the coast guard

• was a captain on an eighty-foot charter boat

• was a deep-sea diver for four months” (Hare 1993:48-9).

[god said]Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?

Tell me, if you know so much -...-Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb -...- Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, So that an abundance of water will cover you?

-...-Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook or tie down its tongue with a rope “(Job 38:4-41,41:1) As repeatedly argued throughout this writing, various strategies can co560

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exist. The Buddhist story of Mahadeva joins the arch-transgressor/hero, Zorba/Buddha narrative with the chain of misfortune narrative. Mahadeva has an incestuous relationship with his mother; in order to cover his tracks, he kills his father. Moving to another place to hide (=hero's journey), Mahadeva then murders a neighbor who knows about him, and finally he murders his mother/lover upon finding out she has an affair (=chain of misfortune). On the brink of self-destruction, he meets a Buddhist preacher, gets ordained and becomes a saintly monk (=Zorba becomes Buddha).

In the carbon-copied legend of Dharmaruci (same basic storyline), horrors really have no end, and the arch-transgressor also kills by arson a large number of monks and Saints after they refuse to ordain him on account of his capital sins. Finally, Dharmaruci meets a Buddhist monk who refrains from hasty judgment, and preaches to him (=Gautama Buddha in one of his previous lives).

The human mind finds chains of misfortune supremely relishable. In Sade's story 'Florville et Courval', sensible Florville's journey from Paris to Lorraine begins her misfortunes. She is seduced and gives birth to an illegitimate child she cannot keep: her journey(s) to escape only make(s) things worse. In the house of pious madame de LĂŠrince, she is raped but manages to accidentally kill the culprit, who in the end turns out to be her son.

At the end of another journey ( in Nancy ) she appears as eye-witness in 561

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a trial for murder, and a woman is sentenced to death as a result: she'll find out later that woman to be her mother she had never met. At the end of all journeys, married to much older Monsieur de Courval, and expecting a child from him, she receives the uncanny visit (thus she is the recipient of the 'message' of someone else's journey ) of her former lover, who is no other than M. de Courval's estranged son.

She thus learns -among other things- how Courval is the father she had never met, whereas the father of her first child is her brother: Florville instantly commits suicide.

Seemingly supporting the case for psychic unity of mankind, a tale collected in Karnataka (India) reveals the same story-line:

instead of the Greek tradition’s directionality from child to parent -...-, with aggression expressed within one gender and sexual interest across genders, the Indian model -...- has the same modalities of expression, but with their directionalities reversed, from parent to child. -...-Both Dharmaruci and Mahâdeva show aggression toward the father, but not exactly hostility. The distinction is interesting. These sons kill the father, but they do not hate him. He is simply in the way; as long as he is present—and until his return from a lengthy sea voyage, he is not present—he prevents continuation of the sexual relationship between mother and son. But that relationship is characterized predominantly as one of sexual convenience, not of affection. (Silk 2009:166).

The Agganna Sutta further says that itthigācu here means not the physical female body, but the mind made consciousness as femininity.

(Priyadarshana, ME6210 no date:chapter 5:4).

Silk's points emphasizing the chasm between the Greek and Indian Oedipal dilemma shall be taken with a grain of salt. Even Oedipus cannot be construed as

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hating his father: he kills him by happenstance as a feud arises at a crossroad; neither can Oedipus be said to love his mother: he's simply awarded the widowed Queen for defeating the Sphinx.

Most modern readers may not feel affinity to XVIII century romanesque -which is kept alive in Hispanic telenovelas for the matter-, yet is the row of misfortunes befalling Florville any different from those befalling Rambo, Ringo, illegal immigrants, felons and other contemporary pariah heroes? Popular culture serves hefty doses of the above.

Claudio Baglioni's 1972 hit, teenage-themed love song Questo Piccolo

Grande Amore (this little big love) recites:”e lei tutto ad un tratto non parlava ma le si leggeva chiaro in faccia che soffriva ed io io non lo so quant'è che ha pianto solamente adesso me ne sto rendendo conto” (and suddenly she would grow silent, but it was apparent she was in distress. I don't know how much she cried because I am getting it just now).

The broken record effect is obvious. The public chokes as crooners chronicle misunderstandings between lovers over and over again. In 1964, Italian singer Bobby Solo (an Elvis Presly lookalike) had already taken the music scene by storm with Una Lacrima Sul Viso (a teardrop on your face): Da una lacrima sul viso

ho capito molte cose (from a teardrop on (your) face I understood so much). The song enjoyed an English rendition ( For Your Love), eight weeks of top placements, 563

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and an eponymous movie.

Newscasts endlessly recycle such rigmarole to whitewash, promote or excuse anyone: illegal immigrants, murderers caught red handed, corrupt politicians, pedophile Catholic priests...The jive becomes an occasion of gnostic insight as the public puts its hands together to celebrate our common humanity.

Some people have gone on wild goose chases after this, that or another incarnation of the quintessential maltreated hero (=the myth ought to have become fact= we're smart, and believe only forensic truth, not silly legends) in the contemporary media, only to find that – to the best of their research- none under that name (had) lived in that locale, let alone died in the prescribed manner (by hanging, drowning, murder, gunshot wound...that also varies).

As reported in 2004:

Norma Khouri's bestseller Honor Lost (published in Australia, Khouri's home, as Forbidden Love) told the story of a Jordanian 'honor killing.' Dalia, a young woman living in Jordan, falls in love with a Christian man and is murdered for this transgression by her father in order to defend the 'honor' of the family. Khouri claimed the story was nonfiction, based on the life (and death) of a woman she met while growing up in Jordan. But the Sydney Morning Herald discovered that Khouri did not grow up in Jordan. She actually grew up in a suburb of Chicago. And no person matching the Dalia character appears to have existed. Khouri's book was revealed to be fiction. The Australian publisher of the book withdrew it from sale.

(Terror And Hate Crime Hoaxes no date: no page, emphasis added).

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with the recipients of the chain-email (readers of the acclaimed best-seller etc) acting as the peeping busybodies gathering around an accident; or going through fixed liturgy in a religious milieu: the irresistible appeal of vicarious trauma as Greek tragedies epitomized.

In fact, the basic difference between the stream of such fabricated doom and gloom stories and myths presiding over the formation of any religion -whether secular or spiritual- is how they are slanted. On one hand, a boy/girl commits suicide after suffering a row of more or less casual indignities trying in vain to make friends; on the other, a savior-hero wants to preach to the masses his newly established or updated version of quintessential truth (covenant etc), and suffers tribulations, whose high points are established (annunciation, ministry, rejection, betrayal, sulking/doubt, sparagmos, comeback...). In both cases, stories from all provinces of the spectrum of plausibility, pseudo-history and folklore are summarily edited to include the hero of the moment.

Alternatively, it could be the activist of this, that or another political affiliation preaching against another set of political affiliations, thus going through the high points. In other words, it is the presence of the political/religious angle to determine whether the same odd lump of indignities qualifies as potential founding event, following the decision of parties authoritative enough to impose their choice durably586 to the masses (masters of acceptable discourse= hierophants, or “those 586 The cult of Sulla (and related games, Syllaia ) at Athens -for one- lasted only a few years, token of appreciation

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who show what's sacred” etc).

In fact, the same trite story can instantly -depending on the public penchant of course- induce aesthetic arrest if a small addition is made, such as horrors being visited upon -or committed by- one by virtue of their race, skin color, sexual, religious or political orientation:”Not being liked becomes less of as question of what is wrong with you than what is wrong with others who don’t like you.

-...-Having the "right" enemies can often lead to acquiring the "right" friends.”587.

The same applies to so-called miracles. What makes a huge difference between the bizarre events from the realms of Forteana 588 -such as “strange sky falls”589- and miracles is once again the 'political' spin or gnostic addendum that could turn a Fortean phenomenon into a miracle in full regalia worth of any sacred book.

Whether seen from the culprit's or victim's standpoint, a murder for petty reasons – such as two intoxicated ale house regulars getting into a fight- tells little. If buzz-words or details are added – you-know-who and you-know-what narratives-, it may become the greatest story ever told.

the Greek oligarchy paid, which Sulla had helped reinstate.

587 Wilcox 1994:33.

588 From C.H. Fort (1874-1932) who wrote book listing an endless series of weird phenomena such as strange sky falls. It nowadays includes items such as cryptozoology and conspiracy theories.

589 Frogs, fish, squid, turtles and even “demons” were reported to have fallen from the sky. Strange Sky Falls no date:no page.

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A minor rabble-rouser possibly liquidated for disturbing the peace alongside two thieves in a peripheral area of low geopolitical interest tells one nothing. The son of god being put to death by demonic imperial forces at the behest of an evil people in order to free humankind from sin tells the greatest story ever.

A rabid judaeophobic radical strangled in prison, whose acid-defaced body was buried in a shallow grave alongside his followers, probably evokes today a feeling of just desert that compensates for romantic inattention to due process of law. Under the short-lived Romanian Fascist regime, however, Codreanu's death epitomized the misdeeds of the inept, corrupt demo-plutocratic regime -and its judaeo-masonic international master puppeteers- who oppressed the good Romanian people.

It must be emphasized how the set of accusations can remain more or less identical. For example, Romanian Fascists were seen essentially as a fifthcolumn following plans drafted in Rome or later Berlin, whereas Romanian Fascists saw the pre-war regime as a fifth-column following a plan drafted in London (Paris, Moscow...) at the behest of Judaeo-masons, Judaeo-Communists or something like that.

The same recurs everywhere. Fastidious descriptions the NSDAP regime made of “degenerate art and science�, and/or internationalist Judaeo-masonic cabals has been lifted nearly verbatim and applied to exposing and chastising western 567

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civilization. Where the NSDAP regime saw swarms of noxious internationalist Judaeo-masons relentlessly at work to oppress and/or destroy the Aryan race, other people see swarms of equally noxious bourgeois, traditionalist (sex-ist, rac-ist...)

White males pursuing their agenda of exploitation and oppression of this, that or another blessed minority. After all, it's the old story of the arch-trickster: a faceless sock-puppet easy to groom in order to fit any part.

The power of such images and situations, no matter how recurring and obtuse, is extended to the reverence for ancient languages; for ages the clergy counted on the hypnotic effects Latin (Greek, Sanskrit...) had on the clueless masses.

The movie Flatliners (1990) provides a storyline axed around the final emotional thunder of illumination. Eccentric medical students try artificially induced near-death experiences to probe the secrets of life beyond death. Suddenly uncanny events start happening as they realize they are being haunted by their past bad deeds' personified ghost.

One of them has a particularly hard time, and tries to make sense of his predicament. He at some point remembers how he had literally hounded a classmate he didn't like in middle school, or something like that. In one scene, the victim is still being lampooned while perched on a tree branch seeking refuge. The victim desperately pleads with his aggressors. The branch upon which the victim rests suddenly collapses killing both the victim, and the young bully's dog: the suffering 568

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of puppies and children, what an irresistible commodity.

Aesthetic arrest and thunder of illumination strike the viewer peeping aghast, whose mind goes still in the contemplation of a tragedy: “the “uncanny” is that class of the terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar “590;”structuralist Tzvetan Todorov has proposed that tales of the supernatural divide into three categories: the marvellous, in which no rational explanation is possible; the uncanny, in which it is; and the fantastic, in which the narrative

hesitates

undecidably

between

a

natural

and

a

supernatural

explanation.”591.

A jornada gnóstica deve conduzir à revelação, ao inesperado e, às vezes, a um violento insight que conduz o protagonista à percepção do todo. Muitas vezes a gnose não é uma experiência que o sujeito alcance intencionalmente. Ele é tomado por ela. (the gnostic journey shall be conducive to a revelation, to the unexpected, at times to a violent insight leading the main actor towards perfect understanding. Many times gnosis is not an experience arrived at intentionally. He is seized by it.) (Vieira Ferreira 2009:207).

The katharsis is cleansing you of man's fear and desire in terms of merely temporal purposes and opening then the great experiences of pity, compassion for the other. And I think when [Aristotle] speaks of katharsis as following from pity and terror, he's speaking of going past fear and desire in to a deeper realm. James Joyce has discussed this magnificently in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. What Joyce calls the kinetic emotions, the emotions that move you to desire something or to loathe and fear it, are erased in the tragedy, where the emotions which he calls static emotions, of pity: participation and identification with the suffering of another; and terror: the experience and identification with the secret cause behind all things, the Being of 590 Freud 1919:1-2.

591 Lodge 1992:212.

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beings. These are static emotions that arrest the mind and cleanse it of the mere temporal interests of fear and desire. (Campbell 2007:316).

We may dance toward it and away, achieve glimpses, and even dwell in its beauty for a time; yet few are those who have been confirmed in that knowledge of its ubiquity which antiquity called gnosis and the Orient calls bodhi: full awakening to the crystalline purity of the bed or ground of one's own and the world's true being. (Campbell 1968:66) Again, that's a very old concept going back to the immemorial times of Mesopotamian flood stories (Utnapishtim, Atrahasis, Ziusudra 592 etc). The gods decide to punish mankind unleashing a flood, but after the fact repent ('if I only had known'...) and plead to commit the event to memory. ”My lord, by all the gods, take back that prayer. Believe me, soon enough you’ll realize that you’ve done wrong”593 suggests the chorus to Theseus who just cursed his innocent son.

Popular culture is never far behind cranking the same handles. Questo

Piccolo Grande Amore (this little great love)– which some hail as the biggest seller in the history of Italian music- quips:”io non ho mai capito niente visto che oramai non me lo levo dalla mente” (I never got it and now it gets stuck in my mind).

The tragic urgency derives from a narrative that forces the character to make a choice—and that moment of choice becomes the mechanism by which the character’s suffering is ensured. (Brown 2005:17).

Questo Piccolo Grande Amore was an apolitical love song, but its lyrics 592 So-called Sumerian Noah (=Akkadian Utnapishtim), presented as mythical King who ruled as a flood allegedly struck around 3.000 BCE. 593 Euripides' Hippolytus 990-993.

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(the frail creature's suffering that had escaped us, but gets stuck in our mind now that we realize its extent) could very well be lifted from any rewritten history book of one's choice: so pliable are supposed gnostic truths tantalizing human mind's vortexes:”the principle of montage into history. That is, to assemble large-scale constructions out of the smallest and most precisely cut components.”594.

Wrestler Honky Tonk Man had to put his title on the line in 1988, but a sudden last-minute change made his official opponent unavailable. He was provided a second opponent, but he wouldn't want to know who that might be; the anchorman

insisted trying to forewarn him, but Honky wouldn't listen. The

Ultimate Warrior then defeated him in record time and got the belt: if only Honky had known... Gnosticism seems to revolve around those exempla, petrified mythologies and stale allegories this writing discusses at least in part, which recur the world over since time immemorial.

Are all religions the same, then? According to a definition credited to Arjun Appadurai, religion is a system of behaviors and beliefs that formulates and answers questions that are recurrent, important, and have to be answered. Prothero clinches:

One of the most common misconceptions about the world’s religions is that they plumb the same depths, ask the same questions. They do not. Only religions that see God as all good ask how a good God can 594 Cohen in Ferris 2004:202.

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allow millions to die in tsunamis. Only religions that believe in souls ask whether your soul exists before you are born and what happens to it after you die. And only religions that think we have one soul ask after “the soul” in the singular. Every religion, however, asks after the human condition. Here we are in these human bodies. What now?

What next? What are we to become? (2010:17).

The birth of theosophical orientalism coincided with a wave of interest in the philosophia perennis, the primordial tradition supposedly underlying all the major religions of the world. -...- Both the emphasis on individual experience and the psychologizing defense of the belief in a philosophia perennis are, of course, profoundly resonant with the concerns of New Agers. Spokespersons of the New Age would soon claim transpersonal psychology as a part of the ongoing consciousness revolution. -...- Esoterically, they are all stations in the transmission of an ageless wisdom, a philosophia perennis that has been accessible to the initiates of all times and places. -...- The belief in a philosophia perennis presents those who would rely on such a strategy with a particular problem. How does one account for overt differences between religious traditions? A strategy more radical than either synonymization or pattern recognition is the wholesale denial that the most spiritually advanced adherents of a certain religion actually believe in the doctrines of that faith. According to this strategy, most believers are caught up in a superficial, exoteric mode of belief. Those who have been initiated, whether by others or through their own insight, have reached an esoteric understanding. It is thus significant that one of the earliest exposés of theosophy is entitled Esoteric Buddhism. -...- Universalism becomes an effective remedy against doubt. If in the ultimate analysis, all religions are merely variations of a philosophia perennis, the differences between Hindu, Christian or Spiritist beliefs are simply details. The question whether present-day reincarnation beliefs, as set out in the latest texts, were actually created (or discovered) by Allan Kardec, Helena Blavatsky or some nameless Oriental sage becomes a matter of no great concern.(Hammer 2004: 62,72,170,173, 493).

I see all the gods in thy body, O God, -...-I see numberless arms and bellies and eyes and faces, I see thy infinite forms on every side, but I see not thy end nor thy middle nor thy beginning, O Lord of the universe, O Form universal…Thou art the supreme Immutable whom we have to know, thou art the high foundation and abode of the universe, thou art the imperishable guardian of the eternal laws, thou 572

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art the sempiternal soul of existence (Hindu Gita as Aurobindo translates it in MAISI014 no date:lecture 5:3).

Whatever form of Godhead any devotee wishes to worship with faith, in that very form do I confirm his unwavering faith (Krishna in the Gita, in MAISI015 no date: lecture 1:6).

Going back to Bastian, one might aptly say that religions are all the same insofar as they present, provoke or address the same underlying mechanisms (elementary ideas), which are then obfuscated by the local, ethnic idea that represents the visible surface and is eminently multifarious. The recently established Baha'i and Cao Dai faiths -not to mention Sikhism- proceed through ample synchretism.

Exempla work in the same way as the Marxist theory of ideology does: an irrelevant pantomime of smoke and mirrors a system of power stages in order to have the have-nots sympathize and endorse said pecking order in spite of all the problems and disadvantages the system of power entails for those at the bottom of its ladder.

Of course, today people are rarely expected to sympathize with royalties, hoarders and clergymen; today people sympathize with illegal immigrants, minorities, felons, defectives, presumed abuse victims of all sorts, sociopaths, banksters and so forth. It is the revolving operetta of the 'best of all causes' and 'foundling' routines adapted anew to all and sundry: only bad faith and political opportunism may make adventitious differences count.

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Misidentification recurs circularly to haunt schizophrenic mythic imagery: Theseus (mis)recognizes his son Hyppolytus; Siegfried no longer recognizes his lover Brunhild because he was tricked into drinking a magic potion to that effect. Myths may coalesce. Because of a hermit's curse, King Dushyanta no longer recognises his pregnant lover Shakuntala (=the pregnant woman's predicament); pregnant Sita (Ramayana, several centuries BCE) is also abandoned as Rama either doubts her integrity, or wants to court favor with the masses who held Sita in disfavor; pregnant Psyche is left to her own devices facing a series of trials her mother-in-law Aphrodite decrees in order for her to reunite with Cupid; Theseus abandons pregnant Ariadne595 (at times assimilated to Aphrodite).

Myths tend to coalesce. In the Buddhist story of Utpalavarna, the pregnant woman's ordeal mytheme (=aspersions are cast upon a pregnant woman's character as in-laws evict her) joins the Oedipal and the lost child mythemes. Raised by foster parents, Utpalavarna marries his mother and his sister he had never met.

As the thunder of illumination strikes, the mother leaves to become a Buddhist nun596.

In a convoluted Buddhist tale that makes French XVIII century

romanesque or Hispanic telenovelas look dilettante, a female Utpalavarna goes 595 Ariadne had given Theseus a ball of thread he had used to trace his way back from inside the labyrinth, where he'd kill the minotaur. Interestingly enough, both at Adam's Peak (Sri Lanka), and at various Buddhist Theravada temples, pilgrims grab threads connected to holy statues as a token for the transmission of grace and protection. Hindu brahmins as well wear a thread as symbol of their initiation.

596 Silk 2009:137ss.

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through the same shtick over and over again first as an householder, then as a courtesan. Akin to Florville, she encounters shame and sorrow in one place, only to move, and find more of the same elsewhere (=chain of misfortune mytheme=we are all as tainted= perversion of the hero's journey= suffering makes us one):

Utpalavarnâ thought to herself: “Previously, having been co-wife with my own mother, I also was co- wife with my daughter. In the present, again, being co-wife with my daughter, my son has become my husband. I must get completely out of here.” (Silk 2009:149).

The female Utpalavarna, however, ends up a nun of superlative spiritual accomplishments597 (arhat) in a Buddha's retinue (=the arch-transgressor is so much better than all of us).

Misrecognition skews judgment. This schizophrenic obsession with making choices (and ensuing consequences) dates back to Zoroastrian times, whereby the mythical prophet called upon mankind to make a choice between the absolute good (Ahura Mazda) and the absolute evil (Ahriman). Hindu Vedas as well feature the struggle between forces of light and darkness:

Today I have given you the choice between life and death, 597 “Utpalavarnâ is a sexual libertine, and simultaneously a victim of mistaken identity, yet neither fact becomes grist for any morality- tale mill. From the perspective of classical Buddhist doctrine, the reasons for this are easy to understand: action, Buddhist texts constantly tell us, is defined as intention. Acts performed without conscious intention are, broadly speaking, not karmically potent, an idea familiar to us in our own legal system, which distinguishes, for example, between voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. Volition is central, and volition requires awareness. -...-Mere involvement in incestuous relations is inadequate to elicit sufficient censure in the cultural context of this literature: the compilers of the Mahâdeva story felt it necessary to depict their protagonist as acting with a very specific intention, in order to ensure his guilt.” (Silk 2009:162). Readers may contrast this viewpoint with that of (ritual) pollution, which takes effect irrespective of volition and intention.

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between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! (Deuteronomy 30:19).

King Pandu misrecognizes a sage who's copulating in the marshes: he kills him thinking him to be a deer: the sage's malediction starts the Mahabharata. At the

Mahabharata's end, Ghandari's curse (the mother of the Kauravas) causes the death of Krishna. Krishna rests under a tree, and a hunter kills him as he believes to be shooting a deer.

Popular culture invariably offers copycats. In the Matrix movies, Morpheus offers a dual choice in the form of pills. Deal Or No Deal “sentimentalizes and prettifies� this choice-and-consequence claptrap in a television game. A contestant picks a secret prize; offers are proposed in exchange for this secret prize in a series of rounds as other prizes are revealed, too: the contestant can accept the host's offer, or reject it, and get stuck with the original choice in the end.

The game clearly proposes a travesty of religious dilemmas: people can take refuge in Buddhism's triple gem; embrace one of the many Abrahamic covenants at several junctures in their lives (=the host's various offers), or get stuck with their choice in the end (=death) when it's too late.

Joseph Campbell598 advocates playing any role in life as a game and not as a doom and gloom experience upon which the world's fate rests:

598 2002: Mythic Literature.

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Life as an art and art as a game -- as action for its own sake, without thought of gain or of loss, praise or blame -- is the key, then, to the turning of living itself into a yoga, and art into the means to such a life. (Campbell no date:72).

The Mormon Channel begs to agree with the life as a game:”stay within the lines” of the Mormon moral compass.

Campbell's suggestion certainly squares with a level of skepticism that is typically prescribed in the allegiance to any cause -or in playing any role-. It remains to be ascertained, however, how the masses could do without their more or less daily doses of doom and gloom, artificial kinship and pseudo-mythologies awash in infantile melodrama, and sentimental chicanery.

The present writer surmises the collective, the horde or whichever other term might be interchangeably used, cannot function without myths that become facts day on and day off. Symbols -whichever their value- cannot simply be divorced -in the common man's mind at least- from gross historical facts without losing most -or all- credibility, even when there is a heavy toll to pay because gamesmen, hoaxers, politicians, the deranged, the ad guy and the P.R gal are all cranking the handle:” emotions are strategies” 599;”just the simple act of donning a mask indicates that a performance is about to take place”600.

Artificial kin members who toe the party line in oneness ought to 599 Solomon 2006:Emotions And Responsibility.

600 Meineck no date-1:121. He discusses ancient Greek drama, but his conclusion may be aptly extended to any situation that may involve “psychological truth” or emotional chicanery.

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magically understand one another, as it happens in the Odyssey, whereby King Alcinous sees through Ulysses' theatrics as the bard narrates the epic Trojan war:

So too Odysseus, pitiful in his grief. He managed to conceal his tears from everyone Except Alcinous, who sat at his elbow And could not help but hear his heavy sighs -...- Hear me, Phaeacian counselors and lords— Demodocus should stop playing his lyre. His song is not pleasing to everyone here. Ever since dinner began and the divine bard Rose up to sing, our guest has not ceased From lamentation. He is overcome with grief. (VIII 570-585).

Alcinous and his court in fact think they are listening to grandiose 'founding events' unfolded in a more or less remote 'x region' of the past, when all of a sudden they make the experience of the past in their present, as no other than Ulysses is sitting next to them. In 1966, the Salazar bridge was inaugurated in Lisbon in the very presence of the 'great man' himself, Fascist dictator Antonio Salazar:

Once upon a time—back in the early 1990s—the acclaimed movie director Stanley Kubrick began hearing stories through his assistant about a man who was pretending to be him. The man-whowouldbe-Kubrick (whose real name was Alan Conway and who looked nothing like the dark-bearded director) went around London telling people who he famously was(n’t). Since the real Stanley Kubrick was a very private person who shunned the paparazzi, not many people had any idea of what he looked like.

-...- Eventually the truth came out when Conway began selling his story to journalists. He claimed to be a recovering victim of a mental disorder -...-. In the end Conway died a penniless alcoholic, just four months before Kubrick. (Ariely 2012:75).

People believed Conway was Kubrick because they wanted to believe one of the planet's most secretive men had decided to reveal himself to them. -...-.Conway was born Eddie Alan Jablowsky in 1934. He told friends, in later years, that he was a Polish Jew who had escaped Nazi occupation. In fact, he was born in Whitechapel.

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At 13, he was sent to Borstal for theft. In a move that demonstrated his cheeky self-dramatisation, Jablowsky changed his name to Alan Conn (Conway was one of his many later personae). By the time he met Martin's mother, he had a string of convictions for deception.

-...-Martin [=Conway's son] also showed me unpaid bills in different names from Amex, Barclaycard and other companies, running into many thousands of pounds. There was an outstanding phone bill for £879.17, primarily from calling gay chat lines. (Anthony 1999:no page).

A few years ago, French-born Fabian Ortuno was arrested in the United States after cutting a swath through Long Island’s high society by pretending to be a Rockefeller. -...- Once arrested, Ortuno posted bail and promptly disappeared,only to reappear in Vancouver as Christopher Rocancourt, a Formula One racing driver. He was a big hit on the local celebrity ski circuit before he was accused of defrauding a West Vancouver businessman of $200,000. He was arrested but still managed to appear on 60 Minutes, claiming that he never stole, only borrowed.-...-Recently released from prison, he has become an author,wealthy, and a celebrity in France, where his ability to con “stupid people” out of their money is much admired.(Babiak&Hare 2006:49).

But even if there were such a thing as a French Rockefeller, you'd think he'd speak good enough English so as not to require subtitles.

And Rocancourt quickly agreed, expressing disdain for anyone stupid enough to fall for his fables."Right now I say to you, 'My name is Christopher Rockefeller.' You will believe it? No," says Rocancourt. "You will not. You will laugh.". But that's not the only name he's used. He's been known as Prince Galatzine Christo, Christopher De Laurentis, Christopher De Laurenta, Fabian Ortuno and Christopher Reyes."I think it's great to change your name," says Rocancourt. "I say I like to change my name. An actor changes his name. An actor pretends to be somebody. You don't go prosecute somebody because he changed his name or because he pretends to be somebody. So you should prosecute all Hollywood." -...- How much did he take people for in Los Angeles? Mueller says probably at least $1.5 million to $2 million. -...- The true story of Christopher Rocancourt began 34 years ago when he was born in the fishing village of Honfleur on the northern coast of France. He was the son of a house painter and a prostitute who gave him up to an orphanage when he was nine years old. (Leung 2003:no page, 579

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emphasis added).

The same narrative device recurs in Hindu epic Ramayana. Legendary poet/seer Valmiki – a murderous highwayman led to repentance after meeting a sage; or Vishnu's incarnation depending on sources- composes the Ramayana upon Brahma's invitation. He teaches the poem to Rama's own long lost sons, and Rama himself delights therein.

As they're torn apart in an ordeal, the Navajo twin war gods as well are restored to health by gods reciting the twins' life story:

The power of such exempla lay in the ability of individual instances to demonstrate a general rule, and to accomplish this sufficiently well so that their intended public might be capable of recognizing the similarity. The mythological exempla illustrate ancient events, which, as they were continually held up for emulation, were continually appropriated to serve new purposes in ever new contexts. And whatever the context into which they were inserted, they imposed a new, specific, frame of reference—as it were, from within -...- in the scale of human values vouchsafed by hallowed traditions.

(Koortbojian 1995: 35-6, emphasis added).

Every year the [Jewish] family patriarch begins by saying that this is not just ancient history. To gather for Passover is to stand in a tradition of a people who have gathered for millennia to retell this story in their own languages and on their own terms. But if this story is not also our story, then it is not worth retelling, he says. “In every generation, each of us should feel as though we ourselves had gone forth from Egypt.” (Prothero 2010:89).

[In a crisis, people] very much look to what has worked for them in the past. As they face higher and higher levels of stress, they go back to those old routines, which are well established. But in so doing, they are behaving very rigidly -...- they are not trying to adapt at all (Roberto 2011:Resistance And Reactions To Change).

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Of what use, Gabriel, your message to Marie, Unless you now can bring the same message to me (XVII century German mystic Angelus Silesius).

Any specific citation of an event or an individual that is intended to serve as a guide to conduct is an exemplum and hence an opportunity to learn from the past. -...-The focalizer of an exemplum is the person who recognizes it and bases his behaviour on it. (Chaplin 2000:3).

In some cases this starts off from a reproduction of the ‘real’ in another medium, but as it passes from medium to medium the real is ‘volatized’ out of its former apparent solidity. It becomes hyperreal and hallucinatory. Out of the crisis of representation the hyperreal has had to be connected to repetition, first in relation to a reproduction of reality, but as reproducibility is established as dominant it ceased to require this support. -...-The hyperreal is the simulation form which dominates, and as such defines itself in relation to that which is always already reproduced.(Gane 1991:102, emphasis added).

Hardison601 mentions “moral, religious and literary theories of catharsis “; the first one(s) refer to situations in which a culprit “ seeing the crime enacted on the stage can make the pangs of conscience so intense that the need for relief via confession becomes stronger than the fear of exposure “ 602. “Tragic catharsis, then, is the result of learning something about the events forming the tragic plot” 603. “the final explanation of the svàdhyàya-. It is to give a space in one's own consciousness for the forces, which have to come through the process of sounding the text connected with them, and by observing its meaning silently, giving it a possibility to be fully expressed, in terms of the experience.”604.

601 1969:3. Hardison's article deals with Renaissance, but his suggestion can apply well beyond that period.

602 1969:5.

603 Hardison 1969:15.

604 Yatsenko, MAISI003 no date: lecture note 4:10.

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Nothing is immune. Debate rages over whether Hannibal was of color; over the plight of Barbarian hordes pressing on the Roman Empire's borders, identified – as ancient history ersatz- with our day's dejected illegal immigrant in his righteous search for greener grass, and the boons of citizenship in the affluent society of mass democracy.

Goths may have sacked Rome, and minorities may rank high in crime statistics605 for exactly the same unexpectedly familiar reasons. That is, the alleged obtuse unwillingness to share, prejudice and egoism on the part of the mainstream community (wealthy Rome/wealthy western societies...) on one hand; harsher climate, the alleged pressure incoming tribes exerted on the Goths, and the pressure poverty, warfare and underdevelopment exert on both illegal immigrants on one hand, and on certain domestic groups on the other.

Given that discourse is mostly all there is, the very same facts can be interpreted on the other way round. The Gothic invasions thus become a payback delivered to the Roman world for having armed, drilled and brought initially in such a force, much as the USA had initially lionized, armed, drilled and ushered into the mainstream “ the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan”, now islamofascist 605 “This Special Report presents lifetime chances of going to State or Federal prison by age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin. Using standard demographic lifetable techniques, and assuming that recent incarceration rates remain unchanged, an estimated 1 of every 20 persons (5%) can be expected to serve time in prison during their lifetime. The lifetime chances of a person going to prison are higher for men (9%) than for women (1%) and higher for blacks (16%) and Hispanics (9%) than for whites (2%). At current levels of incarceration newborn black males in this country have a greater than a 1 in 4 chance of going to prison during their lifetimes, while Hispanic males have a 1 in 6 chance, and white males have a 1 in 23 chance of serving time. 3/97 NCJ 160092 ” Lifetime Likelihood...no page.

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rogues who fly hijacked airplanes into buildings as the story goes:

If one includes crimes in which an awareness of the victim’s race or ethnicity is a factor, then most interracial rapes, armed robberies and assaults might be considered "hate" crimes. Blacks are highly over-represented as perpetrators of the vast majority of these offenses relative to their representation in the population. One could even say that the alleged rage that blacks feel toward "white" society is a race-specific rage, directed at individual victims on the basis of racial identity and, as we see in the Colin Ferguson case, often has the same tragic consequences to innocent individuals as any 1920s-lynching in Alabama. (Wilcox 1994:26). individuals of Jewish descent (Jews as far as most Europeans were concerned) were to be found in many leading positions in those revolutions, as they had been in the Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917 in Russia. The wave of socialist or communist revolutions after 1918 subsided after a few years, except in the Soviet Union, but the list of Jewish revolutionaries – Eisner, Landauer, Luxemburg, Kun, Lukacs, Trotsky, and many others – served to confirm antisemitic assertions about what now became the threat of ‘Judaeo-Bolshevism’. Moreover, the immediate postwar governments that succeeded the imperial regimes in Germany and Austria, and of necessity had to accept the Versailles Peace settlement, had large contingents of the liberal and moderate socialist Left, and hence many of the leading political figures in both Germany and Austria were Jewish. Hugo Preuss was instrumental in setting up the Weimar Republic, and Carl Melchior was heavily involved in negotiating the financial terms of the Peace. Rathenau was a central figure of the immediate postwar government and in 1922 became Foreign Minister, with a policy of fulfilment (and renegotiation) of Versailles’ terms. His assassination in 1922 was one of the leading early ‘triumphs’ of interwar antisemitism. In Austria, the Foreign Minister at the end of the war was Victor Adler, and his successor (also as leader of the Austrian Social Democratic Party) Otto Bauer. It was thus easy, if quite unjustified, for antisemites to blame Jews for the surrender to the Western Allies. (Beller 2007:78).

It does not really matter which group or constituency one enshrines in

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this way, or the epic mode of enmeshing the audience in the story being told:”Go and try to look inside his heart you can find your own mistakes try to hide them thinking -...- but he can read them in your face”. The audience is then supposed to enter into gastrointestinal or neurological syndromes, thus doing the persuader's bidding. Gandhi and the plight of Indians in segregated South-Africa? Outcasts in India? Italian laborers in Belgium? Turkish laborers in Germany? Arab and Black African laborers in France?

Irish journalist, and acclaimed BBC correspondent, F. Keane stresses the point:

They had in common an ability to use words that brought the listener directly into the picture, and they were engaged, not as partisans, but with a clear sense of moral astonishment at the wrongs they were witnessing. (2005: no page).

“For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever. ” 606. Which 'great act' will have the dull crowd rise to a standing ovation? Gandhi as he refuses to switch train compartment in SouthAfrica to sit where people of color were supposed to? Members of the Movimiento

Nacional Socialista De Chile [Chilean National-Socialist Movement] who -May 5, 1938- stormed government buildings to jump-start national(istic) regeneration, being later wiped out by security forces?

606 Civil Disobedience, Thoreau 1849: no page. Thoreau here pleads to abolish slavery. As this writing contends, however, such impassioned pleas, petrified images and sentimental chicanery can swiftly lend themselves to any and all political (per)versions. It is not far fetched to imagine the various MacDonald, Zundel, Richwine, Zemmour, Churchill, Strugnell, McGowan, Faurisson etc holding the same position.

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Is Gandhi's defiant demeanor, who burns ID cards in front of the police, being thus flogged, not the simplest proof he has to be right in his crusade? What about the members of Movimiento Nacional Socialista De Chile ? Is the crowd of party liners going to rise to a standing ovation with tears in their eyes, or to shake fists frothing at the mouth?

Optionally, viewers may watch the charming documentaries attesting beyond the shadow of doubt how meek and friendly deep down sharks, piranhas and crocodiles are, and how accidents are to blame solely on man's 'wrong' attitude, timing or attire. For example, surfers look like seals to the shark; animals become aggressive only because men trespass into their habitat, or impact it with their activities such as deforestation (=situational factors).

It isn't difficult to see mixed metaphors at work that use the animal ersatz/proxy to once again press the psyche's buttons otherwise reserved to cultural relativism, and the plea in favor of this or that group blamed for endemic propensity to disreputable activities (= traits= dispositional factors).

During a conference in Arizona in 2014, noted Christian fundamentalist turned campaigning atheist D. Ray serenades a diverse cohort of atheists and free thinkers with stories about females who “go with the guy they like”, and about males excluded from sexual unions who “rape a lot”.

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He's talking about ducks in a presentation filled with picture of genitalia, and raunchy allusion to sexuality traditional religiosity tries to hijack, control, and thus distort according to Ray. Just like in Aesop's fables, the animal serves as an attention-diverting ersatz to deliver another self-serving politicized message in order to enthrall “Psychotics who identify themselves with the mythological image”.

Of course, the 'approved' teleplay calls for positive or tragic devices only: exploring any other possibility (for example, illegal immigrants as people with criminal records either wanted or unwanted home 607; the possibility of health hazards, trafficking, crime surges...) is a way to get the 'evil eye' from the meek party liner.

A mortally offended heckler shouts a terrific punchline before fainting in distress; a glowering gasbag runs out of fingers to point at what just happened invoking the party line, and the righteous media person shouts “Cut! This goes to print”. It's about time to go on air: sponsors frantically bid to place an infomercial: politicking managers nod in approval.

607 Historical evidence, beside official declarations of present-day governments, seem to suggest that a significant percentage of people engaged in the practice may be either “wanted”, or “not wanted” home. Italian anarchists emigrating to Brazil (and South America) en masse during the Belle Epoque; partisans of overthrown Fascist regimes emigrating en masse to South America after 1945; religious outcasts emigrating to America at several junctures in history; Castro allowing dissidents to leave Cuba for the USA, only to add common criminals and mental patients to the dispossessed crowd in flight: a scenario repeating itself with so-called 'Arab spring' events...only political expediency and bad faith may dictate how this applies to many groups across time with the exception of some other groups in the present day because some party has a vested interest in claiming so.

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Dramaturgy – applied to particular situations of course- has its rules.

Extras are not supposed to show up dressed as Klansmen when they are filming a movie about ancient Egypt. Reactions look like that of the public of sport video games. To simulate a living crowd, the audience randomly cycles through a few reoccurring moves.

Also, has the importance of all this chicanery and theatrics (fingerpointing, shouting, fainting, gasping...) been overemphasized? Hardly. One study compared the feedback in terms of votes for U.S candidates Reagan and Mondale coming from viewers of TV networks CBS, ABC, NBC. While the three networks were reported to supply more or less the same kind of information, ABC was found to be slightly partial to Reagan (=the anchorman smiled more). As a result, 80% ABC viewers chose Reagan versus 62% among CBS/NBC viewers.

R. Sayler608, academic with the School of Law (University of Virginia), reiterates how thickly visual presentations – in addition to proper rhetoric and gestures- insure the audience shall retain a much greater amount of information.

What could be more visual than all those gasbags fainting, whimpering, groaning, moaning, gasping, choking or having colossal gastrointestinal or neurological syndromes while gesturing as troglodytes on a crack overdose? “Pictorial representation of psychic processes”609; “mythology is basically a system of analogies 608 No date.

609 Jung, cit. in Angelo 1992:74.

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-...- and these analogies can begin working under symbols, and begin to tell you something about the bringing forth of the gold of your own spirit” 610.

Meineck relates the topic above to immemorial Greek drama:

Krummenacher posited that paranormal thinkers had higher than normal levels of dopamine and this produces a distortion of extrapersonal sensory inputs promoting superstitious beliefs and a characteristic underestimation of the role of chance. Previc has also suggested that dreams and hallucinations “represent the triumph of the extrapersonal systems over body orientated or peripersonal systems.” Many of these consist of the experience of falling, flying or distant landscapes, and we use terms like “out of body experience” or “beside himself” to describe them. Both rapid and upward, eye movements accompany many of these states. Extreme upward eye movements, such as eye rolling, are associated with spiritual and religious behaviors such as meditation, hypnosis, trance-like states and seizures. Greek tragedy has several famous depictions of characters besides themselves in some form of trance-like altered mental status, such as Sophocles’ Ajax and Philoctetes; Aeschylus’ and Euripides’ Cassandra; Euripides’ Agave and Phaedrea - to name a few. In these cases eyes are often described as “blazing” or “fiery” and in Euripides’ Herakles, the hero’s eyes are described as “rolling in his head” (931) as he attacks his own children in a fit of delusional insanity. Previc also points out that upward eye movements promote the EEG “alpha rhythm” - the brain wave associated with the meditative state. Additionally, in several cultures there are meditative and spiritual techniques that place a focal concentration on the “third eye”- the area of the forehead between and above the eyes – meaning that the viewer must engage with the face by looking up. It is notable then that many representations of Dionysos show the god with a “third eye” usually in the form of a circle of small pained dots in the center of his forehead. We also frequently find a third-eye on the face of the gorgon. Previc’s theory posits that religious and spiritual behavior “are largely a product of the extrapersonal brain systems that predominate in the ventromedial cortex and rely heavily on 610 Campbell&Toms 1988: vol. 3.

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dopaminergic transmission” and that “religion appears to be biased towards distant (upper) space and time”. This can help us to understand a little more of the religiosity of experiencing a Greek drama. This extends further than the procession of the god that opened the festival and the ever-present animal sacrifices happening in the sanctuary in full view (and smell) of the audience seated in the theatron above. There is also the relationship of the sanctuary of Dionysos Eleuthereus to the liminal realm of Dionysos both in its name and its physical view.

But the view offered something else, something that is denied to most modern theatre goers today – it allowed them to both watch the play before them and deeply contemplate what they experienced as their relationship to the theatrical event constantly shifted between Previc’s four spatial realms. The mask operated in a similar way in this space: a striking visual object in a fluid visual field that oscillated between peripheral and foveal (focused) vision. (Meineck no date:13-14, emphasis added).

Over time Joseph Smith grew somewhat callous to the exhaustion revelation induced. It still required effort to obtain, but the physical hardship of receiving revelation grew easier. In Kirtland, Joseph Smith received one of his most glorious visions, recorded in the 76th section of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Sidney Rigdon, an early convert, experienced the vision with Joseph. Afterwards, Joseph appeared vibrant and strong, but Sidney was weak and pale. Noticing this, Joseph remarked with a smile, “Brother Sidney is not as used to it as I am.”67 Muhammad apparently never did get used to it; it was an agonizing process for him. As he later stated: “Never once did I receive a revelation without thinking that my soul had been torn away from me.”Aisha, one of Muhammad’s later wives, told how she saw Muhammad receiving revelation on a very cold day and noticed the sweat dripping from his forehead. A dark episode in the lives of Muhammad and Joseph Smith illustrates some of the challenges faced in receiving revelation and the importance of continued revelation as they sought to fulfill God’s purposes. In addition to outside critics, Muhammad and Joseph Smith both encountered satanic opposition. (Harris 2007:68).

The present writer suggests the ongoing state of latent schizophrenia that characterizes the human mind is promptly activated by parties with vested 589

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interests in the activation of such grotesque reflexes for commodious purposes:

When the mind doesn't develop normally, people's sense of humor can become derailed. For instance, one study published in Psychiatry Research (Vol. 141, No. 2, pages 229-232) showed that people with schizophrenia don't perform as well as healthy participants on joke comprehension tests. Study author Joseph Polimeni, MD, and his research partner Jeffrey Reiss, MD, showed participants a variety of one-panel cartoons with captions beneath them. Some of the captions matched the cartoons, some didn't, and participants tried to identify those that matched. "In general, people with a good sense of humor do pretty well [on the test]," Polimeni says. "Participants with schizophrenia did worse." Also, he noted there is "a pretty high magnitude of difference" between the humor-recognizing abilities of people with schizophrenia and with bipolar disorder.

As the two disorders are often mistaken for each other, it could provide a tool for more accurate diagnoses, Polimeni says, if further studies bear out the findings. Polimeni, a psychiatrist at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, thinks the deficiency is related to schizophrenic people's frequent inability to connect the dots between associated ideas. "A lot of humor has to do with associations," Polimeni says. "When you hear a punch line, everything in the joke has to come together. But if one of the associations isn't connecting, it's a lot harder to understand the joke." (Price 2007:no page).

Polimeni recalls his professional, E.R interaction with a man who believed he was Jesus. Polimeni's professional notes as an E.R psychiatrist recall the magisterial lines Maupassant had penned in his 1887 story Le Horla:

I ask myself whether I am mad. As I was walking just now in the sun by the riverside, doubts as to my own sanity arose in me; not vague doubts such as I have had hitherto, but precise and absolute doubts. I have seen mad people, and I have known some who were quite intelligent, lucid, even clear-sighted in every concern of life, except on one point. They could speak clearly, readily, profoundly on everything; till their thoughts were 590

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caught in the breakers of their delusions and went to pieces there, were dispersed and swamped in that furious and terrible sea of fogs and squalls which is called madness. (60).

Contemporary readers may have no major issue with the fact that our society is “quite intelligent, lucid, even clear-sighted in every concern of life, except on one point.”. These points are subject to change following iffy socio-political alignments, yet they invariably constitute “the breakers of their delusions” that cause the public mind to get “dispersed and swamped in that furious and terrible sea of fogs and squalls which is called madness.”.

Sayler even offers ten “commandments” that signpost a trajectory towards true persuasion:

1. Themes, refrains, structure, cadence;

2. Calm, ethos, modesty, engage;

3. Fear dissuades; Although wielding stick and carrot sorts the best results. One shall first arise fear in order to offer his magic solution (note of this writer).

4. Bridges too far erode messages;

5. Essential to revive flagging attention;

6. Answer the question; Although persuasion is most useful when dodging or

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turning embarrassing questions upside down (note of this writer).

7. The power of power;

8. Too academic and complex confounds; Although a modest amount of pig Latin, pig English, pig professional jargon (medical, financial, legal...) delights the horde. As Ehrman points out, most biblical scholars are familiar with forgeries and issues in the holy book, yet refrain to address them publicly as such: they hide behind the smoke screen of ten-dollar words instead (note of this writer).

9. Mean spirited backfires;

10. The enduring wisdom of the canon of psychologists.

What is here referred to as “approved teleplay” has been discussed in several ways: perspective, emplotment (in the jargon of metahistory it includes romance, satire, comedy, tragedy). Is it just a teleplay? Apparently, it very often is; how often is left to readers to consider.

While their sacred hearts bled on air -or in the press- lamenting the tragic 2010 earthquake in the L'Aquila region (Italy), high-ranking bureaucrats lampooned off-the-record the entire act:” I was having fun in bed at that time” (Ridevo dentro al letto) declared a public works superintendent.

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Prefect Iurato, the all-seeing-eye of the copycat Jacobin State, “burst into laughter remembering how she had pretended the debris and orphaned children had moved her” (scoppiava a ridere ricordando come si era falsamente commossa davanti alle macerie e ai bimbi rimasti orfani)611.

Expectedly, as news proliferated detailing the unspeakable mockery (=altering the prescribed teleplay=showing one is not one with the horde= one is “the kind of person” that the horde “is not”), both the press and the judicial system took an instant interest in Iurato's allegedly checkered past full of transgressions now being investigated, about which -of course- nobody could have possibly known earlier.

The term “party liner” is specifically used to refer to the bulk of people sleepwalking along the tide of “popular morality”, “only an old Phoenician tale of what has often occurred before now in other places”, “free-floating folk beliefs”, “explanations or interpretations usually put forth”, “prevailing cultural trends”, “the audience’s pre-established set of convictions” and suchlike; the term is also taken to reflect the possibility of abrupt changes in the “line” being followed. In other words, goalposts may shift at any time.

“What a decent human being would do” is subject to change according to which “interpretive community” runs the show at any given moment. “Basic human 611 Sisma L'Aquila 2013: no page.

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values” can mean any and all things: fixations with jingoism, racism and social Darwinism well into the 1940s were deemed ultimate concerns fit for the most reasonable of all people. Such priorities were later reversed as formerly ostracized and/or prosecuted groups started to be lionized as the best among men.

A Reddit612 community for users willing to share their “stories” online has the following guidelines, which could be extended to all those who go along to get along in society:



Readers are to act as though everything is true and treat it as such in the comments.



No debunking, disbelief, or criticism (constructive or otherwise).



Do not ask for proof.



Any violation of these rules will be met with appropriate discipline.



Suspension of disbelief is key here. Act as though everything is true while you're here, even if it's not. We want our users to submit original content regardless of its validity. We're here for the scare, not for the plausibility.

Ehrman details how in his religious studies classes in the U.S Bible belt he asks his students whether they believe the Bible to be god's inspired word: most 612 http://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/

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answer yes; most also answer they have read The Da Vinci Code, yet few can say they read the Bible cover to cover.

Other polls are equally -if not more- embarrassing. As Prothero suggests elsewhere, many believe Jesus parted the Red Sea 613; Noah led the Exodus; Joan of Arc was Noah's wife (12% U.S respondents); Abraham got blinded on the road to Damascus; Sodom and Gomorrah were a Biblical couple (50% U.S respondents); 1 student out of 30 understood the 'good Samaritan' allusion in President Bush, Jr.'s 2001 inaugural address: “And mos requires neither deliberation, nor judgment, but praise or blame”.

No matter which the transgression might be: butcheries, billionaire financial frauds, recreational drug abuse... in the transgressor's eyes the meek party liner shall see the vortex of his humanity that is naturally unaccountable and flimsy, and he shall not throw 'the first stone' in the cosmic bear-hug of non-dualism:”It is not that these stories are unimportant, not very sad, or unuseful, but they don’t help us understand what is happening all around us”.

Once again, the (social) sacrament of reconciliation looks more like a psychiatric disorder than anything else. The public is goaded into a massive

613 The original Hebrew Bible apparently does not even mention the Red Sea, but a “Reed Sea” or “Seaweed Sea”.

The Hellenistic Greek translation Septuagint (II century BCE) for some reasons adopted the terminology “Red Sea”. The crossing of a “Seaweed Sea” would thus look less supernatural a feat – a marshy land of some sortthan the apocalyptic scene portrayed in the movies. Various authors identify this”Reed Sea” with various lagoons and bodies of water, both actual and extinct.

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dissociative fugue. Just as people experiencing a mental crack-up can leave everything behind to run away in order to start a new life under a new identity elsewhere as the past gets erased from conscious recollection, so the public is led to erase transgressions from conscious memory in order to enact a dramaturgical pantomime based upon reconciliatory embraces, and tactile kisses in nonjudgmental rapture.

Is that the triumph of unaccountability? The plasticity of discourse easily allows to turn unaccountability upside down into the worst sentence (according to some, at least) that consists in letting the transgressor go free and unscathed, yet alone with the hypothetically unbearable pangs from his conscience:

The intuition of the moral sentiment is an insight of the perfection of the laws of the soul. These laws execute themselves. They are out of time, out of space, and not subject to circumstance. Thus, in the soul of man there is a justice whose retributions are instant and entire. He who does a good deed, is instantly ennobled himself. He who does a mean deed, is by the action itself contracted. (Emerson 1838, cit in Myerson 2000:232).

And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more. � (John 8:11). who, then, is Surya, the Sun, - asks Sri Aurobindo, - from whom these rays proceed? He is the Master of Truth, Surya the Illuminator, Savitri the Creator, Pushan the Increaser. His rays in their own nature are supramental activities of revelation, inspiration, intuition, luminous discernment, and they constitute the action of that transcendent principle which the Vedanta calls Vijnana, the perfect knowledge, the Veda Ritam, the Truth. (MAISI017 no date: study unit 1:3).

It is interesting to ponder how transgressors (hoaxers, felons, corrupt 596

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politicians, banksters...) try to turn tables on their acts:”then I felt as though a hand had pushed my shoulder, and I found myself in his arms. He kissed me and said: No more quarrels between us! No, never! Never! Never! I answered.”. They instantly become mentally unstable and in need of prompt forgiveness because -if the public pushes any further- they might do something rash about which it would later grieve.”This practice of creating circumstances and of creating pictures in the minds of millions of persons is very common.”:

Crocodile tears from the remorseless are especially likely when a conscience-bound person gets a little too close to confronting a sociopath with the truth. A sociopath who is about to be cornered by another person will turn suddenly into a piteous weeping figure whom no one, in good conscience, could continue to pressure.

(Stout 2005:91).

The public mind is offered the projection of the dreadful day the transgressor (whoever it may happen to be at one point or another) is no more. A solemn mountebank with red, swollen eyes eulogizes the departed next of artificial kin. There is no limit to how many layers of glurge and sentimentalism one may pile up: innocent, sick kiddos looking on as the jeering crowd pillories daddy or mommy614; crying women; puppies, kittens; past abuses and neglect:”we’re so caught 614 Of course, there is no limit to the chain of misfortunes and sentimental displays. The sick kiddo might cry, for example; or the transgressor might reminisce about horrors having befallen him as a precious child (violence?

Rape? Poverty? Indignity...? ). As this writing contends, deep malice or attorney's tricks are not especially needed. It is enough to watch one fortnight worth of cable TV fodder to have all ideas one might need to fool the sensitive crowd: they are always ready to jerk some tears, and to dive in riconciliatory embraces. Once inducted in the sweet child's (sobbing mommy's...) (virtual) presence, the public is faced with the usual dilemma: is one “the kind of person” to ignore the sweet child? Conclusions are foregone: reconciliation must unfold. As the wonderful myths mankind produced teach us:”And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more. ” (John 8:11).

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up in the drama of what happened to so-and-so that we don’t have the cognitive resources to disagree.�:

And now that "cycle of abuse" theories have become widely accepted, many psychopaths are eager to attribute their faults and problems to childhood abuse. Although their claims may be difficult to verify, there is never a shortage of well-meaning people ready to take them at face value. (Hare 1993:50-1).

People now remember how the faltering transgressor last appeared wobbly before the jeering crowd. He carried in his trembling hands a sick bucket and chamberpot as his desperate plea for reconciliation and forgiveness went unanswered among Bronx cheers:

The key in using empathy is that you do not want people to feel sorry for you (sympathetic); you want them to feel with you (or someone else like them) to the point that they cannot imagine not sharing your opinion. (Lakhani 2005:136, emphasis added).

The black-hearted public ignored the chamberpot and sick bucket: the gage of the unbearable gastrointestinal syndromes rejection had bitterly wrought upon the frail little creature. Should the chamberpot now become the holy chalice of a new reconciliatory covenant in the name of s-he who suffered so much because of us?

In the clouds, [insert favorite here] was wriggling in agony as the holy covenant was being broken. Readers may also ponder at which point of this trailer for a third-rate cable TV movie -what most xeroxed newscasts look like anyways-

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an espresso coffee or malt liquor commercial might hold better returns as viewers retch, shake fists, gasp or weep away in irresistible rapture of emotional oneness: news items as multimedia simulacra615 (mis)taken for real life.

This awful cable TV kind of scene can also be restyled as the 'divine child shtick'. Small children -more readily coterminous with chamberpots and sick buckets- are perceived as ultimately good within. They may kick one another, throw tantrums, and steal things, but condescending adults readily attribute that to sleep deprivation, food allergies, need for a snack, charming emotional incompetence or some other overwhelming external circumstances. The same happens with felons, corrupt politicians and other transgressors who can successfully set the 'divine child' charade in motion: he's an habitual burglar: '...ism' made him do it; he ruined countless investors, but see how the sick bucket comes handy...

Sartre aptly characterized the two stages/approaches: facticity (=s-he committed that transgression, period) and transcendence (=all the charming or terrifying asides that open the wonderful or disturbing human universe to us: s-he is a gifted saxophone player; he is a sweet daddy; the other was raped as a child etc):”we’re so caught up in the drama of what happened to so-and-so that we don’t have the cognitive resources to disagree.”: 615 A displaced substitute. An Object of interplay between the human mind and nature as the human nature becomes hypersensitive to patterns.

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Deliberate misrepresentations, hoaxes and frauds are surprisingly commonplace in American political life. They are more likely to occur in those issues where taboos, "sensitivity," or fear of being called names are operational, or where the moral imperatives of noble social causes and crusades overwhelm individual judgment.

(Wilcox 1994:29).

One highly respected author of the 1920s, in a classical study of the pastoral letters, claimed that the author, who called himself Paul even though he was someone else, “was not conscious of misrepresenting the Apostle in any way; he was not consciously deceiving anybody; it is not, indeed, necessary to suppose that he did deceive anybody.” What evidence does this scholar provide for these claims? None at all. And what a remarkable statement! If the author did not want to deceive anyone and in fact did not deceive anybody, why is it that every known interpreter of these letters for over seventeen hundred years was deceived, as many continue to be today, when they assume that the author who claims to be Paul really was Paul? (Ehrman 2011:135-6).

An article from local, third-rate press written by third-rate journalists 616 supplies a textbook example of the innate use of transcendence to whitewash just about anything. A 41 yo man dies electrocuted as he climbs in order to steal copper wiring from an electric installation at Sesto Calende (Italy). Does the article emphasizes theft? Does the emphasis lie on tampering with the public electric system, thus putting common humanity fellows in potential danger? Not at all.

First “una folla di amici” (countless friends= surfeit that boggles the mind) and “una folla in lacrime” (a crowd in tears; pictures show maybe fifteen people

in

attendance

if

at

all,

though)

attend

the

funeral

(=forgiveness=reconciliation=no grudges=great reunion motif), then it's reported he 616 Caminiti 2014:63.

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climbed on a high tower “possibly in order to steal copper wiring” (“pare con l'intenzione di rubare dei cavi di rame”): refrain from hasty judgments motif.

Lastly, “Lorenzo” (the deceased construction worker, that one Lorenzo we all know and love= artificial kin motif) was a fishing enthusiast. The article ends quoting friends who wish to remember (=remembrance motif) Lorenzo as the wonderful person he was, just as in the picture where he smiles with a fish he just caught.

After all, Lorenzo -his family comments- was neither an addict, nor had criminal records: he was just “too generous” (=ugly duckling shtick). What a fitting 'secret cause':”If only they knew how good or how smart I am deep inside, if only they understood the real me, I' d be accepted, promoted, loved, etc”. Lorenzo's “real self” is that of a charming, generous fisherman, of course, not that of a reckless thief.

Borrowing a simile from Buddhist literature, the human mind is a gangrenous sore. When poked with everything, it oozes putrid matter: the cherished myths, petrified images and obtuse allegories it finds irresistible.

School of Business professor Freeman imparts much of the same advice617. He chooses the dramatic hypothesis of a person taken as a hostage.

Freeman suggests that the more one is capable to come across to the gunman as a

617 2014:Building Leverage.

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'real person' (=transcendence=rapport talk), the less likely the gunman is to harm one:

So whereas altruism can increase cheating and direct supervision can decrease it, altruistic cheating overpowers the supervisory effect when people are put together in a setting where they have a chance to socialize and be observed. (Ariely 2012:113).

It doesn't take a Business professor to guess that incompetent plumbers and other sloppy service providers, defaulting tenants, murderous sociopaths, corrupt politicians may as well play the 'common humanity card' to get off the hook by spinning gut-wrenching, tear-jerking guff.

Whether the story is forensically true or false does not matter in the end: “Why fabulate ? Because if we do not, everyone else will.”. Interesting experiments ( so called “change blindness”) by Simons et alii showed how 8 in 15 common people asked to provide directions on a university campus fail to detect that the person they're talking with changed as a door was carried between the two to divert attention briefly.

In another experiment, the persons asking for directions were dressed as construction workers: only 4 people in 12 noticed the person had changed as a door was carried between them to divert attention; all they saw was a “construction worker” (boots, hard hat and all). Hardly surprising: the motion picture industry has been turning this proclivity into a spectacle made of body doubles, stand-ins, stunt

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men and so forth replacing the 'great (wo)man' on screen as the public fails to notice.

Another experiment (so-called “invisible gorilla” by Chabris&Simons) involves counting how many times a few people wearing black or white shirts pass a ball in a short video618. While people might follow the ball more or less accurately, many -roughly 50%- fail to notice that:



A person in gorilla suit passes between players beating his chest;



the curtain changes color;



one player leaves the scene.

No surprise then that hoaxers, felons, politicians etc are as swift as professional gamblers to shuffle the deck of perceptional cards for prompt returns. The murderer of color is 'mentally ill', and needs prompt forgiveness, not a life sentence; the corrupt politician has been sick (raped as a child, etc): he needs sympathy, not judgment:

many criminals are able to fake the results of psychological tests without too much difficulty. Recently, an inmate in one of my research projects had an institutional file that contained three completely different MMPI profiles. -...-During our interview he offered the opinion that psychologists and psychiatrists were "air heads" who believed anything he told them. (Hare 1993:31).

618 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY

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Homosexuals, POWs, the mentally unstable, the brain-damaged: these are the people who try to bring him down. He was fated from the start to be a great roshi; those who stand in his way are sick or stupid. Shimano would not, I think, have tried such theories on me unless he had a reasonable expectation that I would believe them. He knows that it is easier, and more flattering to our faith in human nature, to decide that his accusers are a little touched than to think that a Zen master would slander his followers with lies, gossip, or appeals to homophobia. (Oppenheimer 2014:no page).

The Spanish economy finally collapsed, but the valiant left-wing Zapatero government was so proud to uncover and chastise (supposed) Francoist horrors; the NSDAP millenial regime ended with the twin piles of ashes belonging to incinerated German towns, and death camp inmates, yet the NSDAP stood valiantly up for 'a strong Germany', Aryan pride, etc:�All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.�.

Like elated adolescents tasting emotional experiences for the first time, the public is taken on a grand tour of an emotional universe. While the unbearable screams, groans, whimpers and moans of the fallen transgressor -that precious, frail creature who suffered so much- fade away, the heckler quips -along with wrestler Ted DiBiase and his arrogant millionaire persona-: there is nothing s-he has done that each of you wouldn't do; the sweet human soul experiences aesthetic arrest as the thunder of illumination strikes.

That's what mimeographed news releases, and various categories of hoaxers and manipulators are after: giving the bewildered masses sleepwalking

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through their lives a iota of daily adrenaline. What better way to provide it than 'you know who' and 'you know what' narratives that allow to make -again, and again and again- the experience of the past into the present? ”[The public] only wanted one thing from [a given public figure]: a story. He told it so well that we forgave him almost everything. ”;“[it] helped people to believe.”;”We want -...original content regardless of its validity. We're here for the scare, not for the plausibility”;“For some people, outrage is a pleasant emotion, and disseminating a rumor that breeds outrage can enhance one’s reputation, especially within certain social networks.”619:

Paranoia is a rich area for fundamental concepts. The blurring of binary oppositions of self-other, internal-external, fantasy-reality are all obvious examples. Thus paranoia is the province of the trickster.

(Hansen 2001:302).

In their traditional healing rituals, U.S Navajo Native-Americans make a point of identifying a mythological proxy for the illness/problem to be treated, draw complex sand paintings that recall Tibetan mandalas, chant, and ask the patient to identify with the mythological narrative to insure a positive outcome. Sand is also used for the purpose of divination in Afro-Cuban Santeria.

they perpetuate the discourse by making it relevant in different contexts (in problem-solving usages), and by elevating it above all possible competitors (in sacred usages). -...- Either they depict a policy conducive to a particular interest as the answer to a problem impinging on the common interest. Or they promote such a policy by 619 Sunstein 2014:39.

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associating it with an interpretation of discourse that acts as a defense of discourse, and then locating competing policies outside of it. The former usage may be labeled "problem-solving" usages, and the latter, "sacred" usages. For the second aspect we figure discourse as a taken for granted set of perceptions that are used apart from attempts to promote individual policies.(Lorenzo 1993, ii, 28).

An example of this is the legend of the Gorgona (mermaid). In this legend the Gorgona, who is Alexander’s sister, would appear in front of sailors during a storm and ask of them: “Tell me sailor, is King Alexander alive?” And if the sailor replies, “Yes, my lady, he is alive and reigns” she happily goes away and calms the sea. But if the sailor tells her that he has died she becomes upset, makes the storm worse and sinks the ship. (Ancient History: no page).

Au début étaient les années 1935-1945 et la lutte unanime contre le nazisme et Vichy. Puis vinrent les années 1950-1980, celles de l'anticolonialisme et du tiers-mondisme, de la France multi, pluri, interculturelle, etc. Avec les années 1980-1990, le racisme c'est l'exclusion donc tout est racisme. Les slogans se succèdent plus creux et contradictoires les uns que les autres : « Droit à la différence, égalité dans la différence, droit à la ressemblance, droit à l'indifférence..., etc. ». Au bout d'un processus, marqué par la multiplication de lois antiracistes (la dernière sous Rocard au lendemain de l'affaire de Carpentras dont le ministre de l'Intérieur de l'époque doit conserver un souvenir contrasté), le racisme n'a plus de contenu. Ce n'est plus qu'une insulte. La démarche intellectuelle qui conduit à ce résultat électoralement utile comporte quatre étapes. La première consiste à fondre en un même ensemble des catégories hétéroclites de victimes : les gens sont exclus par la classe, l'âge, le sexe, le revenu, le niveau scolaire, l'habitat, la religion. La seconde étape vise à couper la France en deux (ce qui se dit en grec: « diaboliser ») entre gauche et droite, victimes et bourreaux, républicains et nazis, enfin les exclus et les autres. Les « racistes » sont dominateurs, oppresseurs, exploiteurs, génocideurs. Ils aiment le marché, la compétition, la productivité, l'efficacité, le profit, la patrie, la famille, Jean-Paul II aussi car libéralisme, nationalisme et racisme ne peuvent relever que d'une même pathologie obscurantiste. Les « racisés » opprimés et exclus, tous les autres sont des victimes innocentes irresponsables de leur exclusion. La disposition affective que présuppose et conforte de telles analyses chez les défenseurs des victimes est la compassion qui se traduit en conduites de solidarités, actions de défense des droits, voire 606

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la légitimation de l'insurrection contre la loi républicaine 4. L'étape finale est la stratégie du soupçon. Comme aucune force politique ne se targue publiquement de racisme (même Le Pen gagne la plupart de ses procès), le racisme doit être dit occulte, latent, ordinaire, quotidien et gagnant par prédilection la droite civilisée. (Kaltenbach 1996:77).

When a protester620 hit him with a small plastic object (December 13, 2009), then Prime Minister Berlusconi's (who had risked his life or an eye depending on different sources) first thought when regaining control went to making sure his attacker was safe (=no grudges shtick), relayed some newspapers, thus imitating father god (Genesis 4:15621), and Jesus (Luke 23:34622):

More wooden skewers were then forced through their thigh and calf muscles, and heavy buffalo skulls were hung from these. Catlin says, and in his paintings he shows us, that when the pegs were being put through their muscles, these [American-Indian] boys made a very special point of smiling and acting as though nothing were happening. -...-Those young men said to Catlin at one time, "Women suffer. We must suffer too." (Campbell&Boa 1989:75-6, emphasis added).

In 2013, the mystical body of the savior-hero is still in danger of being profaned, for Berlusconi commented -according to press agency ADNKRONOS (23 February)-: “a Torino una persona mi ha infilato un dito in un occhio col rischio della rottura della retina ” (At Turin someone poked me in an eye, thus potentially damaging the retina)623.

620 The man was swiftly judged incapable to stand trial and discarded to a rehabilitation center as mentally ill.

621 ”But the LORD said to him, "Not so; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over." Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him ”.

622 “Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." ”.

623 Readers may notice the “sacred power of sight” motif.

607

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Also, one may want to recognize here the 'blind hero' motif. Hitler lies temporarily blind after a gas attack during WWI. Blind Oedipus embarks on the journey to his final resting place in Athens. St. Paul is blinded on the road to Damascus. The hero's vision has been more or less permanently impaired: the precious human soul agonizes pondering whichever gnostic message at hand.

(Popular) culture is never far behind. Neo in the last Matrix movies, Frank Dux in Bloodsport, Michel Strogoff, Anthony in Il Ragazzo Dal Kimono

D'Oro, Tiresias, Paul Atreides, Jack in Big Trouble In Little China (1986), and a host of others624: the hero is (momentarily) blind.

Mexican caudillo and President Santa Anna (1794-1876) proposed a similar situation on his followers as he was about the flee in the wake of a rebellion:

Companions-in-arms! With pride I sustained the loss of an important member of my body [ a leg he had lost in combat], lost gloriously in the service of our Native Land, as some of you bore witness; but that pride has turned to grief, sadness and desperation. You should know that these remains have been violently torn from the funeral urn, which was broken, and dragged through the streets to make sport of them. (cit. in Knight in Walsham 2010:239).

Ancient myth(ologie)s are not only the province of hazy speculation by amblyopic scholars, but are circularly reenacted, staged, spoofed on a constant basis: irresistible commodities that translate into all too tangible box-office, cash-counter or ballotbox results.

624 See for example a tentative list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fictional_blind_characters or at http://brailleworks.com/fictional-characters-who-are-blind/

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Availability heuristic predicts that what most often recurs in one's mind (what one reads in the press, the most shocking account, what's all the rage in cable TV story-lines...) is taken as most common or likely state of affairs: the euro zone is indeed going to implode -at least twice a year- lest the new row of tax and due diligence provisions is put into retroactive effect; East-German (Communist) spy syndicates along with their domestic confederates are indeed going to destroy the world in nuclear mayhem if we don't support the right party right now; ...ists are indeed going to goose-step onto town if the new 'special law' is not passed immediately etc:

Many pawns are so enamored by the persona of the psychopathic fraudster that they give him or her whatever is needed, however inappropriate or outrageous the request. Eventually, psychopaths are able to convince a large number of people that they are their best friends, trusted confidants, loyal coworkers, and all-around good people with whom to associate. They are able to create a fiction and maintain it in day-to-day interaction. (Babiak&Hare 2006:125).

Professor of marketing Berger clinches: “Word of mouth is the primary factor behind 20 percent to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions.”625:

We have access to news 24 hours a day on TV, radio, and the Internet—much of it consisting of quick sound bites that aim for our hearts but not our minds. Journalists have a saying: “If it bleeds, it leads,” meaning that the top news stories are always the most shocking or sensational ones. It seems to me that most newscasters are shaped by the same mold, with their grave expressions and motionless hair. They also sound as if they’ve all received standard 625 2013:10.

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training in how to come up with quick, sensational sound bites that they repeat every few minutes. Grim stories about the economy take the shape of tearjerker stories about people who are struggling, who have lost their jobs, and who can’t pay for their homes or insurance. It is not that these stories are unimportant, not very sad, or unuseful, but they don’t help us understand what is happening all around us, or what caused the economic meltdown in the first place. And when we submit ourselves to a never-ending daily diet of depressing, emotional sound bites (thinking that we are going to learn something from watching, reading, or listening to them over and over), we risk intensifying our depression. (Ariely 2009:169, emphasis added).

Lefties and progressive hacks in academia heckle about...spurious, overinflated, sensational, untrue accounts about crime rates and minorities (immigrants...): fair enough; media do tend to indulge in sensational reporting as it helps with sales and audience.

The opposite happens to apply, as one might expect with all this politicized drivel, as the same lefties and electioneering hacks maintain that '...ism' is in truth rampant: the new social alchemy provision or 'special law' shall be passed or funded straightaway, lest '...ists' march onto town by the weekend:

Likewise, when Bill Clinton said that the economy under George H.W. Bush was “the worst economy in fifty years,” no reasonable economist actually could substantiate that idea, but the rhetorical tactic was successful. Notice also the danger of hyperbole: when John Kerry tried to use the same Clinton line, it was not successful.

Hyperbole wears out very quickly (Drout 2006:54, emphasis added).

Put simply, the link between creativity and dishonesty seems related to the ability to tell ourselves stories about how we are doing the right thing, even when we are not. The more creative we are, the more we are able to come up with good stories that help us justify our selfish 610

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interests. (Ariely 2012:85). a synagogue bombing had been planned for nearby Spokane. Later, the FBI acknowledged that the "plot" was sheer fiction. David Hill of the FBI office in Seattle, said, "The bottom line is we found there was no substance to the allegations." Apparently, however, Bordner -acting as an informant – actually tried to get a conspiracy of that nature going. According to February 1992 news reports -...-Bordner fabricated the account in order to promote a future book. (Wilcox 1994:59).

Future pace what you want them to do and experience. When you have people in a peak emotional state, in person or in writing, have them move forward in time and experience what their life, their emotions, their existence will be like after having been doing [or not doing] whatever you are suggesting for a certain period of time.

(Lakhani 2005:152).

Availability heuristics – much as the horde in fusion- can be scaled down to whichever level one sees fit. The superordinate goal that serves as a glue (the “field” of field theory, for example) to keep the horde in fusion -in spite of centrifugal or centripetal forces- may encompass an entire continent (“we Europeans”); a country (“real Americans”); a family (we Fernandez), or any other unit: a team at work; a unit in the army; wrestlers or welders as a professional body...

Common belief systems allow people who may be very different in many other aspects of their lives to find common ground for social interaction. As long as the psychopath can accurately espouse these beliefs while in the presence of group members, the true motives are less likely to be discovered. (Babiak&Hare 2006:90).

Dues626 discusses power dynamics according to the best minds of 626 2010:Power.

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organizational theory:

If you have less power in a conflict, it’s important to stay engaged and keep speaking up. Research shows that if you do that, your power will grow and the other person will begin to listen to you more. You can also gain power by seeking allies or by building your knowledge and increasing your personal skills (2010:26).

Which sounds suspiciously similar to what happens on a kindergarten playground: nagging, and triangulating with little buddies to get our way: readers shall individually assess the scientific value of such considerations.

Tannen627 advises to team up with one or more co-workers to give one another credit without having to sound egotistical by claiming credit ourselves if need be. Dues628, however, impart the exact opposite advice:

The harmful effects of triangulationextnote tend not to appear immediately but to build up over time. In organizations, cliques develop, morale declines, and teamwork breaks down.

The horde shall experience the last fusion, the last dysphoric bonding episode; the grandiose curtain call shall unfold as humankind -or civilization as we know it- as a whole disappears at once: the 'nuclear holocaust' imagery.

Castro expressly basked in the possibility at the height of the Cuban missile crisis: he impelled the USSR to launch a nuclear attack should the USA 627 2004.

628 2010:33. e xtnote Dues defines triangulation precisely as Tannen does, but reaching opposing conclusions:”triangulation:Drawing a third party into a conflict instead of directly addressing the other conflict party.” (Ibid.:34) (note of this writer).

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invade Cuba, and exhorted fellow 'proud Cubans' to face ultimate annihilation bravely in the great cause's name. Another left-wing radical, the Greek Tsipras, wanted in 2015 to lead the noble Greek people in an epic fight -with homeland first and rally of the pack flumadiddle- against the inequitable

forces occultes of

international finance hoping to create dissent within EU countries that allowed Greece to dodge mammoth debt payments. The financial scourging of Greece was the result of another adventurist fiasco.

Besotted

with

anticipation

(elation, guilt...),

and

cornered

by

overwhelming cognitive dissonance, the public shall capitulate, and endorse whatever the social alchemist just proposed, just as the Greek people did when it voted in favor of evading financial obligations with foreign creditors.

That's not new, either. Epochs of unparalleled progress, the late Victorian age and Belle Epoque were obsessed with judgment day imagery -such as Martin's paintings epitomize629-; a melancholic prefiguration of death, especially since Prince Albert's untimely death (1861). Spiritualist and deistic quests seemed a remedy to the collapse of Biblical worldview science was increasingly debunking; a passion for erotic imagery and nudes under the excuse of classic reminiscences also arose.

In 1995 during an internationally televised Italian musical event 629 In one of his apocalyptic paintings, a steam train -the epitomy of the day's best technology- runs at full speed into the pit of the damned.

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(Sanremo), popular Italian anchorman Pippo Baudo also 'saved' a supposedly unemployed man ready to jump from a balcony630, including a scene in which Baudo -visibly aghast- offered the distraught 'common humanity fellow' a fatherly embrace, and a kiss. According to some subsequent accounts and allegations, it all was an orchestrated farce.

According to Reuters631, German Chancellor Merkel appears in a similar shtick featuring a possible refugee. Just as party liners rushing to be one with the horde in fusion are not quite sure whether they saw a bayoneted baby or a crucified Canadian, so the refugee is described as a girl in turn 10, 12, 14 or so year old of alternatively Palestinian or Lebanese origin. She pleads her case in front of Merkel who strokes the young refugee's back as the girl starts to cry because she's told she can't stay. July 17, 2015632, media announce the girl finally could -or would- be allowed to stay in Germany after all: the timing outperforms every espresso coffee or malt liquor campaign one might recall. The charming coincidence steals the day in the press so that the ongoing financial scourging of Greece slips on the back burner.

The unjustly maligned and tormented savior/shepherd always forgives and 'still loves us' in spite of it all. Kitchener “wants us” to save ourselves by saving the British Empire in the Belle Epoque; uncle Sam “wants us” to save ourselves by 630 Footage is still available online, for example at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up6cMAnYQ6M 631 July 16, 2015.

632 The Telegraph.

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saving the USA; Brazilian Fascists (integralistas) want you to save Brazil in the early 1930s. Greek chieftains “still wanted” Ulysses and Achilles to go to Troy, so on and so forth.

It is a never-ending replay of stiff Greek drama 633 that predated Christianity by several centuries:

that the old tales were, from the earliest traceable stages in the development of the genre, made into tragic plots by being adapted to these patterns. Finally (and this is also true at least from the time of our first surviving examples), the plots of Greek tragedies are articulated through a limited but highly flexible repertoire of formal units, and we shall need to examine the ways in which the conventions of form create expectations and provide frames for interpretation (Easterling 1997:179) the problem of heroics is the central one of human life, that it goes deeper into human nature than anything else because it is based on organismic narcissism and on the child's need for self esteem as the condition for his life. Society itself is a codified hero system, which means that society everywhere is a living myth of the significance of human life, a defiant creation of meaning. (Becker 1973:7).

THESEUS: You’re leaving me. Your blood is on my hands.

HIPPOLYTUS: No, Father. I absolve you of this murder.

THESEUS: Really? You would clear me of your blood-guilt?

633 And whatever other myths were at the bottom thereof.

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HIPPOLYTUS: I call as witness Artemis the huntress.

THESEUS: My own dear son, how nobly you have acted.”

(Euripides Hippolytus 1620-30).

Once again, parting real-life from popular culture and entertainment is almost impossible. During a search at his mother's house regarding an international financial scandal involving prominent Italian industries in 2013, one of the supposed culprits pretends to be taken ill, and collapses on the bed under which damning papers were hidden634.

Naturally, most don't care about the antics of one of the many Barnums of TV trying to revive the sort of a declining musical event. Party liners, prigs and dolts, however, melt in sentimental rapture as Obama in 2012 hugs and kisses San Su Ky (the activist and fellow Nobel laureate having spent 15 years under house arrest for opposing the military regime in Burma).

History is thus made -at least every fortnight according to newspapers-, the manifest destiny is unfolding according to the providential plan laid in the mist of time, or another edition of Aristotelian theories about final causes. An oak tree lurks in every acorn:” Fulfilling the occult magnificent plan, The world-wide and 634 “Quando gli investigatori vanno a casa della madre di Guido Haschke per una perquisizione, l’intermediario finge un malore e frana sul letto: lì sotto è nascosto un memorandum del 2010 riguardante la fornitura di mezzi Agusta all’India in cui si fa specifico riferimento alla tangente. ” Tangenti 2013: no page.

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immortal spirit in man ” (Aurobindo).

Although life savings and pension funds can be pulverized, homes can be repossessed, and lives can be lost in the recurring honest wars, stock-market crashes and routine economic crises the 'all-seeing-eye' of the ventriloquists for providential blueprints of history couldn't possibly foresee, it's -all things considered- ”three years of struggle, followed by a thousand years of happiness”, just as Mao had predicted: simple, finite, far-out and stretched, or the ideal slogan 635. Of course, even imperial Japan, the USSR, the Khmer Rouge and NSDAP Germany had their ideas of manifest destinies that -for a while at least- seemed to irresistibly pan out.

If the almighty entered in a covenant with the Hebrews, and promised them glory and rewards, Berlusconi engaged into the televised signature of the

contratto con gli Italiani (contract with the Italian people, May 8, 2001), in which he promised drastic tax cuts along with massive investments. Before him, in 1994, U.S Republicans had played the same card. Posterity shall judge how many of the promises were kept, if any at all.

If any doubt existed, an Italian court stated in 2009 that Berlusconi's promise wasn't legally binding636:

One of the great tricks of rhetoric is to take something that sounds like a performative, such as “I promise,” and move it into the realm of a 6352011:Phases Of Transformation.

636 Fece Causa...2009: no page.

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nonperformative. Politicians do this all the time, in a variety of ways.

For example, if you do not actually have the power to perform the performative action, you can promise all you want, but the action cannot—by you—be made to happen. So when a presidential candidate says, “If elected, I will lower gasoline prices,” we should note that the President does not in fact have the power to lower gasoline prices. And so if gasoline prices do not go down, the presidential candidate can say, “I sent legislation to Congress and they didn’t pass it.” On the other hand, his opponents can try to hold him to the performative utterance. A flawed performative thus walks a very narrow line between a statement and, well, a lie. (Drout 2006:8, emphasis added).

Some -following in the footsteps of Jewish-French sociologist Durkheimstress the modernity of contracts, which would turn a page on the sacred universe of traditional societies: breach of contract doesn't get a mob to lynch one for sacrilege.

The present writer contends this leap is unwarranted. Both WWI and WWII started because of breach of contract(s) between various countries (Serbia's or Poland's independence; Belgium's neutrality; various alliances...).

The Hellenist age saw monarchs entering into agreements/covenants with (Hellenized) cities, whereby praise, statues and gifts would be directed to the King, and exemptions and munificence would benefit the city: Seleucid ruler Antiochus II (286-246 BCE) “received the surname of Theos, "Divine", from the Milesians in the first instance, because he slew their tyrant, Timarchus. ” (Appian,

Syriaca 65).

Pachakuti (Inca King) in a dream entered in a covenant with Inti, the Sun; future Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III in a dream entered in a covenant with 618

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Horus of the Horizon; Khmer King Jaya did the same with Shiva.

Furthermore, the contract imagery in the political or philosophical realm is indeed awash in melodramatic sentimentalism: the great nation in danger; the fusion of the horde is at stake; the score is to even up; frail, little creatures need to be rescued; ”three years of struggle, followed by a thousand years of happiness” and so forth.

Industrial societies may restyle mythical covenants as contracts, but many -although for obvious reasons not all- categories of contracts – such as marriages or foreign policy treaties and engagements- are still supercharged with mythical and/or religious potential. Specialists (lawyers, economists, diplomats...) are still needed to negotiate contracts; they often wear liturgical dresses (ex. lawyers in court; physicians).

The fact their specialism is in legal matters and based on the rite of passage of a bar or diplomatic exam instead of vision quests or religious ordination does not change the nature of the relationship at stake:

A quick search of the Congressional Record (the official source for [U.S] Senate and House debates) reveals in excess of a thousand usages of the Golden Rule and more than five hundred invocations of the Good Samaritan over the last two decades. This same search yields hundreds of references to the Promised Land, Armageddon, and the Apocalypse. (Prothero 2007:13).

Nowadays the 'pig Latin' (Hebrew, Greek, Sanskrit...) used to induce 619

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stupor in traditional religions has been replaced by the trendy jargon of the legal, financial and medical profession:”the ability of some psychopaths to put on a good show without saying anything of substance.”637.

Even St. Paul described himself as god's oikonomos (=god's economist, financial overseer, master of the household, steward... 1 Corinthians 4 & 9) just as Cynic philosophers such as Epictetus did:

When Howard Shultz created Starbucks, he was as intuitive a businessman as Salvador Assael. He worked diligently to separate Starbucks from other coffee shops, not through price but through ambience. Accordingly, he designed Starbucks from the very beginning to feel like a continental coffeehouse. The early shops were fragrant with the smell of roasted beans (and better-quality roasted beans than those at Dunkin’ Donuts). They sold fancy French coffee presses. The showcases presented alluring snacks— almond croissants, biscotti, raspberry custard pastries, and others.

Whereas Dunkin’ Donuts had small, medium, and large coffees, Starbucks offered Short, Tall, Grande, and Venti, as well as drinks with high-pedigree names like Caffè Americano, Caffè Misto, Macchiato, and Frappuccino. Starbucks did everything in its power, in other words, to make the experience feel different—so different that we would not use the prices at Dunkin’ Donuts as an anchor, but instead would be open to the new anchor that Starbucks was preparing for us. And that, to a great extent, is how Starbucks succeeded. (Ariely 2009:35).

Traditional and secular societies alike try to control sexual activity and expression much as they try to control food preparation and intake. Oden 638 considers this discipline the hallmark of distinct religious communities separating the human (saved, faithful etc) from the non-human (damned, heathen etc).

637 Babiak&Hare 2006:283.

638 1998:Religious Rituals And Communities.

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When Mormonism was created, the Word Of Wisdom (1833, a “health code”) strongly urged devotees to abstain from tobacco, “strong” and “hot drinks”, although to this day controversy subsists regarding the exact meaning of such advice; most sources interpret the warning to mean “moderation in consumption”.

The Sikh communal meal langar is always vegetarian, although meat eating is otherwise permitted.

Postwar secular societies are as bizarrely keen on regulating food consumption -and sexuality- as established religions that include archaic traits -such as Judaism- might be. One fundamentalist religious society cheers the legal enforcement of body hair or clothing codes, whereas a secular one cheers the legal prohibition against the consumption of say horse, dog or cat meat. One society legislates against GLBT sexuality, whereas another embraces it with much pomp.

Both groups are experiencing a schizophrenic crack-up of oneness as they loathe the other party.

Schizotypal personalities on a mission on both sides of the fence try to hoodwink the frazzled masses into believing that homosexuality is both an abomination, and a one-way ticket to hell; or that it is as fulfilling, trendy and mainstream as it can be.

In an interview, wrestling superstar Rick Flair complained that outsiders ought not be allowed to use the jargon of wrestling: the jargon becomes the 621

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camarilla's secret handshake and code-word much as it unfolds among middleschool children.

These two facts together explain why painful or frightening (in the jargon, ‘dysphoric’) rituals — such as traumatic initiations and hazing practices — lead to bonding. Whatever each performer thinks or feels about the experience, they all assume that the other participants feel the same as them. The same goes for non-ritual experiences, too: the more painful or horrifying it is, the stronger the effect. If we are hurt in a plane crash, we might dwell on it for years afterwards, considering how it changed our lives and wondering why it happened, how it could have been different and so on. Discovering other people who share this experience can be powerful: they seem uniquely placed to understand us in a way that others simply can’t. In fact, we might go so far as to say that people have no right to comment if they haven’t been through what we have been through.

Ritual is able to work with these feelings – provoking them as part of an intense experience of bonding with a group. -...-How does any of this relate to rituals? Well, we think dysphoric rituals are a bit like coming under fire in a warzone, except that they are more powerfully bonding, partly because they cannot be explained in any simple causal way. The range of interpretations that one can place on a painful or unpleasant ritual is inexhaustible: it sucks you into an interpretive vortex. In fact, our lab experiments suggest that one’s sense of a ritual’s significance actually increases over time, rather than decaying.

(Whitehouse 2012: no page, emphasis added).

When people "go through things together," they will often be synchronized right down to primal sighs of despair or shouts of joy.

(Boothman 2000:77).

The point the present writer makes is the opposite of Drout's. Drout's viewpoint might be rational, and/or might reflect the stance of a more mature, better informed and discerning public; it nevertheless fails to reflect everyday practice as Machiavelli wrote “in the world there is only the rabble”.

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Much as the year 2002 had seen a presumed Chinese flu epidemics, and 2013 saw the rise of the “new Chinese flu”, so the Contratto Con Gli Italiani was revamped as Berlusconi's new covenant for the 2013 general election.

To show how inescapable human mind's propensities might be, Berlusconi -counting on the meek masses' volatile attention span- presses ahead assuring of his commitment, and claiming people shall sue him, should he win the upcoming election and fail to keep his (many) promises 639, for he intends to restore trust (“compiere un gesto simbolico di riappacificazione tra cittadini e Stato” ) between citizens and the State640 (=reconciliation, covenant etc).

On the same wavelength, a Chinese legend claims that subjects could bring their petitions and grievances to a certain column, still visible today, and the Emperor would adjudicate within the day: the omnipotent patriarch who embodies the horde in fusion watches your every move, yet he's so personable and eager to serve.

Berlusconi's last propagandistic exploit meanwhile caused a possible uproar, which PDL flatly denies, and opponents magnify. Rows of meek recipients of propagandistic letters -which party PDL sent to solicit voters detailing the party's commitment to reimburse a particular property tax recently introduced in hasteallegedly tried to use such letters to get immediate refunds. The covenant – as most 639 Berlusconi 2013: no page.

640 Elezioni 2013:no page.

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hero journeys- may reserve equal parts of reward and punishment, struggle and delight:”three years of struggle, followed by a thousand years of happiness” was Mao's motto.

While many identify their chance to beat the odds with this, that or another politician and his 'honest promises', others see that chance as Lady Luck, with much the same prospects. That's based upon the (incorrect) “law of small numbers”. While people have a confuse sense of the otherwise statistical truth that the outcome of flipping a genuine coin is 50% head or tail, they ignore that the truth fails to apply to small numbers. In other words, to reach the famed 50% head/tail ratio, one has to toss a coin not only a dozen times, but perhaps hundreds of times or more.

It won't escape readers the dire consequences of applying this flawed logic to gambling (I feel this is my lucky day...everybody wins with slot machines over there...); investments (the previous five investment portfolios crashed, but this one's a keeper...); relationships (not all women/men are the same: I feel I met prince/princess charming this time...).

Yet that is what a composite cohort of positive psychologists, makers of inspirational movies, offhand cult leaders and spin-doctors strapped for cash offer with their nods to oaks that lie dormant in every acorn:”a marshal's baton in every soldier's backpack ” as Napoleon often argued to enthrall his soldiers.

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People shall keep coming back for more with resilience until their acorn eventually blossoms into a powerful oak; their blacklisted party seizes power; their dollar turns into ten; they get the marshal's baton, deliver the virgin, or any image one might use...

Alternatively, the soldier is killed anonymously on the battlefield, and buried disfigured in a mass grave; the dollar is lost in the typical financial swindle or market crash none could forestall; government informants run the blacklisted party according to a script intelligence agencies supplied; the 'hearts on fire' posting inflammatory messages online as heralds of blacklisted 'best of all causes' are agents of governmental or minority group agencies running a sting operation as they post under pseudonyms; all that blossoms is a modest shrub, not a oak.

Legions of hopeful foreigners in 2009 land in Italy by the airplane-load in order to try their luck with the last fabulous 'honest' State lottery, or so tell the media. The lottery is really worth trying: legions of foreigners do are landing, and have been repeatedly sighted (=the sacred power of vision) by countless witnesses.

Probably only one airplane landed for that purpose: a publicity campaign German magazine Bild and Air Berlin had orchestrated.

Lotteries are avowedly Italy's third largest industry, with a turnover rising from euro 14,3 billion in 2000 to 80 billion in 2011 641. Regardless of personal 641 Panza 2013: no page.

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miseries, pathologies and ensuing ills (in 2012 about 2% gamblers, or 800.000 people, are pathological gamblers 642; the percentage rises to about 33% according to studies in 2013643) on the rise ( Italy's Regione Piemonte reports having treated 613 pathological gamblers in 2010, versus 166 in 2005644), gambling is an handle the compassionate nanny State eagerly cranks, for the greater good of all, of course; the best of intentions override accidental ill results, or the old divide between teleology and deontology645.

Not only are lotteries a boon to the great nation's depleted finances, but also generate by ricochet an entire industry to deal with the aftermath: social workers and psychologists to treat compulsive gamblers; policy makers to draft laws, by-laws and counter-laws; advocacy groups to heckle about it; professionals and scientists to 'study' the phenomenon: what a boon for employment and civic effervescence.

The covenant item is but the concrete, engineered manifestation (=an

exemplum) of an underlying, simpler principle:” the story channels our intuition, and lets us understand how things work” 646. This simpler principle is -again- that of oneness; of Chinese fortune cookie wisdom that -in gnostic capsules- gets the 642 Diecidue 2012: no page.

643 Press agency AGI -on 20 May 2013- copies research from Brescia Catholic university.

644 Ibid.

645 Brown (2013:The Dark Side Of Influence) mentions that motives (good/bad) are what parts an ethical leader from a toxic one, a benefactor from a conman who might be otherwise using the same strategies. Of course, who's to judge what constitutes good or bad? One's mass-murder might be another's “just payback” after all.

646 Drout 2006:Structures Of Effective Arguments.

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human mind into a sort of trance: 'your problem is also mine, and my solution can be yours'.

Again, the “revealing a secret” shtick that so many saviors, heroes and founders made their own never ceases to pay dividends. Over the internet swarms of pedlars in disinterested rapture offer 'secrets' able to instantly fix one's monthly income, one's sexual performance, and so forth.

“Revealing a secret” can be the key to business success. Professor of marketing Berger explains:

you’ll notice a small eatery. -...-Walk down a small flight of stairs and you’re in a genuine old hole-in-the-wall hot dog restaurant.

-...-But look beyond the gingham tablecloths and hipsters enjoying their dogs. Notice that vintage wooden phone booth tucked into the corner? The one that looks like something Clark Kent might have dashed into to change into Superman? Go ahead, peek inside.

You’ll notice an old-school rotary dial phone hanging on the inside of the booth, the type that has a finger wheel with little holes for you to dial each number. Just for kicks, place your finger in the hole under the number 2 (ABC). Dial clockwise until you reach the finger stop, release the wheel, and hold the receiver to your ear. To your astonishment, someone answers. “Do you have a reservation?” a voice asks. A reservation? Yes, a reservation. Of course you don’t have one. What would you even need a reservation for? A phone booth in the corner of a hot dog restaurant? But today is your lucky day, apparently: they can take you. Suddenly, the back of the booth swings open—it’s a secret door!—and you are let into a clandestine bar called, of all things, Please Don’t Tell. -...-Everything about Please Don’t Tell suggests that you’ve been let into a very special secret. You won’t find a sign posted on the street. You won’t find it advertised on billboards or in magazines. And the only entrance is through a semihidden phone booth inside a hot dog diner. Of course, this makes no sense. Don’t marketers preach that blatant 627

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advertising and easy access are the cornerstones of a successful business? Please Don’t Tell has never advertised. Yet since opening in 2007 it has been one of the most sought-after drink reservations in New York City. It takes bookings only the day of, and the reservation line opens at 3:00 p.m., sharp. Spots are first-come, firstserved. Callers madly hit redial again and again in the hopes of cutting through the busy signals. By 3:30 all spots are booked.

-...-After you’ve paid for your drinks, your server hands you a small business card. All black, almost like the calling card of a psychic or wizard. In red script the card simply says “Please Don’t Tell” and includes a phone number. So while everything else suggests the proprietors want to keep the venue under wraps, at the end of the experience they make sure you have their phone number. Just in case you want to share their secret. (2013:21-22,35).

Many readers may recognize above many gimmicks associated with popular culture favorites such as Mission Impossible, UFO, James Bond or Matrix movies. An inconspicuous facade ( a film studio specialized in sci-fi for UFO; phones and computers in the Matrix movies...) or innocent activity (like playing video games over the phone in 1983 sci-fi movie Wargames) hurls one into a parallel world made of nuclear holocaust drama enacted by eerie Men in Black, or astronauts flying to a Moon base.

In mythology, hunter Acteon by happenstance catches sight of goddess Diana as she bathes. This irks the virgin goddess, who curses Acteon. Acteon is then torn to pieces by his own dogs after the curse causes him to turn into a deer. In 1998

Mercury Rising, branches of the U.S secret service target an autistic child for elimination after he casually decodes top-secret government cyphers.

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withheld...) teachings or wisdom: the Veda for Aurobindo are the recapitulation -just as phylogenetic theories 647 of the time predicted- of immemorial knowledge a bygone age had produced. Even Jesus hinted at lost teachings of his to be gradually recovered:

I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come (John 16:11-14).

Mahayana Buddhism rests upon teachings Gautama Buddha supposedly delivered either in heaven, or to some magical beings. In Tibetan Buddhism, Padma Sambhava's teachings have to be gradually recovered; Tibetan Buddhism in fact rests upon a chain of successive initiations to more or less elusive secrets. Mormon founder Smith claimed to have 'recovered' (and translated) a purportedly long-lost

Book Of Abraham, considered by some a mistranslation of unrelated Egyptian funerary papyri.

The 'oral Torah' (Misnah and Talmud, coalescing around the II to IV century CE) constitutes for Jews a composite mixture of recovered instructions Moses is supposed to have received on mount Sinai, and of casuistry involving noted rabbis. The NSDAP regime financed expeditions to recover the purported 'secrets' 647 Before birth, human embryos recapitulate (=go through) all stages of evolution, culminating with White (Aryan) phenotypes. That's how Down syndrome people used to be called Mongoloids. According to Down -who framed the syndrome- that group of people -like all groups- ascended only to a given level, hence the validation of the time's racial or ethno-cultural hierarchies. Various categories of defectives (=faulty=dysgenic genes) and throwbacks also failed to climb the evolutionary ladder to the top, in perfect Darwinian fashion.

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mythological Aryan ancestors had hidden somewhere.

Various popular culture characters claim they received “secret teachings”, bequeathals, and so forth, by living legends in their field, however obscure that might sound to outsiders: online strength coach Furey and wrestling legend Karl Gotch; mythicist Jordan Maxwell and fabled occultist M.P. Hall.

Disputed stories arose regarding the discipleship between Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris; Vince Gironda648 and Arnold Schwarzenegger; Freud and Jung:”Implied transfers of power occur when people make decisions about you based on the company you keep and the organizations you belong to.”649.

To oscillate between some mythical call (a vision; a training in the special forces; meeting outer space beings...) and endorsement by household names is quite common not only among MLM gurus and online pundits wishing to close a sale or to fill a conference room:

Paul, an apostle--sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead -...-For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. -...-In fact, James, Peter, and John, who were known as pillars of the church, recognized the gift God had given me, and they accepted Barnabas and me as their co-workers. They encouraged us to keep preaching to the Gentiles, while they continued their work with the Jews. (Galatians 1:1,11-12;2:9).

648 Legendary celebrity strength trainer known as Iron Guru (1917-97); he was a bodybuilder, and the owner of “Vince's Gym” from 1948 to 1995.

649 Lakhani 2005:44.

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Such passing of the patriarchal mantle from an hallowed legend of the past to a younger striver new on the block is often disputed on various grounds.

Waffen SS General – and Belgian Fascist leader- Leon Degrelle claimed Hitler once confided in him Hitler wished a son like Degrelle, one of the Third Reich's most decorated soldiers. Jesus was transfigured on the mount in the company of Moses and Elijah; Mohamed was spirited away to Jerusalem to pray with the great prophets of Judaism, and to converse with god in heaven.

In anthropology and philology, it was once posited 'dark ages' came about as peoples in Greece on the cusp between the Bronze and Iron age 'backslid' culturally as they 'lost' the ability to write after the Minoan civilization's collapse. It is nowadays common parlance to accept how most areas in Egypt or Mesopotamia did not experience such 'fall': cuneiform and hieroglyphic scripts never disappeared.

Areas of Asia Minor, in the Levant and the Greek world experienced a period of illiteracy, however, whence the 'dark ages' and subsequent 'recovery' (=recapture mytheme) thesis: an alphabet of Phoenician origin appeared around 1.000 BCE.

Such

catastrophe-and-recovery

dynamics

used

to

be

popular

-Lamarckism as one prominent example- in the XIX century and early XX century.

Revealing -or recovering- a secret may come in all sorts of shapes: this canned food brand pledges to deliver 'grandma quality' comfort food according to 'secret 631

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recipes'...

A professional storyteller by trade, Harvey 650 urges public speakers to “Ask questions, but be specific to your audience's [situation], and be specific about how you want your audience to answer”. Literary, patterned dialogues between Saints and their retinue; or taped, patterned dialogue between politicians and the crowd all serve that purpose:

A sense of common identity, brought about through storytelling, has enabled speakers and writers for many centuries to establish Ethos in their rhetoric. Through strategic application of the fable's metaphor and maxim, virtually any message can be persuasively conveyed.

(Bonniksen 2006:39).

Try to make your presentation interactive—get the person or audience to ask or answer questions. -...-To create curiosity ask good questions; directly question assumptions and beliefs. Remember that when people are curious change is possible. (Lakhani 2005:30,117).

Swarms of enraptured, seemingly disinterested pedlars materialize on the earthly plane to bask in one's pain, and to offer ranges of solutions: a top ranking on search engines; quick-fixes able to make one's ten dollars grow overnight as fast as this guy's sexual organ, or the other guy's receding hairline.

It is increasingly difficult to part 'great men' (re)writing history from bumbling pedlars eager to close a sale. In a radio commercial, humming before a concert takes the form of the first part of a punchline associated with this Italian

650 2013: Invitation To The Audience-Mindset.

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brand: the crowd as one finishes the punchline as if it were responding to a church ritual. Was it espresso coffee? Malt liquor, perchance? This time it was cured pork meats.

Alternatively, it might be politicians promising drastic tax cuts/bonuses along with massive subsidies and investments; or promising to decapitate -in the name of austerity- the inefficient heads of the State and para-state hydra, yet without any significant lay offs or other general discomfort, for the precious human soul won't want any artificial kin member to wriggle in pain experiencing a lay off.

It is the basic blueprint of myth with its journeys, trials, reversals and ultimate boons.

Of course, at the end of the day, it is possible the only difference may subsist in the pedlar's bank account, and not in this guy's advancing hairline, that guy's weight loss, or a third's net income, sex appeal or otherwise. Is this just a biased personal opinion? Professor of Communications Cecil Kramer from a Christian University advises that651 speech making -or persuasion in general- is eminently a one-way process (=the speaker wants to convince the audience), yet has to be engineered to look like a two-way process (=speaker and audience on equal footing).

Social psychology in fact teaches that better results are garnered if the 651 Kramer no date: Speech Making.

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target (audience, prospective buyer/voter...) is left under the impression of acting under one's free will. Also, the “liking” principle -in Cialdini's list, for exampleapplies (=one tends to like more people who like one in return=birds of a feather flock together). All pedlars and vendors know how to capitalize on apparently insignificant clues to pitch sales, hence they instantly become outdoor freaks with the person they (more or less correctly) label an outdoor lover; religious with the religionist, and so forth.

After an electoral defeat, Berlusconi sulked pondering the meaning of life at a friend's funeral. After announcing another tax increase, Berlusconi sulked, then announced he had “sudato sangue” (sweat blood) as Jesus did 652. Time later, the minister of a different government (Fornero on 4 December 2011) -announcing another rash tax increase - couldn't finish her phrase because of the emotional agony: she wept during a press conference parading the psychological distress the resolution caused policy makers.

Alessandro Pavolini, the quaint writer, sportsman and later leader of the maximalist Partito Fascista Repubblicano (Republican Fascist Party, 1943-5) -who dreamt of applying Trotsky's model of political party as revolutionary army through his infamous Brigate Nere- once confided in his brother how he knew that at the end of his path he foresaw the firing squad. Every savior-hero has his sulks (for 652 “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. “ (Luke 22:4).

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example, Hercules at the crossroad was pondering the meaning of life) and reversals of fortune.

Of course that is at odds with the picture tabloids report of Berlusconi possibly awash in endless sexual scandals; and of politicians in general who pay lip service to the toiling community, anoint on paper the common man as (perfunctory) sovereign, but on public money live lives that compete with those of soccer players, and rock stars for tabloids' attention, and hop from corruption to embezzlement and sexual scandals.

The racketeering, corruption and embezzlement angle may also be spiced up with the pathetic imagery of prominent politicians – such as Italian

regione Lombardia's Zambetti scandal- who “ weep and shit their pants” (“Si è messo a piangere, si è cagato sotto”653) when dealing with boss mafiosi who had them elected in the first place, thus triggering a vicious circle of omertà, exchange of favors and preferential treatments under threat of blackmail.

In mid-2013, the Zambetti trial(s) have to start anew because of some bureaucratic error: butterfly effect, indeed. Invisible hands at work, or sweet mommies and daddies -now possibly shivering in emotional agony fearing retribution, and hoping for reconciliation- in the byzantine judicial bureaucracy that make mistakes as we all do? Readers shall come to their own conclusions.

653 Lagattola 2012: no page.

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If Roman or Byzantine Emperors employed slaves and eunuchs personally loyal to them in the State apparatus, is today's political class mostly comprising of retainers linked to mafia or other organized racket? When one adds organized industrial cartels, labor unions, minority lobbies, religious posses, militias and suchlike, readers shall come to individual conclusions about the extent, nature and intensity of the relationship at hand.

The meek taxpayer is then called to fund the collapsing budgets of a plethora of administrative divisions, sub-divisions, and the hydra of countless public and semi-public companies and agencies -and contractors on their payroll- put in place to realize eerie utopian schemes culled from long-dead hacks. For example, a boom in -to name just one- the packaging industry (=more jobs, taxes and services) in recent decades prompted the establishment of a series of environmental agencies and committees (=more jobs, taxes and services) to deal with side effects: politicians hail the best of intentions.

Some propose drastic cuts in the maze of public and para-public pseudocompanies (agencies, authorities...), yet the city of Rome alone employs (directly and/or indirectly) 62.000 people and – still according to some estimates- there are about 4.000654 such partecipate semi-public companies and the like in Italy655.

654 As usual, figures vary with each source considering the question. Because of the iffy, commodious and political nature of the contention, the number of partecipate may increase -or decrease- exponentially according to the shifting goalposts of those who keep the count. This figure is a mid-range estimate.

655 La Bomba...2012:3.

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In one of those admirable mixtures of public and private enterprises, a private firm in charge of exacting tributes on behalf of Italian local communities embezzled 100 million euros656. It took years for the all-seeing eye of fiscal and regulatory agencies -and the hydra of regulatory and overseeing bodies- to realize the private collector wasn't passing the revenue onto its public patrons after all. The same dilettante (or criminal) handling of public affairs trickles down the administrative chain of the Belle Epoque nation-State Moloch: State, Regions, Provinces, City Halls...

According to news, the Italian Ministry Of Defense pays euro 17 for each roll of cleaning paper (or several times the current supermarket price): “expensive technical supplies� retorts the army, which disclaims any wrongdoing 657. In Sicily, part of euro 295 million State viaduct project collapses like paper-mache six days after the official opening658. Powerless administrators shiver in angst as politicians thunder against such shame promising draconian countermeasures to curb such malpractice soon.

Italian newspapers nowadays report a galaxy of mixed public-private enterprises co-owned by administrative divisions Regioni that have something in common: being on the verge of financial collapse, and serving as fostering ground for tens of thousands of disguised political appointments (as directors, consultants, 656 Silvestri 2012: no page.

657 TgCom24, January 5, 2015 658 ANSA, January 5, 2015.

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overseers, councilmen, employees...) ranging from bottom-feeding workers paid statutory wages (=typically linked to units/hours of work as recorded on timecards) to executives paid princely salaries (=typically paid according to the position one occupies, not according to units/hours of work).

Big time cities or administrations are not the only ones to mill financial black holes serving as spoils to divide among political honchos, and their retainers.

Giornale Di Arona659 informs that a partecipata owned by a few small townships has totaled losses amounting to euro 333.000 between 2009 and 2012. This public sector company had been inactive for several years, yet it had remained a financial black hole in spite of State laws mandating the cessation of such legal entities.

The magic show of both the 'free press', and the maze of State and local due diligence agencies had failed to notice: daddies and mommies (=diminutives that prompt one to melt in sentimental rapture) might lose their job after all. If irresponsible Belle Epoque capitalism multiplied the venues it could (ab)use to increase its own weight and profit in society, so did the plethora of welfare State venues, joint-ventures, schemes and agencies in charge of leveling society in the name of foolish Robin Hood utopias culled from long-dead hacks.

Who sits comfortably atop the welfare State apparatus on its Robin Hood crusades are not the lionized pariahs, but a new breed of lavishly paid bureaucrats, 659 January 3, 2014:31.

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kleptocrats and professional politicians as idle, ideological and fraught with double dealing, manipulation and inconsistency as any berated Victorian capitalist establishment with its superstructure of affable clergymen, hedonistic monarchies, and their commodious social gospel.

Can the warm human soul contemplate drastic cuts without shivering in angst alongside all those artificial kin members who -one way or another- risk losing their job, income or hope? Do the reasons of all the traveling freak show of common humanity in affected distress on display all over the media not sound convincing? Can people look inside, and say extra taxes are not well-worth bearing in the perspective of the (social) sacrament of (collective) reconciliation? Romans performed a ceremony of preventive reconciliation in order to offer sanctuary to -thus insuring the benevolence of- the gods of cities they were about to attack.

The nature, extent and final cost of whichever transgression that might have been committed becomes mere trifle. Beautiful souls do not push their artificial kin group fellows over the brink to later repent. The precious human soul wants only what's good: that's what almighties routinely send savior-heroes to remind us about:

The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders.

Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property 639

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with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ ( Luke 15:28-32). ”[Jesus said] If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him ” (Luke 17:4).

'We all stood and looked at him. We were looking at that slender neck and those poor little ears, that I had seen bleeding one day, and that large jacket, which he wore with the sleeves turned back, and those two little sickly arms, which had been raised so many times to save his face from a beating. Oh, at that moment I would have thrown at his feet all my toys and all my books; I would have taken the last piece of bread from my mouth and given it to him; I would have undressed myself to clothe him; I would have fallen upon my knees to kiss him.

(De Amicis 1918:71).

Readers may compare the sloth and torpor in handling certain cases with the hyperactive speed in handling others: divine paradoxes of wonderful human soul's fleeting priorities. Le Monde publishes (5 June 2009) that police summoned a woman guilty of posting a supposedly anonymous comment on the internet calling State minister Morano a liar.

In 2013 “The TV interview is part of a public relations push, including a two-day, hand-shaking tour by Hollande in southeast France this month. The trip backfired when hecklers asked what had become of campaign pledges and one was carted off by police. ”660. Readers may also ponder the frantic coverage and instant deployment of means in case of real or presumed '...ist' incidents.

660 Bremer 2013, emphasis added: no page.

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It turns out it is not only about hot shots, elected officials and other personalities up the mass-democracy's power chain. It is often about the endless retinue of faceless drones, worldly satraps, State nabobs, anonymous handmaids, dissolute minions, chauffeurs, bouncers and members of this, that or another staff, under-staff or para-staff accompanying the honorable excellencies:

She described a wake of destruction left by the commander-in-chief’s bodyguards, including the Counter Assault and Counter Sniper Teams, the same elite groups that got into trouble in Colombia. Antique furniture was destroyed, expensive "locally harvested" wide pine flooring was ruined and beer and liquor bottles were scattered throughout the property after agents stayed in the house, one of several stately million-dollar Victorians with pastel-painted wood shingles and wraparound porches of the exclusive East Chop section of Oak Bluffs. -...- “They left ammo behind, they told me things they shouldn’t have been telling me, things they shouldn’t be telling anyone about the details about how they protect the president. They let us hold their weapons, see all their stuff, they had huge house parties,” said the man, who spoke to FoxNews.com with his wife on the condition they not be named. -...- Glen Caldwell, the general manager of Offshore Ale in Oak Bluffs, told FoxNews.com about an incident last summer when one of his staff found a Secret Service badge on the floor after the bar had closed at the end of the night. The commission book also included a list of emergency phone numbers -two 1-800 Secret Service numbers, a Department of Homeland Security ID card. -...- Yet despite the myriad incidents, neither local law enforcement nor Secret Service officials in Washington would acknowledge a problem with the agents’ behavior on Martha’s Vineyard. -...- Several locals said they were disturbed the agents seemed to treat the president’s vacation as their own, even though the agents were on duty. Among the complaints are that some agents used their status to skip out on bar tabs, or using restricted parking areas while out boozing it up at local bars. -...- “Boys will be boys,” said Peter Martell, owner of the Wesley Hotel in Oak Bluffs, which has hosted Secret Service since Bill Clinton first vacationed on Martha’s Vineyard in 1993. -...- They work their butts off, these guys, and they do a hell of a job. If they want to have a little fun here, what’s the 641

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harm?” Martell said. (Winter 2012: no page).

In a world where individuals want to avoid being taken advantage of, those high on the Dark Triad [narcissism, machiavellianism, psychopathy], like James Bond, who tend to be more agentic than others, have a particularly difficult task at hand. How to get what they want without rousing the suspicions or retaliations of others? The answer is to be extraverted, open, high on self-esteem, and low on conscientiousness and anxiety while being individualistic and competitive. (Jonason et alii 2010:117-18).

Recent Italian Fiorito scandal involving prestigious names of Berlusconi's party PDL in the administrative division Regione Lazio lists such princely expenses as euro 1.650 for one-day, one-person stay at a hotel, and euro 1.200 for a set of neckties; bawdy parties publicly funded as cultural events; a whirlwind of consumer goods. Moreover, party funds coming from public subventions (euro 900.000) seem to be “missing”: some accuse Fiorito himself of having possibly embezzled princely amounts (euro 1,3 million according to some news releases).

Some of Italian Regione Lombardia's elected politicians belonging to various parties across the political spectrum are charged with embezzling euro 2,14 million of public funds between 2008 and 2011 paying for frivolous amenities, fine dining and wines661.

Neckties and fine wine may not be the only trapping a politician might need to stupefy the masses with simulations of authenticity: politicians in the predominantly German-speaking province of Bolzano (Italy) allegedly itemized sex 661 TgCom24, March 31, 2014.

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toys and vibrators for reimbursement 662. In November 2014, judicial investigations uncovers a flurry of frivolous expenses and princely bills settled with public money in the Italian administrative division Emilia Romagna: birthday parties, paid TV & media appearances, fine dining, designer clothes and even sex toys663:

As you might imagine, members of [U.S] Congress have gotten into the habit of using their PAC funds for a gamut of non-electionrelated activities—from babysitting bills to bar tabs, Colorado ski trips, and so on. What’s more, less than half of the millions of dollars raised by PACs has gone to politicians actually running in elections; the rest is commonly put toward different perks: fundraising, overhead, staff, and other expenses. As Steve Henn of the NPR show Marketplace put it, “PACs put the fun in fundraising.”-...-. The congressmen were behaving as irresponsibly as they had before; some spent the PAC money going to strip clubs, blowing thousands of dollars on parties, and generally conducting themselves without a semblance of accountability. (Ariely 2012:103).

Before being arrested, Fiorito himself both flaunts the have-nots, and their supposed righteousness, disclaims any wrongdoing: he maintains that the princely amounts involved weren't public money, but money legally belonging to political parties, or private associations that dispose of it as they see fit. Regione

Lazio's President alleges she couldn't possibly have known things were out of control in that way, invokes draconian reforms to bring politics in line with the austerities imposed upon the common man, then resigns.

In November 2014, disgraced Fiorito claims to have been scapegoated.

662 ANSA, March 11, 2014.

663 Rai News, November 10, 2014.

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Presumed austerity provisions would be make-believe to fool the gullible with simulations of redress: it is still possible to get a lavish State pension for life -which Fiorito dubs “win for life system� after a State lottery- by being politically appointed for only one week664 in the maze of State and para-State apparatuses.

Also, former politicians are filing suit to recover presumed lost benefits, which is most likely to be be granted in court, whereas actual politicians 665 tamper with implementational decrees that nullify presumed austerity laws so bragged about in the press: life annuities reemerge as pensions; stipends resurface as bonuses, monies or the other way round: western mass-democracy impersonates Lady Luck indeed, at least for some.

Prominent politician Maruccio – belonging to left-wing party with the ominous name Italia Dei Valori (Italian Values)- has been arrested under the accusation he might have embezzled up to euro one million belonging to the party; he is also accused of having lost in excess of euro 100.000 playing video-poker 666.

Reuters announces (25 September 2012) that the director of the in-house postal services of the Italian Senate has been arrested for drug-dealing catering to unnamed policy-makers;. It isn't the first time that drug racketeering takes place within the temples of Italian virtue, to paraphrase Saint-Just who equated a 664 TgCom24, November 18, 2014.

665 Il Giornale, November 16, 2012.

666 Sarzanini 2012: no page.

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Republic with virtue: the scandal soon disappears from the news radar.

The temples of civic virtue can be places where peculiar pastimes are in favor:

No one will argue that sitting on the Senate floor during session can get a little boring, but looking at porn is probably not the best way to pass the time. On Thursday morning, Sunshine State News captured exclusive video of Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, looking at pornographic material on his state-issued computer on the Senate floor. Ironically, as Bennett is viewing the material, you can hear a Senator Dan Gelber's voice in the background debating a controversial abortion bill. "I'm against this bill," said Gelber, "because it disrespects too many women in the state of Florida." Bennett defended his actions, telling Sunshine State News it was an email sent to him by a woman "who happens to be a former court administrator."

"I was just sitting there, bored as they were debating the abortion bill," Bennett said."I opened it up and said holy [ expletive]! What's on my screen? and clicked away from it right away." Sunshine State News could not verify how long the image of four bikini-clad women with their tops exposed was open before our cameras started rolling on it, but it was up for at least three seconds before it disappeared from the screen. Senate spokesperson Jaryn Emhof explained further on Bennett's behalf. "There was some confusion about an email he received," said Emhof. "He thought it was an email about an item being debated on the Senate floor. As soon as he realized it wasn't he closed the page." But the one image we caught on camera wasn't the only thing Bennett had viewed. It appears other files, including at least two videos, may have been downloaded, too. He was also caught on camera watching a video of a dog running out of the water and shaking itself off. It is unclear if he also thought that was an email about a bill being debated on the floor. (Wright 2010: no page).

"All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!"

(John 8:7). An article details a U.S scandal:

February 18, 2005窶年ow that is has been discovered that "Jeff 645

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Gannon" (real name James D. Guckert), a "reporter" for Talon News Service, a front operation run by the conservative Republican-oriented GOPUSA.com, was using an alias as a cleared White House reporter, details are emerging that threaten to immerse the Bush administration in a major scandal. "Gannongate," which is only now being mentioned by the mainstream news media, threatens to expose a potentially damaging GOP pedophile and male prostitution ring dating back to the 1980s and the administration of George H. W. Bush. James D. Guckert, using the name Jeff Gannon and possibly other aliases, was also running gay porn sites, one with a U.S. Marine Corps theme that solicited males for prostitution. (Madsen 2005: no page).

In spite of the often bawdy, self-absorbed, dissolute and mundane image tabloids relay of politicians and their ilk, stereotypical good shepherd figures, saviors and their kin delight in letting their beloved flock inflict all possible punishments upon them in all sorts of guises as a therapeutic device.

As in Greek tragedy, the bystander/viewer/reader plays the part of the peeping busybody shivering in angst (anticipation, etc) witnessing the tragedy (disaster, indignity...) as the knot of people spontaneously gathering around street accidents does:

there is something enticing about horror (Solomon 2006: It's Good To Be Afraid) But, on the other hand, many people—so many, in fact, that we must concede that they are normal, at least in the statistical sense—do seek out horror fictions for the purpose of deriving pleasure from sights and descriptions that customarily repulse them.-...- For Otto, religion has a nonrational element, an ineffable object which he refers to as the numen. This is the object of religious experience, or numinous experience. The terms in which this experience is characterized, as is well known, are mysterium tremendum fascinans et augustum. That 646

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is, the object of religious experience—and here it helps to have something like God in mind—is tremendous, causing fear in the subject, a paralyzing sense of being overpowered, of being dependent, of being nothing, of being worthless. (Carroll 1990:158,165) Released from attachment to one's mortal part through a contemplation of the grave and constant in human sufferings —"correcting," to use Plato's felicitous phrase, "those circuits of the head that were deranged at birth, by learning to know the harmonies of the world" —one is united, simultaneously, in tragic pity with "the human sufferer" and in tragic terror with "the secret cause," Plato's "likeness of that which intelligence discerns." Whereupon, one day, with a cry of joy, leaving both humanity and intelligence behind, the soul may leap to what it then suddenly recognizes beyond the mask.

Finis tragoediae: incipit comoedia. The mode of the tragedy dissolves and the myth begins. (Campbell 1960:50-51).

The secret cause of all suffering is, of course, mortality itself, which is the prime precondition of life, and so is indeed "grave and constant." It cannot be denied if life is to be affirmed. Yet, along with the affirmation of this precondition, there is pity for the human sufferer – who is actually a counterpart, in this context, of oneself. (Campbell no date:no page).

Louisa May Alcott (an American transcendentalist 667, abolitionist and suffragist) gives her take on the hot commodity in her 1871 Little Men:

667 Inspired by Kant's philosophy and Romanticism. Often construed as a reaction against empiricism, materialism and American Calvinism. An emphasis was put on human intuition, the divine in nature, the value of the individual. All on the backdrop of a spiritual reality that transcends human sensory perception, beyond logical or empirical reasoning. Many transcendentalists studied classics of Indian thought. Emerson describes transcendentalism thus:”The oriental mind has always tended to this largeness. Buddhism is an expression of it.

The Buddhist who thanks no man, who says, "do not flatter your benefactors," but who in his conviction that every good deed can by no possibility escape its reward, will not deceive the benefactor by pretending that he has done more than he should, is a Transcendentalist. You will see by this sketch that there is no such thing as a Transcendental party; that there is no pure Transcendentalist; that we know of none but the prophets and heralds of such a philosophy; that all who by strong bias of nature have leaned to the spiritual side in doctrine, have stopped short of their goal. We have had many harbingers and forerunners; but of a purely spiritual life, history has yet afforded no example. I mean, we have yet no man who has leaned entirely on his character, and eaten angels' food; who, trusting to his sentiments, found life made of miracles; who, working for universal aims, found himself fed, he knew not how; clothed, sheltered, and weaponed, he knew not how, and yet it was done by his own hands.” (1841, cit in Myerson 2000:370).

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“I never had any grandmothers, but if you think it will cure me, I 'll let you snip my tongue,� said Nat heroically, for he dreaded pain, yet did wish to stop fibbing. Mr. Bhaer smiled, but shook his head. “I have a better way than that, I tried it once before and it worked well. So now, when you tell a lie I'll not punish you, but you shall punish me.". " How?" asked Nat, startled at the idea. " You shall ferule me in the good old-fashioned way; I seldom do it myself but it may make you remember better to give me pain than to feel it yourself." " Strike you ? Oh I couldn't ! " cried Nat. Then mind that tripping tongue of thine. I have no wish to be hurt, but I would gladly bear much pain to cure this fault." (60).

The hero-savior offers his mystical body: the public shall choose whether to consecrate or desecrate it, thus accepting or reviling all the 'great man' stands for at such great peril. It shall be noted how literature, as this writing argues, is just a clumsily disguised excuse for what chances to be all the rage in the period.

It is also opportune to emphasize -again- how disciples and enthusiasts cook aggrandizing tales about 'the great man', which grow taller by the generation.

Louisa May's father Amos Bronson, in fact, was a transcendentalist and an abolitionist who founded an utopian community based upon the principles of vegetarianism, socialism and pastoralism: so much about connecting the dots.

Bronson was also an educator who -so the story goes- did put his own hand out for students to hit. From this, daughter Louisa -who fictionalizes in her novels her family, her father's ideas and professional practice- takes the lore further to include flogging: another tale growing taller by the generation, literally.

A.B. Alcott may have indeed enjoyed popularity in his times and among

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circles of like-minded people, yet how increasingly compulsive the need might be to cook even more aggrandizing and taller tales about events and people, whose impact and renown frankly exceeds exponentially that of a quirky reformer, and his family on the fringe of what was then the 'civilized' world.

It is impossible to attribute to Alcott the same motivations or situational attitude readers might identify with Euripides, Berlusconi, Codreanu or many other such cases discussed here. Both Little Lord Fauntleroy (from a 1885 novel), and

Pollyanna (1913) present carbon-copied characters who -in spite of the antipodal backdrops- do mostly the same things, and behave mostly the same way. Their 'redemption' of the surly unmarried aunt, or the surly grandfather surely look a lot like Luke Skywalker's redemption of Darth Vader. L.M. Alcott became a very wealthy person thanks to royalties from her books, and so did other litterateurs churning out another xeroxed version of the Pygmalion myth.

It isn't an original Victorian/ Belle Epoque device, either, for a Hebrew tradition prescribed to always excuse others liberally (=thinking the best of others).

That's really cross-cultural; Confucian lore prescribes to “excuse others as you would excuse yourself, and blame yourself as you would blame others” (=I and the other are one); Theravada Buddhist Abbot Ajahn Brahm suggests to “give others the benefit of the doubt”.

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always a spin that may make the same concept look scientific, factual and tested:cognitive reconstruction668, teamwork (=oneness), etc.

Marx's alienation669 becomes670 cognitive dissonance when the exact same situation refers to psychical processes instead of means of production and/or socio-cultural processes, although the realms of cognitive dissonance and alienation overlap to the extent they can be easily superposed.

If stories in Little Lord Fauntleroy, Pollyanna, Heidi 671, etc proceed from 668 Ben-Shahar 2005-6:lecture 11.

669 Concept present in various writers since the XVI century. Médecine aliéniste (an early form of psychiatry) goes back to the late XVIII century (Pinel et Daquin for example studied mental disturbances). In the early XIX century the discipline is somewhat systematized within broader medicalization tendencies, for example with the French loi sur les aliénés of 1838. It is not surprising at all Marx may have appropriated another fad that was all the rage in his time, as the present writer elsewhere discusses regarding Marx's reference to opium. As it was understood back then, aliénisme was supposed to bring patients back in synch with society at large, which is quite understandable. While all this constituted a mature tradition well before Freud's birth (1856-1939), the Jewish-Austrian psychoanalyst refurbished the concept. Freud's talking cure, in fact, brings patient and analyst together. Analysis ends when both are in agreement, and the patient can for example sincerely admit:” Yes, the reason why I am [insert pathology here] is indeed that [insert diagnosis here]”. A poster boy for Maoist political reeducation, the memoirs of former Chinese Emperor -and Japanese collaborator- Pu Yi, a future Communist party bureaucrat, read exactly along the above lines. Habermas resurrected this dynamics as distorted communication. Of course, the ideological matrix is apparent: the analyst represents society (generalized other, mos or any other term) by proxy. Not very convincingly, Habermas tried to rescue the argument with the possibly noble but utopian corrective that communication should be sincere, relevant, constructive, fair and equally open to all. As professor of communication Kramer noted elsewhere, speech making -or persuasion in general- is eminently a one-way process (=the speaker wants to convince the audience), yet has to be engineered to look like a two-way process (=speaker and audience on equal footing). Also, Habermas -like Socrates- postulates that people should yield to the power of a better argument. Such possibly noble but utopian wish has been disproven not only in everyday life, but in the laboratory as well. Why would such luminaries as Habermas (or Socrates) waste time arguing for states of affairs that are patently false? Because in so doing they tapped into human mind's vortexes, or the schizophrenic (and schizogenic!) divide between what we are and the kind of person we (do not) want to be.

670 Sociologist Goffman writes about “role distance”, a measure of which is essential to facilitate social interaction, and the switching between the many roles anyone plays (for example lover, teacher, parent, employee, supervisor...). Many of those philosophers, sociologists and psychologists end up describing much of the same concepts or realities coining verbiage and neologism in an attempt to get on the map of their field:”Finally, develop opinions. They can be similar to others in your field or dissenting. One thing all gurus have in common is opinions they can call their own.” (Lakhani 2005:70).

671 Swiss story from a 1880 novel by J. Spyri: the surly authority figure is an old grandfather who lives in seclusion on a mountain pasture.

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the child to the surly authority figure, what about the opposite being true? What about a surly and/or lovelorn authority figure who brings the pupil figure into his life because he wants to melt after all? Is that the myth of Pygmalion, in turn reedited as My Fair Lady? Possibly a sanitized variant for children such as Pinocchio (1883), perchance? A more adult version as Frankenstein672?

In Daddy Long-Legs (1912), an orphaned girl finds a wealthy -albeit anonymous- benefactor, whom she nicknames “Daddy long legs�. He sponsors her studies on the condition that she maintain a regular correspondence with him. At the book's end, the girl's love interest, and the elusive mister Long-Legs, are revealed to be the same person for a romantic happy end in perfect Pygmalion fashion.

Annie (an orphaned child) knew innumerable versions: a 1885 Riley vernacular poem about a 'bad' orphaned child (possibly based upon a real-life orphan Riley had known in his youth) goblins abduct on account of her misbehavior; a comic strip (1924 ss); several movies from the 1930s to 2014.

In a musical (1977ss) Annie has become adorable; she pairs up with a stray dog (=puppies and children), and winds up in the mansion of a sultry millionaire (=authority figure) with an ominous name: Oliver Warbucks.

672 As this writing contends, Frankenstein compounded a salad bar of myths (the Pygmalion myth, the apprentice sorcerer myth, the mind your choice myth etc etc) with then actual scientific fads linked to the exploits of reallife scientists such as Galvani, Aldini (Galvani's nephew) and Ure. Aldini and Ure performed experiments with dead bodies and electricity (bio-electric Galvanism).

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Such characters may seem sketched by a middle-schoolboy on behavior medications: planetary success is their lot, however. Heidi, for example, has been widely translated. A 1974 animated Japanese adaptation has been broadcast since the world over with great success. In 2007 (47%) and 2008 (42%) in Italy, viewers in the 4-14 yo age range highly favored re-runs of the 1974 Heidi cartoon.

The millionaire in Annie ultimately melts, and helps her escape from crooks who pretend to be her biological parents (=search for long-lost origins).

Authority figures never stop melting: F.D. Roosevelt (arch-patriarch 673) appears in the play, too, which ends with retribution for the bad guys (thanks to Roosevelt's patronage), and a great reunion under the auspices of Roosevelt's 'New Deal' (=political angle).

An early Christian version as Arianism, whereby father god -who has always been in existence- creates a son? Readers might prefer VI-VIII century BCE Hindu Shatapatha Brahmana:

At the beginning was the Self. He was Alone. He looked around and didn’t find anybody else except himself. He said: “I Am …”, but there was no other name to say, for he was alone… He was not happy. He wanted Another.

The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." (Genesis 2:18).

673 Just as it happened in Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Chinese etc lore, Warbucks serves as patriarchal figure indentured to an arch-patriarch (Roosevelt), mirroring exactly the blueprint of powerful satraps, kings and lords of lore ministering to almighty lords of lords and kings of kings (the Chinese and Roman Emperors; the Pharaoh of Egypt; the Persian Basileus...).

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Myths tend to coalesce. The more or less surly authority figure may also have doubts about which heir/girl friend of his really loves him, thus deserving to receive his inheritance (1994 movie Greedy)/marriage proposal (1991 Road To

Ruin), and so forth. That's exactly the mimeographed dilemma behind all Job narratives (Mesopotamian variations exist pre-dating the Hebrew version 674): does Job truly love god, or is he just an opportunist? Trials and tribulations may prove expedient in order to find out.

There is no limit to the juxtaposition and gradation of myths that look just like real life, at least to an extent. In 1991 Road To Ruin, the authority figure doesn't usher in his life a street tramp, bumbling relative or orphaned child, but an accomplished model: it works equally as well. Meek disposition and noble demeanor aren't necessary ingredients, either: the taming of the shrew shows how versatile Pygmalion myths can be.

Myths can easily compound; blockbusting Pretty Woman (1990) mixes Cinderella with Pygmalion (in the My Fair Lady variant, whereby a stern authority figure ushers a tramp into high society): a box-office and pop-culture sensation.

Floozies of the 1980-90s received the message that being (very) sexually active didn't preclude romantic happy ends: the endless restyling of the tramp with a heart of gold conundrum. The Jewish myth about the man-made golem of Ibn 674 Babylonian Theodicy.

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Gabirol675 further compounds Pygmalion with Beauty and the Beast. The Beast -or the Beauty- may be just anyone whoever tells the story intends to enshrine.

In Pretty Woman, the Beast is a corporate shark, whereas Beauty is a street tramp. In Annie, the Beast is a millionaire war profiteer, and Beauty an orphaned child. In Little Lord Fauntleroy, Beauty is an orphaned grandchild, whereas Beast is an exploitative nobleman. Beauty thus helps Beast to rediscover his inner, more compassionate nature: the profiteer becomes an altruist; the nobleman starts taking care of his tenants, and the corporate shark becomes a responsible businessman.

Spoofs of the Pygmalion myth -in whichever direction- are innumerable: 1870 French ballet Coppélia; 1979 Italian erotic comedy Il Corpo Della Ragassa; 1981 surreal Japanese cartoon Dr. Slump. What is possible to see at work, though, are the vortexes of the human mind that different people in different ages and situations tapped for prompt results:”I tried it once before and it worked well”.

Called to explain the millionaire whirlwind of 'unofficial' money he had transferred to a host of people in connection with alleged sexual scandals, to counter allegations of blackmail and corruption, Berlusconi explained 'he was just like that', 675 “Another famous golem legend is associated with the historical figure Solomon ibn Gabirol, an eleventhcentury poet and philosopher from Malaga, Caliphate of Cordoba. Ibn Gabirol suffered from a repulsive skin disease that drove people away. According to legend, he created a female golem to do his housework. Unlike other golems made of clay, ibn Gabirol's was made of wood and door hinges, the only golem to have been so constructed. Jewish leaders learned of ibn Gabirol's golem, accused him of fornication, and made him destroy her ”. Golem As...1997:no page.

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and couldn't resist offering people he knew disinterested princely assistance whenever they happened to be in financial or personal distress; the meek saviorhero in non-dualistic676 rapture donates all he has to his flock (brethren, compatriots, tovarishi, comrades, common humanity fellows, or any other artificial kin group...) up to his life, flesh and blood.

Buddhist Ghaticara Sutta (as exemple from an entire class of religious texts from all traditions) narrates how poor potter Ghatikara allows monk to take his food, and to strip his humble hut in order to refurbish the crumbling hut of Buddha Kassapa. Not only is the weather merciful to Ghatikara, now without a roof above his head, but a pious king, who had heard Buddha Kassapa commend Ghatikara's support to the Buddha, sends him five hundred cartloads of food.

As Berlusconi spins this yarn, a diverse cohort of lefties, radicals and reformers axed around the former Communist party heckles. As this writing contends, however, the opposite always chances to apply. Justice Minister Cancellieri of the Letta government axed around the former Communist party apparently (ab)used her influence in order to be sure the byzantine justice system agreed to home arrest for G. Ligresti.

The Ligresti family is in fact under investigation for allegedly masterminding the financial crack of jumbo insurance company FONSAI that 676 Oneself and the 'other' are one.

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pulverized countless investors' savings. The opposite applies as disconcerted lefties learn in November 2013 how Cancellieri treated Ligresti's plea in term of an irresistible moral dilemma: Ligresti's frail life was purportedly in danger.

Pygmalion myths are here restyled as Good Samaritan myths: worshiping the wounds of artificial kin members in distress in the name of common humanity. Cancellieri thunders against those calling her integrity into question, and denounces a political conspiracy. Cancellieri's son, however, had worked as

FONSAI's manager under the Ligresti family leadership with an euro 5,5 million yearly salary. Both the position and the salary attached were matter of public record, yet it took the herd in the free press' magic show years to find it out, just in time to settle political scores.

The Cancellieri scandal reveals a supposed rogue exchange web of political favors against hefty sums of money; also, according to news, the Ligresti family allegedly helped Cancellieri in her political ascent. Prime Minister Letta throws the government's weight in Cancellieri's favor out of existential concerns, thus urging all contending parties to act responsibly for the great nation's sake.

Morality plays again read like unwritten chapters of a mafioso novel.

The constellation of Pygmalion motifs and situations presides over political dynamics, too. The best, most suitable, most photogenic candidate is the one able to remain mostly aloof (=depersonalization) pointing at whichever stats or 656

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graph, and spouting politician's gobbledygook in endless shades of gray meant to bridge towards most constituencies at most times at least:”Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.”.

not only lies but several contradictory statements in the same breath. Very perplexing. It is as if psychopaths sometimes have difficulty in monitoring their own speech, and they let loose with a convoluted barrage of poorly connected words and thoughts .

-...-They understand the intellectual rules of the game but the emotional rules are lost to them . (Hare 1993:126,143).

Yet, candidates (administrators, politicians...) who cannot melt, and remain poker-faced in front of living exempla that embody shared values, are not real savior-heroes: being fluent in ”conversational emotion” is paramount. Without pursuing any diagnostic end, but as mere working conjecture, 'charismatic people', whom this writing assumes to be often psychopathic irrespective of clinical status, are typically seen (ab)using emotional language or concepts which -research tellsthey're physically unable to grasp:

It seemed pretty clear from these brain wave studies that psychopaths were impaired in processing abstract words; something was wrong in the neurocircuitry of their brainsthat prevented the two types of words from being processed differently. -...-In nonpsychopaths, the right anterior temporal pole is the critical node for differentiating abstract representations of speech, including the difference between abstract and concrete words. As predicted by my research, psychopaths showed huge deficits in this region of the brain when processing abstract words (Kiehl 2014:141).

They have to melt as the unemployed daddy of three on the verge of

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self-destruction pleads his case; they have to baby-talk to or kiss the child in the audience; they have to extol the virtues of -and claim affiliation with- prevailing

mos, and so forth:

If you tell stories without any inflection, without any emotion in your voice, they do not work as well. If you write stories without any inflection or any emotion, they do not work at all. (Lakhani 2005:61).

Also, the baring of one's precious soul shall unfold according to the situation: rolling on the floor having seizures may be excessive when addressing the unemployed mommy of two in distress: a nice gasp, and/or a couple tears may equally sort the desired effect.

Leaders have to be personable, flirting with the faceless crowd. It is difficult to part 'authentic leaders' from psychopathic ones: both groups are “cool under fire”; “talking one's way out of situations”; nomadic and/or thrill-seeking, confident, exuberant, bold, deft at “managing impressions”, and at “chatting people up”.

Few would dispute the various Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Stalin, Gaddafi, Amin, Bokassa, Saddam Hussein etc enjoyed -at least temporarily- the same popularity and intimacy with the crowd people associate with the various Gandhi, Mandela, San Su Ky:

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words; since all this talking is expressly meant to test you, under cover of geniality he will be weighing you up (Catholic Bible, Sirach 13:11).

According to Sayler677, Obama's stifling of his partisans' interruptive cheers with hand gestures costed him New Hampshire: the horde in fusion didn't perceive him as personable, for he transgressed on the deference/demeanor plane:

Use good facial expression. Smile often. Smiling opens up your face, allows other expressions to flow easily, and projects confidence, happiness, and enthusiasm. Smiling also makes you approachable and human. (Lakhani 2005:151).

Being personable means being a sandwich-board man for cherished attitudes and shared values (subject to change, of course). As defections split Italian party PDL into two warring factions, Berlusconi -like Jesus and Ksantivadin of Buddhist lore- forgives rebel leader Alfano, formerly his second in command, because -so says Berlusconi- he loves Alfano like he would a son.

During his long harangue at the party's congress trying to control damage, Berlusconi is suddenly taken ill: what a gage of common humanity. Shortly thereafter, he's ready to harangue the crowd again: Forza Italia is reborn by unanimous consent, the old party's song plays, and attendees rise to a standing ovation678.

Leaders have to offer undivided sympathy and endorsement to each and 677 No date.

678 ANSA November 16,2013.

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every individual, group or constituency, no matter how irreconcilable their claims or grievances are with those of other individuals, groups or constituencies that were offered support and heartfelt emotional participation as well (for example green activists and heavy industry workers).

That's Janusian thinking679, or the ability to entertain opposites as true in order to reconcile them, the hallmark of creativity:

Within five minutes, Dave had bought the painting. It seemed the natural thing to do. Dave felt comfortable just looking at the painting. The [sales]woman had slipped in beside him, taken on the same body language as his and dropped into the same attitude. She made a seamless connection by exercising perfect, effortless synchrony: 55% body language, 38% voice tone and 7% words— the three "Vs." (Boothman 2000:79).

[Saint]Paul confronted [Saint]Peter in public and called him a hypocrite for eating with the Gentiles when no Jewish brothers were present, but refusing to do so when they arrived. (Ehrman 2011:210).

Hotelling's law proves true: competitors tend to be pulled to a common middle ground. An apt characterization surfaced recently. ”Schrodinger's candidate” appears, whose position is impossible to ascertain until a specific group looks at him; the outcome depends on the observer680:

When I am with those who are weak, I share their weakness, for I 679 Readers shall come to their own conclusion regarding the similarities between this neologism, Hegel's tripartite understanding (thesis, antithesis, synthesis), and Hindu philosophy. Hegelian synthesis is but another interpretation or variation upon the theme of reconciliation, the great reunion/comeback and so forth.

680 For a description of Schroedinger's paradox in quantum physics see:http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qtmeasurement/#CatSin.

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want to bring the weak to Christ. Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone, doing everything I can to save some. ( 1 Corinthians 9:22).

Relevancy and familiarity are closely linked. If you are relevant to me it is because you know something about me and the more you know about me the more familiar you feel.-...-We like people who are like us, so be sure that you accentuate your commonalities to increase the level of mutual friendship. Be quick to lend a hand when you can.

Offer advice or information that is otherwise unavailable. Find out about specific personal hobbies or passions and talk about those things. (Lakhani 2005:124,139, emphasis added).

“Now I Aggivessana, am aware that when I am teaching Dhamma to companies consisting of many hundreds, each person thinks thus about me: ‘The recluse Gotama is teaching dhamma especially for me'” (Gautama Buddha, Maha-saccaka-sutta. M.1.249, emphasis added).

This is a subtle trickster attribute. The trickster has the ability to communicate effectively across markedly different cultures. (Hansen 2001:106).

1987 movie The Untouchables sees gangland king Al Capone weeping sentimentally at the opera while he orchestrates the murder of foes. Chinese Communist leader Mao had already posited the dynamics of contradiction as capstone of his version of Marxism-Leninism. Both Confucius and Buddha told different things to different people at different times, avowedly to get the best out of them under the present circumstances.

Is “Janusian thinking” any different from gamesmanship? What about Jesus, who has “a personal relationship” with each devotee? What about Krishna, who -at the Yamuna river- multiplies to dance with each of his devotees individually? Isn't father god monitoring each and every one of us at all times? One 661

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and the same. The 'personal god' item is here crucial, as it encompasses not only fuzzy definitions of ghostly almighties few can exactly grasp, but all the dog and pony shows each society carries as politicized cultural baggage (mos681 and suchlike).

Ancient myth(ologie)s are not only the province of hazy speculation by amblyopic scholars, but are circularly reenacted, staged, spoofed on a constant basis.

As Debord argued, society as ongoing spectacle is based upon autonomous images, life's concrete inversion, whereby what is non-living takes on autonomous life: a pseudo-world where liars lie to themselves682.

In 2013, Berlusconi surprises many, for he seemingly refuses to ride to his full electoral advantage the alleged involvement of Partito Democratico (the new designation of the Communist Party) in the huge financial scandal of bank MPS -another the hydra of regulatory bodies couldn't possibly prevent, resulting in about 4 billion State bail-out-.

Berlusconi employs the moral of

Aesop's fables (the lion and the

mouse683) to explain: he has a feeling of gratitude for the bank MPS (avowedly Italy's 681Slightly similar to Confucian li in China:”In sum, li is to make space for reverence in all things, treating seemingly ordinary interactions as if they were sacred ceremonies”. (Prothero 2010:46).

682 “La réalité considérée partiellement se déploie dans sa propre unité générale en tant que pseudo-monde à part, objet de la seule contemplation. La spécialisation des images du monde se retrouve, accomplie, dans le monde de l’image autonomisé, où le mensonger s’est menti à lui-même. Le spectacle en général, comme inversion concrète de la vie, est le mouvement autonome du non-vivant. ” (Debord 1967, point 2).

683 Alternatively, Christian St. Jerome (IV-V century CE) is the one helping the lion first, then getting helped in return. Many examples of the story exist. Some with a happy ending (=paying favors back); others with a unhappy ending as favors are not paid back. Buddhist Javasakuna Jataka a woodpecker dislodges a bone stuck in a lion's throat. The lion replies thus to the bird in matters of gratitude:””To trust thy head to a lion's jaw. A creature red in tooth and claw, To dare such a deed and be living still, Is token enough of my good will.”.

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III largest), which allegedly lent him money in his shaky beginnings as entrepreneur684. Such narratives as “the lion and the mouse” are as ubiquitous and cross-cultural to even make it to one episode of 1977 Japanese tokusatsu animated series I-Zenborg685.

What Berlusconi was tapping for prompt results was what psychologist Cialdini dubbed the fundamental principle of reciprocity. During WWI, U.S citizens were enthused to join the war effort with the imagery the USA were paying back a debt of gratitude as well. France had helped fight the English during the independence wars: Lafayette was chosen as monocratic figure to rally the U.S horde in patriotic fusion.

Alternatively, Berlusconi recurs to the image of the godly patriarch, shying away from rabid polemic for the sake of the bank's employees, whose job is on the line. As PDL secretary Alfano proposes a committee of inquiry to nail Partito

Democratico to its responsibilities, PD's sharp reply doesn't consist in La Fontaine's fables, but in the enumeration of eminent PDL executives who assertedly are equally linked to the financial scandal at large 686:”democracy is the worst form of Aesop, and a Jewish tale around the I century CE suggest identical stories where adventitious details vary. In Buddhist Alinacitta Jataka, an elephant serves some carpenters who had rescued him when a splinter had caused an infection in his foot (=mythology of the foot).

684 MPS 2013: no page.

685 In partial English adaptation as Attack Of The Super Monsters. Under the elusive guidance of a power-hungry demon from another galaxy, dinosaurs emerge from the earth to destroy cities and reclaim the world for themselves. A special squad fights them with high-tech weaponry. In the Italian adaptation (episode Un Dinosauro Amico), children take an harpoon off an attacking dinosaur's nose, and they become thus friends.

686 Polidori 2013: no page.

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government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. ” (W.Churchill, 1947).

Busloads687 of soubrettes, ballerine, models and hostesses circulate within the networks of international policy making. As Italian newspaper Il Giorno published June 6, 2009, Berlusconi and prominent guests -including the naked then Czech Prime Minister- were photographed with “pretty topless girls”. One such alluring woman, in Berlusconi's official retinue at the Toronto meeting in 2010, is arrested (March 13, 2014688) at an Italian airport with a load of 24 kilograms of cocaine.

Alternatively, such women may be 'secret agents' on a patriotic mission, for so-and-so almost brought home a multi-billionaire contract for this Italian company, thus shifting the burden upon the critic, now under the angry stare (complete with gastrointestinal and neurological syndromes) of unemployed 'daddies of three and mommies of two', whose chances his crass morality literally ruined.

In the same time frame trepid viewers agonized over the plight of wartorn Georgia, the martyr State crisscrossed with lines of dispossessed refugees, the Georgian delegation seemingly partied wild in the company of eighty prostitutes 687 According to newspapers, some alleged a transportation service was run to bring a group of young women back and forth to follow Berlusconi as he travelled in his official capacity.

688 ANSA.

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during a NATO meeting in Lisbon; unable to sleep, President Sarkozy alerted the security personnel689:

Prostitutes questioned in the case have said that between 2009 and 2011 — when the IMF chief was dealing with a global financial crisis — Strauss-Kahn was organizing orgies at luxury hotels and a restaurant in Paris and also in Washington. (The Japan Times, February 11, 2015).

Naturally, foes arrange sordid encounters with 'prostitutes'...friends go to 'sexy' (not 'sex') parties, romantic escapades in order to “scherzare con eleganza” ( tell classy jokes, Berlusconi's own definition) with 'models':”commonplace incidental couplings” that also took place in the life of civil rights giant M.L. King, as a biographer would have it.

Still talking about M.L. King, Assistant Director of the CIA Brennan, who was involved in monitoring the supreme Afro-American civil rights activist, believed that “King could be bestial in his sexual abuse of women ”: an opinion many voice publicly about Berlusconi and other 'great men', whose trivial faults elated partisans routinely forgive for the great cause's sake:”[The public] only wanted one thing from [a given public figure]: a story. He told it so well that we forgave him almost everything. ”;“[it] helped people to believe.”;”We want -...original content regardless of its validity. We're here for the scare, not for the plausibility”.

689 Redazione 2010: no page.

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There is also another small return on these scandals: despite his political and personal responsibilities, old age and health problems, foes accused Berlusconi of going through a string of uninterrupted sexual encounters with young women in one single night on a routine basis: Hercules couldn't probably have done much better.

According to press agency ANSA (April 18, 2013), Berlusconi himself wielded the stereotype against left-wing hecklers at Udine, for he claimed:”Siete invidiosi -...- perché qui sotto il palco ci sono decine di belle ragazze ” (you are envious -...- because here at (my) stand there are dozens of pretty girls).

Parting politicians from other entertainers might prove difficult. Actor Michael Douglas as well toots the horn of his (presumed) sexual frenzies and bohemian excesses. Disgraced boxing legend, addict, felon and bohemian Mike Tyson basks in his presumed sexual prowess while imprisoned:”''I was having so much sex that I was too tired to even to go the gym and work out,' Tyson wrote. 'I'd just stay in my cell all day.'”690.

Having assertedly earned in excess of US$ 300 million during his career, Tyson – now a penniless bum on the run from the IRS- is penning his sensational autobiography full of motifs the precious human soul cherishes: he (frivolously) overspent US$ 62 million in one given year alone (=surfeit that boggles the mind).

690 Sex Behind Bars...2013:no page.

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French President Sarkozy equally tried to capitalize as much as he could on the string of (real or presumed) affairs the media pinned on him by cultivating for a while a 'casual' image of himself worth of a soap opera.

While policy makers and other celebrities possibly pose in the bathroom basking in the image they cultivate of themselves as irresistible he-men cavorting in the company of ballerine, Italian ballerina turned politician N. Minetti had shared her opinion about her “true love” (vero amore) Berlusconi off the record: “piece of shit -...- old geezer -...- [with a] flabby arse” 691. According to court proceedings again, Minetti also pledged to “raise hell” if her demands for rewards would remain unanswered.

Brazilian caudillo Getulio Vargas, who embodied the Brazilian version of paternalistic statism so popular in the 1920-40s (Mussolini, Hitler, Roosevelt, Salazar...), was often officially portrayed with a crowd of juveniles (whose image had been modified to satisfy aesthetic sense) running towards him: with the only exception of Brazilian flags, it could have been another godly image from the gospel; Vargas had, in fact, been nicknamed o pai dos pobres (the father of the poor).

Both Burmese activist San Su Ky, and Indian stateswoman Indira Gandhi enjoy(ed) the nickname of “mothers” of their people; the founder of the Turkish Republic Mustafa Kemal is called “father of the Turks”: the human mind relishes 691 Minetti Story 2013: no page.

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this imagery.

Venezuela's Chavez in recent years revamped the item: murals depicted the leader in a fatherly embrace with a child; a statue also portrays Ho Chi Minh teaching a precious child. In 2011 Italian Head of State Napolitano joined a similar scene 'embracing' juveniles from third-world immigrant groups he wished to extend citizenship to when born on Italian soil.

All those may seem -and are credited by some as being- clumsy, accidental, 'romantic' or inoffensive postures, 'gaffes', which -irrespective of any (dis)agreement regarding the line being followed- is highly unlikely given the 'machine' at work behind the image (ghostwriters, spin doctors, cameramen, makeup artists, digital imaging specialists etc).

Some wisely raise doubts about the characterization of various statesmen -such as U.S President Bush, jr. (Yale graduate), and Brazilian President Lula -as nitwits taped as they're unable to spell, just like other retarded heroes a la Rocky and Forrest Gump:

This raises the interesting possibility that, like much of their behavior, the mental processes of psychopaths are poorly regulated and not bound by conventional rules . This issue -...-outline[s] evidence that psychopaths differ from others in the way their brains are organized and in the connections between words and emotion. (Hare 1993:126).

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to a fault, including the common man's miserable shortcomings. After all, aren't Rocky and Forrest Gump semi-retarded? Yet, what heroes:

Former Senator John Danforth had multiple degrees from Yale University. He was also from a quite upper-class part of Missouri. Yet when Senator Danforth went out campaigning, he would talk about what was best for the great state of “Mizzourah.” I lived in Missouri when Danforth was campaigning, and in rural Missouri, people definitely said “Mizzourah.” But not in the upper-class St. Louis enclaves from which Danforth came. Likewise on campaign stops Danforth would use more of a Missouri accent: In Missouri, when you have a word that ends in “p” and then you put an “ed” on it, instead of changing the whole “ped” morpheme to “pt,” which is what most American speakers do, you change the accent profile of the word and say, for example, “stripe – ed.” There is no way John Danforth ever talked about a “stripe – ed” tie in Washington, D.C., but he talked about trouble farmers were having with “stripe – ed” cucumber beetles on the campaign trail. Likewise, if you listen to tapes of John Kerry from the 1970s, you hear a very definite Kennedy accent.

-...-Bill Clinton played this up beautifully, making more of his Arkansas accent in the 1992 campaign than he had in his widely panned 1988 convention speech. There, he came across as a Yale educated, new-class intellectual. In 1992 he came across as a semirural, basically unsophisticated politician arriving to fix a broken system. It worked beautifully: Clinton allayed fears that as a Democrat he was too leftist by communicating to Southern and midwestern voters, through his voice and body language, that he was one of them.

(Drout 2006:68-70).

The [pharmaceutical industry] reps told us that they employed other tricks too, turning into chameleons—switching various accents, personalities, and political affiliations on and off. They prided themselves on their ability to put doctors at ease. Sometimes a collegial relationship expanded into the territory of social friendship —some reps would go deep-sea fishing or play basketball with the doctors as friends. Such shared experiences allowed the physicians to more happily write prescriptions that benefited their “buddies.” -...-Of course, in many cases the doctors probably didn’t realize that they were being manipulated—but there is no doubt that they were.

(Ariely 2012:41).

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The sooner you start telling yourself that you're excited rather than nervous, the sooner you'll be able to convince your subconscious that this is actually how you feel. And, in fact, that's really all that matters.

Change your attitude, and your body language and voice tone will change to reflect your new attitude. Keep in mind that most people are as eager as you are to establish rapport. They will generously give you the benefit of the doubt. (Boothman 2000:63, emphasis added).

Researchers who interact with known psychopaths regularly describe them as social chameleons (Babiak&Hare 2006:38).

Parzival and his horse are on the ground. Parzival reaches into his quiver, takes a javelin, and sends it through the knight's visor into his eye and kills him. That's not the proper way to kill a knight, so Arthur's court is now twice shamed. -...- So this red knight [=Parzifal with his deceased foe's armor on] pulls up. As far as they know, this is the Red Knight, the great king. "Oh, come in." They take the armor off, and here's this fool underneath. What a shock. But Gurnemanz knows how to judge male flesh, and he realizes this is some boy.

(Campbell 1989:In Search Of The Holy Grail).

Similarly, a number of classic psychiatric disturbances have prospective bright sides to them. For example, milder forms of bipolar spectrum illness and attention deficit disorder have been associated with creativity (Abraham et al. 2006; Carson 2011; Healey and Rucklidge 2006). Both autistic individuals and their relatives sometimes possess exceptional mathematical skills (Baron-Cohen 2006), and obsessive-compulsive traits are often observed in industrious people (Bradshaw and Sheppard 2000; Polimeni et al.

2005). In contrast, there appears to be no silver lining associated with conventional medical disease, injury or any other form of unequivocal biological malfunction. Medical problems such as heart disease, emphysema, arthritis, diabetes, brain injury or mental retardation syndromes are never associated with symptoms or traits that can be construed as even slightly beneficial. -...-A number of fascinating experiments have found that, compared to normal control subjects, patients with schizophrenia sometimes demonstrate superior performance in a few specialized perceptual skills -...-Another study, which reviewed high school records, discovered that schizophrenic patients had higher marks in art, language and religion classes compared to their healthy counterparts (Helling et al. 2003).

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possessed superior theoretical rationality. -...-Although schizophrenia patients were IQ-, gender- and education matched to the control group, they convincingly outperformed the control group with an average score of 8.76 correct out of 15 versus 6.21 correct. Because scientific discoveries are sometimes inherently logical while simultaneously contradicting convention, this study implicates the nonconforming disposition of schizophrenic patients as a potential contributor to ingenious creativity. (Polimeni 2012:75,93-4).

David Koresh (born Vernon Howell) was another certified dyslexic, special education person, whom classmates dubbed “mr. retardo”. This messiah entered a savage whirlwind of biblical prophecy, debauchery, eccentricity and purported ascents to heaven as proof of manifest destinies soon to unfold.

This umpteenth lamb of god -born of a single mother and “man of sorrows” due to his troubled childhood- led his spellbound fundamentalist Christian followers to ultimate doom enacting judgment day in a bloody shootout with U.S ATF forces: dozens of people -including Koresh, and several children- died in the assault.

Belle Gibson, the alternative healing author and internet personality from Australia, was in April 2015 revealed to be just another hoaxer with the usual troubled childhood, teenage pregnancy and related 'man of sorrow' paraphernalia: experts in the media now label her an antisocial narcissist: the writing was all over the wall.

After swindling her many votaries, Gibson now simply retorts “she's just

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human�. Gibson's app was voted “best food and drink� app of 2013 with over 300.000 downloads. Her stories of miraculous recoveries thanks to alternative medicine were as fake as the non-existent illnesses she purportedly recovered from: the money Gibson made -plus engagements, endorsements, etc- sure was real. As with Koresh's equally outlandish claims, votaries were too busy putting their hands together to celebrate the providential (wo)man: telling true or false stories makes no difference as far as public reaction is concerned.

Is this too silly to have any effect in/on the real world? In early 2013, main Italian Prime Minister candidates Monti and Berlusconi jockeyed for electoral positions using obtuse myths and glurge as light sabers. Monti was allegedly first to appear with precious children as part of his campaign: would opponents pour all that bile over righteous Monti in the presence of such little treasures?

Berlusconi riposted being photographed with a puppy even more precious than Monti's toddlers. Naturally, wise patriarchal figure Monti knew best: he, too, pulled a puppy from his politician's hat. Resourceful Berlusconi in turn pulled children from his politician's hat, while exit polls slowly but surely rose.

Pope Francis I is also involved with children: kissing the foot of a disabled child, and letting a child take his seat, for example; whereas Fidel Castro capitalized in 1999 upon the repatriation from the USA of a Cuban child, whose mother had drowned in flight from the island.

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Myth(ologie)s tend to coalesce: Pope Francis I 692 appears with a green parrot. What's more, the parrot is the gift of a professional male stripper -soon to appear in an erotic movie- who declares to be in love with the Pontiff. The myth of Saint Francis as quintessential animal lover -akin to Orpheus, Buddha and other great hierophants- becomes thus fact for some, whereas others may daydream about the Catholic Church reversing course regarding various categories of supposed profligates and sinners. In May 2014, Berlusconi on a never-ending political campaign pledges his commitment in favor of animal rights 693: animals and children, what a favorite imagery.

Some, however, opt for more traditional appeals. P. Bacchiddu, a candidate to the European Parliament with the left-wing radical Tsipras list, posts online her bikini pictures claiming to “use any means� (uso qualunque mezzo) to win694. After the chances of being elected with a radical left-wing list vanished, Bacchiddu promptly switches allegiances to right-wing Lega Nord of nativist vintage. Charming coincidences, or artful stage management? Readers be the judge.

The message to the artificial kin member is, probably, that puppies and children are so pure at heart -whatever that means- they would never associate themselves with the awful person opponents portray so-and-so as being. Of course, legions of toddlers and puppies are successfully associated with many things in 692 ANSA, 30 January 2014.

693 ANSA, April 27, 2014.

694 ANSA, May 7, 2014.

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advertisement, from cars to toilet paper and shipyards: that's ethos (credibility) again, irrespective of any sense this may (not) make.

How the great leader (of the moment) behaves, the “fire in the minds of men”695 he lights, may be interpreted in antipodal -yet perfectly functional- ways. In 1994, Berlusconi's party official song preached that “siamo tantissimi “ (we're so many, or the motif of the horde in fusion), “e abbiamo tutti un fuoco dentro al cuore” (and the heart of us all is on fire). 1986 'inspirational' soundtrack Hold On

To The Vision also urges to ”Keep the fire burning bright, got to make them realize”; a Rocky IV soundtrack song is aptly titled Hearts On Fire.

The concept goes back to mankind's dawn:”So, in the yoga of the Veda the first step is the discovery of the Mystic Fire within you – psychic presence. ”696.

Aurobindo comments on the Vedas:

Yet throughout the symbol of the sacrificial Fire is maintained. It is evident that we are in the presence of a mystic symbolism to which the fire, the sacrifice, the priest are only outward figures of a deeper teaching and yet figures which it was thought necessary to maintain and to hold constantly in front. (MAISI003 no date:lecture note 2:2).

695 Commenting on the Hindu tradition and the image of fire, Joseph Campbell explains:”life comes out of death, create death and you create life -...- the world is an ever burning fire: feed that fire” (1989:episode The Sacred Source).It can apply (in both positive and negative form) to any group of zealots into any kind of pursuit. Often attributed to Dostoevsky, the phrase “fire in the minds of men” is also found in Richard Baxter's Christian Directory (1673):”atheism, which leaveth the heart free and open to all designs and desires of rebellion, doth kindle that fire in the minds of men, which government cannot quench -...- it poisoneth the heart of commonwealths”. Biblical imagery presents the same:”I have come to set the world on fire, and I wish it were already burning! ”(Luke 12:49). Zoroastrianism, (some traditions in) Buddhism and Hinduism, too, practice fire ceremonies and/or fire worship. At the heart of the Roman household stood the sacred hearth (=fire), over which the virgin goddess Vesta presided.

696 Varma, MAISI031 no date: unit 1:9.

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The biographer Plutarch, writing in the late first and early second centuries, documented another version of the myth of the birth of the twins that relates to the fascinum. He tells how the King of Alba beheld the strange sight of an erect penis that rose from his hearth fire and stayed there for several days. He sought advice from the gods via an oracle, which informed him that a virgin should give herself to the phallus and the offspring produced would become a very great man.

The king, named Tarchetius in this version, ordered his daughter to mate with the phallus, but she balked at this and sent her servant to do it instead. Tarchetius discovered the truth and imprisoned them both. He was held back from killing them by a dream sent by Vesta, and then Romulus and Remus were born. They were abandoned in the Tiber, suckled by a she-wolf, saved by a herdsman, and grew up to kill Tarchetius. This myth, which may be of Etruscan origin, is also reflected in a myth of the birth of one of the later kings of Rome, Servius Tullius, and has a connection to older Indo-European mythic motifs, where fire is equated with male virility and the divine spark of life. (Meineck 2005-1:37).

The desire for honor and glory sets men on fire (Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes, 1.4.2).

Again He comes back (=Agni [the god of fire, the divine will]), opening wide, desiring victory! Within all moving beings he has become [the] Desire! (Yatsenko on the Rig Veda697, MAISI017 no date: lecture 4:6).

People the world over (India, Spain, Philippines, RĂŠunion, Greece, China, Japan, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Bulgaria, Thailand) walk on fire to celebrate various kinds of religious practices. Tribal ritual set aside, new age movements catering to urban white collar (upper) middle classes have appropriated the item as well in the name of an higher perception, the actualization of one's self, the transcendence of physical limits, positive psychology and so forth.

697 XV century BCE or older.

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Myth(ologie)s can coalesce: French Réunion Indians walk on fire after pouring holy water over their heads:

Results indicate that there was a relationship between New Age practices and beliefs and schizotypal personality traits, characterised by magical ideation, a cognitive disposition towards looseness of associations, and emotional hypersensitivity.

Women were also more likely to be drawn to New Age practices and beliefs. On the other hand, traditional religiosity was unrelated to all personality indices and measures from the experimental task. These findings suggest that an individual may be attracted to the New Age by virtue of its magical belief system and practices, which provide meaning to unusual ideation and experiences, and which emphasise the exploration and development of a loose cognitive style and emotional sensitivity.

(Farias et alii 2005:979).

Bundles of commingled mythologies are everywhere. Let's take W. Churchill, for example. Most -in fact- would equate the British leader with just causes and best of all ideas the 'fire' in his speeches certainly derived from.

Churchill's penchant -for example in a 1920 article698- raised quite a few eyebrows over time, however. The torturing embarrassment regarding Churchill's ' true ideas'699 could be easily solved dealing with another possibly controversial (and unpublished) article:

Sir Martin Gilbert, the eminent historian and Churchill biographer, -...- said the article was not written by Churchill at all, but rather his ghost writer, Adam Marshall Diston. He added that Churchill's instructions for the article were different in both tone and content from what Diston eventually wrote, and pointed out that Diston was a 698 “Zionism versus Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People,” Illustrated Sunday Herald, 8 February 1920.

699 Smith 2007, no page.

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supporter of Oswald Mosley, the notorious fascist and anti-Semite.

The present writer is not interested here in scoring political points, but in a simple fact. On one hand, Churchill is eulogized as the larger-than-life figure, whose uncompromising moral assumptions warranted him a place in history. On the other, he is just another gamesman trying different strategies. He commissions his 'memorable' pieces to a cohort of ghost-writers, each one in tune with a different portion of the political spectrum, just in case: most statesmen do so anyways on a regular basis700. The leader of the French Fascist Vichy regime, Petain, had in his drawer a serenade to his appointed arch-enemy De Gaulle.

Berlusconi published in a limited edition in the mid-1980s his own alleged translation of Thomas More's Utopia: it was a more or less integral copy of Luigi Firpo's (1915-89, Italian historian and politician) earlier translation. Although Berlusconi's foes choose the episode to cast 'honest Firpo' against 'dishonest Berlusconi', Firpo apparently never pressed charges against Berlusconi; the private exchange between the two regarding the matter was embargoed upon Firpo's death, soon to be made public in 2009: nobody has heard about it ever since. Readers shall come to their own conclusions regarding what sort of “patto tra gentiluomini� (agreement between gentlemen) might have been negotiated offstage: a word to the wise...

700 At some point, rumor had it that Berlusconi used the service of at least six speech writers.

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'Intellectual' politicians are a dime a dozen. Lega Nord secretary Salvini tries to project his image of highly sophisticated individual. In January 2015, he brags about two new books he's supposedly reading: too bad one of them was still to be released on the Italian market. Incensed votaries defend him from ridicule: he surely was reading the book in the original foreign edition. Media reported, however, that the book cover Salvini (or his press agents or cronies) posted online was that of the Italian edition yet to be released...

Politicians who ridicule the same obtuse myth(ologie)s they otherwise wield to enthuse the “Psychotics who identify themselves with the mythological image� are many. President Johnson in an interview with German Chancellor Erhard jokingly remarked how he wasn't born in a log-cabin like Lincoln, but in a manger like Jesus. In 1960 Richard Nixon had given the same answer701.

Dundes captures this dynamic:

In this connection, it is interesting that the mixture of religion and politics is found in stories about Nixon as well as Kennedy. An anecdote [exists] ridiculing Nixon's repeated references to his humble origins and suggesting that false modesty might conceal exalted visions of grandeur (1963:55).

The same platitudes and strategies used in this example can be successfully used in a variety of situations involving different people with an equal degree of credibility: 701 Free Lance-Star, August 6, 1960.

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It is one thing to suggest that a hero or a patriot is a martyr, it is quite another for a community to perceive it as true. Therefore, the metaphor inherent in associational catalysts requires that its author must maintain a degree of social legitimacy so as to invoke a believable image. (Allgrove 1994:55).

What counts is not the case at hand, but the repository of exempla, fossilized characters, obtuse allegories and petrified mythologies. This in spite of the circular over-emphasis leadership scholars -such as Ben-Shahar- place on authenticity (=charisma), whatever that comes to mean in one's opinion, to the point of issuing this categorical statement: leading leadership scholars “have studied thousands of leaders -...- [and] they are all authentic”702:

Many have wondered: is Qaddafi mad? A megalomaniac? Otherwise respectable psychologists have tried to analyze him from afar. More reliable is what Qaddafi says about himself; he considers himself a visionary. While many of those around him are corrupt, Qaddafi by all accounts is not, making him the worst sort of dictator: a truebelieving one. What Qaddafi believes is a muddled mix of Nasserist nationalism, Western anarcho-syndicalism and Bedouin desert egalitarianism. (Schumacher 1986-7:no page, emphasis added).

When it is not exemplary, an authority figure has an uncertain therapeutic effect. (Rieff 2006:87).

Highly interesting is what the Cottingley witnesses thought about deceiving so many people for so long: “people wanted to be taken in”, “they wanted to believe”, “we did not have to tell a lie at all, because every time someone came out to justify it”703.

702 Ben-Shahar 2005-6a:lecture 7.

703 Clarke 1985: Fairies, Phantoms And Fantastic Photographs.

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Inducing trance through storytelling shall take aesthetic sense into the picture. Aesthetic sense brings about idealization: both Octavian Augustus and Napoleon -who were not exactly 'small fry' needing to prove themselves to anyonewere immortalized satisfying esthetic sense; Jesus' image, too, was restyled to satisfy aesthetic sense. In Roman Egypt, the portraits on sarcophagi at times depicted an 'improved' image of the deceased:“"sentimentalizing and prettifying" everything that the public might find objectionable”. Messages on the Mormon Channel also follow this logic. Messages for youth are crafted like Disney Channel teen-oriented series plus the religious angle.

To this day there is controversy regarding some pictures typically used to portray Indian thinker Aurobindo; dissidents say such pictures have been enhanced to convey a spiritual or majestic image, whereas devotees claim the allegation to be false. Joseph Stalin's pictures were retouched to cancel the scars smallpox had left on his face. That is why most politicians wear dresses engineered to hide protruding bellies and weak shoulders, thus making them look like rugby players fit as race horses; special shoes can often be worn to camouflage height issues.

It's as old as man. Ancient Greeks -and Nietzsche- hold it up as a signpost of virtue: kalokagathia (beautiful and also virtuous); modern social psychology restyled the same situation as “the halo effect”. Brown 704 confirms that attractiveness automatically makes most perceive one as well above average even in 704 2013:Characteristics Of Influential Agents.

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unrelated matters, such as academic excellence. People at the Mormon Channel are listening: careful settings, and no gross, ridiculous, unattractive, clumsy person on stage as it is the case with glossy commercials.

There are -according to Brown- evolutionary, in-bred patterns of recognition

of

trustworthy

(more

feminine)

and

untrustworthy

(more

rugged/masculine) faces, which can be tapped for prompt results. In various countries, TV shows exist(ed) showing how ordinary -even despicable- nobodies could be turned into centerfold material with the intervention of professional makeup artists and 'image-makers'.

Communist regimes -from Romania to Cuba- placed great emphasis on education, sanitation, literacy and physical prowess (sport and gymnastics): the Communist version of the Renaissance man imagery:”La condition de vedette est la spécialisation du vécu apparent, l’objet de l’identification à la vie apparente sans profondeur ” (being a star corresponds especially to life as it is represented: it identifies itself with shallow life made manifest)705.

Movie stars and other mass entertainers also ride that bandwagon, whereby polished nails, hairdos worth thousands of euros, fantastic (plastic surgery) faces, and so forth, are equated with stupendous skills, virtues and the like.

705 Debord 1967: point 60.

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A cursory look at tabloids reveals this couldn't possibly be farther from the truth: public figures (royalties, gurus, millionaires, politicians, entertainers...) are often a miserable bunch of contemptible bohemian profligates, mafiosi, addicts, crooks and psychopaths706.

Politicking 'men of destiny' embody Bronze Age Greek excellence indeed:

A senior British lord embroiled in a scandal over allegations by a tabloid newspaper that he used cocaine and hired prostitutes, said on Monday he would not return to parliament until investigations into his actions had been completed. John Sewel stood down from his post as deputy speaker of unelected House of Lords at the weekend after he was filmed snorting what The Sun on Sunday newspaper said was cocaine with two prostitutes. ( Lord Sewel...2015:no page).

The skilled make-up artist, plastic surgeon, photographer, ghost writer and spin-doctor are always the 'unstated assumption' behind the glossy picture of this or that mountebank preaching urbi et orbi707, or celebrities cat-walking past enthused groupies:

Biden gave an unhurried discourse about his family and middleclass struggles with a conversational emotion that few American politicians can match, and showed humor, energy, homey sense and an ability to tell a good story. -...- The teleprompter kept him from verbal wanderings (although he made occasional stumbles), and he managed to portray himself as a reassuring and rousing selection on 706 Brown (2013:The Dark Side Of Influence) mentions personality traits he links to conmanship: narcissism, machiavellianism, psychopathy (=lack of empathy; deliberate and systematic disregard of consequences of one's actions upon others).

707 Roman (now Pontificial) proclamations were always directed “to the city and to the world�.

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a night dominated by the incomparable Bill Clinton. (Halperin 2008:no page, emphasis added).

Good looks, a touch of charisma, a flood of words, contrived distractions, a knack for knowing which buttons to press-all these can go a long way toward obscuring the fact that the psychopathic presentation is nothing more than a "line . " A good-looking, fasttalking psychopath and a victim who has "weak spots" is a devastating combination. If the psychopath's "show" is not enough, the adroit use of "stage props" -phony credentials, flashy car, expensive clothes, a sympathy-inducing role, and so forth-will usually complete the job. (Hare 1993:145).

Jesus said, "He who will drink from my mouth will become like me.

I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him (Gospel Of Thomas no date no page n.108).

You must look the part, sound the part, and act the part. If your message and your persona are not congruent, people you hope to persuade may make an unfavorable decision about you. (Lakhani 2005:16).

'Schrodinger's candidates', cybernetic politicians and freakish preachers in the media might prove eerie and/or disconcerting because they probe the depth of the “uncanny valley”. That's what psychopaths also do, according to author Sam Vaknin, himself a diagnosed narcissistic psychopath.

As it was/is common occurrence in online dating, pictures of third-rate models, often sexually suggestive, are used to 'salt the mine' of lonely heart or romantic websites while small prints protects from litigation:”Photos and other data are for illustrative purposes only”. Other websites really want to take no chances with this disclaimer:

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The story(s) depicted on this site and the person(s) depicted in the story are not real. Rather, this fictional story is based on the results that some people who have used these products have achieved. The results portrayed in the story and in the comments are illustrative, and may not be the results that you achieve with these products.

Such a disclaimer should appear on many history books, news reels and charity pleas.

Just as this or that public figure has elated votaries believe s-he is the current incarnation of Zoroaster, Jeremiah, Ulysses or other chaps from myth(ologie)s, so bimbos and studs on dating websites reside right within our ZIP code.

They follow one around with unrelenting appeal from a variety of area codes that match one's as one beams out of seven world cities using a proxy server.

After all, author Sam Vaknin (an expert on narcissistic psychopathology) concludes the (online) dating scene is the province of the mentally dysfunctional, whether clinical or sub-clinical.

Italian TV personality Gianfranco Funari in the early 1990s threw the gauntlet to the established media in an attempt to document the power of television.

He thus started pushing a severely disabled man in a wheelchair as sort of opinion leader, in spite of the person's speech being somewhat impaired. The disabled man (A. Guidi) was thus showered with appointments: minister, parliamentarian (with Berlusconi's Forza Italia), and so forth: readers be the judge about whether Funari 684

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made his point.

Kalokagathia also meets its inverted doppelgaenger: saviors, heroes and founders act as heralds of the unwashed rabble:

The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.'

But wisdom is proved right by her deeds." (Matthew 11:19).

Thus vulgarity [in Sartre] comes to signify lack of social standing at best and outright evil at worst. (Charmé 1991:19).

As if the masses had any way to know -or even cared about- whether the 'great man' is feeling it, or faking it:

Authority is granted to people who are perceived as authoring their own words, their own actions, their own lives, rather than playing a scripted role at great remove from their own hearts.

(Palmer no date, emphasis added).

Appearing sincere, or congruent, is a key ingredient for building the trust that opens the door to likability and rapport (Boothman 2000:60, emphasis added).

It’s easy to get caught up in the power of crowd decisions and to lose sight of when crowds fail. Crowds fail when they have a shared error in judgment. And when that’s the case, there’s a deeper problem: The people who are most confident about their judgments are often the most wrong. (Huettel 2014:126-7).

If this was the case, all great actors are at their most authentic on screen playing Robin Hood, doctor Mengele, Billy the kid or Paul Atreides:

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know they're only speaking lines that someone else wrote? Because they're believable; because they are congruent-...-It's just about impossible to be incongruent when you are operating from inside any kind of attitude, useful or otherwise. Because your attitude precedes you, it is an essential component of the first impression you make on new acquaintances. (Boothman 2000:55,64, emphasis added).

After lovemaking, at Motta Visconti (Italy), C.Lissi slashes his wife's throat (=consecration/desecration of the body shtick), and also kills his two children. He then creates chaos in the house to simulate a burglary before heading to a pub in order to cheer very emotionally for the Italian national soccer team 708.

Casual eye-witnesses wonder how a man might be so poker-faced as to dispatch wife and children in such a gruesome way: he looked so authentic as he devotedly cheered for the Italian soccer team. Vicious murderous sociopaths, and the “authentic leader�, providential man, and arch-patriarch of positive psychology become one: Janusian thinking. Lissi then invokes mental illness to court leniency from the judicial system.

More often than generally thought, actors may experience difficulties -or failures- in quitting the iconic role that has been imposed upon them during filming. Sean Connery admitted his infatuation with his James Bond role led to difficulties in relationships: he is generally known for his ego while filming. Actress Miley Cyrus changed her name to allegedly accommodate family ties, but rumor

708 AGI, June 16,2014.

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had it that she intended to legally change her name to that of her fictional, Disney channel character Hannah Montana.

Many argue Clint Eastwood and John Wayne took the same character -probably a warped projection of how they saw themselves 709- into all the fictional roles they played: brash gunslingers, cops, military men etc:”Let them be pulled in by your carefully crafted persona and let them remain enthralled by its depth, complexity, and completeness. If you make your persona one that they themselves would like to emulate, you have done your job perfectly.”710;”A symbol is talking to you and, whether the head knows it or not, the heart knows it.”711.

Rumor had it that a policeman who had stopped Italian actor Maurizio Merli -famous for his vigilante police commissioner roles in the 1970s- for a routine control

saluted him as “mister commissioner”, as if he were a real police

commissioner, and as if his fictional on-screen vigilante characters were true people:”Teller and told, mind and body, are one: mutually possessed by the power of story”;”[The public] only wanted one thing from [a given public figure]: a story. He told it so well that we forgave him almost everything. ”;“[it] helped people to believe.”;”We want -...- original content regardless of its validity. We're here for the 709 It won't elude readers how there actually was very little, if anything, in common between real-life Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Wayne, Chuck Norris, Clint Eastwood or Charlton Heston, and the novelized or imaginary characters they portrayed on screen. Just as there is little, if anything, in common between the onstage “mister homeland security” (mister immigration amnesty, etc) persona, and the individual performer in real life.

710 Lakhani 2005:35, emphasis added.

711Campbell&Boa 1989:49.

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scare, not for the plausibility”.

Italian comedy actor Alberto Sordi did pretty much the same: it was mostly difficult to tell apart roles he played with the exception of costumes and backdrops. Sordi -whether the real person or the xeroxed characters he played on screen- was also taken as embodying the quintessential Italian: half crook, half existentialist; a versatile, slightly dishonest jack of all trades with an heart of gold deep down.

As sociologist Goffman argued, authentic (=sincere) and inauthentic (=cynical) performances may very well deliver the same result as far as the public is concerned. An entire category apparently exists that regroups not only former clergymen turned atheists or agnostics, but -as the Dennett-La Scola study showedof current clergymen busy pastoring churches and leading congregations who -far from their parishioners' earshot- openly subscribe to atheist, skeptic or agnostic beliefs: the society of spectacle.

Popular culture is never far behind: over the internet, laid-back personality coaches offer one the possibility to learn self-authoring skills for only US$ 14,99, 49,99 etc:”I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world ” (Matthew 13:35).

A 2005 article detailed something then President Bush, jr. - who in his

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memoirs acknowledged to have battled severe alcohol addiction- had confided in a foreign delegate:

Mr Bush revealed the extent of his religious fervour when he met a Palestinian delegation during the Israeli-Palestinian summit at the Egpytian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, four months after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I am driven with a mission from God'. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did." Mr Bush went on: "And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East'. And, by God, I'm gonna do it." (MacAskill 2005: no page, emphasis added).

From a 'good' leader to a bad one:

On August 4th 1972 [Uganda's] President Amin announced the expulsion of Uganda's Asian population, thereby firing the first shots of the Economic War. He explained that God had spoken to him in a dream, directing him to act immediately and "win the economic war".

-...-. He contended that the Asian were "sabotaging the economy of the country" and gave them 90 Days To Quit Uganda. The Government controlled TV Station then started an intimidating countdown campaign by flashing large numerals on our TV screens each night indicating the number of days left for Asians before their Final Departure Day- November 8th”. (O'Cleirigh 2004:75, emphasis added).

Joyti De-Laurey, a thirty-year-old former personal assistant at a British investment bank, was sentenced to a seven-year prison term for stealing more than $7 million from her employers. She used the money for a lifestyle that would be considered extravagant even by the rich and famous.-...-Perhaps, but De-Laurey also had a grotesque sense of ethics and entitlement, and a convenient belief that God was on her side. The latter was evident in her “Bibles of Daily Thoughts,” notebooks containing her letters to God. “Dear God. Please help me. I need one more helping of what’s mine and then I must cut down and 689

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cease in time all the plundering,” she wrote. “Please ensure my job is safe and my integrity is unquestioned.” (Babiak&Hare 2006:238).

Hallucinations can take many forms, but the most dangerous types are known as auditory command hallucinations. Command hallucinations are voices that the patient hears instructing him or her to perform some behavior.-...- The voices that constitute command hallucinations can be powerful forces that compel a person to act in an irrational manner. (Kiehl 2014:172).

Flaky characters from all the provinces of the political spectrum have god whisper secrets, holy writ and providential blueprints of history to them. The entire U.S history pivots around the Puritan concept of “personal call” as a hint to a possible eternal salvation712.

History receives some better than others: “At one point, he went mad, hearing voices, his agony increased by the bullet wounds he suffered during his capture. ”713 and “ [He] Remains in jail for more than a decade, including two years' solitary confinement at the bottom of a well, where he speaks to frogs and insects to maintain his sanity. ”714. Would anyone trust the character above to hold a government position?

If he were a maximalist right-winger, then probably the shoe would fit: those kooks are not to be trusted. Yet he is the former leader of a left-wing insurrectionist group: refraining from hasty judgments shall now apply. Not only was he appointed as Uruguay's President, but he -José Mujica- enjoys universal 712 Oden 1998: Bringing It All Back Home.

713 The Guardian, November 16, 2014.

714 The Guardian, December 13, 2013.

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accolades alongside Pope Francis for being so modest, austere and personable: a real providential man in the league of another beloved former left-wing terrorist who suffered equally to deliver the horde from evil: Nelson Mandela.

Why is the average contemporary reader likely to treat the remark about President Bush, Jr. as a 'blow below the belt' that signposts questionable allegiances?

What about President Amin? Does the shoe fit, perchance? Why does psychologist Stout deliver a chapter715 to portray the irresistible ascent of a fictional wealthy boy she portrays as a sociopath, whom many identify with President Bush, Jr.? After all, many factoids in the fictional account allegedly match Bush's biographical anecdotes, such as blowing bullfrogs up with firecrackers as a pastime.

The purpose of the achronotopos is this, too: judge the 'bad guys' according to their deeds, and the 'good guys' according to their intentions:

The investigators used functional neuroimaging (fMRI) to study a sample of committed Democrats and Republicans during the three months prior to the U.S. Presidential election of 2004. The Democrats and Republicans were given a reasoning task in which they had to evaluate threatening information about their own candidate. During the task, the subjects underwent fMRI to see what parts of their brain were active. What the researchers found was striking. -...- Once partisans had come to completely biased conclusions -- essentially finding ways to ignore information that could not be rationally discounted -- not only did circuits that mediate negative emotions like sadness and disgust turn off, but subjects got a blast of activation in circuits involved in reward -- similar to what addicts receive when they get their fix, Westen explains. "None of the circuits involved in 715 2005:36ss.

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conscious reasoning were particularly engaged," says Westen.

"Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones. -...- Behavioral data showed a pattern of emotionally biased reasoning: partisans denied obvious contradictions for their own candidate that they had no difficulty detecting in the opposing candidate. Importantly, in both their behavioral and neural responses, Republicans and Democrats did not differ in the way they responded to contradictions for the neutral control targets, such as Hanks, but Democrats responded to Kerry as Republicans responded to Bush. -...- "The result is that partisan beliefs are calcified, and the person can learn very little from new data," Westen says. " (Emory Study...2006:no page, emphasis added).

What was the effect of the Duelfer Report’s correction of the original statement—that Iraq had an active WMD program—on people’s belief about President Bush’s assertion that Iraq could give terrorists these weapons? The answer depended on the participant’s ideology. Liberals shifted in the direction of even greater disagreement with the statement. The shift was not significant, because the most liberal subjects already tended strongly to disagree with it. But for those who characterized themselves as conservative, there was a significant shift in the direction of agreeing with the statement. In the words of those who conducted the study, “the correction backfired—conservatives who received a correction telling them that Iraq did not have WMD were more likely to believe that Iraq had WMD.” Not only did the correction fail, but it had a polarizing effect; it divided people more sharply than they had been divided before. (Sunstein 2014:42).

These days, if a shot is egregiously bad, a golfer might write it off as a “mulligan,” place the ball back at its original starting point, and score himself as if the shot never happened (one of my friends refers to her husband’s ex-wife as a “mulligan”). Strictly speaking, mulligans are never allowed, but in friendly games, players sometimes agree in advance that mulligans are permitted. Of course, even when mulligans are not legal nor agreed upon, golfers still take them from time to time -...-.Putting our creative minds to work can help us come up with a narrative that lets us have our cake and eat it too, and create stories in which we’re always the hero, never the villain. If the key to our dishonesty is our ability to think of ourselves as honest and moral people while at the same time benefitting from cheating, creativity 692

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can help us tell better stories —stories that allow us to be even more dishonest but still think of ourselves as wonderfully honest people.

(Ariely 2012:32,93-4, emphasis added).

Over the past sixteen years as [a] member of the Board of Trustees of the Zen Studies Society and more recently as president of that Society, I have attempted to make excuses for Eido Roshi and to cover up the scandals as best I could. (cit. in Oppenheimer 2014:no page, emphasis added).

Some might object that's about “threatening information”: quite difficult to appraise objectively. What about a simple math problem? Would 'best of all causes' get in the way?

So how did people fare on the handgun version of the problem [in a study by Kahan et alii published in 2013]? They performed quite differently than on the skin cream version, and strong political patterns emerged in the results—especially among people who are good at mathematical reasoning. Most strikingly, highly numerate liberal Democrats did almost perfectly when the right answer was that the concealed weapons ban does indeed work to decrease crime (version C of the experiment)—an outcome that favors their pro-guncontrol predilections. But they did much worse when the correct answer was that crime increases in cities that enact the ban (version D of the experiment). The opposite was true for highly numerate conservative Republicans: They did just great when the right answer was that the ban didn't work (version D), but poorly when the right answer was that it did (version C). (Mooney 2013: no page, emphasis added).

Another reason that people overestimate the quality of their evidence toward a decision is that people tend to seek out evidence that confirms their existing beliefs, instead of evidence that could refute those beliefs. That’s called confirmation bias. We see echoes of confirmation bias in the popular media, in our conversations, and in ourselves. When people take a strongly held position—like on a political hot-button issue—they interpret new evidence in whatever way best fits their existing beliefs. So, new evidence tends to reinforce people’s strongly held beliefs, even when that same evidence might be 693

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seen by a neutral party as challenging those same beliefs. (Huettel 2014:96).

So much about Habermas' plea to yield to better arguments...

It's as old as man, or the divide between a personalized (dispositional factors= traits) and a depersonalized (situational factors) worldview. The Pollyanna syndrome (every cloud has a silver lining; seeing only the best in people or situations), and its inverse the Machiavellian orientation: the attitude towards the 'best of all causes', and its inverse.

Propaganda of all kinds – which exerts the same effects mythology doesendeavors to depersonalize situations and worldviews, as a Germanophobic Englishman (=good patriotic guy) shows:

First of all, there is a curious, cloudy sort of argument, much affected by the professional rhetoricians of Prussia, who are sent out to instruct and correct the minds of Americans or Scandinavians. It consists of going into convulsions of incredulity and scorn at the mention of Russia's responsibility of Servia, or England's responsibility of Belgium; and suggesting that, treaty or no treaty, frontier or no frontier, Russia would be out to slay Teutons or England to steal Colonies. (Chesterton 1914: no page).

It turned out, England was out to steal colonies (industrial patents etc) after all. Furthermore, the diaries of the French ambassador to the Tzar 716 confirm that at the Russian court many were already sampling anticipated flavors of victory over a defeated Germany when it was still high time to save the peace before WWI. 716 Maurice PalĂŠologue 1925.

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Many travel sites forewarn potential tourists that -in certain foreign locales- uniformed officials may tend to extract money from tourists under a variety of pretexts, which is seen as extortion and harassment only awful people could perpetrate.

The same bilking can easily be wishfully ethicized. A nice policeman -who among other things is a gifted saxophone player, and the sweet daddy of three precious children- wants to prevent you from harming yourself -or others-; he's merely doing his duty as he operates a speed trap.

The typical riposte is that the 'sweet daddy on duty' doesn't line his own pockets like the corrupt cop from an exotic locale does. Most often he doesn't, indeed. Just like GESTAPO, CEKA-NKVD, Khmer Rouge etc honchos, he brings water to the mill of stale ideologies and the bureaucracies that preside over them.

One person's rogue can be another person's Robin Hood: Stalin and Mujica robbed banks to fund revolutionary activities.

What would “a decent human being” wish to do? Would s-he wish to listen to celestial saxophone music? To baby-talk to the sweet child? Certainly s-he wouldn't wish that poor, honest daddy on duty harm, would s-he? “It is not that these stories are unimportant, not very sad, or unuseful, but they don’t help us understand what is happening all around us”.

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Of course, could one extend the 'daddy on duty' courtesy to Fascist extortionist, Robin Hood717 banda Carità718? Left-wing insurrectionist group

Tupamaro also mixed Robin Hood and terrorist activities. What about Fascist maximalist terrorist Croatian Ustascia?

Despite similarities, history passed a different verdict: unlike members of

banda Carità, Tupamaro leader Mujica became Uruguay's President. Mujica became an appointed 'man of destiny', whereas banda Carità members were just a bunch of sociopathic thugs, and Ustascia affiliates were hunted down, disposed of, or fled abroad undercover as genocidal war criminals.

Asked about their funding and shady accounting practices, a camerata replied that banda Carità only kept accounts on incoming funds. Banda Carità: an example of power-craziness and sadism under the commodious umbrella of socalled laws a bunch of scoundrels enacted to legitimate their own greed and ensuing misdeeds: extortion to fund private profligacy.

China invaded Tibet exclusively to liberate the peasant masses from an oppressive, medieval theocracy; India annexed Sikkim to prevent a bloody civil war; Anglo-Americans buried German and Japanese cities under a deluge of incendiary bombs to make the world safe for democracy; Fascist regimes championed White, traditional cultural and racial heritage against demoplutocratic corruption, judaeo717 They at times engaged in the distribution of either free, or cheap stuff to the population.

718 Also very active in the overzealous identification and brutal prosecution of dissidents.

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masonic internationalist agitators, and Bolshevik hordes: here are ways to depersonalize situations.

Alternatively, China invaded Tibet (India annexed Sikkim...) in a compulsive domination binge to simply replace displaced old masters at the top of the exploitation hierarchy, and so did the Anglo-Americans; Fascist regimes murdered millions of people in the futile pursuit of disused mythologies of selfaggrandizement.

These are ways to personalize situations:

Amplify your own fantasies by finding in the field of the cultural heritage of mankind analogous images, and these will pull you out; they will depersonalize your life, and that is what the function of myth is (Campbell 1974).

Ben-Shahar719 characterizes U.S capitalism thus:�what American business is about. Imperfect, but -...- much more integrity, much more honesty compared to any other place in the world�. Ben-Shahar at different points also cites the Ford motor company as a visionary company because of its values. Ben-Shahar probably overlooks the Ford Pinto and suchlike cases.

It is also difficult to guess which news headlines or stock-market reports did -or did not- Ben-Shahar base his categorical statement upon. Did the similarities escape him between desperate crowds rushing to withdraw funds from sinking 719 2005-6a: lecture 1.

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banks in Albania in the early 1990s, or in Britain in more recent years?

A more pragmatic view might be that Ben-Shahar just went along in order to get along with fellow Harvard students. While this might be the case, it becomes thus impossible to part people who 'feel it' from people who 'fake it'.

Heated disputes arose in early Christianity about whether Jesus nailed to the cross was truly suffering, or whether the crucifixion was only some sort of divine play.

Of course, Jesus could not be some Terminator kind of figure who may be dismembered as he really doesn't feel a thing. In order for bystanders (congregants, hearers...) to choke, scream and gasp in participatory rapture, Jesus had to be a frail little creature just like themselves. Politicians and other entertainers cultivate both the 'Renaissance' or 'providential man' image of themselves, and the 'meek and personable' aspect of their stage act:

When a sociopath identifies someone as a good game piece, she studies that person can be manipulated and used -...- flattered and charmed. In addition, she knows how to promote a sense of familiarity or intimacy (Stout 2005:90).

Russian economic expert Notkin compared the state of dilapidation of the collapsed Russian economy with the thriving West in the late 1990s thus:�[this banker] survived the financial crisis because he abided by the financial so to speak laws and rules which are wide spread in the west. -...- because of the arbitrary decision, of three persons, businesses suffered tremendously. This is unthinkable in

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Britain and America.”720. Naturally, the Ford Pinto case may also be spun to mean something entirely different721 from what the average schmuck is likely to believe after buying sensational press: another Rorschach test.

A Mormon publication stated:

That historian or scholar who delights in pointing out the weaknesses and frailties of present or past leaders destroys faith. A destroyer of faith - particularly one within the Church, and more particularly one who is employed specifically to build faith - places himself in great spiritual jeopardy. He is serving the wrong master, and unless he repents, he will not be among the faithful in the eternities. Do not spread disease germs! [Mormon Apostle B.K. Packer in 1981] ( cit. in Dana 2006:168-9).

Also, the [Tibetan Buddhist] Vajrapani-abhisheka maha-tantra says, “Keep the Master’s good qualities in mind, never seize upon their faults”. (Terentyev, ME6217 no date: unit 2:6.

It is highly interesting here how the Socratic dilemma (=couldn't possibly have known) is consciously left behind in favor of a forthright prohibition -and chicaneries associated therewith- against washing dirty linen in public (=most know about it, but are supposed to mum the word).

720 Notkin 2005: DD304 City Stories, segment Moscow. Footage was from the late 1990s.

721 1971 Ford car with an apparently defective gas thank. According to media, Ford knew about the issues with the gas tank design, but went ahead anyways considering the cost-benefit analysis (the cost of possible lawsuits and damages versus the cost of modifying the vehicle). The vehicle caused a row of lawsuits and punitive damages, and had to be recalled. UCLA law school professor Schwartz writes, however:”Having reflected on these invocations of the Ford Pinto case, I have arrived at two general observations. One is that several significant factual misconceptions surround the public's understanding of the case. Given the cumulative force of these misconceptions, the case can be properly referred to as "mythical." Secondly-and quite apart from these misconceptions-there is something about the basic narrative of the case that has captured the public's attention: the narrative includes features that are evidently elemental or essential. In this quite different sense, then, we can also talk about the case as entailing "myth."” (1990-91:1013-14).

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Fears722 chastises the unpatriotic tone of U.S historiography in recent decades bent on debunking myths and 'noble lies' of U.S history. Fears traces the trend back to the French Revolution, and to Prussian academics reacting to Napoleon's tyranny.

Fears – following Polybius- claims patriotism to be essential to the flawless working of a constitution: 'noble lies' are imperative in order to keep patriotism alight. Fears characterizes “debunking” as an “ignoble profession” fit for “petty people”723. There may be a point in Fears' argument, which nonetheless is as ideological as any Prussian pedant's might have been for entirely different -but equally adventitious- reasons of political expediency.

This guarding of one's dirty linen to oneself need not to phrased in sinister or duplicitous imagery, but may as well stew in a sea of sentimentalism and emotional truth:

Precossi, that little thin fellow, who has languid but good eyes and a frightened look, is the son of a blacksmith. His father returns home drunk and beats him without any reason whatever; throws his books and copybooks around in every direction; and sometimes Precossi comes to school with black and blue marks on his face, and his eyes red from crying. But one can never make him tell that his father has beaten him. His companions say to him: "It is your father who has beaten you," and he answers immediately: "No, that is not true !" in order not to disgrace his father. "It was not you who burned this sheet of paper," the teacher said, showing him his lesson half burned. "Yes," he answered, "I let it fall in the fire." -...- This morning he came to 722 2011:Lays Of Ancient Rome.

723 2011: Mythology As A Path To Wisdom.

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school with the mark of a finger nail on his cheek, and all the boys said to him: "It is your father, you cannot deny it this time; it is your father who did that. Tell the principal and he will have him called before the police magistrate." But he arose and with a voice trembling with indignation, said: "No, it is not true ! It is not true! My father never strikes me!"(De Amicis 1918:63-5).

Can't the reader see the “ languid but good eyes and a frightened look with a voice trembling with indignation” of all those busy covering up what is downplayed to mere “weaknesses and frailties” in the name of the 'great cause', or in order not to disgrace the 'great man'?

In Missing In Action II (1985), Chuck Norris plays a Rambo character in a Vietnamese prison camp, who stupendously refuses to sign a confession regarding presumed atrocities his country would have committed against the Vietnamese. It is interesting to imagine the retribution that would befall an Axis veteran with the same demeanor. Only when a friend's life is in imminent danger does the copycat Rambo consider signing: fabulous people and their awesome values.

Because discourse is all there is, and because discourse is essentially what the speaker/writer wants to make of it cashing as much credibility and returns as the times and circumstances allow:”[The public] only wanted one thing from [a given public figure]: a story. He told it so well that we forgave him almost everything. ”;“[it] helped people to believe.”;”We want -...- original content regardless of its validity. We're here for the scare, not for the plausibility”. The same 'Bambi effect' can be ridiculed as wishful thinking; the 'iron-clad' premises on which it rests can 701

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be taken apart without much effort, for example in Rubinstein's book: too bad for all the barrels of tears and spleen wasted on futile emotional exercises.

Accordingly, the victim's fate gets sealed in a sort of fatalistic

achronotopos out of reasonable reach; an 'alternative storyline' that is futile to even discuss because nobody could have altered such fate in any way, shape or form: ”In representing the involvement of the gods in human life, tragic myths dwell on crises in which precisely this kind of paradox comes into focus.”724.

One possibility is that god(s) are only a hollow mask standing for certain moments across the spectrum of all too human extremes:

Tragedy is a crucible, a burning glass, an arena which displays events so terrible that one can hardly bear to contemplate them, yet so compelling that one cannot but watch to the end. -...-Most of the characteristics which I have described as ‘distinctively tragic’ can be paralleled in one or more other genres of myth-telling. But the combination of all of them in tragedy is what makes the genre unique.

It is nothing less than an exploration, through the medium of traditional tales, of the place of humanity in the world, an exploration both popular and profound. Of all the ancient forms of myth-telling, only the Homeric poems can rival the tragedies in their continuing power to hold, enchant, shock, and unsettle (Woodard 2007:171,186).

However, Guthrie ultimately concludes that this theological program is probably misguided—that God or gods “exist” only insofar as we infer their existence on the basis of our tendency to anthropomorphize our surroundings. (MacNeill 2011:56).

“Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel” ( Psalm 22:3).

The present writer takes this verse in the psalm to mean that god is 724 Woodard 2007:184.

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basically a function of worship. In the Rig Veda, too, gods coalesce as “chosen deities�: function of worship.

The sayings of Jesus are dictated by those who followed him; the Teacher is the effect produced by those who are supposed to be receiving the teaching. -...-the founder is founded.(Caputo, cit. in Fischer 1994:16).

The same uncanny comedy of innocence can be adapted to innumerable situations. When one of the countless corruption, sexual or embezzlement scandals rocks the boat of this, that or another party or politician, it all is a political conspiracy 'unbeknownst to them' (=Socratic dilemma). In other words, palatial houses, millionaire tokens, luxury properties and amenities get transferred to -or exclusively utilized by- so-and-so 'unbeknownst to them' as a manufactured conspiracy to tarnish the great man's reputation; or as betrayal to discredit the great cause.

Yahoo news copies Italian press agency AGI reporting 725 (8 April 2012) a scandal threatening the core establishment of party Lega Nord. Investigations point to a whirlwind of mismanagement, ongoing misappropriation of party funds, and other illegal operations, at whose core allegedly stood no less than the party's lider

maximo and his immediate family managing the party and its many ancillary enterprises as private property, much in the way other parties were run according to previous scandals. They could thus allegedly appropriate wealth and goods in princely amounts (euro 40 million according to judicial proceedings 726) through a 725 Lega 2012: no page.

726 ANSA, November 29, 2013.

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rigged chain of straw men who -in turn- fed on the same source.

The lider maximo ripostes he had no knowledge of such activities and denounces a political conspiracy; the party media denounce “a trap” and cheer “newly found unity” in the “fidelity to the cause”. Some pity the leader above reproach, possibly betrayed by his near and dear; others sentimentally privilege the leader's severely impaired health condition; the leader in search of forgiveness delights the sentimental audience with a televised emotional operetta meltdown, and with healing fantasies of repentance and repayment (=reconciliation). At some point, party media claimed the lider maximo's son -also a politician- was sulking in retreat pondering elusive questions of fairness; instead, tabloids caught him at an exotic vacation resort.

A news release announces how a party section decided to close down to protest, yet confirming the devotion to the leader “the affection that every son owes his own father in the acknowledgment of the dream he has given us -...- his teachings will always represent the path every activist will walk”727.

Path, affection, unity, fidelity, betrayal, the father figure of the sullen leader in both emotional and physical agony...the religious/affective nature (against all odds) of the relationship is unmistakable, with all this entails, especially in the 727 “tutto l'affetto e la stima che ogni figlio ha per il proprio Padre. Il riconoscimento per il sogno che ci ha regalato in questi 35 anni non potra' mai esaurirsi ed il suo insegnamento sara' sempre il sentiero su cui ogni militante percorrera' i propri passi. ” Free translation.

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light of the party's predilection for pseudo-pagan, 'nativist' charades that so much look like the rituals of other religions in decline, such as the vessel with the “sacred water” of the Po river -alternatively presented as the blood of the god Po-, and the cult for meta-historical figures from the mist of the Middle Ages.

Recent Italian electoral sensation Grillo -whose recently established party recorded between 20 and 25% in the 2013 national election- publicly affects an austere lifestyle (owning a beat-up car and so forth), declaims his honesty in line with the common man -and the sacrifices imposed upon him-, and pledges to expose and decapitate the corrupt regime in the name of superseding values. Newspapers, however, reveal Grillo's inner circle (sister-in-law, chauffeur...) to be possibly at the core of a series of dubious offshore financial operations including a 30 hectares luxury resort728.

Enamored supporters defend him claiming it's the comedian's hard-earnt money, leave populism behind in the name of legalistic concern, and denounce a conspiracy to tarnish 'the great man':

The life-story approach to authentic leader development suggests that self-knowledge, self-concept clarity, and the internalization of the leader’s role into the self-concept are achieved through the construction of life-stories. (Shamir&Eilam 2005:409).

Winning business leaders use the power of storytelling as effectively as our most gifted public leaders. (Tichy 1997: no page).

728 Malagutti et alii 2013: no page.

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Storylistening might induce729 a trance-like sensation in the hearer, which might work in favor of the 'Trojan horse' ingredient of the 'story' (speech, movie, chain email, song...).

The bewildered masses will soon forget and 'become one' once again as the bards of acceptable discourse resume telling those wonderful stories of annunciation, ministry, rejection, sparagmos and comeback; heart-warming fallacies and reassuring double standards; dying and rising savior-heroes, and the sacred blood they shed for our redemption; radiant days of reckoning that lie just ahead if people just will ignore traitors who propose to desert ( or desecrate) the 'great man' or cause at this crucial moment.

Dependable, personable electioneering prophets so unlike all the rest shall materialize, ready to guide the horde in trance safely through the treacherous desert that is the present socio-political conjuncture by sharing the alleged virtues of the faceless rabble of have-nots: honesty, altruism, chastity, austerity etc.

The masses yearn for an administrator who shall be a fitting match for the petrified image of one of those innumerable Sandokan, Orpheus, hero-savior figures who are in rags because they left worldly satisfaction, covetousness and ego behind; meek because theirs is a world of voluntary, ultimate sacrifice; honest because they are godly; austere because theirs is a life of selfless service to their 729 Sturm 2000.

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artificial kin members:”Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ” (Matthew 11:29); “Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth ” (Numbers 12:3).

It is basically the idea according to which the shaman could master, dispose of and bequeath more primal boons such as the strength of a bear, the flying majesty of an eagle, the virility of a bull, the cunning of a fox, the speed of a cheetah etc. More sophisticated or presumably mature civilizations may have less need for an eagle's wing-bone than they do for the sparagmos of savior-heroes, and the more convoluted boons that is supposed to bestow.

Of course, the biggest part is to have the masses believe -such as the trick the coach plays on the Tom Cruise stock car driving character in Days Of Thunder (1990)- that they now do possess the speed of cheetah, the virility of a bull or anything else for that matter:

The largest developmental impact was raising the positive beliefs of followers, instilling in them the conviction that they were better at a performance task than they thought (Avolio&Luthans 2006:51).

It all hasn't to be phrased in terms of foul imagery of slaughter and horrors as imperialistic powers and arch-dictators overpower a different country every season:

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The breakdown of marriage in America costs at least $112 billion a year, owing to expenses associated with health care, criminal justice, welfare and lost income-tax revenue -...-The cost is huge, Randy Hicks, president of the Georgia Family Council, told a Washington press conference yesterday. In the past five years, he said, the United States has spent more taxpayer money on the consequences of divorce and unwed childbearing than on the Iraq war: $560 billion vs. $500 billion.(Study Estimates...2008:no page).

Mythologies serve just that purpose. In the case above, the mythology in point is that of the typically modern and western paradigm of love romance with its colorful imagery of living happily ever after in a fairy tale of self-aggrandizing fulfillment of a slew of ego-centered, consumerist prophecies essentially based upon credit and debit schemes.

It in turn propels a massive cottage industry based upon intrinsic litigation on the basis of politically defined, elusive standards of fairness, dispute settlements and ensuing processes that necessarily require a proliferation of ancillary services (social workers, psychologists, advocates, lawyers...) as another massive cottage industry eventually lobbying to increase its prerogatives, market shares and ensuing financial returns society at large ultimately funds.

Another cottage industry jockeying for positions is the care industry (public and private childcare, nurseries, nursing homes...) ballooning as the increasingly dislocated society struggles to take care of the generational chain in alternative pursuit of either diversionary (=more work= broader access to

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consumption for self-gratification), or compulsory access to the job market (= dual income needed to make ends meet).

Truth, consistency, verisimilitude and even

statistical probability are not necessary ingredients when a story's success with the public is to be measured.

Reassuring double standards are plentiful. During WWI, the British politely renamed the chlorine gas cylinders used to (try to) poison the enemy as “the accessory”. During the mass-murdering campaign in Rwanda, as squads of executioners coordinated their efforts via radio, the act of rounding up -and disposing of- foes was politely referred to as “(public) work”. The NSDAP regime politely rephrased mass-murder in terms of relocation and internment. The Communist Pol Pot regime disposed of foes and dissidents in the chaos of a massive relocation campaign for alleged agricultural purposes. The Ottoman regime dealing with allegedly anti-national Armenians also spun tales of fabulous relocation efforts.

The opposite may also chance to apply. Ethnic Germans evicted from -to name just one- the now Russian Kaliningrad oblast (former Koenigsberg, capital of Eastern Prussia) were literally deported to Germany after WWII, just as the Soviets claimed: no need to get paranoid reading between the lines.

On a completely different plane, people were urged to be worthy of the sacrifice -and thus virtues- of WWI soldiers, who had died for them 730. The same logic applies to any activists and suchlike the regime in power endorses as 730 Gingrich, n.d.

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representative. Mussolini had wanted a place at the Pantheon to celebrate 'Fascist martyrs', whose pictures were placed in every classroom. The NSDAP regime used the flag stained with the 'sacred blood' of its 16 'martyrs' (killed during the failed 1923 Beer Hall putsch ) to consecrate other flags.

Later on, the activists the Fascist regime had considered 'bandits' and 'traitors' replaced on the civic altar the 'Fascist martyrs', now rabid henchmen of a criminal dictatorship. Likewise, the unwashed international volunteers fighting the Spanish civil war were transfigured on both sides in several documentaries. Le Pont

Des Martyres (martyrs' bridge) is indeed a landmark of Mali's capital Bamako celebrating yet another set of heroes.

Topography

and

martyrdom

are

staples

of

schizophrenic

commemoration routines. Countless streets were named after Adolf Hitler across Europe; landmarks were named after a row of caudillos: Salazar, Mugabe, Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, and a host of others. Lenin, Stalin, Marx, Ho Chi Minh, Togliatti, Kirov and other Social-Communist agitators and honchos had cities named after them.

Later, the famous Salazar bridge in Lisbon changes name to reflect the new regime, and several URSS cities revert to ancient names after the fall of Comunism. In South Africa, a re-naming campaign invests topographies bowdlerized to erase the footprint of White colonialism.

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Sociopathic Christian pastor Jones, a cult leader and radical reformer of Social-Communist persuasion, founded Jonestown as his retinue relocated to Guyana: he led his followers -at gunpoint according to some accounts- to a masssuicide that left hundreds dead, including Jones and a U.S Congressman murdered during an inspection.

At certain points in time at least, it was possible to both walk the streets of memory in a sacred pilgrimage, and to actually worship 'the great man' as “the providential man” ( as Pius XI dubbed Mussolini) steered the country towards 'a rendezvous with destiny'. Not without irony, Mussolini -in his radical left-wing incarnation- had participated from a virulently rationalist and materialist viewpoint in a debate with an evangelical pastor at Lausanne, which had been published in 1904 with an ominous subtitle: god does not exist (dio non esiste).

It never stops paying dividends. 7 July, 2010, protesters march at Rome, and clashes between the crowd and security ensue:”behold the blood of a citizen of L'Aquila [then recently hit by an earthquake]” claims a young, wounded protester while others parade blood-stained banners731; apparently the same person claims to have painted graffiti with his blood on a bank's wall to bear witness 732.

On a completely different level, “The Greek people are bleeding right

731 Protesta Tasse...2010:no page.

732 Terremoto, Tafferugli...2010: no page.

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now ”733; the same press release relates how “Online hackers group Anonymous said it had attacked a number of Greek government sites. "We, as Anonymous, are next to the Greeks claiming their freedom. We are next to a people who have fought against the German occupying forces," it said.”.

Reuters announces on 8 February, 2015: “Leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras -...-In a symbolic move that appeared to take direct aim at Greece's biggest creditor, Tsipras finished off his speech with a pledge to seek World War Two reparations from Germany.”;“the importance that the past played -...- in debates over contemporary matters.”;”A great deal of dramatic time that could be put to more telling use is taken up with -...- priggish monologues.”734. The financial scourging of Greece seems to put a nail in the coffin of mythological charades of no concrete import.

Do the masses ”burnin' with determination to even up the score” storm government buildings demanding regime overthrows? Do people “who couldn't possibly have known earlier” desecrate the altars of the idols that failed? Not at all.

Not in Greece, Iceland, Portugal, Spain, Argentina, Italy or any other country, whose financial bankruptcy gets dissected all over the media. Rather, the masses enjoy another fusion rallying behind the usual homeland first, pack pride flumadiddle. November 6, 2014, Berlusconi urges all political parties to collaborate 733 Merkel Pledges...2012: no page.

734 Rexroth 1989:8.

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under the sign of national interest: the time of patriotism has come 735.

Roberto736 quips that “symbolic actions” mixed in with concrete policy making -such as in Reagan's case- yield best dividends. According to the Homeric

Hymn To Demeter (VIII-VII century BCE) that deals with the Eleusinian mysteries, three kinds of actions took place, which may be readily extended to contemporary bloviating mountebanks:deiknumena (things revealed); dromena (things acted out);

legomena (things spoken).

Ages earlier, a series of violent confrontations between pro- and antislavery (later between pro-Union and pro-Confederacy) activists in the USA between 1854 and 1861 was dubbed “bleeding Kansas”.

Bleeding may not be enough in a rush to amass sentimental images to trigger compliance. According to Italian politician Bersani (former Communist party, 7 March 2013) “il paese può morire” (the country might die) 737: aren't a few extra concessions and draconian taxes worth bearing to 'save' the 'great nation' and its manifest destiny?

Getting them to agree to a series of next steps that you will take together is inconsequential. Then, deliver on your end of the deal by getting your steps done as quickly as possible and report back.

Hold them accountable by asking them to take the steps they agreed to. When they know you will be doing your part and 735 TgCom24, November 6, 2014.

736 2011:Key Levers Of Power.

737 M5S 2013: no page.

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following up to be sure they have done theirs, they become more likely to follow through because if you are familiar and liked, they do not want to let you down. Accountability is closely tied to inconsequence because people are more willing to be accountable for small outcomes than large ones. (Lakhani 2005:156).

At the end of September 2013 the pantomime is still going strong.

Berlusconi threatens to send the bipartisan Letta government home as his ministers resign. As a parliamentary high-noon approaches, the squabble between advocates and opponents of the move reaches new heights. Politicians bargain and blackmail one another behind the scenes while simpletons gasp, choke, ire and shake fists: will the fabulous nation of Italy finally die? As his party PDL splinters into factions, Berlusconi gives his last-minute assent to the government in a melodramatic reversal:�At this they tried to seize [Jesus], but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.�738.

As the dust settles, and artificial kin members are still busy worshiping or reviling 'great men', a rash tax increase -which no party officially endorsed- has been passed. Giovanardi, PDL honcho now deserter, quips739 how the maneuver (threatening to disband the government while voting a last-minute assent) brought about a 6% increase in the stock market value of Berlusconi's company Mediaset.

As pen-jockeys for hire in the media fight over which 'great man' (and associated symbolic 'values') finally stole the day, the rash tax increase slips into 738 John 7:30.

739 As news agency ASCA reports on October 2, 2013.

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oblivion. A wall of smoke thicker than Berlusconi's gimmicks is possibly needed in order to push the rash tax increase even farther: the umpteenth boat-people tragedy at sea materializes to steal the day in a mass-mediatic orgy of vicarious trauma (= second person drama= hearing the accounts of trauma) as gage of common humanity: synchronicity, indeed.

An Islamist leading a round table on immigration at Borgomanero 740 chaperoned by PD (Partito Democratico, former Communist Party) urged to “seize this crisis to set things right”. He couldn't be more right: as newspapers heckle about boat-people incidents, the government “seizes the crisis” to launch billionaire humanitarian programs as noble as they are expensive.

Mafiosi, wheelers dealers and politicians join hands spinning an endless web of humanitarian agencies, cooperatives, venues as they laugh all the way to the bank to divide among themselves the hefty spoils that see in each new illegal immigrant a possible cash cow. The rash tax increase dissolves into nothingness: only “that kind of person” would prioritize like that in the presence of common humanity in grief.

According to LaPresse.it (May 17, 2013), Pope Francis I delights the audience with the imagery of the good Samaritan who not only settles someone else's bill, but washes and treats the wounds of the same (= adoration of the hero's 740 Zonca 2013a:30.

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pierced body); Pope Francis also claims the Church shall be ready to give churches away to raise money if all else fails (=ritual dismemberment).

The wound, otherwise a defilement that makes one unclean to enter temples in some cultures, is here restyled into a badge of honor. Jesus is associated with a particular set of wounds. Shakespeare immortalized the fictional, quintessential hero ( St. Crispin's speech in Henry V) relishing wounds yet to be inflicted in a sentimental orgy of renewal through struggle. It doesn't really matter which section of the political spectrum one investigates. The same preposterous allegories keep emerging: the public chokes as gage of emotional oneness.

Popular culture follows suit. In Bulldozer (1978), old glory of U.S football harangues group of drifters, petty smugglers, three-card monte crooks, pickpockets, muggers etc. They've just a few days to train in order to meet a professional U.S military football team. Bulldozer promises hard days ahead; days so hard they are going to remember the experience for the rest of their life. After the 1805 Austerlitz victory, Napoleon informed his soldiers that only mentioning one had taken part to such battle would cause one to be considered valiant ( Il vous

suffira de dire “J'étais à la bataille d'Austerlitz” pour que l'on réponde “voilà un brave”).

When heel (=bad guy) wrestler Ted DiBiase faced off with his former

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bodyguard of color Virgil, wrestler Roddy Piper 741 chaperoned the humiliated Virgil rising against his oppressive former employer 742. Limping with crutches due to a supposed knee injury, Piper kept interfering at ringside on his protege's defense while abuse from DiBiase's side escalated from verbal to physical. In the end, DiBiase's wrath exploded: limping Piper was subjected to severe physical punishment, whose special target was his injured knee.

Left alone howling in pain on the canvas after his torment, hero Piper was then invoked by Virgil, who compelled him to rise on his feet, which he finally did on his own after some additional agony; Virgil and Piper hugged and left the scene.

Commodious hero stories -with their stale topographies and high pointswritten into offhand teleplays look increasingly like xeroxed newspaper headlines, precooked newscasts, or blueprints for the next religion that never materialized (annunciation, ministry, doubt, passion, torment, fall and comeback) with their barrels of tears, and buckets of spleen.

It becomes increasingly difficult to tell apart the public going berserk or into conniptions watching wrestling as entertainment, from the public having the same neurological syndromes when it's about 'serious things', whatever that means 741 Heel wrestler turned face (=good guy), Piper had in earlier years run a campaign with a 'racial' angle feuding with Mister T who -in turn- apparently wished to first promote, then keep his Rocky III character alive.

742 Thus went the storyline, for all it's worth.

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in one's opinion.

Much as it becomes ever harder to tell apart -on the other end of the divide- wrestling promotions stirring up preposterous story-lines and artificially induced commotion to increase business, from hoaxers, poker-faced policy makers, informants for hire, P.R people and their ilk stirring up equally preposterous and artificial myth(ologie)s in the purported service of situational higher good(s).

Not only the gimmicks of the hero-savior are important, but the place where they unfold is as well. Places where founding moments took place (sparagmos, congresses, slaughter...) pockmark not only acceptable public discourse or collective consciousness, but also engender new topographies on the physical landscape. The mythological Cumorah hill of Mormonism could assertedly be at two distinct places (New York, and an undisclosed mesoamerican counterpart):

Ambitious and costly restorations have commenced and temples have been constructed at three historical sites, contributing to the sanctification of these places. A collective sense of heritage has traditionally flavored to Mormon identity. In the face of rapid worldwide growth, Mormon leaders are increasingly seeking to anchor and root the religion in place, creating a sacred historical geography that all Mormons can feel a part of, thereby enhancing a trans-national sense of Mormon identity. (Madsen 2006:51).

Rhetoricians have often been suggested to link arguments in a discourse to places along a given physical path, in order to help the speaker remember all of them in the correct order. Those become high places of public liturgy, often

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transiting from one regime to an antipodal one. Such was the case of pagan shrines rebuilt as Christian churches; or of Christian churches rebuilt as mosques.

In Quebec (Canada), a Presbyterian church became a Taoist temple: it has been a Buddhist temple since 1996; in Sydney (Canada), St. Andrew's United Church was converted into an Arts Center in 2014. Conishead Priory, an abandoned XII century Augustinian site in the UK, became in 1976 home to a Buddhist temple in the Kadampa Tibetan tradition.

Even before that, at La Chappelle Aux Saints in central France -as the name implies a place of Christian worship in the common era- sacred sites of Neanderthal burials were found in 1905 going back to the mousterian culture of the stone age. In Crete, at mount Ida's top -formerly associated with Zeus- stands a crumbling Christian church associated with the holy cross. In Sri Lanka, Dambulla cave is associated with human presence going back 25.000 years, today the abode of ancient Buddhist art.

Rituals are the enactment of a myth; or -as J.Z. Smith suggested- a mode of paying attention. Newberg describes743 rituals based upon myths as a “morally neutral technology� to attain oneness within the group. Theory is a secular ritual: psychoanalytic, Marxist, feminist, queer...theory: one knows beforehand what the theorist is going to 'pay attention to'. Place is also a fundamental ritual accessory 743 2012:The Brain And Religious Rituals.

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because it directs attention.

Theory is as well mostly axed around the past: childhood traumas, conflict and abuses (psychoanalysis); indignities or slaughter women (feminism); GLBT people (queer theory); various minorities (genocide studies) were routinely subjected to historically ; the recovery of the long lost inheritance from a mythical past, etc: �Remembrance in its paradigmatic form is permanently adolescent, and proceeds as if gravitationally drawn to suffering, conflict and sacrifice.�

At Piazzale Loreto in Milan, a place where Fascist

forces

had

demonstratively deposed the bodies of executed antifascist activists, the lifeless bodies of Mussolini, Pavolini and other prominent Fascist honchos would hang upside down at a later time: the former savior now rogue shall have his body pierced (by bullets); he shall also be equally lifted up.

Official explanations for the macabre ritual varied from public safety concerns ( Mussolini's body had to be lifted up as the mob rushed to see it) to anatomical concerns (Mussolini had been shot several days earlier; therefore he had to hang upside down lest his head would fold off), but human mind's miserable proclivities are apparently at work744.

744 While Fascist forces demonstratively deposed the corpses of executed antifascist activists in the open as a threat directed to opponents, antifascists 'are not that kind of person' -another cherished motif- and do so out of public safety or anatomical concerns.

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Campbell745 casts the image of the man hanging upside down -just as it appears on the Tarot card- as one of “social death�: Mesoamerican rituals of

voladores (flying ones) sees -in most variants- people -often dressed as sacred birdshanging upside down suspended from a tall pole as a rotatory movement connects them to a spinning wheel. At the center of the pole on a small platform -just like the royal figure in the tarot card- another man dances.

Another inverted ritual took place after Mussolini's hanging. Accounts vary, but the prevailing version is that Starace -the disgraced former Fascist party secretary who had devised the mass choreography- had been apprehended by happenstance that very morning. Starace would have been obliged to give the Fascist salute to Mussolini's corpse hunging upside down before being himself shot and ranged alongside his former master:

They put a purple robe on [Jesus], then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. And they began to call out to him, "Hail, king of the Jews!"Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. (Matthew 15:17-19).

In the IX century BCE, conquering Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal II rejoiced in making public the detailed torments he had inflicted upon rebels: innumerable people were flayed or burnt alive; limbs, noses and heads were cut off and so forth in order for the prodigious inventory to be put on public display around

745 1971-5.

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tree trunks or pillars as a warning.

What is sacred (= the numinous for Otto) produces power. What happened to Mussolini; what probably happened to Jesus, and a host of historical and pseudo-historical characters alike constitutes an inverted ritual, or an acid test.

Of course, it is likely that in the jeering crowd some might have 'kept the faith', yearning -in their heart of hearts- to kneel in front of Jesus as King; or to give Mussolini the Fascist salute not as a travesty, but in all sincerity.

During the Cultural Revolution in China, Red Guards desecrated the mummy of legendary Buddhist patriarch Hui Neng (VII/VIII century CE):

In the early days of the [Spanish] Civil War, devotional objects, including great works of art, were destroyed [by left-wing forces] in vast numbers, provoking an anguished response from the Right.

Ordinarily, Nationalist denunciations of anticlerical actions treated iconoclasm and the exhumations separately, for the bodies of religious are not normally considered to be icons nor is exhumation, strictly speaking, an act of iconoclasm. -...-Why would anyone rip the ancient bodies of religious from their tombs and set these up on public display? What was signified in such a gesture? -...-The episode was nothing less than what I will call a profanophany: a revelation of the profanity, temporality, and corruption inherent to someone or something. -...-Like all anticlerical violence throughout Spanish history, they were not an assault on religion per se, but rather on one specific religious institution: an institution closely aligned with, and subservient to, the traditionally dominant segment of society.(Lincoln 1989:122,124-7).

In 2009, J.D Crossan published a biography of Jesus: he argued the Roman custom of crucifixion insured Jesus' body would have probably been eaten

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by scavengers, or thrown in a common grave: no power would have been produced as it occurs in the customary account of the Jewish preacher ascending bodily to heaven to be with his heavenly father as the sky darkens, the earth quakes, and stars fall from the firmament.

In the Graeco-Roman world, that entailed ultimate humiliation: being torn apart by scavengers. Yet in Zoroastrianism, the body used to be left on a tower to decompose, in order not to contaminate neither earth, nor earth, nor fire. In Tibet, “sky burials” used to be popular: the dismembered body would be left to wild animals in a commemoration of nature's eternal cycles.

What one does with the (anti)hero's body is the stuff of legend. The body of Hong Xiuquan, Chinese insurrectionist leader, self-proclaimed brother of Jesus, and “heavenly King” of an ephemeral “Heavenly Kingdom Of Great Peace” (=prince of peace mytheme) between 1851-64, was exhumed to insure his death; he was cremated, and his ashes scattered to insure eternal damnation.

In other words, 'great men' (Jesus, Mussolini, Najibullah...) who claimed they were rulers invested with higher powers (Jesus as son of god 746; Mussolini as great chief of the Italian nationalist renaissance; Najibullah the leader of that paradise of workers that was Soviet Afghanistan...) were torn apart in order to show 746 “[Jesus said] Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 26:53). The same imagery recurs circularly. Charles X (King of France) abdicates as he refuses to have troops fire against rebels in 1830. Pedro II (Emperor of Brazil) refuses to officially call Brazilian royalists to arms after a putsch overthrows him, and so forth.

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they couldn't produce any power (Najibullah was also castrated).

Purported 'great men' were thus charlatans with no higher power at their command after all, whose rituals were mere make-believe to enthrall the gullible:

And it came to pass that they departed and went their ways, but came again on the morrow; and the judge also smote them again on their cheeks. And many came forth also, and smote them, saying: Will [Book Of Mormon prophets Alma and Amulek] stand again and judge this people, and condemn our law? If ye have such great power why do ye not deliver yourselves? -...-and thus they did mock them for many days -...- And the chief judge stood before them, and smote them again, and said unto them: If ye have the power of God deliver yourselves from these bands, and then we will believe that the Lord will destroy this people according to your words. -...-and the earth shook mightily, and the walls of the prison were rent in twain, so that they fell to the earth; and the chief judge, and the lawyers, and priests, and teachers, who smote upon Alma and Amulek, were slain by the fall thereof. (Alma 13:20-27).

One of the criminals hanging beside [Jesus] scoffed, "So you're the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself--and us, too, while you're at it!" (Luke 23:39).

The avatar cannot achieve his goal by acting in a non-human way.

He does not come to display his supernatural powers or do miracles.

He does not come to show what the divine is capable of but what the human being is capable of. For, if he were to come down, perfect conditions through miracles, and then return, it would certainly solve mankind’s present crisis, but it would not help humanity to make any inner progress. The human kind would remain exactly where it was before the descent of the Avatār. The human nature must be assumed by the Divine, in order to exceed it.

The Avatār is omnipotent, but he has chosen his own limits. He limits himself to acting only by human methods. (Sarvadekar, MAISI014 no date: lecture 4:4).

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Of course, among the jeering crowd might be those who keep the faith as the 'great man' is being scourged and torn apart so that manifest destinies and new beginnings may unfold:

The Roman officer and the other soldiers at the crucifixion were terrified by the earthquake and all that had happened. They said, "This man truly was the Son of God!" (Matthew 27:54).

And at the Capala shrine the Blessed One [=Gautama Buddha] thus mindfully and clearly comprehending renounced his will to live on.

And upon the Lord's renouncing his will to live on, there came a tremendous earthquake, dreadful and astonishing, and thunder rolled across the heavens. (Buddhist Mahaparinibbana Sutta).

Wojtyla eschewed death at the hands of both Fascist and Communist executioners, but as a Pope suffered a life attempt that injured him, just like Jesus was finally crucified. Devotees rework the narrative to imply the fulfillment of some sort of Da Vinci Code plot contrivance regarding manifest destinies.

Jerusalem -for one- is a landscape where conflictual -or alternativesupercharged topographies co-exist: Hebrew, Muslim and Christian. Bethlehem -on the other hand- is a landscape where topographies relating to ancient Mesopotamian fertility god Llaprat, King David and Jesus co-exist in a narrative axed around fertility (=house of bread/meat). Osiris, too, was connected with plenty in the form of the bread of life:

In another letter of the same correspondence, mention is made of a sun-emblem for Llaprat made of fifteen shekels of gold.- By nature, he appears to have been a fertility god of much the same 725

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type as Tammuz, the Sumerian equivalent being NIN-UBUR, 'The Lord Boar'extnote. Some conclusions about the original home of the cult of Llaprat can be derived from the Bible which defines the Hebrew equivalent of the name LIaprat, viz., Efrath, as an old name of the city of Bethlehem.' In view of the widespread practice of the ancient Semites in giving towns the name of the principal deity worshipped there it might appear that LIaprat was originally the god of the town of Efrath (Bethlehem). This conclusion is well in line with a statement in Saint Jerome to the effect that, at the time when the fertility cult of Bethlehem enjoyed the protection of the Roman overlords of Palestine, the sculptured head of a swine adorned the gate by which one left Jerusalem for Bethlehem (Lewy in Edwards 1971:720).

Susan Jacoby contends that denial of the desire for revenge is akin to the Victorian (attempted) suppression of sexual desire, which didn't fare very well, and paved the way to a series of displaced anxieties, in turn erupting seriatim into more or less unrelated destructive behaviors. As this writing contends, the preposterous alibi 'best of all causes' provide -a war to end all wars; a new 'special law' to prevent '...ists' from marching on town this very night; ”three years of struggle, followed by a thousand years of happiness”- is a fig leaf not to eradicate war, poverty or whichever other ill one may think about, but to selectively allow (paradoxes of doubleness) it when practiced or committed by the person(s) wearing the right armband.

Runia747 talks about the compulsion to commemorate war and its e xtnote The boar, a cosmic symbol, is an animal often associated with mother goddess figures. In Hindu creation cycles, Vishnu in his aspect as gigantic boar plunged into the eternal waters to bring the goddess Earth back to light, then he slayed the serpent-king who had tossed her down there:”Another animal that has this association in an earlier culture stratum is the boar, whose tusks are shaped like crescent moons. The black face of the boar lies between the dying moon and the resurrected moon just as three dark moonless nights separate the waxing and waning moon.” (Campbell&Boa 1989:83). (note of this writer).

747 2007.

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meaning. In some countries, it is common enough to posit landmarks to commemorate the exact place a pedestrian died hit by a car, or other transportation accidents (=the recapture=hyperreal repetition). Landmarks are also posited to commemorate Garibaldi's patriotic expeditions during the Risorgimento. It happens the same in myth(ologie)s: altars, rites, shrines and other landmarks, and/or festivals, were inaugurated to emblazon a place where a god -such as Artemis, Shiva or Apollo-, or a hero-founder -such as Hercules or Theseus- had spent time.

Much as the horde - the organized mob- has its landmarks destined to public worship under the sign of oneness, so do many private citizens or families:“sacred place-...- where the sacred and the profane intersect”.

The transfer of the milite ignoto's remains (unknown soldier) on a train to the Pantheon at Rome in 1921 became a gigantic mass liturgy large crowds attended. Chinese Nationalist Generalissimo Chang Kai-Shek provided a similar ceremony for the transfer of Sun Yat-Sen's remains to Nanking in 1929. This point, too, is not as superficial as it may seem:”Again the idea of the hero, the man who has lived the larger life bequeathing that power -...- [that] will create a bulwark, a great power source that will protect [the collectivity that incorporated him]” 748. As examined elsewhere in this writing, once again consistency, truth and verisimilitude are not necessary ingredients in the coalescence of commemorative topographies, for dragons, too, are entitled to well-defined topographies.

748 Meineck 2005: Myths Of The City discussing Oedipus at Colonus.

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The horde in fusion may be celebrated under the unknown name of the anonymous party liner (unknown soldier etc). Ben-Shahar 749 elatedly cites Schweitzer, and George Eliot:

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

U.S President Ronald Reagan had already eulogized the anonymous heroes of U.S capitalism standing in line on both ends of a supermarket's cash counter. The Lancelots and Galahads of the post-war consumerist Mardi Gras are the overspenders who subscribe to one credit/debit scheme after another. In 2013, Italian energy provider ENEL runs an ad campaign that apparently has little to do with pedaling cheap energy: they lionize the common man in his capacity of underdog with a battle to win in the name of ideals.

Brazil built a monument to the bandeirantes, the gold-diggers, patriots, slave-drivers, pioneers and fortune-seekers who probed the Brazilian interior in a bygone age; as usual, culture heroes are mainly taboo-breaking swashbucklers.

Already in the II century BCE, however, Roman statesman Marcus Porcius Cato -in his historical work Origines- had chosen -to take a stand against political personality cults- not to cite any names, with the exception of Quintus Cedicius, an obscure

749 2005-6a:lecture 1.

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officer during the I Punic war, whom he compared to Leonidas.

In recent decades, the story of the Dutch boy and the dam, whereby a conscientious Dutch boy sticks his finger(s) into a (small) hole in a dam to prevent it from collapsing, and is rescued on the brink of death, has known many different editions and incarnations750 on the cusp between fiction and real life. Different people in vastly different milieus and circumstances keep deriving the same 'lessons' -gnostic truths that are supposedly greater than life itself- from a multitude of unrelated facts and figures across the socio-economical, geographic and historical spectrum.

Are their deductions correct? Or aren't they rather punching at human mind's ghosts that -indeed- have remained the same across regimes, ages and continents?

Cronkite explained in an interview on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the show that the people involved with making the You Are There programsextnote [ polemic series that recruited people blacklisted during the red scare to propose scenes from history as live events] found history “rich with striking parallels for thinking about dissent and intellectual freedom” and that, stunningly, “the farther back in time we went the more contemporary the parallels became.” Cronkite 750 The story has been around since the XIX century. Appearing in fictional 1865 Hans Brinker by U.S author M. Mapes Dodge. Various statues in Holland celebrate the boy and the dam. During the North Sea flood of 1953, which devastated Holland killing many, a real-life Arie Evegroen drove a boat into a dam in order to prevent its collapse. e xtnote the epic mode of telling stories, whereby the audience is invited/enmeshed in the story (=the eyecontact motif, whether real or figurative). As this writing contends, the same format was “sentimentalized and prettified” to suit local audiences: the Italian radio broadcast Interviste Impossibili (1973-5). (Note of this writer).

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ISBN 978-1-329-44282-5 singled out the episode about Socrates. “Socrates was the perfect hero for the 1950s,” he recalled, not only because he effectively engaged the free speech issue, but mostly because “he did not back down.” (Monoson no date: 32-3).

Who came first? Who wrote down this allegory first? And that one?

Who copied whom? Antiquarian investigations are indeed interesting, and dots can indeed often be connected. The present writer, however, contends that the human mind's vortexes are at work provoking the imagination of today's mountebanks and filmmakers as they probed the bottomless pit of the mind of scribes of bygone ages.

The worship/cult of the hero's corpse is also common. Mythological antecedents are many. Shiva carries the body of his deceased wife Sati; Gilgamesh sits up with his friend Enkidu's dead body; endless war memorials; a woman, whose child had recently died, carries his lifeless body from place to place seeking a remedy, and at some point meets Gautama Buddha, who indirectly teaches her that death is humankind's lot751. Mary holds Jesus' dead body at the cross; Aeneas protects the dead body of his charioteer Pandarus. Italian medieval maritime powers Venezia and Bari rush to secure the remains of great Saint Nikolaos (III/IV century CE) in 1087 when Muslims threaten the city of Myra.

751 An identical point is made in a folktale from the Friuli region (Italy). Several variations exist. Either a King, or the King's only son (or daughter), are very sad and depressed. Every stratagem and diversion is vainly put in place to change things. Ultimately, a coucil of sages informs the King that the only treatment for that illness is to wear the shirt of a thoroughly happy man. A desperate search begins. At some point, a man of low status (peasant, artisan...) is identified, who sings so merrily he has to be a thoroughly happy man. He is approached and offered the richest of rewards in exchange for doing the King a favor. As the poor man agrees the King is overjoyed, only to discover the man has no shirt on (because he was so poor he couldn't afford one). The King's wish remains thus unfulfilled. Jules Verne, Anatole France and other relayed similar stories.

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Saint Nikolaos ends up as Bari's patron (Nicola), and as protector of the Venetian fleet as San Nicolò. As remains of the Saint end up in the French region of Lorraine as well, St. Nikolaos becomes patron of Lorraine as Saint Nicolas. Nikolaos served allegedly to craft the character of Santa Claus. Nikolaos, Nicolas, Nicolò, Nicola, Santa Claus...endless local declensions of the same root figure.

Jesuit Saint Francis Xavier (XVI century) also ends up at different locations. Once his supposedly uncorrupted body is discovered, the corpse comes to a halt in the Portuguese Indian colony of Goa. Later, his right forearm ends up at the main Jesuit Church at Rome, whereas another part of his right arm originally intended for Japan remains in Macau instead.

Finally, the mummies of Egyptian, Inca rulers (attended to, worshiped and consulted as if alive) are present. Evita; Lenin, Mao, Kim Il-Sung and other Communist rulers are also preserved:

In 1949, the Bulgarian Communist leader Dmitrov became the first person to be embalmed by the personnel of Lenin’s mausoleum. After Stalin’s death in 1953 the body of the Soviet dictator was also treated with this proven technique and put alongside Lenin’s mummy.

However, in 1961 Stalin’s corpse was hastily removed from the mausoleum, to be buried below the Kremlin wall. Meanwhile, Soviet experts were sent to take care of a number of politically important corpses across the world. They embalmed the bodies of a number of other Communist rulers: Choibalsan of Mongolia, Gottwald of Czechoslovakia, Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam, Netto of Angola (Mao’s body was treated by the Chinese themselves). (Lankov 2007:12-3).

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‘reliquary’ association: a material object which carries their imprint or, better, is a surviving bit of the heroic body, if not the whole thing.

(Knight in Walsham 2010:229).

Finally there was the macabre fetishism of the two labelled bullets that had been extracted from the brains of Zinoviev and Kamenev.

Like holy relics in a depraved distortion of the apostolic succession, Yezhov inherited them, storing them in his office. (Sebag Montefiore 2004:223).

The fascination with mummies extended beyond celebrities, royalties, and political honchos. At Palermo (Italy), vast catacombs ( Catacombe Dei

Cappuccini) are the resting place for thousands of mummies even to this day. The lore has it that people, rich and poor alike, wanted to be buried in an underground complex beneath the Capuchin monastery originally reserved for clergymen. Yet Capuchin piety and extended prayer sessions in favor of the departed turned the spot into a favorite burial ground, which visitors could access to interact with their dead. Beneath another Capuchin church at Vienna (XVII century), the Imperial crypt is located, where the remains -including some hearts and other body parts- of 145 members of the Imperial Hapsburg family rest.

Hindu Kali, patroness of the cremation ground and battle field, joins the Mexican cult devoted to Santa Muerte (holy death)752, who -again following a blueprint countless religions adopted- doesn't turn anybody down 753, literally, as 752 Santa Muerte's devotion includes all the high points one might expect in such narratives, namely persecution:”In late March the Mexican army demolished some forty Santa Muerte shrines on the Mexican border with California and Texas, mostly on the outskirts of Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo.” (Chesnut 2012:4).

753 No juzgarás al hermano, ni por sus preferencias sexuales, ni por su color, ni por su condición de vida. ( you shall not judge your brother according to his sexual preferences, color or lifestyle);Cada paso que des, dalo firme. Goza y vive al máximo cada momento como si fuera tu último día (if you take a step, take it firmly. Enjoy

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patroness of narcos (drug dealers), cuartonas (in-call prostitutes) and presos (inmates). Santa Muerte's hotbed in Mexico City is the neighborhood of Tepito (barrio bravo, fierce neighborhood), cradle of urban resistance: the home to a diverse crowd of dispossessed devoted to various illegal activities.

In the Santa Muerte's religion the relic (=a female skeleton) takes on a mystical life of her own, a decomposing doppelgaenger754:

More broadly, I would seek to discover why in less than a decade devotion to her had grown so much that her popularity now eclipses every other saint in Mexico except Saint Jude.-...-Back before the Bald Lady beckoned me to study her, I had thought about including a chapter on her in my future book on the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Without having done any serious research on her, I had vaguely imagined the saint of death as a sort of anti-Virgin who specialized in dirty deeds unfit for the immaculate Mother of Christ and patroness of Mexico. My idea was that real understanding of the thesis (Guadalupe) demands examination of its antithesis (Santa Muerte). As appealing as the notion seemed at the time, it withered in the face of empirical evidence. If anything, the Pretty Girl is closer to a virginal figure for many devotees, especially women and girls, than a tequila-swilling, chain-smoking saint of underhanded deeds. In the final analysis the Santa Muerte worshiped by most believers is neither the morally pure virgin nor the amoral spiritual mercenary who perpetrates all kinds of demonic deeds for the right price. Rather, she is an awesomely powerful female personification of death, the most potent of Mexican folk saints. (Chesnut 2012:4,52-3) and savor every moment to the fullest, as if it were your last day).

754 “The theme of the three dead and three living men connects the horrible motif of putrefaction with that of the death-dance. This theme, too, seems to have originated in France, but it is unknown whether the pictorial representation preceded the scenic or the reverse. The thesis of monsieur Emile Masle, according to which the sculptural and pictorial motifs of the fifteenth century were supposed as a rule to be derived from dramatic representations, has not been able to keep its ground, on critical examination. It may be, however, that we should make an exception in favour of the death-dance. Anyhow, the dance of the dead has been acted as well as acted and engraved. The duke of Burgundy had it performed in his mansion at Bruges in 1449 “ (Huizinga 1972:140 ).

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That's obviously a mixture of mesoamerican, European, AfroCaribbean755 and Catholic beliefs756 reaching – so the present writer supposes – ageold depths reminiscent of medieval “death dances”, ever present death imagery 757, and related obsession with decay in both bodily and spiritual form that dated back from the epidemics758 that had culled over time a huge percentage of the European population.

Death dances -just like Shiva's eternal dance- are human psychological landscape's common fixtures: Mesoamerican, Hindu and Tibetan-Buddhist 759 lore include such imagery, in turn variably politicized. Just as Hindu lilas -or divine plays- unfold, life might be compared to a game of chess, and plague to checkmate760:

The corpse (or cadaver: cadere, to fall), that which has irremediably come a cropper, is cesspool, and death; it upsets even more violently the one who confronts it as fragile and fallacious chance. A wound with blood and pus, or the sickly, acrid smell of sweat, of decay, does not signify death. In the presence of signified death—a flat encephalograph, for instance —I would understand, react, or accept. No, as in true theater, 755 Santa Muerte's statues or images are honored blowing towards them the smoke of a cigarro. Tobacco was sacred to many pre-Colombian cultures in the Americas (including American-Indians). This ritual is widely adopted in Afro-Caribbean Santeria.

756 Just to name one, Compagnia Della Buona Morte (good death fellowship) was a Catholic religious brotherhood (confraternita) active since the XVI century operating under many symbols associated at a later time with Santa Muerte. Such brotherhood was in charge of burying corpses.

757 Kiening 1995, passim.

758 “L'explication la plus courante pour la reproduction extraordinaire des cadavres et des squelettes se réfère aux catastrophes épidémiques comme la peste noire par lesquelles le Bas Moyen Age était profondément ébranlé” (Kiening 1995:1160).

759 For Tibetan and Hindu variants, Campbell 1989:Descent To Heaven.

760 At Norwich, St. Andrew's Church shows the depiction (around 1500) of death as a chess player alongside a bishop.

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without makeup or masks, refuse and corpses show me what I permanently thrust aside in order to live. These body fluids, this defilement, this shit are what life withstands, hardly and with difficulty, on the part of death. There, I am at the border of my condition as a living being. My body extricates itself, as being alive, from that border. (Kristeva 1982:3).

It might date even earlier than that. In Hindu mythology, the wrathful goddess Kali either kills Shiva (=unmanifested form of god) turning him into Shava (=corpse); or the other way round: the goddess Kali copulates with Shava (a corpse with an erect phallus) in order to awaken Shiva, just like Isis copulates with the erect phallus of Osiris' (semi)dead body to beget Horus:

Shiva in this second form is known as Shava, "the Corpse," and the analogy with Ptah as the mummy is obvious. -...-Compare the figure, above discussed, of Ptah, the Mummy, begetter of the Apis bull, and Pharaoh, whose counterpart in the later Tantric symbolism of India is Shava, the Corpse, turned away from, yet in essence one with, the world-producing Shiva-Shakti pair (Campbell 1962:90,334).

Shiva is typically associated with the bull, a lunar symbol; whereas Shiva's wife Parvati is associated with the lion, a solar symbol. The goddess (=Sun=Kali as deflection of Parvati) possibly copulates to bring the Moon (=Shiva) to life.

The same imagery recurs everywhere. At Naples (Italy), underground cemetery Cimitero Delle Fontanelle was the resting place for countless unidentified inmates, and victims of epidemics ( plague, 1656; cholera, 1836) alike. A peculiar rite (Rito Delle Anime Pezzentelle) unfolded, whereby commoners would literally 735

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adopt a skull from the cemetery, mostly starting around 1884 when the cemetery was restored.

The skull (anima pezzentella, ragged/miserable soul) thus became an element of family worship with its own altar -of clear pagan origins- in exchange for protection. The anime pezzentelle cult also had its semi-official priestesses (Maste) especially devoted to purgatorial souls, of which the abandoned, nameless remains were taken as epitome:

a particular stress is given in these secret men's societies to a skull cult that is often associated with the headhunt. Ritual cannibalism and pederasty are commonly practiced, and there is a highly elaborated use made of symbolic drums and masks.

Ironically (yet by no means illogically), the most prominent divinities of these lodges are frequently female, even the Supreme Being itself being imagined as a Great Mother (Campbell 1960:321).

Human skull cults are present at the time of Catal Huyuk (around 7.000 BCE); in ancient India, Shiva is associated with the skull as symbol of the rebirth cycle; wooden skull racks (tzompantli) associated with human sacrifices are popular among the Aztecs and other pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican cultures. German military units wear the “skull and bones” emblem in the XIX and XX century; Yale fraternity “skull and bones” appears in 1832, to later include prominent members such as three U.S Presidents, and a cohort of statesmen, moguls and dignitaries.

Such celebrities often electioneer on both the left and the right, such as

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Bush, jr. and fellow member, Jewish-American Catholic politician Kerry, U.S Secretary Of State during the second Obama mandate.

No wonder: the diverse constellation of masonic and theosophic groups active during the Belle Epoque contributed to a series of antinomic political factions: judeophobes and judeophiles; left- and right-wing; national and international; Francophobes and Germanophobes; Germanophiles and Francophile, and so forth.

More or less secret societies modeled after freemasonry were a hot commodity during the Belle Epoque and beyond: in 1882 the Catholic society

Chevaliers De Colomb

is born in North-America: charity, unity, fraternity,

patriotism; in 1926 the Catholic and Francophone Ordre De Jacques Cartier is banded in Canada.

In 1888 The Loyal Order Of The Moose was born on Masonic principles.

Luminaries such as prominent actors (Abbott&Costello, C. Chaplin and J. Stewart) and U.S Presidents (among whom T. and F.D. Roosevelt) joined the order, which the Lutheran Church explicitly blacklisted in the 1960s. Among such luminaries both F.D Roosevelt, who received awards from the Jewish community and fought Fascism, and industrialist H. Ford, who received decorations from the III Reich.

Such commingling of theosophical, transcendental and masonic items could stew into a religion: Christian Science Church ( Church Of Christ, Scientist

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just as a Christ scientist headed the utopian society of Bacon's New Atlantis). M. Baker Eddy founded the church, whose emblem carries the masonic cross-andcrown, in 1879. The same masonic cross-and-crown emblem can be found associated with places of worship, religions (such as Jehovah’s Witnesses), organizations (such as the Salvation Army), hospitals etc.

At the root of Baker Eddy's thought -which proved very successful with millions of copies of her books in print over time- stood an eclectic primordial soup she mainly derived from P. Quimby (1802-66), an experimental mesmerist who had treated Baker Eddy with some sort of 'talking cure' (=”mental healing”). In 1859, Quimby wrote:”the trouble is in the mind, for the body is only the house for the mind to dwell in ”.

Quimby's follower E.G. Ware summarized in 1917:

Health is like liberty, directly from God, and it can be kept and enjoyed. Man can learn to live in health as truly as he can learn to govern his morals. With a full understanding of the truth man need not be sick and diseased any more than he need be vicious. The universal belief in disease is founded on the universal belief that matter has life, power, and can direct itself. If this is true, it accounts for disease, but it does not destroy it, and so long as this belief in matter lasts just so long will disease be in the world.

Therefore, to destroy it we must take away its foundations. (in Dresser 1917:67).

Skulls and bones serve different purposes in the lore. Much as the dead yearn for solace the living might bring them through prayer, so the dead can bring

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rain -or influence water- in favor of the living. In Lombardy -and elsewhere- the bones of the deceased (=medicinal quality of the body) could be thrown into wells in order to cause rain. Still in the XVIII century, the Milanese Senate petitioned the Archbishop so that he might organize a procession on All Souls' day to ask for rain.

The same logic unfolded as far back as the ancient Egyptians 761, and today in predominantly Black U.S South. Afro-American practitioners of local varieties of Afro-Caribbean cults in the U.S Black South prescribe -to name just oneto leave a pint of alcoholic beverage, and a coin, at a deceased person's tomb -typically an obscure person's untended to tomb- in exchange for favors and/or protection the deceased are to afford the living. Contemporary indigenous societies in Latin America (Mexico, Bolivia etc) also use alcohol (or alcoholic beverages) during their folkloric religious ceremonies, and as a votive offering on the tombs of the deceased.

Again, the tradition of libations (=liquid offering) goes back to the ancient world (Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, Israel etc): water, wine, milk, olive oil, honey etc were either poured and/or left as devotional token, for example on a tomb. Even in the African Yoruba religion, the root of most Afro-American religions, ancestors and OnilĂŠ (mother Earth orisha) are honored pouring drops of

761 Magic spells and charms were often entrusted to the care of the deceased. Professedly restless souls from untended to and/or desecrated burial grounds were recruited for the purpose of black magic and revenge. The restless soul could also be provided on the spot by murdering someone in order for the spirit to carry nefarious deeds on.

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beverage on the soil.

Although rooted in a distant past, Santa Muerte's cult has been on a meteoric rise among Mexicans (at home or abroad) in both devotional and merchandising terms762. Mixing filth with holiness is very common, indeed, as the archetypal trickster's serial “Gastronomic, flatulent, sexual, phallic, and fecal feats” epitomize.

Kristeva connects all that with “abjection”:

Loathing an item of food, a piece of filth, waste, or dung. -...-the most elementary and most archaic form of abjection. -...-"I" want none of that element, sign of their desire; -...-During that course in which "I" become, I give birth to myself amid the violence of sobs, of vomit. Mute protest of the symptom, shattering violence of a convulsion that, to be sure, is inscribed in a symbolic system, but in which, without either wanting or being able to become integrated in order to answer to it, it reacts, it abreacts. It abjects.

(1982:1-3).

Of course, if the worship/contemplation of the hero's corpse is godly, the defilement/execration of the same is ungodly. The bodies of valiant Hector and Abhimanyu are desecrated. Fascist forces demonstratively depose the bodies of executed antifascist activists -former rogues and future heroes- in the open.

Mussolini -well aware of mythical lessons- quips:”That blood will cost us dear” (quel sangue lo pagheremo caro ). Shortly thereafter, it is Mussolini's corpse (the 762 “In Morelia, Guillermina, whose father owns three esoterica shops in town, stated that since 2004 the Skinny Lady has accounted for approximately half of the total sales at their three stores. She occupied much more shelf and floor space than any other saint at each of the dozens of shops and market stalls I visited in the summers of 2009 and 2010.” (Chesnut 2012:9).

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former hero now rogue) to be demonstratively deposed hanging upside down at the same open location.

It is not necessary to venture around the mainstream altars solemn pontiffs circumambulate, either. Local Italian periodical Giornale Di Arona (15 March 2013) publishes a retractation relating to one preceding article memorializing -through eye-witness accounts and so forth- the anniversary of the execution by Fascist forces of two local antifascist activists during WWII.

The retractation details how the two corpses hadn't been left in the open for five days, but had been immediately taken to a morgue; and how the heart of one of them -a 17yo, 18yo or 19yo depending on sources- had not been scratched out, but bayoneted. Various online versions of the story provide different details, often including the scratched out heart, which many have (allegedly) seen:

For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. (2 Peter 1:16).

They then made it clear that if I had not actually seen [Jesus] (and not in any metaphorical sense, but literally), they weren't interested in any stories I had to tell about him. Period. This is because, as I now knew, the Pirahas [indigenous tribe of the Amazon river] believe only what they see. Sometimes they also believe in things that someone else has told them, so long as that person has personally witnessed what he or she is reporting. (Everett 2008:266).

It is difficult not to recall the lore with Jesus' sacred, bleeding heart; or with Aztecs extracting and lifting up towards the sky a still beating human heart in 741

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order to propitiate their gods with the massive slaughter of people stretched out (=crucified?) on a sacrificial stone slab.

Jesus follows the same trajectory (Acts 10:39):



"We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a cross (New International Version);



And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree (King James Bible).

Not to mention other narratives that want Jesus to either disappear during the crucifixion, or to 'swap seats' with somebody else.

Another dubious Gospel passage is one of Bart Ehrman's (distinguished professor of religious studies) favorites, Mark (1:41) (“And a leper came to Jesus, beseeching Him and falling on his knees before Him, and saying, "If You are willing, You can make me clean." ”), then:



Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" (New International Version, emphasis added).



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“I will; be clean.” (English Standard Version, emphasis added).

Christian apologist Michael Brown is resourceful to interpret the passage: Jesus was indeed indignant, but against the disfiguring illness, not the person.

Furthermore:

Although almost all the surviving manuscripts state that Jesus died for all people "by the grace of God" (CHARITI THEOU), a couple of others state, instead, that he died "apart from God" (CHORIS THEOU). There are good reasons for thinking that the latter, however, was the original reading of the Epistle to the Hebrews. -...-even though it occurs in only two documents of the tenth century, one of these (Ms. 1739) is known to have been produced from a copy that was at least as ancient as our earliest manuscripts. Of yet greater interest, the early third century scholar Origen tells us that this was the reading of the majority of manuscripts of his own day. Other evidence also suggests its early popularity: it was found in manuscripts known to Ambrose and Jerome in the Latin West, and it is quoted by a range of church writers down to the eleventh century. (Ehrman 2005:145).

Of course, the precious human soul being as flimsy and unaccountable as it is, changes of opinion shall not be ruled out. Chinese Communist leader Mao explicitly posits contradiction at the center of his interpretation of MarxismLeninism:”The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the basic law of materialist dialectics. ” (1937).

The defilement of the former hero's body, then, becomes a gage to

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celebrate heartfelt conversion to the spirit of the times:

However, imperial portraits were neither immutable nor monolithic, and should an emperor be overthrown, his images were systematically mutilated or physically altered into the likenesses of other emperors.

This process, popularly known as damnatio memoriae, is the first widespread example of the negation of artistic monuments for political and ideological reasons and it has inexorably altered the material record of Roman culture. Jerome aptly describes the fate of the portraits of Rome’s” bad” emperors: “When a tyrant is destroyed, his portraits and statues are also deposed. The face is exchanged or the head removed, and the likeness of he who has conquered is superimposed.”. (Varner 2004:1).

Portraits of [Mexican leader] Santa Anna proliferated; -...-When Santa Anna’s wife fell gravely ill, a huge procession—20,000 people, carrying 8,000 candles—paraded through the capital, headed by the Archbishop of Mexico and other dignitaries -...-. Revolt spread [at a later date, however]. Even in Santa Anna’s home state of Veracruz, the mob seized an official portrait of the President, which was then ‘publicly outraged and burnt in the plaza’. The veracruzanos had no leg (no ‘primary relic’) to desecrate, so they made do with a representational icon. Thus reviled, Santa Anna decided to quit. -...The most bitter aspect of his overthrow, it was said, was the treatment of his leg [lost in combat]; thirty years later, as he penned his selfexculpatory memoirs, the memory of that ‘sacrilegious attack by an impious faction’ still rankled (Knight in Walsham 2010:235,238-9).

The Taliban regime in Afghanistan destroys archeological vestiges of a long gone Buddhist past; Christian zealots deface and/or topple statues in the

Ramesseum, the funerary temple (XIII century BCE) of legendary Egyptian King Ramses II. The stupendous left-wing Zapatero government in Spain removes the last statues and vestiges of the Francoist regime, and chases after purported Francoist horrors; Argentinian politicians are famous for jeremiads exposing one '...ism' or another.

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Shortly thereafter, the Taliban regime collapses under a rain of foreign incendiary bombs; Spain's economy implodes; July 31, 2014 Reuters announces that “Argentina defaulted for the second time in 12 years ”, yet what stupendous faith did those regimes display:”burnin' with determination to even up the score”.

On a higher level, what happens to living people -and not only to reliquary remains of heroes- is often the stuff of legend. Roberge 763 lists several urban legends regarding abduction for various purposes (rape, harvesting of organs to supply the clandestine market, prostitution...). Whoever ventures to a certain place, and/or accepts a certain invitation never comes back in a sort of Bermuda triangle narrative: a cursed topography.

In the movie Vamp (1986), college students on a bawdy fraternity assignment visit a strip-club that is a facade for a syndicate of murderous vampires who -along with their undead henchmen- carry on a peculiar social hygiene program; clients never make it back.

The black hole can be located everywhere under an inconspicuous facade, and be groomed to fit other narratives. There supposedly is a police station (isolated farm...) where security forces lure or deport dissidents, who mysteriously disappear; the store/home owned by this, that or another sensitive outcast group: clients/visitors are robbed, abducted, or simply disappear. Countless Australian 763 2009:118ss.

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aboriginal children were forced into mandatory schooling distances away; many parents would never see them again.

Innumerable children of dissidents under the Argentinian dictatorship were assertedly abducted, and given for adoption to eminent families who supported the infamous regime. Ben-Shahar764 tells the same story: children of liquidated dissidents would have been abducted by the “tens of thousands�, yet Ben-Shahar here indicts Communist Romania under Ceausescu.

Are Romania and Argentina still not particularly interesting to readers?

Why not Francoist Spain, instead? The story reads just alike:

Lawyers believe that up to 300,000 babies were taken. The practice of removing children from parents deemed "undesirable" and placing them with "approved" families, began in the 1930s under the dictator General Francisco Franco. At that time, the motivation may have been ideological. But years later, it seemed to change - babies began to be taken from parents considered morally - or economically - deficient. It became a money-spinner, too. The scandal is closely linked to the Catholic Church, which under Franco assumed a prominent role in Spain's social services including hospitals, schools and children's homes. (Adler 2011: no page).

The same blueprint comes circularly back. In areas of rural Guatemala, tourists are advised to exert extreme discretion when being around children: spontaneous mobs have been spotted surrounding and/or attacking incautious tourists perceived as potential kidnappers of children in order to either sell them, or

764 2009:lecture 20.3.

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to make salchichas (sausages).

As devastating famine recurrently ravaged the USSR in its first decades, the abduction of children for the purpose of cannibalism was rumored to constitute common occurrence:

Catherine Edgerton-Tarpley (2008: 223) refers to three stock phrases regarding cannibalism which recur in gazetteers’ accounts of the 1876-78 North China famine: ‘people ate each other’, ‘exchanging children and eating them’, and variants of ‘people ate each other to the point that close kin destroyed each other’. (O Grada 2013:6).

With these words she killed her son, roasted the body, swallowed half of it, and stored the rest in a safe place. ( Jewish historian Josephus describes the horrors that happened as Jerusalem was under Roman siege during a rebellion in Judea around 70 CE).

Some Chinese people are known to be eating babies, and the news, which has been circulating through the internet and via email, is shocking the world. An email report [with photographic evidence attached, whixh was later revealed to come from a fake art exhibit] received by The Seoul Times confirmed that news with several vivid and appalling pictures of human embryos and fetuses being made into a soup for human consumption. ( Chinese Eat..., around 2009765: no page).

That was the case in 2001 when widely-circulated photos which showed a large Asian man eating what appeared to be a cooked baby served at a restaurant were taken by many at face value.

-...-The truth proved far less horrifying than the rumor. The photographs shown above were taken seriously by a number of law enforcement agencies who viewed them, and both Scotland Yard and the FBI investigated this matter, trying to determine when and where the pictures were taken and the identities of 765 Similar articles circulated online around 1995 as well.

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those appearing in them -...-.The origins of the images were quickly uncovered: The man in the photographs is Chinese performance artist Zhu Yu, who staged a conceptual shock piece called "Eating People" at a Shanghai arts festival in 2000.

Maintaining that "No religion forbids cannibalism, nor can I find any law which prevents us from eating people," Zhu Yu acted out a performance in which he appeared to eat a stillborn or aborted child (likely constructed by placing a doll's head on a duck's carcass) and said that he "took advantage of the space between morality and the law and based my work on it." ( Fetus Feast no date: no page, emphasis added766).

As this writing suggests, mythemes tend to coalesce: child molestation, abduction

and

cannibalism

join

the

black

hole

topography.

Seemingly

inconspicuous trivia or happenstance then cause the horror to surface to public consciousness.

A shoebox, field, basement, footage reel, etc is discovered as abode of the remains, tell-tale traces etc of countless victims: the sweet human soul screams in xeroxed participation. It is nearly impossible to part the mournful article detailing a nameless crime police investigates the world over from phony doctored pictures used online to lure gullible viewers into clicking one more ad banner.

Then there is the mysterious car, van or truck, which organized maniacs, 'Men In Black' or '...ists' operate from: the horror is on the move as well. As reported767, one such truck haunted the province of Novara (Italy). The event was certain. One (unidentified) middle-school girl (whom many happened to know, of 766 Such news were apparently relayed by 'respectable' mainstream media such as UK The Independent in 2001.

767 Giornale Di Arona, 26 October 2012.

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course) had miraculously escaped: local schools had issued a formal warning to all students as well. Police determined it was an unsubstantiated urban legend growing bigger

through the grapevine; furthermore, no school confirmed issuing any

warning about the matter:

Suddenly, the remorseless white slaver stalked onto the scene. Foreign devils snatched innocent daughters off the family farm, dragged them to the dangerous city, and chained them in brothels till they perished.

The old fear of endangered innocents—this time, fresh country girls— roared back into the popular imagination. McClure’s magazine broke the story in 1909: New Yorkers had seized control of the world’s flesh trade. -...- A month later, in his first Annual Message,Taft described the “urgent necessity for additional legislation and greater executive activity to suppress the recruiting . . . of prostitutes.” He was ready to allocate $50,000 to fight “the White Slave Trade.”(Morone 2003:260). the slasher film has been drawing upon this contemporary form of oral folklore [=urban legends] from the very beginning. (Koven 2008:122).

In New York City Lewis Watkins, 25, a black man claimed he had been beaten in January 1992 by five white men in a white van.

-...-Watkins, it turned out, had made two previous unfounded reports of beatings at the hands of white men in white vans. Dinkins’ press secretary, Leland T. Jones, commented "It’s hard to condemn something that didn’t happen. -...-In a 1986 case, a St. Charles, Missouri black girl, Bridget Clark, 14, told her parents that two white men had thrown acid on her and shouted racial slurs as she walked home from school. The black community was in an uproar. A police investigation revealed that the acid was actually the result of an accident at a summer job where the girl spilled chemicals on her arm causing first-degree burns. "She made up the story on her way home," her mother, Shirley Clark, said.” (Wilcox 1994:56-7).

Conventional bedlamites of one breed or another might not be enough.

Characters literally lifted from third-rate 1980s actioners may also appear. Herriman

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informs that in Java (Indonesia):

For a short time, the most gripping conspiracy theory was that the killings in Banyuwangi had been undertaken by ninjas, and these ninjas were also targeting traditionalist Muslims and their leaders.

During October 1998, after the killings of sorcerers had subsided, this idea seems to have quickly spread throughout Banyuwangi, and then East Java. -...-The notion that brigades of black-clad assassins were roaming the countryside provoked an alarmed response.

Terrified of these ninjas, local communities began posting guards in villages and cities all around East Java. “Ninjas� were sighted, caught, and even killed. (2010:731-33).

Such legends represent the contemporary rendition of ancient legends that relayed how children -or people- might disappear when wandering across areas barren with bears, wolves and other potentially noxious animals. At Imbersago (Italy), La Madonna Del Bosco (St. Mary Of The Woods) miraculously retrieved a child a wolf had abducted, much as it is the case in some versions of Red Riding Hood.

Alternatively, this, that or the other remote location was the place where a child's bones had been found, which a wolf had left behind: the black hole topography. These legends continued to be relayed as eye-witness accounts even centuries after wolves -bears etc- had either stopped representing a threat, or had disappeared altogether. Is that really different from contemporary accounts and cable TV story-lines that berate unidentified -but sighted- lakeside maniacs who lure innocent children wandering around to a mountaintop cabin for unspeakable purposes?

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Once again, nobody cares whether a faceless witness relayed rumors about non-existing maniacs:“ Mos requires neither deliberation, nor judgment, but praise or blame”. Delcorno specifies that paradigmatic identification took place between exemplary mythic figures, and the individual or action being considered, thus re-enacting a predetermined judgment meant to either condemn or justify 768.

Here the question is about being one with the horde in fusion casting blame upon the generic ideal-type of a possible psychopath doing whatever psychopaths typically do according to our society's fleeting norms:”Reminiscence provides us quite literally with mental images of the past.”769.

The black hole in which countless people disappear can take up all sorts of garbs. Are U.S “FEMA camps” national emergency centers set up for incident management purposes, or a network of concentration camps ready just in case garrison state would prove expedient? Readers shall come to their own conclusions.

Isn't the public clamoring for a yet bigger, more widespread, better funded and equipped providence State machinery when it comes to counter a slew of disasters, whether natural or otherwise?

June 7, 2013, U.S President Obama declared:”you can’t have 100-percent security and also have 100-percent privacy and zero inconvenience. We’re going to have to make some choices as a society ”. Privacy is allegedly being abused and 7681984:51.

769 Koortbojian 1995:114.

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eroded on all fronts, yet some counter that private companies spying on one online for the purpose of generating revenue offer opt-out clauses. People might just stop using this online search engine, free email provider or online bookstore, and a billion other operators, as if the next operator were not harvesting -and selling- data in turn. The State -critics contend- is a completely different matter.

But is it? Much as millions are addicted to their social networks, on which they splatter their private life in the minutest detail only to worry later some kook might be going after them as a consequence, millions more are addicted to the

Belle Epoque nation-State. A Moloch that shall be as omnipotent, omnipresent, funded and equipped as necessary to pursue the foolish dictates of the eerie utopias culled from long-dead, demented hacks people rave about.

People want the fox to watch their chickens, then wonder who's watching the fox. Is it the State's ultimate fault if such silly utopias about lands of plenty, nanny and therapeutic culture, lemonade oceans, mountains made of

polenta, ultimate redress and so forth are so wildly popular?

It turns out Obama is as right as Robespierre, Hitler or Yezhov once were: you cannot make an omelet without breaking any eggs. The foolish NSDAP dream of the 1.000 year Reich of unending territorial expansion, self-esteem extravaganza and oversupply ended with the twin piles of ashes belonging to death camp inmates, and incinerated German towns.

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Eliade once said “si dieu n'existe pas, tout est cendre” (whenever god doesn't exist, everything turns to ashes). The opposite -as the case of Germany in WWII suggests- is also true: whenever god materializes, everything turns to ashes.

It doesn't really matter which pile of ashes one means exactly: the ashes of mythological cities Hebrew god Yahweh supposedly razed in a time before time; the ashes

of the victims of Bolshevik New Economic Policy (NEP); or any other

example one might choose.

As romantic as we want the image to be, Robin Hood was after all a thief. As heart-warming as it is to donate to a charity, there is always a chance such charity may be a noble facade for fraudulent money laundering, profiteering and so forth. The public sulks and weeps as politicking mountebanks, apparatchiki and kleptocrats laugh all the way to the bank.

It may all, however, turn out for the good. Culture heroes, often under the guise of quintessential tricksters or shamans, are essentially breakers of taboos in the name of higher goods:“If we annoy people, blessed be the Lord.”. The 'good guys' go as far as required to get the job done -with or without preexisting emotional or ethical baggage-, thus often bestowing boons upon the group, yet facing the transgression's possible negative consequences alone: another variant of the savior willingly suffering for his flock.

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President Mujica also purportedly robbed bank as a leader of left-wing insurrectionist group Tupamaro. U.S intelligence agencies allegedly funded Contras in Nicaragua via drug-trafficking under the Reagan administration. In the Tristan&Isolde cycle, Tristan and Isolde (betrothed to Tristan's uncle King Mark) accidentally drink a love potion meant for the marriage ceremony. As Isolde's nanny discovers what happened, she forewarns Tristan how he just drank his death, which was the punishment for adultery.

Tristan elatedly replies he accepts everything, even eternal fire in hell, in exchange for the sweet labor of love. Even Buddhism discusses the dilemma of a Bodhisattva (= on the irrevocable path towards becoming a Buddha for the sake of others) who consciously chooses to commit murder to save people from a criminal while bearing the act's karmic consequences:

When they came to the threshing floor of Nakon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled.

The LORD's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down, and he died there beside the ark of God. (2 Samuel 6:6-7) In The Fasti, Ovid tells a story of how the Temple of Vesta was burning and a Roman priest called Metellus ran in and saved the Palladium, knowing he would be committing sacrilege in doing so. Other versions say that he was made a hero of the Roman state but was ordered to be blinded for having gazed on the sacred objects. (Meineck 2005-1:37).

When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. "I am innocent of this man's blood," he said.

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"It is your responsibility!"

All the people answered, "His blood is on us and on our children!" (Matthew 27:24-5).

The Christian interpretation is that it was pride that kept him from bowing: Lucifer would not bow to man. The Shi'ite Muslim interpretation is that it was love of God: Lucifer couldn't bring himself to bow to anybody but God. So Satan in hell is God's truest worshiper. They say that the great pain of hell is not fire or physical torment, but the loss, forever, of the sight of your beloved, which is God. And what supports Satan in hell? His memory of the voice of his beloved when his beloved said, "Be gone." This is the Shi'ite version of Lucifer's Fall. (Campbell 1989:In Search Of The Holy Grail).

If we commit such an action without any disturbing emotion at the time, such as anger, desire, or naivety about cause and effect, but are motivated only by the wish to prevent others' suffering being totally willing to accept on ourselves whatever negative consequences may come, even hellish pain - we do not damage our far-reaching ethical self-discipline. In fact, we build up a tremendous amount of positive force that speeds us on our spiritual paths. (Terentyev, ME6217 no date: lesson 6:5).

Popular culture spells the lesson for the frazzled masses. Action movie heroes going under cover or behind enemy lines to serve the great cause (great nation, right race...) are forewarned that if something goes wrong, the pack back home (the President, the army, the illustrious nation...) shall disown them (=comedy of innocence). The various Abhimanyu, Hector, or the patriotic muscleheads of the mimeographed Reaganite actioners of the 1980s, often volunteer to serve 'the noble cause'. Abhimanyu admits he's going on a suicide mission behind enemy lines as a moth dives into burning fire (a beloved allegory of mystical fusion with the godhead).

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The various Jesus clones, dying-and-rising gods volunteer to be torn apart in death to bring salvation about, whereas action movie characters rout enemy syndicates, and slaughter foes to bring a happy end on screen. The horde back home may turn its back to -or jeer- the hero, yet -like the various Rambo and so forth- he yearns for reunion (=reconciliation):

[The queen of the castle] says, "Rather than marry him I would jump from my tower into my moat. You've seen my tower, how high it is, you've seen the moat, how deep it is."

"Well," says Parzival, "who's running the army out there?"

And she tells him the name of this great knight, and he says, "Well, I'll kill him in the morning."extnote She says, "That's fine."

So he goes to sleep. In the morning, down goes the drawbridge; the Red Knight comes pounding across, and within a few half hours or so, he's got the leader of the invading power on the ground. He rips off his helmet and is about to cut his head off when the knight says, "I yield, I'm your man." Well, he's learned all the lessons. He says, "You go to Arthur's court, tell them Parzival sent you." Well, during the course of the next few months, a number of people arrive in Arthur's court saying "This knight named Parzival sent me," and Arthur says, "Boy, we really lost something there."

So the court sets out to find him. (Campbell 1989: In Search Of The Holy Grail).

Miguel BosĂŠ aptly describes the inconsistent bundle of attitudes in his 1982 hit song Bravo Muchachos, whereby the swashbuckling culture hero is an entire generation:

A

alguno

puede

parecerle

absurdo

Y

somos

la

fuerza

e xtnote It won't escape readers how these scenes seem to be lifted from contemporary action movies almost verbatim. Whether to perform them is some clod in tights and Robin Hood medieval costume handling a crossbow; a prig in Graeco-Roman attire with an iron dagger, or some rugged, suburban Steven Seagal character in leather jacket with a sub-machine gun is of little to no importance. (note of this writer).

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Que mueve mareas y volcán -...- Seremos fuertes Luchando hasta la muerte -...-Buenos chicos, buena gente Con principios diferentes Rabia sana, sin malicia Rota el alma sin justicia Medio locos, medio tristes Pobres cristos, siempre humildes En esta vida tan vacía Tanta violencia, tanta envidia Héroes y delincuentes Buenos chicos, buena gente Is the 'good guy' (patriot, hero...) just a hooligan with a nice excuse?

History seems to suggest he is, more often than commonly thought:”Throughout the Vietnam War, U.S. soldiers consumed 200 million doses of amphetamine.”770; “ by self report, 20% of soldiers leaving Vietnam were heroin addicts” 771. In Italian,

teppista is a vandal. Yet, the etymology goes back to compagnia della teppa (fellowship of the moss), a group of Italian patriots present in Milan from 1816, and active in both goliardic and sabotage acts against then then legitimate Austrian government that controlled the northern-Italian dominion of Lombardo-Veneto.

Hero-saviors, whose mind is on fire yearning to serve the 'great cause' up to the ultimate sacrifice, may resort -like the Samson of Hebrew lore, like Japanese Kamikazes, suicidal serial shooters or Islamic suicide bombers- to self-destruction -the Sufi moth and flame allegory- to bring as many foes along as possible:”Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines!" Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived. ” ( Judges 16:30). Arjuna's son Abhimanyu willingly sacrifices himself for his clan, although he knows he cannot make it back 770 Jack Li 2006:161.

771 Gerrig 1992: lesson 5.

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from the enemy line.

The intrinsically schizophrenic and manic bipolar 772 human mind yearns for fantasies of blood baths, dismemberment and the like, much as it alternatively yearns for oneness, reconciliation, hugs and kisses. In Precolombian civilizations, prisoners bound to be sacrificed to court favors from the gods were initially treated as guests of honor to a royal feast.

Herriman studied recurring witch hunts and collective hysteria in Indonesia, which left several people dead as “ninjas”, “sorcerers” and the like. The root source of this routine outbursts of collective fury is particular indeed, and squares with the point this writing has made all along:

On the surface, the intensely close relationships of kinship, propinquity, and acquaintanceship are characterised by friendliness and intimacy. Beneath this lies an undercurrent of suspicion and strangeness (Herriman 2006:5).

That's perfectly in line with the schizophrenic, manic bipolar image of gods of immemorial lore busy -like Inanna- sending genocidal floods only to regret it afterward; -like Hebrew Yahweh- alternatively indulging recurring fits of both anger and forgiveness; or -like Hercules- savagely murdering his near and dear only to go on a quest to atone for the sin. It sounds suspiciously similar to the all too common cycle of domestic terrorism773.

772 Behavioral, not clinical, statement.

773 Domestic terrorism is associated with elevated level of physical abuse. It stands in opposition to more common, “normal” levels of domestic expressions of anger (aggression, hostility etc) and even physical abuse of no

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This is very compatible with the blueprint of psychopathology. People are not only busy worshiping -and following- psychopathic 'great men' (carpetbaggers, dictators, cult leaders...) on Earth: they enshrine psychopaths in the clouds, too:”That's a trickster stunt. That's a ridiculous act. We think it quite normal for a deity, while if a human being behaved that way we'd send him to a lunatic asylum.”.

French Fascist intellectual Drieu De La Rochelle referred to Stalin in almost identical terms: Stalin as the master who embodies the terror of god's omnipotence.

On a completely different level, domestic violence apparently follows the same warped logic, whereby the routine outbursts of physical violence follow stages of intermission during which the (typically male) perpetrator makes formal amends, tries to put his misdeeds into a favorable perspective, and pledges to reform his nasty customs, only to unleash some more violence upon his near and dear at the first occasion (=”cycle of violence”774).

What goes on inside (most?) contemporary families resembles an habitual situation:

The opportunistic, deceptive, and manipulative behaviors of psychopaths can be as bewildering to the victims as they are devastating. Many victims become racked with self-doubt, blaming themselves for whatever has happened. Others deny that there is any problem at all. In each case, doubts and concerns about the psychopaths in their lives are converted into doubts about themselves. (Babiak&Hare 2006:284). (serious) medical consequences, such as throwing (some) objects at, or pushing people.

774 Walker 2006.

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Legendary fits of anger are associated not only with gods, but with archpatriarchs such as King Saul of Israel, Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Napoleon775, Wilhelm II of Germany, Hitler, Amin and many others. Other archpatriarchs such as Stalin are stone cold. Stalin refused an exchange of prisoners, and his son Yakov thus died in captivity during WWII; Stalin also claimed:”I have no son named Yakov”. Whether today's Samson finally winds up getting gunned down by security forces; on a no-fly list; wearing a straitjacket, or in marble on a podium covered in garlands, entirely depends on fleeting socio-political priorities.

Theravada Buddhist abbot Aggacitta relates how an evil man named U Mya Maung had finally become an arhat in 1932 seven days after his conversion. U Mya Maung's fits of anger were so terrible that he first flogged, then set his own oxen alive on fire because they were unable to ford a stream pulling a very heavy load.

A mountebank preaches to a politicized audience; he has a loaded gun concealed in case security forces should disrupt the meeting to capture politically blacklisted attendees...Which side is the average pencil-necked sweat-hog going to take?

What if the preacher is U.S abolitionist clergyman Parker, and the 775 Ségur writes about Napoleon:”that besides his fits of anger like all other fits were followed by exhaustion that then with the return of his natural good humour he regretted and frequently tried to soften the pain he had occasioned that finally he might reproach himself as the cause of the disorders which provoked him ”.

(1827:92).

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politically blacklisted attendees fugitive African slaves in the 1850s? After all, Parker -and others- raised funds to equip violent abolitionists such as Brown, whose abolitionist expeditions left several people dead.

Parker, Thoreau and others also defended the right for slaves to kill their masters. What if -on the other hand- the preacher was “the kind of person” a la Tom Metzger or G.L. Rockwell haranguing Fascist skinheads about White supremacy?

Should prigs and dolts shake fists at the preacher or at security forces possibly gatecrashing to reestablish order?

One can not berate White lynch mobs enough as people of color suffered so much; on the other hand, the routine race riots that see colored crowds march, burn and loot shall be assumed to have been justly prompted by “...ism” and inequalities. Of course, “the White race”, “order” and so forth are just spurious concepts prompted by tribal hallucinations, folkloric intoxication, and lynchian fantasies; whereas '...ism', Black brotherhood and discrimination are real...unless one chances to be in denial, of course. The writing of history is often no better than commercial comparative advertisements: the brand that commissioned the ad always comes out on top.

As this writing argues, the same story can be applied to everything. The schizophrenic human mind desperately scans the surroundings to detect psychical states. Today people are no longer in search of angry lions, but of frail, frightened 761

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little creatures (=victims) prigs and dolts shall then defend at all costs.

Prigs and dolts in non-judgmental rapture of oneness wish to 'swap seats' with the victim, just as a row of meek and valiant saviors have been torn apart to 'deliver us' in an era of heroes. Buddha, Romulus, Jesus, Krishna have all forsaken the realm of the high gods to take flesh in our valley of tears to bring salvation after all: they “swapped seats” with us, indeed.

Mahayana Buddhist devotees often take Bodhisattva vows: innumerable are sentient beings, and the devotees pledges to be reborn as often as it is required to help all of them. Tsongkhapa -the Tibetan Buddhist Saint- summarizes it well in the

Lam Rim:”For the sake of relieving the suffering of a single being, I would rejoice at remaining in hell until I attain Buddhahood. What need is there to mention my perseverance over a shorter time and lesser suffering!”.

Situational priorities determine who -or what- one enshrines in this shtick. Some rhapsodize about motherly love who conquers all: what would a mother not do for her children? Others sing the valor of veterans: what would they not do for their homeland? What would an islamist jihadist not do to vindicate his faith? One and the same.

In one of his discussions about Buddhist philosophy, Mullin jokingly remarks how women in the audience seem to elatedly love when he talks about

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mothers:”Flattery, if it can be built into a doctrine, will always attract those who succeed in finding themselves there”.

In 2013 at Borgomanero (Italy) the frail, frightened creatures in need of a champion are not Yugoslavian children, boat-people, fugitive African slaves or dogs, but...donkeys utilized in a modest folkloric ride (palio degli asini).

Event spokesmen retort that permits have been obtained; that veterinarians and animal welfare specialists would be present to cater to the animals' needs at all times; that a jockey of color would be joining the race. Animal right activists quip that the donkeys' “emotional and physical well-being” (literally) shall be in jeopardy during the event:

Hence personification, like anthropomorphism in general, is more solidly cognitive than usually thought; it is the interpretation of the nonhuman, or only fractionally human, in terms of human characteristics. (Guthrie 1993:130).

An animal right posse with cameras stalks after the palio a member of a local hippo-pedagogical association776 and his donkey: should he use force against the frail little creature, the animal right posse would denounce him. The man concludes how his association has for ages taken children for a hike in the woods with donkeys in order to tell tales.

In 2014777, attending veterinarians assisted by uniformed and armed 776 Zonca 2013:30.

777 Giornale Di Arona, September 12, 2014:18.

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police forces interrupt the folkloric palio at Borgomanero: technical interventions are necessary so that bridles won't be used as riding crops in order to cause donkeys to run faster.

What “kind of person” is one? First a person of color, then sweet children are wielded against the accusation of endangering the donkeys' emotional and physical well-being. If no meek, frail African slave is there to have us choke, and shake fists, as hearts of darkness whip him, donkeys in a folkloric ride shall offer a substitute. “Psychotics who identify themselves with the mythological image” are everywhere: one is spoilt for choice, indeed.

A “larger and more generous sense of fairness “ can be applied to any and all circumstances: new year's fireworks were banned in some big Italian cities in recent years to cater to animal welfare, much as ages earlier new year's fireworks had been spontaneously given up in order not to inflict emotional agony upon juvenile refugees from then war-torn Yugoslavia:”When we pity, we are, at least fur the moment, defenseless”;”we’re so caught up in the drama of what happened to soand-so that we don’t have the cognitive resources to disagree. We’re so engaged in following the narrative that we don’t have the energy to question what is being said”.

Beautiful souls and their retinue of gasbags, prigs and dolts are everywhere, and are committed to showing that the list of inequalities to redress; of 764

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abuses to legislate against; of reparations to exact; of horrors to recall aghast; of frail little creatures to champion; of indignities to atone for; of paragraphs in history books to rewrite; of sensibilities to pamper is really limitless: ”The circumstances seem changed but the cliche is in one's psyche”778:

In May of 1972 Jon Burge, a Vietnam veteran, was promoted to police detective on Chicago’s south side. For the next twenty years Burge and other officers used torture techniques Burge learned in Vietnam to force confessions from men arrested in the neighborhood. Jon Burge eventually sent over 200 hundred men to prison based on confessions obtained through torture. The practice finally came to light during proceedings before the Police Board in 1992 -...-.Reparations are often seen in the limited terms of money.

The proposal in Chicago creates the potential for the genuine transformation of a radically cruel wound. Wounds from torture will not heal without acknowledging the reality that one of the purposes of torture is to terrorize the community. The proposal erases the illusion that the crime of torture is between the victim and the perpetrator. Instead upholding a stance that honors the vital inter-connections between victim and community with a broad understanding of impact. Psychologists from the Kovler Center, a center for survivors of torture, helped to draft the bill based on the experience of survivors. (Community Reparations...2015:no page).

Aucune amélioration quantitative de sa misère, aucune illusion d’intégration hiérarchique, ne sont un remède durable à son insatisfaction, car le prolétariat ne peut se reconnaître véridiquement dans un tort particulier qu’il aurait subi ni donc dans la réparation d’un tort particulier , ni d’un grand nombre de ces torts, mais seulement dans le tort absolu d’être rejeté en marge de la vie. (Debord 1967: point 114).

No amount of gold could provide an adequate compensation for the exploitation and humiliation of the Negro in America down through the centuries…Yet a price can be placed on unpaid wages.

778 Campbell&Toms 1988:vol. 4.

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(Martin Luther King in 1964).

It is increasingly difficult to know what the fuss is all about, since the theatrics ensue in a xeroxed manner: donkeys, boat-people, Yugoslavian children, dogs, fugitive African slaves...which is which?

For God has imprisoned everyone in disobedience so he could have mercy on everyone. (Romans 11:32).

Through the perverse ripple effect of vicarious trauma (= second person drama= hearing the accounts of trauma), victims slip increasingly out of grasp. From the real victim of a forensic murder to an entire neighborhood, country, continent, ethnic,

religious

or

cultural

group

as

victim

par

excellence

and

by

proxy:�identification and psychological proximity, rather than historical accuracy let alone political depth.�.

The shaking of those fists, the shedding of those tears, the march to show support for -or hostility against- this, that or another party, country, cause or agenda no longer is a sheepish act brainwashed zombies perform going along with what happens to be 'in' this season, but the circular re-edition (=the recapture=hyperreal repetition) of the emotionally vibrant heroism of the savior.

The hero went against the grain, against all odds when his precious life hung in a balance, and history was still in the making:

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the wasteland, a land of people who do simply what they are supposed to do, or what is thought by the society well to do-people professing beliefs because they have to, holding jobs that they've inherited not earned, and so forth-a group of zombies, you might say. (Campbell&Boa 1989:59).

Quite a clinching of the commonsense argument that entire nations can't be wrong; or that one can fool many people all the time, but not everybody all the time:

Economists who analyzed the decisions of Deal or No Deal contestants found something surprising. As the game progressed, contestants tended to become more and more risk seeking, almost regardless of what happened. Contestants who were unlucky kept chasing after what little money was left.

Contestants who were lucky stayed in the game in search of the largest prizes. All of the sounds, lights, and excitement of the game show push the contestants to become more risk seeking than they probably would be in everyday life. (Huettel 2014:7-8).

It is easy to extend Huettel's (professor of psychology and neuroscience) conclusions to elated masses electioneering pitchpersons or firebrands psych up in the name of obtuse allegories and petrified mythologies (=symbolic action shtick).

The 'recapture' of duration -against linear time- mimics the lack of significant character development in the vast majority of hero (founder, savior...) stories: the hero-savior-founder embodies immemorial duration. He has always been really 'special' since the very beginning (the 'child prodigy' and 'miraculous birth' angle). Like Zoroaster, Mahavira, Jesus, Nanak, Gautama Buddha, the hero is always portrayed at around the age of 30.

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Often, the name already tells a great deal already. Heroes, saviors, gods etc are therefore personified metaphors of iffy gnostic import that are later historicized to identify presumed real-life characters. At play is the neurotic fixation humans have to talk in mythological terms about abstract qualities that are personified, and to later “euhemerize” such projections in terms of historical facts:

Most traditions realize this-that deities are personifications, not facts. They are metaphors. They're not references to anything that you can put your finger on, or your eye on. They are metaphors transparent to transcendence. -...-It is a symbol of the spiritual biography of that man, and all of the elements of the biography are symbolic. Just through reading them properly you learn the message. (Campbell&Boa 1989:28,39).

Unlike the Jewish and Christian scriptures, which glory in names and dates and the verisimilitude of historical accuracy, the Daodejing “contains no dates and mentions no proper names, nothing that would tie it to history.” Its home ground is the timeless aphorism. Its core concept, the Dao, floats above and beyond the vicissitudes of historical time. As for Laozi himself, there is some chance that he never lived, so the Daodejing may well be the work of multiple authors. -...-Laozi’s mother, also known as Holy Mother Goddess -...- Laozi was not only divine but the Way itself. In this way the Dao was transformed from an impersonal principle to a personal divinity, and the textual Daoism of Laozi and Zhuangzi began to merge with the gods and goddesses of Chinese popular religion.(Prothero 2010:98,102).

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6).

Adam of Hebrew lore, and Manu of Hindu lore are simply “ (the) man”; various female figures of Polinesian mythology are aptly called Hina, “ (the) woman/girl”. An Hebrew prophet aptly bears the name Elijah: “Yahweh is my god”.

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(King) Arthur is probably a title of some sort of warlord, which derives from “bear” and -in turn- from the goddess Artemis. St. Expedit -object of a syncretic cult on the Réunion island that assimilated this Christian Saint in red to Hindu goddess Kali- is a Saint who -just as his name implies- “expedites” urgent matters. Prometheus means “ (man of) foresight”, whereas his brother Epimetheus (“(man of) hindsight”) let Pandora in, just as his name suggests. Which could the name be of a wrestler nicknamed Macho Man? Randy Savage fits perfectly 779. Another wrestler died in 2014: he was born J.B. Hellwig, but legally changed his name to assume that of his wrestling persona: (Ultimate) Warrior.

Porisada of Buddhist lore is -in fact- a former King who goes native as he becomes an anthropophagite (eater of men as his name implies); Angulimala is a serial killer as his name (garland of fingers) suggests; Hercules' wife Deianira brings about Hercules' demise just as her name (destroyer of men) implies; Arjuna's name means “pure”, whereas his Pandava brother Bhima (=”the terrible”) is the strongest man alive as the miraculous son of princess Kunti, and of Vayu, the god of wind; another Pandava is Yudhisthira (steady in war 780), the son of Kunti (=spear) and of Dharma, the god of judgment 781. Taoism founder Lao-Tzu aptly means “(the) old teacher”.

779 The athlete's true name was Randy Mario Poffo (1952-2011).

780 A Greek counterpart would be names such as Agamemnon (“steady in contest”) and those beginning in Mene-...

781 Unlike more modest royal virgins of Graeco-Roman or Jewish lore, Kunti begets several divine children from several high gods. A sage had bestowed a mantra upon her so that any god of her choice would bless her with a child.

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Mythical Cuzco Kingdom founder and lawgiver is suitably called Manco Capac (“royal founder”); the Queen of Carthage is aptly named Dido, the wanderer; Buddha is Siddhartha, or “one who has accomplished a goal”, and Gautama, which reads as “dispeller of darkness” (=one who accomplished the goal of dispelling darkness).

Hebrew prophets around the time of Elijah (IX century BCE) wanted to emphasize how their god “was not” 782 in the wind, earthquake and fire as all those nature gods pagans worshiped (the root of Semitic Yahweh is related to that of Latin Iovis, or Jupiter, a supreme sky god-king just like Yahweh).

Today, politicking hacks harangue the frazzled crowd: mister immigration amnesty; mister holding-no-grudges; mister personable; mister homeland first; mister huge tax breaks and subsidies speaks:”identification and psychological proximity, rather than historical accuracy let alone political depth.”;”It's hard for me to separate who I am from what I want to do”;”United Russia is my flesh and blood” declared Russian President Medvedev in 2011 as he was leaving office783.

NLP and advertisement specialist Boothman begs to agree:”Find something to set you apart from the rest. Give them something to remember you

7821 Kings 19:11ss.

783 RT.com, October 15, 2011.

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by.”784;”Finally, develop opinions. They can be similar to others in your field or dissenting. One thing all gurus have in common is opinions they can call their own.”785.

The appeal these walking exempla exert is so great that instant allowances are made:”[The public] only wanted one thing from [a given public figure]: a story. He told it so well that we forgave him almost everything. ”;“[it] helped people to believe.”;”We want -...- original content regardless of its validity.

We're here for the scare, not for the plausibility”.

The power of the story is so powerful that, although human nature is in itself heedless, fickle and duplicitous, some relationships (parent-child; politiciantaxpayer; master-disciple; clergyman-congregation...) are mysteriously considered to rest on completely different grounds. Popeye is an ordinary man until he gobbles his dose of spinach, which turns him into a superhero...in comic books, of course.

People are later shocked when the umpteenth Catholic priest is caught in a financial or sexual scandal; when the next politician directs to his offshore slush fund donations directed to some 'great cause'; when the next oriental spirituality guru sexually and financially exploits his groupies without any sense of shame; when family members victimize one another mercilessly786.

784 2000:114.

785 Lakhani 2005:70.

786 Terentyev explains thus Tibetan Buddhist doctrine:”We are willing, if male, to be with another's wife - or with an unmarried woman whose parents forbid it, or with any other inappropriate partner - when the woman has

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If some sort of character development unfolds – such as in Rocky, Karate

Kid, No Retreat No Surrender, Matrix etc- it only means the hero -such as divine founders Romulus, Hercules, Buddha (Mahayana) or Jesus- 'rediscovers' his inner self that had been there all along, such as a call to vindicate manifest destinies, Buddha-nature, and so forth.

Contemporary popular culture and academia deliver the same mimeographed message. It is hard to doubt people in other periods or geographic frames might have projected the same elated admiration we nowadays project on garden variety busybodies -across all the provinces of the political spectrum- onto the likes of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Saddam Hussein, Amin, Bokassa, Pol Pot and others:

In an attempt to describe his sense of personal identity, one of the exemplars, Cabell Brandextnote, explained in an interview, "Who I am is what I'm able to do and how I feel all the time-each day, each moment . . . : It's hard for me to separate who I am from what I want to do and what I am doing." (Stout 2005:194-5). ”"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” (John 4:34). the strong wish to develop bodhichita but is overwhelmed with desire for sex with us and who, if she were to die not having had sex with us, would carry the grudge as an instinct into future lives. As a result, she would be extremely hostile toward bodhisattvas and the bodhisattva path.” (ME6217:unit 6:6). Corrupt gurus and lusty lamas find such elusive and byzantine explanations all too handy:”much of the psychopath's behavior and motivation makes sense if we think of him or her as a person rooted completely in the present and unable to resist a good opportunity.” (Hare 1993:88). e xtnote Founder of a center “founded primarily to give students in the colleges of this region an opportunity to study and research issues of poverty “ as the Center's site would have it. Cabell Brand published a call to action titled “If not me, then who?”. (Un)surprisingly enough, Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva Kshitigarbha also gave the same explanation as he vowed to help sentient beings by visiting hell realms. (note of this writer).

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Even the evergreen good guy ↔ bad guy shtick tells nothing about a given character in particular, but only belabors stale gnostic truth about the nature of every human being as a sort of doctor Jekyll and mister Hyde interplay that might apply to Hercules, Darth Vader, or to any drone waiting in line to join the rat race at 6h45 AM in Tokyo, New York or Paris.

It therefore doesn't strictly matter whom or what is one exactly marching for -or against-, and shaking fists at exactly:

Drawing again from the semiotic origin of the Zombie, this creature has always in some fashion “followed” something or someone. (Lizardi 2009:44).

As the global unleashing of unrestrained market-forces intensifies anxieties about the integrity of the body and generates horrifying images of bewitched accumulation, of occult forces exploiting zombie-labour, critical theory thus needs an alliance with the fantastic. In seizing upon fabulous images of occult capitalism, critical theory ought to read them the way psychoanalysis interprets dreams – as a necessarily coded form of subversive knowledge whose decoding promises radical insights and transformative energies. Mining a popular imaginary populated by vampires, zombies and malevolent corporations that abduct and dissect people, critical theory needs to construct shock-effects that allow us to see the monstrous dislocations at the heart of commodified existence. And, because modern bourgeois consciousness was decisively shaped by its colonialist horror over African peoples and their customs, it is fitting that our investigation should culminates in Chapter Three with an interrogation of the poetic knowledge animating fables of monstrosity that emanate today from Sub-Saharan Africa.

(McNally 2011:7-8). it follows that symporeia (collective movement) has a particular role to play in human cognition and emotional intelligence, 773

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beyond its usual role of creating social cohesion and reinforcing group identity. In neural terms, movement is the essential interpersonal communicator of emotion and empathy.

Furthermore, the role of mirror neurons in cognition has also been linked to proprioception, which is the sense of the relative position of different parts of the body in relation to each other, or what might be termed the orientation of one’s limbs in space.

(Meineck no date-2:8).

Practice synchronization in all your activities, whether you're in an interview, at a bus stop, dealing with your children, calming an unhappy customer, or talking to the teller at the bank, the flower seller, the barman at the pub. You're not likely to run out of partners. Make it a part of your life for the next few days until you are competent without trying—until it becomes second nature. (Boothman 2000:86).

It turns out the warm human soul and its wonderful feelings is -in a state of rest, of course- taken aback by unabashed, brash displays of that much soughtafter, exalted and memorialized oneness of the pack on the part of both actual culprits, and the swarms of armchair supporters. This also explains Jack Kornfield's popular -yet chloroformic- presentation style:

And when a Jewish fanatic murdered taxi driver Taysir Karaki, who drove him from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, quite a number of respondents hurried to the Ynet and Walla! Web sites, and also to that of Haaretz, to celebrate the blood that was spilled. "Those Arabs can just keep on whining," they typed. "What is an Arab doing in Tel Aviv anyway?

He was probably planning a terror attack." And in the best of succinct talkback style: "Poor Arabs hahaha." This is not right, this is not left, this is evil. (Oz-Salzberger 2007: no page).

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the 774

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professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machinegunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, ‘I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so’. Probably, therefore, he will say something like this: ‘While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.’.The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics’. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.

(Orwell 1946: no page).

R.M. Price at one conference787 reveals he was taken aback at a convention attracting a public of campaigning atheists: a defrocked Scandinavian pastor claimed he hated god. Price thus wondered whether the convention was really about secular humanism, or whichever other posh name may be interchangeably used to make atheism more palatable, just as Orwell explains above.

787 2010.

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Richard Carrier788 goes on an endless, impassioned tirade about clusters of the atheist/humanist movement who allegedly prevent women, homosexuals and minorities from joining the movement with incredible harassment campaigns, which prove especially intolerable to women. The stereotypical atheist audience is 2:1 male and White, as it would have been the case with Marxism in a remote past.

Carrier then attacks the show host who raises doubts about all those presumed harassment stories in the terms of the host “being the kind of person who” thinks a story false just because a woman tells it...just like Carrier does with Christians and their miracles.

Carrier criticizes the “kind of person” atheist/humanist circles tend to attract -much as Price does- as if there were audiences of an higher caliber Carrier (Price etc) might speak to as he plugs his books while being on the lookout for donations or sponsorship.

Trying to make women (GLBT people or any category) feel uncomfortable for the sake of it might not be nice, but then the goal of the entire atheist/humanist movement is -indeed- to make devout religionists -whether Christians, Mormons or otherwise- feel uncomfortable about themselves and their beliefs: atheists typically retort theirs to be forensic truth bigots can't stomach.

The atheist/humanist movement, however, is a mixed bag indeed. Some 788 March 22, 2014, Skeptic Fence Show.

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may act out like mortally offended Marxist pansies, whereas others court right-wing audiences. Sam Harris, another of the Dalai Lamas of secular humanism, wrote in 2005:”I am one of the few people I know of who has argued in print that torture may be an ethical necessity in our war on terror. ”.

He also wrote “Some

propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them. ”. Poker-faced Harris unflinchingly defends both an opposition to the death penalty, and a blank cheque to garrison state expediency against an unspecified gamut of anti-socials. At the Freethought Festival (a watering hole for athesists and their ilk) in 2013 a talk berated the twin blasphemies of creationism and...climate change denial.

The vast majority of such people are just gamesmen trying to enter speaking circuits, or to secure gigs or book sales making bombastic statements they can endlessly re-frame to suit whichever constituency might be buying the book or paying the entrance ticket. Readers can readily see how minutemen serving one's totalitarian regime of choice could consider themselves well-schooled.

A 2014 talk789 by atheist speaker Tod Billings (Arkansas Society Of

Freethinkers) spells out loud and clear what the priorities are for this high-ranking atheist honcho, who professionally debates Christians and religionists: homosexual and abortion rights, and climate change. Billings even states he doesn't care whether people harbor deistic (= generic belief in god/s) views, as long as they agree with the 789 How To Debate A Christian.

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party line: a textbook case of getting the camel into the tent.

Elated votaries praise Harris, Dennett, Dawkins and Hitchens as “the four horsemen� of atheism: no middle schoolboy on behavior medications could get more hackneyed.

One of the Italian replicas of Dawkins is Piergiorgio Odifreddi, an academic and a mathematician, who -clearly and without hesitations- declares himself both an hardcore fan of science, and an old-school Communist who flirted on and off with Partito Democratico.

Odifreddi -who also taught philosophy at universities- proves to be as droll as Dawkins as he elatedly praises Mahayana Buddhism that -in his (un)informed opinion- provides a bedrock for Communist regimes in China and Vietnam. In his all too common prostitution of just about anything to adventitious political goals, Odifreddi fails to mention Japan, and Taiwan as Mahayana countries: hardly Communist havens. He furthermore reduces the roughly 30 centuries of Chinese civilization -until 1949 under either a conservative Empire or a nationalist Republic- to the last few decades of Communist rule: what perspective wouldn't 'the good guys' adopt to serve 'the great cause'. Will pencil-necked sweat-hogs then relay Odifreddi's very personal views as 'academic truth'? Readers be the judge.

Televangelists and fundamentalist Christians still inveigh against the

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GLBT community, but politely and defensively refuse to quote the purportedly divine truth on which their stance is based entirely:

If a man practices homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman, both men have committed a detestable act. They must both be put to death, for they are guilty of a capital offense. (Leviticus 20:13, emphasis added).

After all, their sacred texts may very well violate laws, precedents or statutes in several jurisdictions, so the story is refurbished to become at least palatable; the retribution befalling homosexuals -for example- is either postponed to the afterlife, or left very vague (“something bad shall happen to them”). Frazzled believers, too, “are not the kind of person” to believe in such barbarities. The Hebrew Bible has been in existence as an established text for Zoroastrian dilemmas for ages: it all dissolves into endless shades of gray...

If ridicule is invoked to characterize the fundamentalist right, Price's uncanny encounter shows that militant sides, whichever their ax to grind happens to be, are but a diverse and colorful cabinet of curiosities bringing together the many heads of the same hydra, which often are as dissimilar as the hydra as a whole is from what it so vehemently opposes.

For example, fundamentalist Christians may rub elbows with activists of reaganite, racialist, tea party or survivalist persuasion; atheists may rub elbows with green progressives, bereft Soviet enthusiasts, GLBT activists, gauche caviar

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intellectuals, xeno- and homophiles, minorities etc.

It turns out, however, that the hydra's heads that gnash their teeth, and spew venom or fire rally bigger crowds than those wearing bow-tie, monocle, and who talk in terms of chloroformic shades of gray meant to satisfy all equally: the various Christian groups based upon a “god hates [insert scapegoat here] “ approach are an example.

Some Christian denominations even stumble farther trying to reach out for new constituencies, whose social and electoral weight appears on the rise. In 1991 the U.S Presbyterian Church published a report (Keeping Body And Soul

Together) containing a radical shift of perspective, which the General Assembly later rejected 534 to 31:

It may be said simply: Where there is justice-love, sexual expression has ethical integrity. That moral principle applies to single, as well as to married persons, to gay, lesbian and bisexual persons, as well as to heterosexual persons. The moral norm for Christians ought not be marriage, but rather justice-love. (in Hirsley 1991: no page).

In 2013, Pope Francis I reaches out to a diverse cohort of religious transgressors (homosexuals, women who underwent abortions, common law relationships790...) under the sign of a skeleton key of spirituality: who are we to judge, because we are equally tainted after all. In November 2014, Pope Francis once again severely chastises abortion and euthanasia as sinful acts “false 790 Sources claim that in Italy in 2006 260.000 weddings were celebrated versus 480.000 common law relationships.

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compassion”791 often justifies: accommodated truths.

The dew of reconciliation, however, does not come for free. Catholic media -in fact- expect the composite galaxy of sinners to crawl in unrestricted selfdenial, to loathe the sin they committed, and to reform in accordance with Catholic teachings so that reincorporation may take place after a long probation. The Catholic Church probably got our society's pecking order upside down.

'Good guys' or culture heroes need not necessarily to be hooligans frothing at the mouth. Eckel792 gives anecdotal examples related to a visit of the Dalai Lama to Vermont. Devotees -who could otherwise have approached himwaited for the Dalai Lama to leave, then put flowers on the seat he had occupied: “The basic vocabulary of Buddhist worship. The Buddha is gone -...- we can't get access to him -...- but he has left behind powerful places -...-[to] get access in some way to the power he has left behind”, “sacred place-...- where the sacred and the profane intersect”793.

The idea that deceased members of Fascist action squads could be 'martyrs' in charge of protecting the horde of the faithful from heaven reads like the dystopian concoction of an hallucinating quack, yet it was just the version of the same old cliches championed by another regime.

791 TgCom24, November 15 2014.

792 2003:lecture 8.

793 Voth 2010:The Continuing Importance Of Myth.

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The masses have never enough of making the experience of the mythical past into the present, with its imagery of sacrificial dismemberment as moment of foundational creation, just as remote forefathers endlessly retold their creation myths.

The increasingly senile veteran and witness -whether by an individual or collective standpoint- cannot bear to hear -let alone to experience- that the world moved on, and it is no longer 1916, 1944, 1953 (the Moncada Barracks attack in Cuba), 1973 (The Yom Kippur war)...

Whence the common occurrence of hoaxes and fabrications of all kinds across the political and credibility spectrum, which try to keep mythical time alive:”[Jesus said]do this in remembrance of me ” (1 Corinthians 11:24). The durva grass has been associated with Hindu god Ganesha since a sage cured the god who was ill with such an herb in a time before time. Ganesha thus pleased ordered the durva grass to be thenceforth associated with him.

The agent of a minority watchdog group applies for a “neo-nazi rally” permit; credentialed scientists at the top of the ladder are enmeshed in the Piltdown man, Nebraska man or cold fusion fabrications. A non-profit organization that incessantly heckles about 'doing something now' about this or that plight or injustice is revealed as a “financial black hole” in which hefty donations disappear to the advantage of profligate politicking managers; of course little to nothing is 782

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concretely done about 'the great cause'.

The schizophrenic longing for a universal, trans-historical meaning -with or without religious overtones- that permeates the achronotopos for ever and ever is in sharp contrast with history books that are literally packed with 'zero hour' moments that appeal to different groups in different ways:

La classe dominante -...- doit lier son sort au maintien de cette histoire réifiée, à la permanence d’une nouvelle immobilité dans l’histoire. (the dominant class shall tie its fate to its ability to sustain this version of history made tangible, to a new kind of stillness in history.) Debord 1967:point 143). vertigo (without time) and hallucination (but with complete transparency of detail). (Gane 1991:130).

Moreover, it is amply documented how transcendental idealism – with its manifest destinies, fabulous genealogies, providential leaders, unparalleled heritages and divine calls to action- is after all one of the main causes of war, injustice and slaughter.

The best way to realize this is to consider how different segments of the world population refer to different dating systems. Although the European one -based upon Christianity- is the more widespread, the Muslim or Buddhist year is also used in several countries: different 'zero hour' moments. Practicing Jews divide the time from sunset to sundown: the new day begins at sundown, not at midnight.

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Time-keeping is sacred: the province of priesthood since Mesopotamian civilizations down to the Egyptians, Romans and the Catholic Church. Dominant elites and their ideologies are the sole arbiters in setting yardsticks and shifting goalposts when 'editing' the stream of historical events.

The French revolution tried to cross the border to the fairy land of utopia not only with 'progressive' laws, noyades794, and Terreur, but with collective rituals and the subversion of customary time-keeping 795: the abolition of the ancient calendar; decimal time; dĂŠcades in place of weeks796.

Possibly -yet not entirely- out of occultist or 'magic' preoccupations, Hitler was obsessed with the passing of time, and recurrently ruminated about how he either had -or most often had not- acted on time, after or before mythological deadlines only he was privy to. Most myths feature some sort of deadline or another (before sunset/sunrise etc). Popular culture obliges with 'impending deadline' movies in all sorts of sauces: Brewster's Millions (1985); Mr. Billion (1977); 48 Hours (1982); Star Blazers (1979)...

The fact that one's 'zero hour' moment could be another's more or less

794 Mass-drownings.

795 Another important occurrence is the era fascista, that is 'political' time-keeping during the Fascist regime, for example 1942, anno XX dell'era fascista was the 'accredited' version back then. In post WWII decades many 'accredited' intellectuals have tried to do the same with a new divide in time: pre- and post the German WWII camps.

796 Some scholars remark the irony of the dĂŠcade, offering one day of rest every ten, as opposed to the conventional Sunday. A similar schedule was apparently adopted to build the great pyramids at Giza.

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insignificant footnote of history triggers what Eliade termed “the terror of history”797, or the panic fear that one's great founding moments -and ensuing mythology-, and reputedly transcendental ordeals meant to impart colossal moral teachings to humankind, are just paragraphs in the book of history growing larger every day: debris of history.

History books could be substantially rewritten at any point in the future for political convenience anyhow. This squares with the assumption -by symbolic interactionist Thomas- that events perceived as real are real in their consequences.

The present writer wishes to edit the phrase substituting importance (relevance) to reality. Nobody probably challenges the reality of a Juventus-Liverpool soccer match in 1985. Yet for some UK hooligans, that event was so important (relevant) they went on a murderous rampage leaving 39 people dead: ”burnin' with determination to even up the score”.

In this light readers can appraise the squabble between Russia and Estonia over the removal of a monument celebrating the Red Army's redemptive

797 “con el hombre de las civilizaciones tradicionales que, como hemos visto, tenía frente a la historia una actitud negativa. Ya la anulara periódicamente, ya la desvalorizara encontrándose siempre modelos y arquetipos transhistóricos, ya, en fin, le atribuyera un sentido metahistórico (teoría cíclica, significaciones escatológicas, etcétera), el hombre de las civilizaciones tradicionales no concedía al acontecimiento histórico ningún valor en sí: en otros términos, no lo consideraba como una categoría específica de su propio modo de existencia.-...-Y en nuestros días, cuando la presión histórica no permite ya ninguna evasión, ¿cómo podrá el hombre soportar las catástrofes y los horrores de la historia —desde las deportaciones y los asesinatos colectivos hasta el bombardeo atómico— si, por otro lado, no se presiente ningún signo, ninguna intención transhistórica, si tales horrores son sólo el juego ciego de fuerzas económicas, sociales o políticas o, aun peor, el resultado de las “libertades” que una minoría se toma y ejerce directamente en la escena de la historia universal?” (Eliade 2001:88,93, emphasis added).

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crusade:”Estonia was mocking the dead, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. However, many Estonians saw the statue as a reminder of Soviet rule. ” 798.

Setting aside the contention of the ground on which Russia alone appropriated the USSR legacy against all other former USSR States, and the pivotal role Russia itself played in the USSR's collapse, the divide of the 'good and bad side of myth' is clearly visible here, along with the divide of 'the price that is always worth it'.

The fact that Estonia wanted to 'turn the page', in a way triggered “the terror of history” in the Russian counterpart, or the fear that the protective cocoon of mythologies related to WWII – seen as the quintessentially 'honest', 'necessary' or 'just' war- could begin to dissolve, thus imperiling the ideological, geo-political and economic order, whose ultimate legitimacy WWII provided.

A row of censorship laws have been passed as the cold war ended, and as the post-war organized order swiftly collapsed (late 1980s onwards). As the Catholic Church regularly did when faced with its model's patent failures (heretics attacking points of doctrine in the Middle Ages, and/or denouncing the clergy's corruption and inadequacy), or Italian Fascism resorted to after 1943, judicial and/or military repression becomes the only viable opportunity as the system pays increasingly fewer dividends.

798 BBC 2007: no page.

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The regime's tenors serenade absent-minded -or even angry- masses on a slow but assured path towards disaffection:

Sergei Shoigu, the respected emergency situations minister, has called for a law, based on Holocaust denial legislation in Germany, that would make it a criminal offence to suggest that the Soviet Union did not win the War. Mr Shoigu indicated that the legislation would also seek to punish eastern European or former Soviet states which deny they were liberated by the Red Army. The leaders of those countries could be banned from Russian soil, he said. (Blomfield 2009: no page).

Ceux pour qui le temps irréversible a existé y découvrent à la fois le mémorable et la menace de l’oubli (Those who experienced time as irreversible discover by the same token the reality of memorialization and the threat that oblivion poses. Debord 1967: point 133).

Colossal wars and other big events are not the only occasion to see such dynamics at work. When Peter Heehs published Aurobindo's biography after decades of involvement with the aurobindonian community, the fact that the book's tune didn't resonate with the generally hagiographic, and welcoming attitude surrounding the famous Indian thinker got the author in quite some trouble, such as judicial pursuits and bans on his book.

Over the internet, some claimed the 2008 book was the equivalent of martyrdom inflicted upon Aurobindo Ghose – who had died of natural causes in 1950-; others wished to deport the author; many complained about his blasphemous and intolerable attitudes; some clamored for a judicial ban fearing the book might lead to civil unrest; others yet detailed the author's duplicity, his lack of credentials, the checkered and bohemian history of someone who -divine paradox- had been an 787

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insider and associate to the point of being allowed access to the Ashram's most sensitive archives. One of the cruxes was whether or not Aurobindo had “attained the supermind�: Heehs says he didn't, whereas devotees say he indeed did. Readers shall come to their own conclusions.

The same screenplay replays over and over in many different circumstances, as the entranced pack enters the war path under the guidance of the masters of acceptable discourse (=those who 'control the conversation') to preserve oneness and fight contamination. Eysenck summarized thus his view of psychoanalysis:

psychoanalysis must be regarded as a failure. We are left with nothing but imaginary interpretations of pseudo-events, therapeutic failures, illogical and inconsistent theories, erroneous ' insights' of no proven value, and a dictatorial and intolerant group of followers insistent not on truth but on propaganda (1985:201-2).

For example, some of the phenomena appear to be completely in line with findings from social-psychological experiments showing that powerful social pressures are brought to bear by the members of a cohesive group whenever a dissident begins to voice his objections to a group consensus. Other phenomena are reminiscent of the shared illusions observed in encounter groups and friendship cliques when the members simultaneously reach a peak of "groupy" feelings. -...- I use the term groupthink as a quick and easy way to refer to the mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive ingroup that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action. (Janis 1971:84).

Joseph Campbell799 puts the motif of the savior dying willingly for us in

799 1989.

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the perspective of the paleolithic animal cults; the covenant between the animals men killed for sustenance and humankind itself, whereby humankind would honor the dead animal(s) as gods (with perhaps one animal taking up the role of 'animal master' to represent nature), and animals would willingly return to be slaughtered again according to the greater cycles of nature.

Today (for example among Japan's Ainu people) shrines containing the bones/skulls of animals are still honored; still in today's Japan, some Shinto temples present shrines devoted to giving thanks -and capturing the benevolence of - sea creatures fished and eaten on a regular basis.

Echo of this attitude survive in the descendants of the Maya people. One contemporary Maya peasant prayed thus to the forest he was about to slash and burn in order to make a living:

Oh god, my father and mother, lord of the high and low places, lord of the forest. Allow me to do what has always been done. I am making this offering -...-I make this offering as I am about to trespass against your kindness. But maybe you will allow me to do so. I am about to injure you. -...-I am about to injure you, working you so that I can make a living. May no wild forest beast track me down, no snake, no scorpion. Do not turn my own ax or machete against me, for with all my heart I am now about to work you. (Hale 2009: Decoding Rituals At Palenque).

The primeval sympathetic savior-god Prometheus was chained to a mountain with his arms outstretched (crucified?) and tormented because he had

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first cheated the gods by teaching humans how to sacrifice only the fat 800, thus keeping the meat for themselves (which was of capital importance in an underdeveloped subsistence/agronomic-pastoral society). Later again, he had stolen fire back from Zeus (angry over being cheated) to benefit mankind again; Prometheus of course could not die because he was a titan after all.

Since Prometheus' name invokes foresight, it is clear how the heroic savior-god really intended to offer himself up for sacrifice for us all. The myth of Prometheus may merge with the myth of Phaeton, and get inverted. A Filipino legend tells that aswang cheated the gods with gold to steal fire as a gift to humans.

Because -like Phaeton riding the chariot of his father the Sun- he couldn't control fire, the earth was scorched; heavenly rain was necessary to avert complete disaster (Zeus' thunderbolt hits Phaeton). People have thus hated aswang

ever since:

aswang is now a shape-shifting evil monster of lore (half ghoul, vampire or werewolf).

Gautama Buddha, too, professedly died at age 80 of food poisoning 801, not before preventing -as an indication of foresight and selflessness - his disciples from 800 Immemorial Hindu mythology preaches sacrifices through burnt offerings to the gods, as Agni (the god of fire) will serve as the gods' mystical mouth. A 'holocaust' is 'a sacrifice consumed by fire': in exceptional circumstances (very wealthy patrons and/or extreme danger for the community etc) the offer was left to be consumed by fire in its entirety. Even in contemporary post-Incaic culture in Peru, the fire is seen as mystical mouth of Pachamama, mother Earth.

801 “It is our conclusion that by eating sukara-maddava Buddha facilitated his desire to depart this world and enter Nirvana. He soon developed abdominal cramps, bloody diarrhoea and shock, and died within a day of his last meal. It was tainted pork that led to Buddha's demise. He succumbed to the disease pig-bel, a necrotizing enteritis caused by the toxins of Clostridium perfringens infection.� (Chen & Chen 2005:100).

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sharing the same tainted food. While Buddha's canonical life is not especially full of suffering, Buddhist literature immediately seized the opportunity to make up for such oversight in Jataka tales, or Buddha's past lives.

The divine savior is subjected to all sorts of indignities, scourging and reversals:

In all other Births Devadattaextnote failed to excite so much as an atom of fear in the Bodhisattaextnote, but in the Culladhammapāla Birth, when the Bodhisatta was only seven months old, he had his hands and feet and head cut off and his body encircled with sword cuts, as it were with a garland. In the Daddara Birth he killed him by twisting his neck, and roasted his flesh in an oven and ate it. In the Khantivādi Birth he had him scourged with two thousand strokes of a whip, and ordered his hands and feet and ears and nose to be cut off, and then had him seized by the hair of his head and dragged along, and when he was stretched at full length on his back, he kicked him in the belly and made off, and that very day the Bodhisatta died. But both in the Cullanandaka and the Vevaṭiyakapi Births he merely had him put to death.

(Culladhammapāla-Jātaka) Campbell802 suggests the difference arises out of the four seasons present where Christianity arose, hence death and resurrection cycles on one hand; tropical India's one season where blossom and fruit are present at the same time on the other hand: the still point (also a tenet of Taoism).

Of course, the emphasis among some mythicists and enthusiasts on both e xtnote Devadatta is Gautama Buddha's evil cousin. He plays a role similar to that of Set in the Osiris myth, or that of Satan in Christianity. (note of this writer). e xtnote Here: Gautama Buddha in one of his previous lives as he navigated the tumultuous ocean of death&rebirth in order to attain enlightenment. (note of this writer).

802 1989:The Way To Enlightenment.

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ends of the political spectrum (left-wing homo- and/or xenophiles and progressives; right-wingers of tea party or reaganite persuasion) is often placed on the item of crucifixion, with maneuvers devoted to make Buddha or Krishna fit the bill 803; more attention to terminology ought to be paid.

Such conceit probably just wants to earn a place as world axis for one's favorite savior-hero, whose story, deeds or death are thus ennobled to serve as reality's cornerstone. It all seems very likely, and leaves the present writer unaffected, for the doom of the savior-hero is significant irrespective of the method through which it is achieved. Contemporary worship of antifascist activists is not hampered in the least by the fact they were executed, shot to death, hung or deported instead of crucified; one such icon among many, overthrown left-wing Chilean President Allende, did in fact commit suicide.

The present writer wishes to extend the same considerations to all typified mythological blueprints noted scholars have offered (Bastian, Olrik, Rank, Raglan, Campbell...), which at times tend to become too systematic and ossified.

Let's consider only the example of the 'hero's journey'. The present writer prefers to 803 Doane, for example, belabors the subject thus:”This brings to recollection the doctrine of certain so-called Christian heretics, who maintained that Christ Jesus was crucified in the heavens. -...- The direst was the Logos, or Divine Wisdom, or a portion of divine wisdom incarnate ; in this sense he is really the Sun or the solar power incarnate, and to him everything applicable to the Sun will apply. -...- but whether it was intended to represent Crishna, Wittoba, or Jesus, it tells a secret : it shows that some one was represented crucified in the heavens, and undoubtedly has something to do with “; The next power to the Supreme God,”; who, according to Plato, “; was decussated or figured in the shape of a cross on the universe”;-...-The Sun-god Apollo, Indra, Wittoba or Crishna, and Christ Jesus, are represented as having their feet pierced with nails”. (1882:487-8). It is probable the theory of the axis mundi (cosmic axis) is here being described, such as Eliade and others expounded later.

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present it as 'being on the move'; not all journeys are created equal, and -what's more important- they need not to be.

Popular culture couldn't be far behind. Legendary 1966 song California

Dreaming encapsulates the yearning for a hero's journey (“I'd be safe and warm if I was in L.A. ”) with a salad bar of mythological motifs such as the pathetic fallacy (“All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray ”); the threshold (“Stepped into a church I passed along the way ”); the enemy (“You know the preacher likes the cold he knows I'm gonna stay ”).

The motif of the journey may for example be perverted in Sade's (17401814) non-obscene work. First, it is not necessary to venture that far at times; characters in Dorci, Florville Et Courval, Le Président Mystifié, La Chastelaine De

Longeville, L'Epoux Corrigé do not travel to faraway lands. What matters is that after the journey the actors and the world they inhabit will no longer be the same, which typically holds true for all sorts of 'inward' gnostic experiences. Louison and Colas ( in La Chastelaine De Longeville ) only travel from their village to the castle in order to have an affair with their adulterous seigneurs, yet -at the end of the journey- Louison finds abduction and murder by drowning, while Colas finds exile.

The present writer adds sparagmos (ritual dismemberment), an ecstatic state in which the followers of Dionysus dismembered animals and ate their raw

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meat as a sacrament804: that's another way to appraise the supreme sacrifice of all those savior-heroes. In some versions of the myth 805, Dionysus himself is a (willing) victim thereof, much as Orpheus is. Some 806 claim pre-dynastical Egyptian tombs attest to ritual dismemberment, also attested in other geographical areas. Abraham in his capacity of Islamic patriarch tears apart three birds, only to bring them back to life by calling upon them.

Benn807 documents how popular self-immolation was in the refined tradition of Chinese Buddhism. In Tibet/Bhutan, Buddhist ritual Choed sees an idol representing the human body being cut to pieces and fed to the religious figure presiding over the ceremony; another such idol is -in another Buddhist Vajrayana ritual- cut to pieces, and offered to the god Mahakala.

A primeval body the gods -or other quintessential forces- tear apart in order to create the world – such as Hindu Purusha- is also present in many myths; Mesopotamian Marduk -for one- subdues and dismembers Tiamat, for example. A Algonquin myth claimed maize was born when a sympathetic deity 808 expressly 804 As with any part of myth, some scholars contend this never happened concretely. It does not really matter, because what counts is the allegory, the symbolic value.

805 Ancient myths often have versions that may be at a more or less significant variance with one another. The goddess of love Aphrodite could either be born from the foam ( aphros) that the impact of Ouranos' (sky) testicles severed by his son Kronos (a sort of time) had caused over the ocean; or she could be the daughter of Zeus (Roman Jupiter) and Dione (the name reveals the same root as in Zeus, Dios...). She may also be(come) ourania (celestial one) when representing sublimated love � [Jan] Vansina offers one instance of this when he observes that African informants may provide "several conflicting testimonies" which they all insist are "true" (Bird 1979:76).

806 Wright 1979.

807 2007.

808 In some representations the deity's garb and headdress are similar to a maize plant. The deity wrestling the mortal recalls Jacob wrestling with god (Genesis 32:24ss). As well, there is the circular motif of the mysterious

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asked to be killed and buried answering to the prayers of those anxious about the sustenance of elderly people too old to hunt:

There is a [Polynesian] girl who loves to bathe in a certain pool. A great eel is also swimming around in the pool, and day after day he scrapes across her thigh as she is bathing. Then one fine day he turns into a young man and becomes her lover for a moment. Then he goes away and comes back again, and goes away and comes back again. But one time when he comes, he says, just as the plumed man in the Algonquin story had said, "Now, next time I come to visit you, you must kill me, cut off my head, and bury it." She does so, and there grows from the buried head a coconut tree. And when you pick a coconut, you can see it is just the size of a head.

(Campbell&Moyers 1991:87).

In New Guinea, there's a wonderful, wonderful event where the poor kid has to stand up to fight a man with a mask. They tell him that he's fighting a god. The man lets the kid win and then takes the mask off and puts it on the boy. Now, it's important that the mask is in no way defeated. -...- The mask represents the power that is shaping the society and is shaping the boy. After the mask is put on him, he is a representative of that power. That's a big story.

There are quite a number of examples like that around the world.

-...-All these initiation rites are based on the motif of death and resurrection. You think you're dead, really dead, and suddenly "bing," you've broken past it. You've got a new expanded life. What has died is the infantile ego.(Campbell&Boa 1989:67-8).

Other deities may be dismembered with new crops growing from their scattered body parts809; or such parts (such as Horus' all-seeing eye) may come to stranger met by happenstance, who turns out to be superhuman (King, god, angel...). “ One Algonquin story about the origin of maize tells of a boy who has a vision. In this vision, he sees a young man who comes to him with green plumes on his head and who invites the boy to a wrestling match. He wins and comes again and wins again, and so on. But one day the young man tells the boy that next time the boy must kill him and bury him and take care of the place where he has been buried. The boy then does what he has been told to do, and kills and buries the beautiful youth. In time, the boy returns and sees the corn growing where the plumed young man has been buried, or planted, you might say� (Campbell&Moyers 1991:87).

809 In Polinesian lore (Campbell 1960:190ss), the coconut grows after a mythical being's (a magical eel likened to a mystical phallus, an ersatz of snakes once unknown in the region) head had been buried in the aftermath of a feud between two heroes fighting over a woman (=identified with the Moon).

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play independent roles. In Brianza (Italy), peasants of bygone times turned blades against the clouds: should one hailstone be destroyed in a collision with the blade (=piercing), the hailstorm would cease. Piercing and/or sparagmos purvey new, auspicious beginnings. The corpses of Russia's Imperial family were dismembered and defaced with acid before a summary burial under Bolshevik supervision: the new Soviet era had just begun.

Did drunk Hercules sleep with 50 girls in one night, or with one different girl every night for 50 days? The point isn't that, really: the point is Hercules' bottomless virility that reflects his divine parentage (as in the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset, England). Sri Lankan mythical prince Jivahatta -son of a demon princess and a King- is so alluring all women lust after him so that he literally dies of exhaustion after endless, frantic sex encounters: he's reborn as the demon Kalu Kumara who persecutes women.

Mythical Hindu ascetic Saubhari Muni (Srimad-Bhagavatam, V-X century CE) married the 50 daughters of a reluctant King, one of many Kings having 50 daughters (Danaus and Thespius had 50 daughters as well).

Yet the cult of typically exorbitant erect phalluses as fertility or protection devices was present in Ancient Greece and Rome and in today's Thailand and Japan, where appropriate shrines exist. A giant, erect phallus is also associated with Tibetan Buddhist Saint Drukpa Kunle; or with depiction of Hercules (such as 796

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the Cerne Abbas giant). Ages earlier, hyperpotent phalli were associated with Shiva, whose anaiconic representation (lingam) is generally believed to represent an erect phallus, or -by Eck810- the world axis. Within Japanese Buddhist temple pagodas, a central pillar that reaches skywards is assimilated to the Buddha himself.

The golden phallus Osiris crafted for her semi-revived husband Osiris represents resurrection. Egyptian monkey god Babi, hailed as Osiris' eldest son, was endowed with a cosmic, hyperpotent phallus. Babi's phallus is so cosmic to serve as mast for the underworld ferryboat, and as bolt on the doors of heaven. Babi's virility is so pronounced that his name means “dominant male (=bull) of baboons� eons before new age anthropologists and offhand personality coaches peddled the concept to the oblivious masses:

It is likely that the same underlying neurological circuits that produce the sensations described by mystics also produce the sensations of fear, awe, and ecstasy that are experienced by combatants during battle.

This is rarely discussed outside of military circles, but it is a wellknown phenomenon during battle. This state of intense arousal is very similar to the state of arousal felt during copulation; indeed, some soldiers will candidly admit that during the heat of battle, they often experience a kind of sexual arousal, leading in some cases to ejaculation. (MacNeill 2011:72).

Prometheus underwent daily sparagmos as an eagle by day ate his liver811, which grew back by night only to be eaten again. Horus' opponent -his 810 1994.

811 In Buddhist Lakkhanasamyutta, Moggallana -one of Gautama Buddha's head disciples- announces how he learnt that a dishonest fortune teller who cheated her clients had been reborn as a foul, rotting creature angry birds tormented.

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uncle Set- loses his virility in the battle, while Horus loses an eye; the Grail King equally loses his virility in a clash with a Muslim knight; Attis -the consort of the great goddess Cybele- castrates himself; Ouranos loses his virility at the hands of his son Kronos; the patriarchs in the Mahabharata are born blind (King Dhritarashtra), and sickly (King Pandu): echoes of ritual dismemberment.

Such allegories may be more or less explicit. Shiva as world teacher wears both a male and a female earring. Achilles, Tiresias, Thor, Hercules and Arjuna (the Hindu hero of the Bhagavad-Gita) all served, dressed up as, turned into and/or lived in the garb of a woman. More explicitly, Arjuna's garb was an eunuch's following a goddess' curse. Seer Tiresias -possibly attested in Minoan culture at Knossos around the XIV century BCE- turned into a woman, then back into a man.

Thor dressed up as a bride to impersonate Freya so that he might recover his hammer a giant had stolen while he was asleep:

other echoes of allegorical

dismemberment.

Many religions include sublimated sparagmos elements (for example, the savior's mystical body). Cross-culturally, ritual dismemberment is enacted in order to cleanse sins. In Latin America, average believers have their hands or feet pierced re-enacting the crucifixion; Hindu or Sri Lankan devotees walk on nails, or pierce their bodies in various ways in order to purify their souls: they are often lifted up, just as Jesus was. Hindu or Buddhist relics or icons are also lifted up, typically on an

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elephant's head. Messengers chosen by lot were charged to deliver pleas to Thracian/Dacian deity Zalmoxis by being hurled, thus pierced, on a bed of swords according to Herodotus.

Much as there is a 'holy' form of sparagmos, whereby the godly saviorhero willingly offers himself up for sacrifice, there is an unholy, cursed form: vampires and their kin sustain their diabolic immortality (a form of contaminated resurrection) by feeding on their victims' blood:

That is why I have said to the people of Israel, 'You must never eat or drink blood--neither you nor the foreigners living among you.' (Leviticus 17:12).

Muslim customs prescribe to drain the blood from the veins of animals slaughtered to be halal (=permissible food).

The animistic obsession with certain body parts (eyes, phalli, hands etc) -or the possible remains of (ritual) dismemberment- is really ingrained in the human mind. In ancient Mesopotamia, eye goddesses (=kind of skeleton eye figures) existed, later superposed with Inanna; the same skeletal eyes recur in rock art of the pre-Hispanic Caribbean (IX-X century CE or older).

The Vietnamese religion of Cao Dai (established in 1926) chose 'the allseeing eye' as a emblem, often embedded in a triangle according to the best Egyptian and masonic imagery:�the pyramid form [in dynastic Egypt] is one of the forms used

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for the sun”812. The birth of guaranà was brought about burying the eyes 813 of the loved child of a cacique814 killed by the forces of evil envious rivals had summoned; in ancient myths so many plants, animals and places come into existence when a holy person (nymph, godly human, demi-god...) dies and is transformed. In the late Roman Empire, violence against imperial portraits was punished as if against the Emperor's person.

The dissection theater became a popular social gathering place to enjoy anatomy lessons as mechanical philosophy (=clockwork universe=beings as machines) triumphed in the XVII century, and well into the XX. Libertinism soon arose as well as both a lifestyle, and a literary genre.

The anatomy craze generated networks of underground body snatchers at work in graveyards to surreptitiously supply a burgeoning industry. In 1828 in Edinburgh, Burke&Hare killed 16 have-nots to supply anatomists with fresh, intact bodies: this led to the 1832 Anatomy Act to curtail such gruesome -yet widespreadpractices.

Death was omnipresent in the Victorian era, as epidemics culled large swaths of population. Being buried alive was a significant preoccupation, which -merging with a thick layer of legends about the undead- prompted -well into the 812 Hale 2009: Celestial Gateway At Giza.

813 The fruit of guaranà resembles a human eye.

814 Aborigenal Brazilian chieftain.

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beginning of the XX century- the invention of funerary contraptions coffins and graves might be equipped with in order to stave the dreadful possibility off.

Anatomy museums were popular in Victorian times as a venue to teach moral -and medical- lessons about rampant sexually transmitted diseases in an apparently forbearing, prude but otherwise very promiscuous society:

Public anatomy museums were tolerated, or even recommended, by medical men, until the mid-1850s, when museums at which treatments for venereal disease were sold became targets for antiquackery campaigns, in the course of which the medical profession made much of the “obscene� content of anatomy shows. The Obscene Publications Act was first employed against an anatomy museum in 1860 in Leeds, but London police and magistrates remained indifferent until the medical profession funded private prosecutions in the 1870s, when the last of the public anatomy museums was closed down [such museums, however, survived in other Commonwealth countries up to WWI]. (Bates 2008: no page).

During the nineteenth century, museums dedicated to the collection, preservation, and display of human anatomy became familiar institutions in America and Europe. The anatomical museum operated under one of two guises: popular museums run as commercial establishments, or medical museums attached to a professional medical society or college. Over the course of the century, the medical establishment sought to cement its authority over anatomy by legitimating its expertise through specialized training. Doctors criticized commercial anatomical museums, which were eventually closed under accusations of obscenity, yet there was considerable overlap in the types of objects on display at both museums. (Wolf 2010:i).

No significant religious divide emerged for a long time: dissection 815 815 The term vivisection allegedly appeared only in 1702. Before such term entered common parlance, doubts may persist regarding the state -whether living or not- of the body being dealt with.

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could indifferently be hailed as the exploration (=discovery mytheme) of either a vaguely deistic or atheistic mechanical universe; or as the exploration of a theatrical representation of god's work816. The obsession with the dissected (mummified, treated...) human body as a spectacle, whether to vindicate deistic or atheistic agendas, is an evergreen one periodically resurfacing after temporary eclipses, and well alive in our time, as egyptologist Bob Brier shows in the TV series Unwrapped (2000).

In the refined mystical tradition of Vajrayana Buddhist Choed 817, the advanced practitioner invites both gods and demons to tear apart his own (mystical) body: a tantric feast in the attempt to overcome ego and fears. Romulus -the mythical founder of Rome later known as the god Quirinus- underwent ritual dismemberment:”However, even on this great occasion there were, I believe, a few dissentients who secretly maintained that the king had been torn to pieces by the senators. ”818. He was even made to appear as divine grantor of future greatness to his doubting subjects:

The loss of the king had left the people in an uneasy mood and suspicious of the senators, and Proculus, aware of the prevalent temper, conceived the shrewd idea of addressing the Assembly.

‘Romulus,’ he declared, ‘the father of our City, descended from heaven at dawn this morning and appeared to me. In awe and 816 An analogy with the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura, free examination of scriptures by each individual.

Cfr. 1554 oration in praise of anatomy by Melanchthon (1497-1560), German reformer, and Luther's collaborator in the systematization of early Protestant theology.

817 Allegedly introduced by XI century Tibetan female Saint Machig Labdroen.

818 Livy 1960:33-51.

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reverence I stood before him, praying for permission to look upon his face without sin. “Go,” he said, “and tell the Romans that by heaven’s will my Rome shall be capital of the world. Let them learn to be soldiers. Let them know, and teach their children, that no power on earth can stand against Roman arms.” Having spoken these words, he was taken up again into the sky.’ (Livy 1960:33-51).

And until then I had a covering on my face,''* as I trembled. .And the Lord called me with his own mouth and said to me. Come hither.

Enoch, to my holy word. .And he lifted me up''" and brought me near to the door. .And I looked. with my face down. -...- .And my face was transformed until I was unable to see (Book Of Enoch in Sparks 1984 203-223).

The fact that no one could find so much as one of his bones in the funeral pyre convinced men that Hercules had been raised to Olympus. Aristaeus, son of Apollo, had been taken into heaven because, like the Old Testament Enoch, he was no more to be seen.

Aeneas was known to have joined the gods because after a battle no trace of him could be found, the same evidence that convinced Elijah‘s disciples that their master had been taken into heaven.

Romulus, first king of Rome, had been seen rising into the firmament, confirmed later by no one being able to find a scrap of his flesh or his armor. (Price 2007:55).

It appears that Luke has drawn the story of the centurion’s son from the wider gospel tradition, as it appears in both Matthew 8:5-13 (hence in Q) and John 4:46-54. It had already been derived from the Elijah story by early Christian scribes. But Luke has decided as well to add a new Jesus tale, unparalleled in other gospels, modeled upon the 1 Kings sequel to the story of Elijah and the widow. Whereas Elijah later raises from the dead the widow’s son, Jesus next comes upon a funeral procession and raises the man about to be buried, again a widow’s son, this time from Nain. Luke has decided to reserve one feature from the first Elijah episode to use in his second Jesus episode: the initial meeting with the widow at the city gate of Zarephath, which he makes the gate of Nain (even though historical Ain had no gate!). (Price 2011:171-2).

Of course, many mystics have recounted the same experience of being afraid to look upon the face of the divine; here it is about Proculus and Romulus, while there 803

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it is about St. Hildegard of Bingen and Saint Mary.

Both Vishnu and Gautama Buddha are represented with a (series of) serpent hood(s) around their heads. In one case, it represents the cosmic serpent upon which Vishnu sleeps, whereas in the other it represents the serpent Muchalinda, who rose to protect Gautama Buddha during a universal storm while he was meditating at Muchalinda pond; Shiva, too, carries a serpent around his neck. Aurobindo calls the quintessential, diffused godhead spirit bound to descend upon mankind supermind; Jewish mystics talk about the ten perfections of god to be realized.

What is war, then, if not sparagmos on a cosmic scale? This may explain the popularity of the Imitatio Christi819 or of the “renewal through struggle” 820 motif during WWI: other ways to convey the elation of the kind, sulking herosavior willingly meeting his doom. Why such gruesome choice? As the movie The

Passion Of The Christ exemplifies -in a sort of Braveheart minus the Scottish 819 “Wilfred Owen draws the same equation between his soldiers and the Christ who approaches His Crucifixion.

In a letter to Osbert Sitwell written in early July, 1918” (Fussell 1975-2, no page ).

820 “Myths of war arise initially because of the need to assign meaning to the individual experience and suffering of the past, and each of the myths of the Western Front has a particular social role in helping to make sense not only of the past but also of the present. The role of ‘‘loss, anger and futility’’ is to permit the expression of anger at the suffering that so many endured, and to grieve for those who were lost. The need for these expressions of feeling, although it may have weakened with the passing of time, remains strong. ‘‘Renewal through struggle’’, no less ‘‘authentic’’ than ‘‘loss, anger and futility’’, is a myth that asserts the worth of military and patriotic values, allowing those who fought on the Western Front to believe that, if they were on the winning side, they faithfully completed a worthwhile task while, if they were the losers, they did their best in fighting for what they believed, and for the survival of their nation. Their ‘‘truth’’ in the historical sense is only one aspect of their validity, since ‘‘Myths are stories told to answer some human need, so we should not feel overly surprised if they respond more faithfully to such needs than to the demands of abstract logic, of science, or even of morality. “ (Galer 2004:184)

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baggage-, the 'hour zero' of the founding myth, the suffering that always accompanies savior-heroes, shall be amplified and maximized to honorably reflect the historical and spiritual value; sparagmos was the best way the ancients could think of.

Some suggest the sacrificial dismemberment is bound to fuel and substantiate the ongoing cycle of creation and destruction that is the universe.

According to Bruce Lincoln, alloforms -or alternative shapes of the same substanceidentify correspondences between parts of the dismembered body and constituents of the universe:

Executioners dehumanized their victims as they disembowelled and dismembered them, as did some of those who watched these gruesome exhibitions of annihilation. Officials deliberately disfigured the face of the Franciscan John Jones, by scratching, bruising, and blackening it with powder in 1598. In the case of George Nichols and Richard Naxley, executed at Oxford nine years earlier -...- Ironically, this only fuelled the spontaneous canonization of these priests as saints and fostered the enthusiastic pursuit of their relics. Their fragmentation and display at the behest of the Tudor and Stuart regime only made the bodies of the martyrs more accessible to the faithful and more available for appropriation. (Walsham 2010:128).

Even artists fragmented the body. Liturgical and artistic treatment of relics came increasingly to underline the fact that they are body parts (Bynum in Ellison 2007:6).

The theory proposed here posits that religious experience and practice in humans are a consequence of the expansion of the dopamine-rich ventral brain systems that, in other mammalian species, mediate behavioral interactions with the most distant portions of the surrounding 3-D space. Specifically, it is argued that religion represents the extension of distant extrapersonal space and time into 805

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abstract and cosmic realms—e.g., heaven and eternity—even as it relies on mammalian brain pathways that ordinarily oversee wholebody, head- and oculomotor orienting and exploration in the distal portions of actual 3-D space. (Previc 2006:501).

Naturally, sparagmos reflects its mythic nature, for myth always teems with superlative characters (the strongest, wisest, holiest, cruelest, richest, fastest etc man who ever lived/the most beautiful woman of all etc) and events (the greatest war, the biggest slaughter, the most glorious expedition of all etc).

Well before the same professedly happened to Jesus, King Nimrod killed seventy thousand children in fear of the birth of the celestial baby Abraham 821. Well outside the Mediterranean and Mesopotamian worlds, Indian King Kansa ordered a massacre in order to kill the divine child Krishna.

An archetypal interpretation of threats against a divine child at birth – following hints from Suzuki Roshi, Campbell, Moore and others- may see every child as a potentially divine being (=new beginning) against whom life starts unleashing its own predicament: life is suffering, just as Gautama Buddha said.

Why is that so? Beside the historical and cultural legacy, it works as it always has in myths. In the Iliad, Ulysses is the cleverest; Achilles the greatest warrior; Ajax the greater is the strongest; Nestor the most venerable etc. It would only confuse things to have twenty heroes all equally credited with being the 821 Ginzberg 1909:123. It is possible to extrapolate how much bigger the number of slaughtered children ought to be if presented according to today's levels of human population.

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strongest, swiftest, or with having the longest spear or the heaviest shield 822.

In modern times, the 'great nation' cannot tolerate anarchy and lawlessness in proximity to its borders and thus decides to 'pacify' the situation: such was the explanation given for the 1911 Italian invasion of Ottoman Libya, the 1975 Indian annexation of Sikkim, and for the 1978 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

The 'strategy' may also involve individual concepts: the United States and freedom; Italy and cultural heritage, etc: the 'shoe' of the exemplum shall fit in the minutest detail. This even when uncollected garbage mounts to the first floor, and classical ruins crumble in poor state of repair (in Italy); or when “making the world safe for democracy” for the USA only possibly amounts to:

A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq. The BBC's Panorama programme has used US and Iraqi government sources to research how much some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding. A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations. The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies. (Corbin 2008: no page, emphasis added).

Much as Hegel tended to see the French revolution as heralding “the end of history”, a curtain that irrevocably signposted the end of quintessential sociopolitical dilemmas, so did other generations with 410, 476, 1453, 1492, 1789, 1848, WWI, WWII, the cold war or the implosion of the Soviet regime (for example 822 Goldman relays the same concerns with fabulous weapons as he discusses (2003: Epics Of The Gods) Ugaritic myths from Canaan (XIV-XI century BCE, well before Homer).

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Fukuyama)...

Chilean Fascist intellectual Serrano directed unrestricted praise to Adolf Hitler, which – as Serrano very well knew- constituted a likely criminal offence in several jurisdictions. British historian and government adviser Toynbee -on the other hand- heaped praise upon the United States as ideal harbingers of the 'universal state' of our epoch.

Curiously enough, this theory of a chain of succeeding universal empires as epitomes of stages of human civilization's development in the broader scheme of whichever providential blueprint one may want to see at work, is also the gist behind the sci-fi Dune suite of books.

Mormon Prophet Smith -a master Freemason823, and apparently convicted of money-digging in New York in 1826- prophesied in 1832 about an upcoming civil war in the USA, which would engulf the entire world. Another founder possibly linked with Freemasonry, Jehovah Witnesses' Charles T. Russell, also foretold of a catastrophe doomed to unfold in 1914.

Different people freeze aghast reading the ominous signs

of fate

(quantum entanglement, Chi, Ain Sof, Prana, Haché, Pneuma, Num, Mana or any other all-pervasive force) in this, that or another historical event, slaughter, natural 823 “Joseph Smith—lieutenant general of the Nauvoo Legion, mayor of Nauvoo, prophet of God, master mason, and candidate for the presidency of the United States of America” (Wicks & Foister 2005:4).

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disaster, accession or overthrow much as elderly people recurrently muse about the time of their youth as having the best music ever:

Here I would like to call attention to a possible misunderstanding which may be occasioned by the term "synchronicity." I chose this term because the simultaneous occurrence of two meaningfully but not causally connected events seemed to me an essential criterion. I am therefore using the general concept of synchronicity in the special sense of a coincidence in time of two or more causally unrelated events which have the same or a similar meaning, in contrast to "synchronism," which simply means the simultaneous occurrence of two events. Synchronicity therefore means the simultaneous occurrence of a certain psychic state with one or more external events which appear as meaningful parallels to the momentary subjective state- and, in certain cases, vice versa. (Jung 1960:34).

Vandiver824 raises a cogent objection about personifying cultures: it isn't possible -for her- that any given culture may have collective dreams, any more than it can be thirsty or sleepy. That's an old contention that goes back to debates between the linear and morphological approach to human cultures. In other words, some -for example the eminent but today unknown British erudite H.T. Buckle writing in the mid XIX century- consider cultures as coherent living organisms going through distinct life cycles; others reject such approach in favor of other evolutionary strategies such as the linear one.

Aurobindo's -whose statue resides in the Indian Parliament- nationalism, too, can be seen as a collection of XIX century attitudes and arguments that are widely reported in other writers advocating the necessary actualization on the 8242000: why is myth.

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earthly plane of the providential existence -this time- of no individual heroes, prophets or saviors the almighty set apart well before birth, but of various States such as Italy, Greece, Romania, Germany, Yugoslavia, Poland with the same mystical elation:

For instance, India is free and her freedom was necessary if the Divine Work was to be done. -...- Afterwards the work for the Divine will become more possible and it may well be that the dream, if it is a dream, of leading the world towards the spiritual light, may even become a reality.-...- India today is free but she has not achieved unity.... The old communal division into Hindus and Muslims tends now to have hardened into a permanent political division of the country. It is to be hoped that this settled fact will not be accepted as settled for ever or as anything more than. temporary expedient. For if it lasts, India may be seriously weakened, even crippled... . This must not be; the partition must go...By whatever means, in whatever way, the division must go. (MAISF001 no date :Sri Aurobindo on himself) It is difficult to ascertain whether Aurobindo -who was schooled in Britain- is here more under the influence of Hegelianism (the State as preferred vehicle for the world spirit to get to know itself in the actualization of its own inner purpose) than Hindu culture.

Even those who wanted to see Aurobindonian mysticism as apolitical, or committed only to the anti-British Indian nationalism and insurrection the guru had vehemently embraced, were in for a surprise as:

Liberal imperialism was redeemable; totalitarianism was not. -...concomitantly, the Motherextnote asserted that those who expressed e xtnote Mirra Alfassa, “India's (Jewish) mother -...- How Mirra Alfassa went from being a French bohemian to an Indian goddess -...-The de facto goddess of this town is a Sephardic Jew from France. �

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support for the Axis in word or deed were equally servants of the evil forces of the Asura. This was a matter of yogic discipline. Aurobindo was using the mystical forces at his disposal to work against Hitler and Tojo through Churchill. Thus those sadhaks who supported the Axis necessarily opposed their guru and the whole system of yoga he taught and embodied. (Lorenzo 1993:158).

It is notable the fixation with mystical oneness to be pursued at all costs (if...then) in the face of modern nation-States being just more or less incoherent administrative jumbles of cultures, creeds and origins. Germany, Italy and India coalesced from a diverse lump of principalities that shared little cultural commonalities, and -in India and Germany- even different religions (Protestants and Catholics in Germany; Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs in India).

Colonial powers (France in the case of Italy; Britain in the case of India) can even be credited with 'inventing' the idea of India and Italy for commodious purposes (orientalism in the British case; a client State for the Napoleonic Empire and its revolutionary rhetoric). Such glib colonial inventions could be later appropriated by last minute nationalist minutemen, and votaries of hegemonic forces (the Indian congress movement; Piedmont in Italy; Prussia in Germany), as if they had been in existence forever.

Aurobindo Ghose musing about India is no different from the various activists saying the exact same things about Italy, Yugoslavia or Germany generations before him; or from Italian Fascism tooting the Hegelian horn to justify (Goldberg 2010: no page). (note of this writer). In Hindu ashrams (=religious communities), the male chief philosopher was often accompanied by a female counterpart called “mother�. (note of this writer).

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dirigiste statism at unprecedented levels:

The opposite sentiment, the contentment of a tree with its roots, the happiness of knowing oneself not to be wholly arbitrary and accidental, but rather as growing out of a past as its heir, flower and fruit and so to be exculpated, even justified, in one's existence-this is what one now especially likes to call the proper historical sense .

(Nietzsche 1874:20).

To explain this situation, the existence of a higher level of the sangha was posited. It was called "the order of the four quarters" or the "universal order" (ciiturdisa-sarigha) and consisted of all the disciples of the Buddha. It transcended time and place and included the monks of the past, present, and future; it encompassed all geographical areas; it continued forever. Monasteries and other buildings all belonged to the order of the four quarters; it was represented by the set of precepts that governed all of the present orders. (Hirakawa 1990:64).

The very idea of a generalized collective unconscious (=Bastian's elementary ideas, Hindu marga) overarching humankind, and of localized manifestations (=Bastian's ethnic ideas, Hindu desi) is in fact an understandable development on the basis of both Hegelian (=States as collective persons) and upanishadic/Hindu philosophy. When asked why was the deer their sacred spiritgod, an old shaman of the indigenous Mexican tribe Huichol answered:�do you see any elephants around here?�825.

Historiography, then, can be construed as the collective unconscious' localized coalescence: “the great moments in the struggle of individuals form a chain, that in them the high points of humanity are linked throughout

825 Allione 1991.

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millennia”,“the need to make the experience of the past into the present”.

Many authors -championing what some refer to as non-primordialismhave already punched holes in any theory that -in reality or in their eyes onlyseems to accredit notions even remotely associated with race, ethnic groups, ancestral heritage and so forth:'we are all immigrants', or 'our ancestors all were strangers coming from all over at some point or another no matter what the circumstances'.

The rhetoric associated with primordialism is neatly classified as more or less commodious and clumsy variations on William Tell, Paul Bunyan or -rarely and at the very best- Davy Crockett narratives:”Davy Crockett, frontiersman, U. S. Senator, and war hero, first told tales about himself and later had tales told and written about him. The Crockett almanacs, published between 1835 and 1856, collected new and old tall motifs.”826.

Their objections are often on target, as nation-States are patchworks built through military conquest or fortuitous annexation of (very ) diverse territories and populations and not (according to Isidore's definition often misapplied as he was writing about gens) multitudo ab uno principio orta (a multitude sharing a single origin).

826 Brown 1983:4.

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What is offered in exchange for supposedly non-existing races, however, is a more or less equally politicized, artificial and commodious definitions resting on equally emotional terms enshrouding equally unsubstantial artificial kin groups:”All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.”.

For example the romantic imagery of the perpetual immigrant is offered; pseudo-marxist fixations with exploitation hierarchies; the cult of hybridism, exogamy, neophilia (=being attracted to potential sexual partners who look different from one's own group), and exoticism are eulogized; the 'human heart' (or other existential concept) causes one to gasp; 'the human race' (or other pseudo-scientific romantic concepts) and the longing for antediluvian oneness make one rise to a standing ovation:”Wonder you will have to answer to the children of the sky -...Right here, spread love, everybody join together now One race, one heart, love and unity, everybody sing”827.

It necessarily follows that the blind frenzy that saw monarchs grabbing whatever territory they could for as long as they managed shall be re-branded to satisfy aesthetic sense and to square with whatever morality is dominant this season (or century...).

827 The invitation of a 2006 song ( World Hold On) popular a few years ago. In the music video, a sweet child with his doggie (=puppies and children) saves the world from an approaching meteor (=worlds in collision) by building a spaceship with garage scraps. He then (in a dream of course) meets the meteor in outer space, destroys it throwing basket balls at it, then comes back as a hero to a frantic press conference. As the video goes on, a charming Negro voice sings, thus bringing people 'in the zone' with popcorn gnostic truth.

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The ongoing trade at bed-, sword- or cannon-point of territories, whose residents where branded like cattle to reflect their new allegiance, is restyled to mean a sort of compassionate labour of mercy in tune with elusive providential plans, and/or more or less manifest destinies.

The chieftain counting how many more peasants, fields, cows and horses he can squeeze to do his bidding -and being so open-minded not to mind the cows' color and the horses' breed- meets the 'progressive' social alchemist pledged to the end all prejudices and differences:

Remember what I am about to tell you. In order that a Calabrian boy might be at home in Turin, and that a boy of Turin be welcome in Reggio di Calabria, our country fought for fifty years and thirty thousand Italians died. You must respect each other, love each other, and anyone who would offend his class-mate because he was not born in our province would render himself ever unworthy to raise his eyes when the flag of our country passes." -...- They come from all parts of Italy. Look at them; one can almost recognize them from their faces: the Sicilians, the Sardinians, the Neapolitans, the Lombards.(De Amicis 1918:16-17,32).

It's no wonder the inconsequential jumbles of creeds, cultures and origins that are modern so-called nation-States end up looking increasingly like the prodigious hybrids the human mind is so obsessed with: apples and oranges can be added after all.

In the last decades, professional European soccer has changed. Loyalty to a given team, in turn tied to a particular city or neighborhood, is nowadays directed

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towards corporations foreign, international business moguls often control, whose star athletes championing the city or neighborhood are foreigners (of color) coming from afar to save the day just as mythology demands.

It also ensues a fabricated (engineered etc) sense of eusociality (=instinct to commit acts of altruism, including the supreme sacrifice, for the benefit of the group) has to be manufactured, imagined, or legislated on a recurring basis. Such was the extension of U.S citizenship to the dominion of Puerto Rico in 1917, just in time to serve the 'great nation' in WWI.

This

follows

perfectly

modern

psychologists'

prescription:

a

superordinate goal is needed in order to reconcile and unite otherwise diverse or opposed groups such as the incoherent jumbles of creeds and origins camouflaged under

the

commodious

blanket

of

“...ness”

(Britishness,

Italianness,

Yugoslavianness...) bards for hire gathering across the dominant regional power 828 crafted to serve the purpose.

The totemic piacular rituals [=atonement for sin] of yore are replaced by a “daily plebiscite” as Renan would have in 1882 (Qu'Est Ce Qu'Une Nation) to defend the idea of nation the French way:”L'existence d'une nation est (pardonnezmoi cette métaphore) un plébiscite de tous les jours ”. Contemporary high sins against the totem may include tax evasion; heterodox views about some 'necessary 828 Prussia in the case of Germany; Ile de France in the case of France; the Kingdom of Piedmont in Italy; Serbia in Yugoslavia; Castille in Spain; England in the United Kingdom...

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war'; simply voicing how weird some other groups that belong to the horde speak, look or act.

The diverse horde in fusion macadamizes its unity, and pledges ongoing allegiance to a superordinate imaginary community. Meanwhile, bards for hire, political hacks and pen-jockeys working freelance are busy 'rediscovering' or 'documenting' the immemorial, unbroken, godly heritage that was the horde's.

A pseudo-rac(ial)ist perspective is not necessary to the creation of artificial kins: the “cosmic race” might be the apocalyptic embodiment of the ethnocultural soup that was Mexico in the early XX century, much as lusotropicalismo829 was Fascist Portugal's rally cry. Exceptionalism may wear as many masks as adventitious opportunity and fleeting circumstances might dictate.

Certainly not followers of Marxist doctrine, a diverse cohort of nationalists, liberals and Socialists alike in Italy pined for foreign policy adventurism. In very open terms, they articulated the colonial war with Turkey in 1911, then WWI in 1915, as a “renewal through struggle” endeavor to mold a nation out of an inconsistent geographic ensemble inhabited by an incoherent array of antipodal phenotypes and cultures.

Presented as some sort of Darwinian crucible of cosmic proportions that 829 The Fascist regime in Portugal adapted various doctrines to signify how Portugal was a peculiar nation: pluricontinental, multiracial and multicultural since its inception, thus favoring exceptionalist doctrines to justify colonialism as the Portuguese way.

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would cause evolution to jump ahead according to the providential blueprint of a chauvinistic version of history, WWI ended leaving behind millions of casualties, blighted natural landscapes, ruined cities, and an eerie crowd of veteran amputees with prosthetic limbs, widows, orphans and gueules cassĂŠes (broken faces): the horribly disfigured veterans that made the freak shows so popular in the Belle

Epoque look fit for children's books.

In France, Ile de France reached southwards after stakes had been set ablaze, cities had been pillaged and bullion had been expropriated by thuggish gentry from the North the Pope had summoned to deal with heretics in the XII-XIII century.

This also explains how in recent decades ethno-cultural grievances (Canada, China, Belgium...) receive free passes only under the cover of linguistic grievances: in the name of French language, Flemish language, Tibetan language...

All ethno-racial connotations have been expurgated from the narrative that adopts the viewpoint of Belle Epoque nation-States and their fixation with languages as depersonalized transmission belt behind the food processor of acculturation: only some people can be ethno-racially French-Canadian, Tibetan or Flemish, for example, whereas everybody can learn Dutch, Tibetan or French.

The linguistic fixation can even exist as a severed head in wait for a

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body: esperanto was artificially engineered in the Belle Epoque by Jewish-Polish intellectual Zamenhof as language for a democratic, and prejudice-free new humanity.

It all goes back again to the Hellenistic world: to be civilized meant speaking koiné Greek: regional, ethno-cultural and civic allegiances had lost most importance under the rule of Hellenistic monarchs. Earlier still, Hindus believed the

Vedas had been literally heard as celestial recitation from divine creation's inner recesses gifted seers had perceived in Sanskrit, the language of the godhead. Along the same lines, Mohamed recited the Quran as the supreme god had intended in the original language of Arabic twenty centuries or more after the Vedas. Sikhs recite their sacred scriptures in the language they were intended: Punjabi. Although playing no part in both the Old or New Testament, Latin became the Catholic Church's scriptural, sacred language. English is supposed the high language of the new humanity. A quote attributed to a row of characters across the U.S political spectrum reads:” If English was good enough for Jesus, it is good enough for me”.

Interestingly enough, Hellenistic kingdoms represented a sort of postcolonial offspring of the Alexandrine Empire. The only realm where the fixation with breeds and bloodlines still stands from where it was planted during the Victorian era is the animal realm: dog and cattle breeding.

The point isn't moot. The mythical Prester John was deemed invincible 819

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for various reasons: his incomparable wealth; his vast domains (= Prester John as Alexander's Christian doppelgaenger); the presence in his realm of springs granting eternal health and youth. Not only were his subjects innumerable, but they included a startling repertoire of wonderful and gifted races of all kinds 830, among which people with twelve arms and legs.

In a way that recalls the imagery of the Persian empire of yore, John could have hurled his diverse hordes against Muslims in order to overpower them: hybridity equals power. John's imaginary armies looked on paper as phenotypically diverse as those of all hegemonic empires; the Soviet and U.S armies are the latest examples:

It has long been observed that in nature, hybrids usually fare better than their homozygotic counterparts. This is called heterosis or hybrid vigor and is seen most noticeably in plants -...-Boyer’s theory begins with the presumption that the mind is structured to deal with five basic ontological categories: person, plant, animal, natural objects and man-made objects. In other words, the human brain is constitutionally set up to pigeonhole every object in the universe into one of only five categories.

Further, each category is associated with a set of defining characteristics which clearly define which objects belong in that category. These divisions may or may not be mutually exclusive but the mind treats them as such. In other words, every object in the universe is labeled by a distinct category, like numbers on dice, not like colors on a spectrum. -...-In Boyer’s theory, a religious idea must incorporate a fact that specifically contradicts or violates at least one defining characteristic of its ontological category (Boyer and Ramble 2001). For example, a ghost may have the form of a person but it lacks one defining quality integral to its ontological category: physical matter. (Polimeni 830 Sebenico 2005:91ss.

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2012:108,170).

Hybridity might prove eerie and/or disconcerting because it probes the depth of the “uncanny valley�: hybridity embodies that dilemma perfectly.

In the 1980-90s, third-rate U.S action movies saw an array of mestizo actors alternatively posing as Oriental (Chinese, Japanese...), Latino (Mexican, Brazilian...), American-Indian or White characters because their uncanny phenotype blurred boundaries. The same applies to (not so) vaguely androgynous adolescent boy band characters able to arouse the prurience of an homo-, bi- and heterosexual audience alike under the pretense of more or less modest vocal or dancing skills.

It goes back to human mind's immemorial fears:

The sacrificial victim and the scapegoat both represent uncontrolled nature, chaos. In the southern European village festivals they take the form of form of frightening monster-constructions parading through the streets of the town, threatening the inhabitants. The monsters, either men dressed up in costume or mechanical structures, launch attacks on the villagers, who retaliate. The ultimate and inevitable defeat of the monsters clears the village of evil and introduces societal renewal. -...- As proponents of chaos that erupt in the midst of the village festival, to be fought and expelled, they bring about renewal.

As frightening beings confronting initiates and bringing them to clearer insights into their community and their role within it, they bring about change. It can be concluded that monsters perform a vital role in the communal life of societies and in the personal life of individuals.(Posthumus 2011:85,89, emphasis added). [ XIX century museums were] famed for [their] collection of anatomical and pathological preparations containing the remains of 821

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remarkable abnormal bodies. -...- [that] are famous as much for their fantastical history as for their shocking appearance. Hunter, like some other medical men, was drawn to the physical remains of the abnormal and monstrous partly because of the stories that they told.

These stories were recorded as identities and complied from the details of the bodies’ time on display; while living and after death. The carefully created micro-history of each deformed specimen on exhibit imbued the object with a value reserved for the most remarkable and prized specimens on the market. The origin tale of this specimen, like most claims about monstrous bodies in the Georgian and Victorian periods, was fantastical to the point of sensationalism. It incorporated elements of cultural violence, exoticism, rarity and wonder, and was (in all likelihood) mostly fabricated. But the authenticity of such narratives was, and remains to be, of little importance. Many scholars have noted that the late Georgian and Victorian fascination with the abnormal body was dually manifested in anatomy exhibitions and freak shows (Giese 2012:1-2).

During the Belle Epoque, the French envied the powerful British Empire. They wondered whether the jumble of phenotypes they could assemble -from Africa to Indochina- to increase the great nation's glory and wealth could match the prodigious array of phenotypes from all over the British Empire. An endless stream of colonial troops wearing pagoda hats, Manchurian caps, fezzes or turbans would give the proud country a place under the sun.

The same train of thought goes today under the label of diversity, which alone can guarantee prosperity and never-ending development to the post-war welfare state through the contribution of waves of immigration from the antipodes: hybridity equals power in a sort of X-men kind of situation.

It is not even new, either. History presents recurring examples of

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enlightened or demented monarchs (depending on opinion, in turn driven by sociopolitical conjunctures) who sought to impose an overarching culture, and to artificially engineer a new body politic to reflect it. Alexander openly pushed for hybridity antagonizing local ethno-cultural differences, and wishing for the birth of a mixed, exogamic ruling class of Persians and Graeco-Macedonians.

Much later, the Antiocan persecution saw Antiochus IV (175-164 BCE) legislating831 to insure that all different creeds and ethno-cultural groups within his diverse domain832 came together as one people under Hellenistic culture, which prompted the Maccabean revolt in Judea. Antiochus IV Epiphanes (=god made manifest) came then to embody -in Hebrew collective consciousness- the antichrist, the archetypal arch-trickster in a long tradition that anticipated the various Nero, Diocletian etc of Christianity.

Later still, Mughal Emperor Akbar in India (1542-1605 CE) followed policies similar to Alexander's trying to engineer a new, exogamic ruling class, and to establish his Hindu and Muslim subjects on roughly equal footing under royal authority. He – like Alexander and especially Antiochus IV- also tried to reform religious customs (Din-I-Llahi) towards synchretism to accommodate the various

831 Some criticize this explanation, and claim that Antiochus IV was only after geopolitical gains or consolidation in a border area torn between Egypt and Seleucia as Seleucia was experiencing military setbacks. The present writer supposes it makes no real difference, for political regimes always use cultural and/or ethnic slogans as ancillary to more mundane geopolitical pursuits or in an attempt to stave decadence off.

832 The Seleucid domain extended from parts of Anatolia to Syria and Judea in the South; it included Persia and Bactria to the far East.

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religious traditions best (Jainism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism...) by incorporating aspects of all, such as fire worship (Hinduism, Zoroastrianism ), prohibition of animal slaughter (Jainism), etc: togetherness through belief.

All these artificial kin groups are alike, although every activist thinks that his kin group is real, based on irrefutable evidence and honest intentions, while the opponent's kin group is a tribal hallucination, a sad charade awash in the blood of the innocent, whose premises are less than laughable.

One's 'great man' -however inherently imperfect- is always an Ozymandias, impeccably above reproach; anything to the contrary amounts to a vile insinuation to slight the 'great cause'. The bards of a rival group, however, are all scandal-ridden, deranged buffoons, murderous sociopaths, slick salesmen harboring unspeakable passions or allegiances.

Such diatribes do not make the main contention go away, though, or the perplexity why parties with normative power within a designated culture (and a majority of members of that community) have an inescapable penchant for some mythologies, related rhetoric, and pathetic imagery. Isn't a series of shared moral senses833 what binds societies together?

Already Roman historian Livy seemed to grasp the concept pretty well: 833 Broadly put, what (the majority of ) people feel about sets of issues, for example sport, pornography, alcohol consumption...

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There is no reason, I feel, to object when antiquity draws no hard line between the human and the supernatural: it adds dignity to the past, and, if any nation deserves the privilege of claiming a divine ancestry, that nation is our own; and so great is the glory won by the Roman people in their wars that, when they declare that Mars himself was their first parent and father of the man who founded their city, all the nations of the world might well allow the claim as readily as they accept Rome’s imperial dominion. (1960:33-51).

Livy here establishes a simple equation between Rome's military might bestowing legitimacy upon whatever myths Rome chose for itself. The same can be applied to any other historical case: generations of elated leftists and 'progressives' sang the glory of the USSR as workers' paradise. When the Soviet regime collapsed out of its economical rather than political failure, the political, logistical, human and economical miseries that lurked behind the muscled curtain - whose extent had evaded even the most anti-communist sovietologists- appeared in full sight.

For a short while the Napoleonic or Fascist regimes (and their countless imitations) were touted as the miraculous combination of oligarchy, tyranny, dirigisme and yet western mass-democracy, only to be forever berated later as bizarre experiments in mind-control, war and mass-murder by deranged buffoons.

Tyranny834 here is not utilized to emotionally denounce the exaggerated figure of the demagogue, freak, mass-murderer or squanderer:

The reason is, that in the way that the Greeks imagined the figure of the tyrant, as projected in the fifth and fourth centuries, he took on the features of the hero of legend, an individual at once elect yet 834 The precise definition of Weber's charismatic form of authority with no need for neologisms.

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accursed. By rejecting all the rules that the Greeks regarded as the basis for communal life, the tyrant placed himself beyond the socialpale (Vernant&Vidal-Naquet 1990:226).

We may shudder at the crassness of earthly heroism, of both Caesar and his imitators, but the fault is not theirs, it is in the way society sets up its hero system and in the people it allows to fill its roles. The urge to heroism is natural, and to admit it honest. (Becker 1973:4).

It is as though the heroic symphony had been arranged for two flutes and reserved for the use of dreamy opium smokers (Nietzsche 1874:34).

The figure of the tyrant-monster is known to the mythologies, folk traditions, legends, and even nightmares, of the world; and his characteristics are everywhere essentially the same. He is the hoarder of the general benefit. He is the monster avid for the greedy rights of "my and mine." The havoc wrought by him is described in mythology and fairy tale as being universal throughout his domain. This may be no more than his household, his own tortured psyche, or the lives that he blights with the touch of his friendship and assistance; or it may amount to the extent of his civilization. The inflated ego of the tyrant is a curse to himself and his world—no matter how his affairs may seem to prosper. (Campbell 1949:14).

If everybody knows what the export of cultural and political material by Fascist regimes really stood for, the U.S model is noble: “English takes you everywhere”. Culture-specific events such as Halloween can be interpreted as harmless exports occasioning bursts of consumerism, in turn a boon to the economy.

The omnipresent anglicized pidgin oozing from press releases and massmediatic culture also signposts the sunset of provincialism:” worship of a foreign god can be a political action that affirms loyalty to another nation”835.

835 Holland 2005: Classical Israelite Prophecy. He talks about the introduction of foreign gods in the Hebrew kingdoms of Judah and Israel.

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In 196 BCE -as Rome had become a dominant power in the region-, the pan hellenic Apollo oracle at Delphi acknowledged the Romans as Aeneas' descendants. For decades, the USSR was recognized in many quarters as the workers' paradise, whereas to this date aggressive U.S foreign policy does not constitute bloody imperialism, but disinterested “freedom exportation”.

The average layman might have been in favor of “the White man's burden” well into the 1930s, cathecting with hopes and worship 'Aryan heroes' a la Errol Flynn. Some may have even flirted with NSDAP-inspired nordicism and neopaganism. Today's laymen just changed their model of reference:

When the young Surinamese came to Amsterdam, however, they also found transnational youth culture waiting for them, among their peers and in the marketplace. Some became ‘disco freaks,’ with whatever this implied in terms of clothing fashions and musical taste. In their case, as elsewhere in Europe, it turned out that in one particular context at least, being black was no handicap; among the devotees of popular culture inspired from the United States and the Caribbean, belonging to an ethnic minority was rather a social asset, and Surinamers could find themselves as stylistic leaders on the dance floor. If there was a disadvantage to this, it might rather be that they were tempted to devote the larger part of their energies to the night shift. (Hannerz in Deben 2000:190, emphasis added). by 1850 almost any book by or about a Negro was in great demand [in America and England] Disdain at vulgarity is rooted in fear of the Other's difference, for difference by its very nature is subversive and carries the seeds of loss of control. By relativizing one's assumptions about the way the world is and ought to be, the Other's difference threatens the easy stability and security of seeing in the world only a reflection of ourselves. To neutralize this threat, it is necessary to devalue (and thus disempower) 827

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the Other as uncivilized, vulgar, dangerous, or even mad. (CharmĂŠ 1991:20).

As the ashes of innumerable victims of NSDAP's racial utopia were still smoldering out, Germany in ruins had become -at the end and in the aftermath of WWII- a sort of land of sexual plenty, a juke joint for both the diverse Soviet hordes, and especially U.S Afro-American soldiers coming from a segregated society at home.

All this unfolded in the face of NSDAP bombast about Chandala (nonpersons in the NSDAP theosophic worldview; literally=untouchables) ; racially pure, unbroken lineages, and the millions of victims sacrificed to this worldview. In a mixed metaphor some suggested, which is here being adapted, the importance of the concept of soul in the Medieval Catholic Church has been replaced -in all its implications- with either racial or sexual considerations (homosexuality, hybridity...).

The problem -posited by Jewish-Lithuanian philosopher Levinas – according to which metaphysics, or the cult of the absolute, leads to violent intolerance and the annihilation of whoever is 'other' and does not conform, has some historical merit applicable to any other momentous historical event (the French, Russian and Chinese revolutions; Fascist and Social-communist regimes, etc).

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The argument, however, loses most of its strength when it's reduced to a mere checking the color of the alleged perpetrator's armband, or wishful ethicizing:

Quella situazione statica, di equilibrio, in cui la psicologia individuale coincide con la psicologia collettiva, dove non c'è formazione di concetti nel confronto, ma semplice verifica di essi (That kind of static situation of equilibrium, where individual psychology comforms with collective psychology. Concepts do not arise through debate, but are simply acknowledged as being already in place) (Zorzetti 1980-1:151).

If the color matches the day's (or the epoch's) socio-political climate, the great cause or great person (of the day, of course) shall be preserved tap dancing around definitions, facts or concepts in an improbable comedy of innocence that is exposed as such when another regime turns received notions upside down sending former heroes to the gallows, and former rogues to the podium.

That's the incoherent minuet called politics, under the pretense of the irreversible (the in saecula saeculorum= forever and ever recurring several times in the

Bible)

restoration

of

quintessential,

perennial

moral/spiritual

orders

(=depersonalized, not closely tied to fleeting circumstances or priorities) accidentally perturbed. According to elated pen-jockeys in the press, (nearly) every Pope makes history: John XXIII (Vatican II); John Paul II (at times dubbed “XX century's most influential man”); Benedict XVI; Francis I...: irreversible changes in

saecula saeculorum galore.

Secular leaders aren't much different. Alexander, Octavian Augustus, 829

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Constantine, Cromwell; the Jacobin, the Bolshevik, the Fascist, the Khmer Rouge etc regimes were all convinced they were indeed changing history for good: the “new world order” concept that electrifies mythicists and fringe enthusiasts:

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. (Romans 8:28). An identical message recurs in the Bhagavad-Gita as well (possibly V century BCE).

Je vous le déclare, une page de notre histoire a été définitivement tournée. Le passé est bien mort, c'est vers un avenir de courage, d'honnêteté, de patience et d'union que le Pays doit résolument se tourner. (Marshal Petain on August 30, 1942).

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." (Revelation 21:4).

Mira adelante que no hay nada detrás Y no se puede regresar (Miguel Bosé, 1982). fever's rising high the moment of truth draws near -...-hearts on fire strong desire rages deep within ( Rocky IV soundtrack Hearts On Fire).

So they said to each other, "Weren't our hearts ablaze within us while [Jesus] was talking with us on the road and explaining the Scriptures to us?" (Luke 24:32).

It may be that the lord will see my distress and repay me with good for the cursing I am receiving today. (2 Samuel 16:12).

And the crisis of society is, of course, the crisis of organized religion too: religion is no longer valid as a hero system, and so the youth scorn it. If traditional culture is discredited as heroics, then the church that supports that culture automatically discredits itself. If the church, on the other hand, chooses to insist on its own special heroics, it might find that in crucial ways it must work against the culture, 830

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recruit youth to be anti-heroes to the ways of life of the society they live in. This is the dilemma of religion in our time. -...- The social hero-system into which we are born marks out paths for our heroism, paths to which we conform, to which we shape ourselves so that we can please others, become what they expect us to be. -...- People hunger for immortality and get it where they can: in the small family circle or in the single love object. The transference object is the locus of our conscience, of our whole cosmology of good and evil. It is not something we can simply break away from, as it embodies our whole hero-system.(Becker 1973:7,82,212).

It is as old as man and has been labeled in a number of ways, notably as Hume's law: an evaluative claim cannot logically be derived from pure statements of fact.

The same disregard for the principle of coherence is everywhere. A reckless driver who killed a sweet 'mommy of three' speeding at a certain speed may be driving within the law in another jurisdiction; in one case, it warrants barrels of tears and jittery displays of common humanity, whereas in another is just a fatality.

A drunk driver who killed a tender 'daddy of two' may have drunk what legally is a permissible amount of alcohol in another jurisdiction; in one case, it warrants barrels of tears and jittery displays of common humanity, whereas in another is just a fatality.

Driving with the vehicle's lights on during the day used to be an offense in Italy; it's now the norm disobeying which one is at risk of irresponsibly killing artificial kin members. In each and every one of hundreds of obtusely contradictory situations, 'experts' in the 'white as purity' lab coat of the 'priest of science' come forward to make whichever case applies at that moment with their electronic 831

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microscopes, compasses and culture dishes.

There is no limit to what 'scientists' can 'cook'. News agency RT (February 2, 2013) announces: “The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has issued Argentina with a 'declaration of censure' for providing inaccurate inflation and GDP data and has given it until September 29th to amend the problems or will impose sanctions. ”. In 2014, statistical agencies of the European Union shall add prostitution, pushing, smuggling and other illegal activities to the parameters used to compute official GDP, thus leading to an overall GDP increase on paper 836.

Boyle -the thinker and eminent chemist- in the XVII century had nicknamed scientists (=”natural philosophers” ) “priests of nature”; as Turner noted, Victorians had appropriated the concept:

Although he was a socialist, Pearson was no egalitarian with respect to the hierarchy of scientific talent. The role of the semi-educated citizen was still primarily one of respect for the “Priests” of science -...Pearson hoped for the establishment of ‘poets, philosophers, and scientists’ . . . as ‘high priests’” (2008: 6,18).

836 ANSA, May 23, 2014.

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Parallels between established religions (and ensuing systems of power) and ancient myths (or religions formerly established having nowadays lost their power)837 are highly challenging. Church Father St. Justin Martyr wrote in the II century:

And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter. -...- [the demons] heard the prophets foretelling that Christ would specially be believed in; but that in hearing what was said by the prophets they did not accurately understand it, but imitated what was said of our Christ, like men who are in error, we will make plain. The prophet Moses, then, Was, as we have already said, older than all writers; and by him, as we have also said before, it was thus predicted: "There shall not fail a prince from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until He come for whom it is reserved; and He shall be the desire of the Gentiles, binding His foal to the vine, washing His robe in the blood of the grape." The devils, accordingly, when they heard these prophetic words, said that Bacchus was the son of Jupiter, and gave out that he was the discoverer of the vine, and they number wine [or, the ass] among his mysteries; and they taught that, having been torn in pieces, he ascended into heaven. (no date, no page, emphasis added).

Second, in a variation on the theme, C.S. Lewis suggested that in Jesus' case "myth became fact." He admitted the whole business about the Mythic Hero archetype and the similarity to the pagan saviors, only he made them a kind of prophetic charade, creations of the yearning human heart, dim adumbrations of the incarnation of Christ before it actually happened. The others were myths, but this one 837 The third term of the equation might be “sect� (typically as defined by those vested with normative authority), or a religion that hasn't established itself as mainstream yet.

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actually happened. In answer to this, I think of an anecdote told by my colleague Bruce Chilton, how, staying the weekend at the home of a friend, he was surprised to see that the guest bathroom was festooned with a variety of towels filched from the Hilton, the Ramada Inn, the Holiday Inn, etc. Which was more likely, he asked: that representatives from all these hotels had sneaked into his friend's bathroom and each copied one of the towel designs? Or that his friend had swiped them from their hotels? (Price 1997:no page).

The very pliable, Barnum-like nature838 of certain cliches is what made them palatable to different cultures over immemorial spans of time. Some dispute the influence of Orpheus crucified on Christianity on the basis of the position of the figurine's legs that may not match that of Christian art.

Accusations of being gullible and easily swayed fly in all directions; of either taking things at face value, of having an agenda, or of not appreciating the metaphor/fable enough; absolute, never before seen divine truths, or animistic forces of evil and deception are alternatively seen at work behind the curtain.

Christian fundamentalists are quick to denounce the sage -and Pythagorean healer or divine godhead depending on sources- Apollonius of Tyana -allegedly a contemporary of Jesus- as simply a folkloric carbon-copy of 'real Jesus'. Naturally, the same may not appreciate if a glass of their own medicine is served to them pointing out how figures optioning the position of divine, maltreated falling and coming back savior-hero-healer aren't exactly few.

838 The famous showman used to include a bit of everything in his travelling shows: small animals to amuse the children, voluptuous women to catch men's attention and strong men to catch women's eyes; the “Barnum effect� refers to statements that look customized but are in reality very generic and can be endorsed by a majority of people.

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The present writer therefore offers the above for consideration, but does not wish to explore to the full extent the contention of the ultimate veracity, validity or historicity of this or that savior-god, prophet or hero. Suffice it to say that myths, which we may call religions if they are established as a recognized system of power, or sects if they are on their way towards the above, are extremely pliable. It is enough to read some sources cataloging the seeming inconsistencies in a sacred text839: these inconsistencies are a goldmine for future updates in one direction or another, as contemporary sociopolitical circumstances may allow.

That is why 'the Barnum effect '840 (or: something for everyone) plays a role in this contention. Kolakowski wrote:

No debemos ser fervientes moralistas para algunos casos y para otros Realpolitikers o filósofos de la historia mundial, según sean las circunstancias políticas. -...- Le citaré (de memoria) lo que en una conversación me dijo sobre la tortura en Brasil un revolucionario latinoamericano. Pregunté: “¿Qué hay de malo con la tortura?” y él dijo: “¿Qué quiere decir? ¿Sugiere que está bien? ¿Justifica usted la tortura?” Y dije: “Por el contrario, simplemente le pregunto si usted piensa que la tortura es una monstruosidad moralmente inadmisible.”

“Desde luego”, contestó él. “¿Y lo es la tortura en Cuba?”, pregunté.

“Bien —contestó él—, eso es otra cosa. Cuba es un pequeño país bajo la amenaza constante de los imperialistas americanos. Ellos tienen que usar todo medio de autodefensa, incluso los deplorables.” Entonces dije: “Ahora bien, usted no puede seguir ambos caminos. Si cree, como yo lo hago, que la tortura es abominable e inadmisible por razones morales, lo es entonces, por definición, en todas las circunstancias. Si, 839 Regarding the Christian Bible, see McKinsey, no date.

840 The famous showman used to include a bit of everything in his travelling shows: small animals to amuse the children, voluptuous women to catch men's attention and strong men to catch women's eyes; The “effect” refers to statements that look customized but are in reality very generic and can be endorsed by a majority of people, such as horoscopes magazines publish.

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empero, hay circunstancias donde puede ser tolerada, entonces usted no puede condenar ningún régimen por el mismo hecho de aplicar la tortura, ya que asume que no hay nada esencialmente malo con la tortura en sí. O condena la tortura en Cuba exactamente igual que lo hace con Brasil, o usted mismo se impide condenar a la policía brasileña por el hecho de torturar a la gente. De hecho, no puede condenar la tortura por razones políticas, porque en la mayor parte de casos es absolutamente eficiente y los torturadores consiguen lo que quieren. Usted puede condenarla sólo por razones morales y luego, necesariamente, en todas partes de la misma manera, en la Cuba de Batista o en la de Castro, en Vietnam del Norte y en Vietnam del Sur.” (No date: no page).

It is possible to see the whole spectrum of tragicomic strategies at work: when Kolakowski asks the South-american revolutionary what was bad about torture, the brilliant activist asks back whether Kolakowski “justifies torture”; he tries to put the 'pure/impure' routine in motion or some other journalistic appeal of that kind to send the audience into conniptions of oneness. Prompted the question was directed to him, the revolutionary climbs the podium of absolute morality first, only to make excuses for Cuba seconds later:“that's a completely different story. It's a small country under the unrelenting threat of American imperialists. They have to use all possible means of self-defense, including deplorable ones”.

Tides of ink have washed ashore the 'immoral' claim of Southern exceptionalism, as Confederate States argued their peculiar socio-economical and ethnic configuration found no comparison, and was therefore worthy of exemptions and exceptions. Of course, today the mainstream response is that was just an inconsistent journalistic appeal to buttress infamous exploitation hierarchies and

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racial intolerance. Naturally, other groups today benefit of such exceptional status by virtue of what is no longer a commodious journalistic appeal, but humankind's supreme moral and/or legislative achievement.

A former Communist turned critic, historian Draper ridicules Kolakowski's indictment of inconsistencies and immoralities in the Yalta settlement:

Even if Roosevelt and Churchill were as fatalistically clairvoyant as Kolakowski demands of them, what should they have done at Yalta?

To this question Kolakowski has no hint of an answer. Should they have refused to deal with the Polish question at all on the ground that it was foolish to expect that Poland could be saved from sovietization by an intervention of Western powers, as Kolakowski puts it? Was it conceivable that they could threaten the Soviets with the use of force, if Stalin did not live up to his commitment in words? What kind of ultimatum could they have given Stalin to get the kind of Polish government and frontiers demanded by the Polish extremists? Some of them could have been satisfied only by Russia’s ultimate defeat in the war by some sequence of German and Anglo-American action.

The deeper reason for the disillusionment with Churchill and Roosevelt is that they could not gratify this Polish fantasy. (Draper 1986: no page, emphasis added).

It is another textbook case of the sophistry deployed in such cases.

Poland's sovereignty and territorial integrity is reduced to “a Polish fantasy”. Poles are also ridiculed for their presumed appeal to irrevocable and absolute moralities that are easily debunked as the childish dream of people who haven't their feet on the ground; or Poles may now be “extremists” and no longer the martyrs in whose name the war was started. Of course, why emphasize Draper's real or presumed past allegiances so ungentlemanly? Why does the mainstream reader think the same

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treatment is a service to higher values in David Irving's and suchlike cases? It is quite entertaining to see how the priggish worship devoted to moralistic routines and their totems cast in stone coexists with the most bohemian attitudes of scorn and ridicule.

Last, in spite of super-massive, all-pervasive intelligence deployment documented and bragged about all over, Churchill and Roosevelt “couldn't possibly have known”...Greek drama at its zenith (or nadir?). Of course the “couldn't possibly have known” is a political courtesy reserved to the 'good guys' ( for example AngloAmericans) and denied to the 'bad guys' (for example the Catholic Church): attribution bias841.

In almost the same breath842, the priests of acceptable public discourse mention both the known, enormous reality of Soviet prison camps networks, and the secret reality of the equally enormous NSDAP prison (death) camp networks.

The implications are obvious: “willing executioners” on one hand, “possibly misguided but well-meaning” on the other. The “couldn't possibly have known” item was at the core of medieval inquisitional practice. Potential heretics were in fact summoned, questioned and forewarned to recant -and repent- in case their 841 In short, it rests on the divide between internal and external, personalized and de-personalized attribution. For example, 'good guys' chance to do bad things because they are overpowered, ill-informed, clueless, sickly; their ultimate nature remains good. 'Bad guys' do bad things because that reflects their wicked innermost nature.

'Good guys' do good things because they are good after all. 'Bad guys' may seem to do good things once in a while, but there is an explanation, clay tablet, eye-witness report, cablegram, warehouse list etc that shows it all was a great deception. It's again the divide between the qualitative (=connotation=rapport) and quantitative (=denotation=report) approach.

842 Liulevicius 2003.

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beliefs proved to be unacceptable; only if they persisted (relapsed, didn't recant etc) would the prosecution unfold (torture, prison terms etc) in all its might 843.

Does the Socratic dilemma make any sense beyond the trading of political tokens of damnation or absolution for commodious purposes? British media could easily report during WWII:

British and US bombers have dropped hundreds of thousands of explosives on the German city of Dresden. The city is reported to be a vital command centre for the German defence against Soviet forces approaching from the east. Last night, 800 RAF Bomber Command planes let loose 650,000 incendiaries and 8,000lb of high explosives and hundreds of 4,000lb bombs in two waves of attack. They faced very little anti-aircraft fire. As soon as one part of the city was alight, the bombers went for another until the whole of Dresden was ablaze.

(1945: no page).

Or shortly thereafter, a U.S source clinches the parable of the Third Reich and the master race's Atlantean future of wealth and power:

Unlucky Millions. Few happy endings have come out of the mass migrations of at least nine million Germans from East Prussia, Danzig, Silesia, Pomerania and the Sudetenland. It is a tale of horror, old men starving on the roads, young girls raped in boxcars, children who will never find their parents or remember anything of childhood except cold and hunger and the fear of more cold and hunger. ( The Sins...

1945: no page).

Of course significant clues existed to NSDAP crimes of mass-murder as well, upon which Blackwell muses:

843 Daileader 2001:The Medieval Inquisitions.

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But it did not take psychologists to prove what the Nazis or the Committee for Public Safety or the Khmer Rouge or the Inquisition already discovered: that most of us would be willing murderers not because we have guns to our heads, but because we inherently trust authority. And let me clear up another myth about the holocaust that is still alive today. We have absolutely no documented cases of a Nazi refusing to kill Jews and being adversely affected because of it and as we know, the Nazis were meticulous records keepers. Nazis refused to kill Jews more than we would like to believe, and they were never killed for it. They were not even demoted. They were never docked a single Reichsmark for refusing. They were merely given another task instead.

No, we obey out a genetic sense of obedience. Madness and brainwashing are much easier to accept than the truth. (2008:14).

Is there any doubt about how pliable are references to these 'universal myths', or, as the present writer explains, these appeals to ' marma points of the human mind'? Distinguished professor of law Anderson explains:

The picture of the child laborer whose humanity was sacrificed to the needs of the industry is very similar to the picture of the average animal in industrial agriculture, which has become no more than an “input” in the production process. -...-And sometimes, progress was made only when disaster strikes. A prominent example was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, which killed 146 employees, mostly young girls, and brought the deplorable working conditions of the garment district to the public view. -...- In the animal welfare context, there has not been a similar “triggering event” to capture the attention of the public. There have been confinement operation catastrophes, in which hundreds of animals have been killed. In June 2005, 512 pigs died in a Virginia confinement operation due to a ventilation failure; on April 14, 2008, over 800 hogs died in an Iowa hog lot fire. These tragedies did not cause a ripple of public concern, despite the fact that they resulted from an industrial form of animal confinement in which human contact is largely absent. -...-The similarities in the development of child labor and animal welfare reform indicate that it is possible to construct a model of how protection for powerless groups is achieved in our society. While the impetus for reform may 840

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be moral and the development of a new ethic is crucial, the progress of reform depends on a number of other elements, including the development of an array of symbolic and structural resources. Social scientists and reformers alike can learn much from the study of this history. (n.d:8-17, emphasis added).

It isn't a coincidence that:

In 1875, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals intervened in the abuse case of a nine-year old girl named Mary Ellen who had been treated viciously by foster parents. The case of Mary Ellen was splashed across the front pages of the nation's papers with dramatic results. As an outgrowth of the journalistic clamor, the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was formed.

Soon incorporated under legislation that required law enforcement and court officials to aid agents of authorized cruelty societies, the NYSPCC and other societies modeled after it undertook to prevent abuse (Pfohl 1977:312).

Eminent philosopher Singer continues:

My aim is to advocate that we make this mental switch in respect of our attitudes and practices towards a very large group of beings: members of species other than our own—or, as we popularly though misleadingly call them, animals. In other words, I am urging that we extend to other species the basic principle of equality that most of us recognize should be extended to all members of our own species. All this may sound a little far-fetched, more like a parody of other liberation movements than a serious objective. In fact, in the past the idea of "The Rights of Animals" really has been used to parody the case for women's rights. When Mary Wollstonecraft, a forerunner of later feminists, published her Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792, her ideas were widely regarded as absurd, and they were satirized in an anonymous publication entitled A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes. The author of this satire (actually Thomas Taylor, a distinguished Cambridge philosopher) tried to refute Wollstonecraft's reasonings by showing that they could be carried one stage further. If sound when applied to women, why should the arguments not be applied to dogs, cats, and horses? They seemed to hold equally well for 841

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these "brutes"; yet to hold that brutes had rights was manifestly absurd; therefore the reasoning by which this conclusion had been reached must be unsound, and if unsound when applied to brutes, it must also be unsound when applied to women, since the very same arguments had been used in each case. (1989: no page).

What/who is this song by the singer Sandra denouncing:

I got something on my mind, makes me sad and makes me cry, Oh no, Johnny wanna live. Just an ordinary day, -...- [another one] will pass away, -...-. Who's to say he got no rights even not a right to life, Don't know why it leaves you cold, don't know how to make it show, -...Through his eyes I look inside his heart he can feel like me and you, -...- Can't defend himself -...- and this is why I talk to you Johnny isn't just a name he stands for every creature's pain -...- Go and try to look inside his heart you can find your own mistakes try to hide them thinking -...- but he can read them in your face.

Genocide?

Abortion?

Political

imprisonment?

Homelessness?

Oppressing

minorities? In this case it was animal rights, but readers can easily see it could have been anyone/thing else.

In the final scene of epic/fantasy salad844 bar Ladyhawke (1985), an evil bishop is forced to look at the finally reunited Romeo and Juliet, whom his ungodly magic had cursed. Back to real life, a former Communist Resister during WWII in northern Italy845 invites to “look, and read their courage into their [Resisters'] eyes”.

The motif of the stare never gets antiquated.

I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heartrending shrieks -...-. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory 844 It contains sorcery, Romeo and Juliet, the hero's journey, the choice that entails suffering, a merry men angle, the “if only had known” moment, repentance, reunion, reconciliation and much more.

845 Giornale Di Arona, 26 April 2013.

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victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin.

When -and about whom- were the lines above penned? Who plays the part of heart of darkness here? Who's the frail little creature who suffers so much? Ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia? Rwanda, perhaps? Khmer Rouge or Bolshevik purges?

Fascist camps? U.S CIA sponsored underground interrogation facilities in South Vietnam? The plight of political prisoners under Castro or the Soviet regime in Afghanistan? Dissidents who “disappear” under the Brazilian, Argentinian or Chilean military regime, perchance? In this case F. Douglass, an U.S fugitive mulatto slave and abolitionist activist published in 1845 memoirs about his life as a slave.

Readers can easily see it could have been anyone/thing else.

Exactly as this writing suggests all along, Douglass – to some the Martin Luther King of XIX century- expressly linked his abolitionist campaign to fights against other kinds of oppression, namely that of women; of Irish people in favor of home rule; in support of temperance movements. Again, Douglass was highly ambivalent about violent abolitionist Brown, alternating praise and endorsement with disavowal according to the moment's ebbing and flowing opportunity:

Marion Wilson Starling notes that at least ten slave narratives were listed in the British Catalog of Books, 1835–1863. In a period when few books sold more than fi ve hundred copies, slave narratives sold in the tens of thousands. The slave 843

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narrative’s popularity in turn spawned numerous imitators.

Charles Nichols writes, “So successful were the narratives from a commercial point of view that free Negroes and whites took up the pen and wrote on similar subjects. . . . Indeed, by 1850 almost any book by or about a Negro was in great demand [in America and England].” (Lee 2010:10).

It won't escape readers how Douglass and Obama are often juxtaposed in politicized narratives of promotion -or demotion- of the U.S President.

Fanon’s work makes a significant contribution to my own work, as an animal rights, food justice, and health activist within the African American community of the United States. Currently, I am analyzing PETA’s Animal Liberation project. nthis project, PETA has argued that non-human animal suffering and human suffering stem from the same source: dominance and power through “othering”. Their new campaign positions images of exploited non-human animals next to images of black slavery, blacks during Jim Crow era in the U.S.A., Jewish Holocaust victims, and Native American genocide. My research examines the responses from the black community who viewed PETA’s tactics as entrenched in white racism and cultural appropriation of ethnic suffering to promote PETA’s animal rights agenda. In response to the descendants of colonized and enslaved U.S.A. Africans, who were traumatized by the advertisement's images of black lynched men, PETA’s president, Ingrid Newkirk, a white identified female, wrote in 2005, “We’re all animals, so get over it.”

(Harper no date: no page).

In fact, these journalistic appeals have been milled for ages. Alternatively, it might be considered the epic mode, whereby the audience is invited/enmeshed in the story (=the eye-contact motif, whether real or figurative). Aren't the misdeeds of the vivisection industry to a more recent generation what the misdeeds of the various Mengele, Ishii846 and others had been to a previous one?

846 Japanese military scientist assertedly spirited away to avoid war crime trials in order to collaborate with U.S agencies in matters of bacteriological warfare.

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The politicized nature of the same is apparent. While slavery was indeed a disreputable chapter in the story of the XIX century, so were the dreaded -and lurid- Victorian sweatshops, factories, workhouses, and cholera-infested slums.

Readers might be hard-pressed to guess why in comparison “almost any book by or about a Negro was in great demand”.

Generally, it is all part of a broader constellation of horrors, indignities and suchlike being heaped upon a vast array of lambs without sin (blemish etc), nor voice (cfr Isaiah 53:7847; John 1:29848), or whom one's schizophrenic politicized narrative holds up as such, anyways. It isn't by chance that postmodern cultural studies appropriated the motif of the (absence of) voice to lionize the slew of oppressed or marginalized categories they routinely identified as alpha and omega of discourse, often from a militant, left-wing perspective.

Maupassant's 1881 Histoire D'Un Chien is just an example: the sudden reappearance of the rotting carcass of a dog killed by drowning by a reluctant master circumstances forced to do so is the 'emotional thunder of illumination' that precedes an appeal to support animal charities:

The Shogun was born in the year of the Dog ; let His Augustness decree that henceforth everything canine should be held sacred and sacrosanct ! Utterly absurd and ridiculous as the suggestion might 847 “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. “.

848 “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! “.

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be supposed to have sounded, it was at once eagerly adopted ! It was in 1687 that the first of the decrees denouncing pains and penalties against the taking of animal life was issued. From this date to the end of Tsunayoshi's administration there is scarcely a year in which ordinances were not published either reaffirming or extending the scope of the early legislation on the subject.

Everything feathered or four-footed ultimately came within the purview of these drastic provisions for the prevention of cruelty to animals, from horses down to sparrows, while even the keeping of fish in tanks and ponds for sale was prohibited. But it was the dog that was especially to be treated not so much as King of the Beasts as Lord of Creation. (Murdoch 1926:188).

Maupassant's imagery might not have entirely been his imagination's figment. Around the same time, Amelia Dyer, a British serial killer, had killed a huge number of children (some say 50 or more) in her capacity as “baby farmer� 849.

Although at first successfully hiding behind simulation of insanity, the deranged addict was finally executed in 1896. Many of her victims were recovered from rivers.

Drowning appeared to have been a common form of suicide for a huge number of 'fallen women' and suchlike (=the water connection again):

Breaking with iconographic tradition, Victorian visual culture fixated upon redemptive female suicides by drowning, a morbid manifestation of water treatments to improve moral and physical health. Produced by artists such as Ford Madox Brown, George Cruikshank, Gustave Dore, Augustus Leopold Egg, John Everett Millais, Richard Redgrave, Thomas Rowlandson, and G. F. Watts, these images served a dual purpose in maintaining a social order dependent on the separation of the spheres. First, they prioritized women's domestic accountability, revealing the 849 Advertising in order to adopt for a fee children from poor families in order to grant them a better life.

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dangers that lurked outside their place in the home. Second, they showed dissolute men the tragic cost of deviance, which could undermine the family structure by pushing women into the public sphere and over the edge of sanity to suicide. -...-Because female insanity was often regarded as resulting from willful deviance, -...- suicide by drowning was visually recreated as a redemptive act for fallen women—a morbid manifestation of popular water treatments used to improve moral and physical health. (Nicoletti 1999:iii, xvii).

Horrors befalling animals are a(nother) preferred item to sensationalize news:

In a documentary broadcast April 26, 1995, Born preyed on Germans' love of animals. The segments purported to graphically illustrate a new quarry for German hunters: stray cats. Viewers saw a man with a rifle stalking a cat in a wooded area, taking aim and shooting it dead.

According to Weise, the rifle belonged to Born, the cat was from an animal shelter and the hunter was playing to the camera. (Petty 1996:no page).

When the 'emotional thunder of illumination' strikes, people (are supposed to) remain dumbfounded, and to experience a sort of aesthetic arrest.

Maupassant, in his story L'Enfant, offers a great portrait of the dynamics under-arching the 'moment of illumination'. A playboy decides to forsake his mistress in order to clean his act up, settle down and get married. The very night of his wedding, however, he receives an urgent message informing him that his former lover lies on her deathbed after giving birth to a child she claims to be his. The ingredients are all in place for an orgy of sentimentalism like no other.

He thus attends a last meeting with the dying woman: 847

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Elle fut quelques minutes avant de pouvoir parler encore, tant elle était oppressée et défaillante. Elle reprit: «C'est à toi, le petit. Je te le jure devant Dieu, je te le jure sur mon âme, je te le jure au moment de mourir. Je n'ai pas aimé d'autre homme que toi... Promets-moi de ne pas l'abandonner.» Il essayait de prendre encore dans ses bras ce misérable corps déchiré, vidé de sang. Il balbutia, affolé de remords et de chagrin: «Je te le jure, je l'élèverai et je l'aimerai. Il ne me quittera pas.» Alors elle tenta d'embrasser Jacques. Impuissante à lever sa tête épuisée, elle tendait ses lèvres blanches dans un appel de baiser. Il approcha sa bouche pour cueillir cette lamentable et suppliante caresse.

Un peu calmée, elle murmura tout bas: «Apporte-le, que je voie si tu l'aimes.» -...On attendit encore. Les invités partirent; seuls, les parents les plus proches demeuraient. À minuit, on coucha la mariée toute secouée de sanglots. Sa mère et deux tantes, assises autour du lit, l'écoutaient pleurer, muettes et désolées... Le père était parti chez le commissaire de police pour chercher des renseignements.À cinq heures, un bruit léger glissa dans le corridor; une porte s'ouvrit et se ferma doucement; puis soudain un petit cri pareil à un miaulement de chat courut dans la maison silencieuse.Toutes les femmes furent debout d'un bond, et Berthe [the man's wife], la première, s'élança malgré sa mère et ses tantes, enveloppée de son peignoir de nuit.Jacques, debout au milieu de sa chambre, livide, haletant, tenait un enfant dans ses bras. Les quatre femmes le regardèrent effarées; mais Berthe, devenue soudain téméraire, le coeur crispé d'angoisse, courut à lui: «Qu'y a-t-il? dites, qu'y a-t-il?»Il avait l'air fou; il répondit d'une voix saccadée: «Il y a... il y a... que j'ai un enfant, et que la mère vient de mourir...» Et il présentait dans ses mains inhabiles le marmot hurlant.Berthe, sans dire un mot, saisit l'enfant, l'embrassa, l'étreignant contre elle; puis, relevant sur son mari ses yeux pleins de larmes: «La mère est morte, dites-vous?» Il répondit: «Oui, tout de suite... dans mes bras... J'avais rompu depuis l'été... Je ne savais rien, moi... c'est le médecin qui m'a fait venir...» (Maupassant 1882: no page).

The 'narrative pressure' is what keeps readers (viewers, bystanders, hearers...) hooked, often gasping for breath or with butterflies in their stomach in anticipation of what comes next. A professional storyteller by trade, Harvey

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quips:”emotional empathy is one of the key tools for effective storytelling” 850.

Leon Degrelle (Belgian Fascist leader and Waffen SS General) also details how he quickly scanned and probed audiences while beginning his speeches, in order to tune in to that magical wavelength that could bring about the fusion of the horde:

Our point is that several abilities—skills, actually—make it difficult to see psychopaths for who they are. First, they are motivated to, and have a talent for, “reading people” and for sizing them up quickly. They identify a person’s likes and dislikes, motives, needs, weak spots, and vulnerabilities. We all have “buttons” that can be pushed, and psychopaths, more than most people, are always ready to push them. Second, many psychopaths come across as having excellent oral communication skills. -...- They make use of the fact that for many people the content of the message is less important than the way it is delivered. A confident, aggressive delivery style —often larded with jargon, clichés, and flowery phrases—makes up for the lack of substance and sincerity in their interactions with others. This skill, coupled with the belief that they deserve whatever they can take, allows psychopaths to use effectively what they learn about a person against the person as they interact with him or her—they know what to say and how to say it to exert influence. -...-When someone presses one of our hot buttons, our attention may be diverted from more important things in our social environment, and our evaluation of a person or situation may be colored by the feelings and reactions triggered by the hot button.

This reflex-like tendency—to let hot buttons get the better of us— is not lost on the psychopath or any manipulative person. They will identify your hot buttons and will push them to test their utility.

They will use this information to establish in you a mood that is conducive to their current interests and schemes. It is difficult, except in the most blatant situations, to tell whether someone has purposely pushed your hot button or has inadvertently done so without any particular intent to manipulate or use you.

(Babiak&Hare 2006:37-8,273, emphasis added).

850 2013: Emotional Arc And Empathy, emphasis added.

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This explains how commercial brands fight to their last cent to secure the exact best place for their ads and infomercials during popular broadcasts. That also explains how the concept worked equally well from the inside out, when -for example during the 1950s- name brands would craft a show basically around their own presence: for example the brand's (Chevron, Schlitz, General Electric, Philco, Colgate, General Motors...)

“hour”, “stars” etc; broadcasts of all kinds can be

engineered to accommodate sponsors and advertisement best.

It is a known axiom of salesmanship how the persuader has only a very short, passing window of opportunity to fruitfully connect in a meaningful way with the potential prospect, in order to bring about whichever outcome one wishes (voting for this candidate; supporting that cause; buying this liquor brand...). The fact that a sound piece (song, jingle, slogan...) is going to get stuck in people's heads (earworm) if played often enough is a well-known effect an industry rests upon, which is not related to how intelligent, appropriate or otherwise deserving the item might be.

Also, the same strategy is most often the first step in 'getting the camel into the tent' (foot-in-the-door technique, or any other name). Movies meant to 'normalize' homosexuality and to make it fit for the mainstream -such as 1978 La

Cage Aux Folles and 1980 La Patata Bollente comedy movies- portrayed homosexuals in the uncomplimentary – but highly inoffensive- capacity of cabaret

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characters, hysterical transvestites and fringe lunatics with -however- a beautiful soul, and terribly funny. Many see the two robots in Star Wars as portraying a couple of homosexual males. Long before hysterical gay fairies and men in drag flooded the screen, a possible -however closeted- homosexual subtext had been added to heroic Hollywood colossal Ben-Hur (1959).

In the 1980-90s, movies grappled with blurred sexual identity ( from 1982 Victor Victoria and Tootsie to 1993 Mrs. Doubtfire) and transvestitism. 1995

To Wong Foo sees popular action movie machos in drag such as Patrick Swayze, and Wesley Snipes; in 1989 Tango&Cash, Kurt Russell appears in drag.

Popular culture offered a slew of celebrities of sexually ambiguous renown such as Boy George and Michael Jackson with their local clones (Amanda Lear, the openly transgendered Eva Robins, and later transgendered entertainer and

PD parliamentarian Vladimir Luxuria in Italy): no shortage of political innuendo to indoctrinate the frazzled masses.

Popular culture also created the metrosexual: a biologically male yet sensitive specimen devoted to coy, feminine grooming practices, whose sexual preferences are blurred (neither straight, nor homosexual). In turn, the metrosexual spawned its nemesis the retrosexual: a walking erection; an hirsute, ungroomed, brash he-man.

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The metrosexual phenomenon might be subsumed under the more generic need to attract attention that obsesses the human mind. In countries such as Venezuela, beauty as public display for women has become a national obsession.

Beauty pageant schools proliferate in a giant pantomime that might look like a summer camp for positive psychology advocates.

Needless to say, it dovetails well with Chavez's re-take of the old stale bunch of homeland first, new era and ultimate redress myth(ologie)s. LouisNapoleon Bonaparte, still in exile abroad after failed coups in France, was elected to the republican Parliament on the basis of a left-wing reformist manifesto: as Emperor Napoleon III he ushered in an authoritarian monarchy.

Worshiping oneself and the horde have never been more similar:

Marianismo is an ideal, based on the Virgin Mary’s Biblical representation, which prescribes women’s “appropriate” behavior; its image “is self-abnegating motherhood.” Ironically, through marianismo Venezuelan women have a prescribed foreign-inspired and contradictory role in society: to be both sexy and chaste. When Venezuelans were trying to emulate colonial Spanish culture, women mimicked the maternal and morally sound role of the Virgin Mary.

Nowadays, as the country tries to emulate democracy in the first world, its women imitate what they believe is the epitome of their place in this political system: Barbie dolls. The paradoxical relationship of these two roles for women, the chaste mother and the Anglo-fashionite, describes the contradiction of contemporary Venezuelan femininity. (Roche 2007:65-6).

In 1981, the comedy movie Nessuno E' Perfetto sees the same Pozzetto from La Patata Bollente fall in love and marry a fashion model portrayed by Ornella 852

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Muti, then allegedly one of the most beautiful Italian actresses; the model later turns out to be a former paratrooper, now male-to-female transgender.

In La Patata Bollente, a militant Communist oaf, and Soviet enthusiast, confronts homosexuality after saving someone from a gang of Fascist thugs. He accuses his apathetic tovarishi of ignoring how homosexuals had been the second group most targeted for extermination during WWII.

In hindsight, readers may individually assess how successful the strategy has been:

Until Alfred Kinsey claimed that the large majority of Americans had homosexual interests and John D. Rockefeller's empire marketed Kinsey's voluminous Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953) studies five decades ago, few ever spoke of homosexuality in public let alone as a public possibility. It certainly was not "O.K. to be gay" openly in America.-...- As late as 1960, all fifty states maintained laws criminalizing sodomy. In 1963 the New York Academy of Medicine Committee on Public Health, restated that not only was homosexuality a disease -...- Like Chinese water torture rather than brute force, only socially enforced public compliance at a minimum level, through continued application, can ultimately change the privately held attitude or belief. Thus, to psychologically propel societal attitude change regarding homosexuality, America is deluged with pro-homosexual messages, education campaigns, positive images, and sympathetic news in the media creating an antecedent condition that can be called societal dissonance. (Rondeau 2002:443-485)851.

Heady stuff. Gays said they could "reinvent human nature, reinvent themselves." To do this, these reinventors had to clear away one major obstacle. No, they didn't go after the nation's clergy. They targeted 851 Most of the tactics Rondeau describes here are -in fact- deployed in the movies Nessuno è Perfetto and La Patata Bollente, hence Rondeau's text herein.

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the members of a worldly priesthood, the psychiatric community, and neutralized them with a radical redefinition of homosexuality itself.

In 1972 and 1973 they co-opted the leadership of the American Psychiatric Association and, through a series of political maneuvers, lies and outright flim-flams, they "cured" homosexuality overnight-by fiat. They got the A.P.A. to say that same-sex sex was "not a disorder."

It was merely "a condition"-as neutral as lefthandedness. This amounted to a full approval of homosexuality. Those of us who did not go along with the political redefinition were soon silenced at our own professional meetings. Our lectures were canceled inside academe and our research papers turned down in the learned journals.

Worse things followed in the culture at large. Television and movie producers began to do stories promoting homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle. A gay review board told Hollywood how it should deal or not deal with homosexuality. Mainstream publishers turned down books that objected to the gay revolution. Gays and lesbians influenced sex education in our nation's schools, and gay and lesbian libbers seized wide control of faculty committees in our nations' colleges. State legislatures nullified laws against sodomy. (Socarides, 1995: no page).

When, in the development of a natural science, an individual or group first produces a synthesis able to attract most of the next generation’s practitioners, the older schools gradually disappear. In part their disappearance is caused by their members’ conversion to the new paradigm. But there are always some men who cling to one or another of the older views, and they are simply read out of the profession, which thereafter ignores their work. -...- The decision to reject one paradigm is always simultaneously the decision to accept another, and the judgment leading to that decision involves the comparison of both paradigms with nature and with each other. -...- Something much like that will also happen to the generalization that scientists fail to reject paradigms when faced with anomalies or counterinstances. They could not do so and still remain scientists.-...- Like the choice between competing political institutions, that between competing paradigms proves to be a choice between incompatible modes of community life.-...-Through the theories they embody, paradigms prove to be constitutive of the research activity. -...- when paradigms change, the world itself changes with them. Led by a new paradigm, scientists adopt new instruments and look in new places. -...-And these are terminated, not by deliberation and interpretation, but by a relatively sudden and unstructured event -...-. The competition between 854

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paradigms is not the sort of battle that can be resolved by proofs.

-...-The very existence of science depends upon vesting the power to choose between paradigms in the members of a special kind of community.(Kuhn 1970:19,77-8,94,109, 111,122,148,167).

In review, the necessary conditions for the construction of heroes, patriots and martyrs in revolution are closely analogous to symbol formation processes. Social ebullience, a term used to describe the chaos, violence and rivalry prevalent in revolutions, is responsible for collective cognitive dissonance. During this social decay, existing values and symbols no longer adequately explain the nature of social interaction. Hence, there exists a need for the creation of new symbols. (Allgrove 1994:47).

It is imperative to understand it is not about third-rate comedies only. According to

VanityFair.it on April 26, 2012, Italian politician Giovanardi angered GLBT milieus by claiming that -unlike Jews- gay people were persecuted, not exterminated (=the “homocaust” approach GLBT milieus advocate), during WWII852.

The trajectory of normalization is an eminently socio-political one:

While nineteenth century medical experts treated rape as something rare, and stories of rape as probable fabrications, by the early twentieth century the possibility of rape in circumstances where a female lacked social power had gained more credence and indeed engaged the imagination of the public and of governmental authorities. “True Life” stories of sexual violation made possible by inappropriate male social authority circulated in internationally organized egalitarian gender reform movements as a critique of existing authority patterns. (Harrington 2010:49).

Seen in this way, the Negro protest movement in the United States will have to become more profoundly cultural if it is to succeed politically. Yet the American Negro is himself limited in his demands 852 “Per essere chiari di Olocausto ce n'è stato uno solo, ed stato è quello del popolo ebreo. Poi ci sono stati da parte del Nazismo tutta una serie di azioni che hanno riguardato gli handicappati, i malati mentali, gli zingari, le popolazioni dell’est e anche i gay ” declared Giovanardi according to the website.

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by the successful revolution of the rich . Being an American , the poor Negro believes that he too can live by bread alone. What the Negro asks, essentially, is a place at the American trough. But to gain that place, he is constrained to ask for something more than his share of places. His moralizings become an embarrassment, for they hint at the acquisition of something greater than a place in a vaster suburbia.

(Rieff 2006:206).

Levine also details the unholy and problematic alliance between traditional jingoist, 'sexist' regimes 853 and the militant fringes of feminism and suffragism that WWI brought about:”It was "agitation over the suffrage question" that most disquieted Commissioner Edward R. Henry when, at the outbreak of war in 1914, deputations of women approached both him and the home secretary about the opportunities for policewomen under wartime conditions.” 854.

Women as a category -in spite of qualified exceptions that might certainly exist- acted as a societal crowbar to reinforce men's jingoist and patriotic tendencies, which is considerably at variance with the nurturing model some feminists -whether 'magical' or otherwise- suggest has always been the case with women in history.

The 'Trojan horse' strategy is thus summarized: “ Women's entrance into police work came at a time when both militant and constitutional feminisms were publicly laying aside their political claims on the state in deference to the cause of national unity. “855. Once again, the unstoppable rise of grievance shopping groups 853 Feminist literature offers several tantalizing concepts: phallocracy, patriarchy...

854 Levine 1994:39.

855 Levine 1994:39.

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does not constitute the providential actualization on the earthly plane of sublime philosophical values arch-deities vouchsafed in the mist of time, but of the gimmicks of Belle Epoque nation-States busy patronizing, co-opting and funding a host of '...isms' they would later identify with their ultimate nemesis.

That goes back to the dawn of modern psychology. As war propaganda documents, the public may be bombarded with positive (or negative) characteristics enshrouding a certain group, cause, country or course of action to condition the oblivious masses into emoting whatever jittery response is expected. As well, highly ambivalent standards typically co-exist to inhibit or stigmatize courses of action selectively depending on whether the regime of the day may receive perpetrators and/or circumstance well.

Italian criminals such as Luciano Lutring ( bank robber il solista del

mitra, the machine-gun soloist); or Cesare Battisti (the murderer and Communist maximalist) may become “possibly wrong but terribly romantic� icons.

In their latter days they revert to painting, writing and poetry while swarms of justice-minded devil advocates split hairs in the name of elusive best of intentions, and forgiveness that know no crisis: Battisti and Lutring are associated with the left. Battisti also made elated lefties gasp for breath as his journeys to evade capture counting on several prominent sympathizers finally brought him to Brazil, where the left-wing establishment granted him sanctuary: what a triumph for 857

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human rights.

It is enough the invert the color of one's armband to not only see the comedy of innocence of best of intentions disappear, but to justify the existence of indomitable vigilante groups of '...ist hunters' hopping borders under cover to identify, apprehend and even liquidate people who are designated as butchers, murderers and thieves, not -as Lutring- bulwarks against corrupt international finance; or -as Battisti the member of Proletari Armati Per Il Comunismo, armed proletarians for Communism- as bulwarks against class exploitation and so forth.

Once again, the righteous culture hero who breaks a few taboos in the delivery of the ultimate boon, and the brutish sociopath (authoritarian personality etc) basking in his mental disturbance while he commits misdeeds look at each other in the mirror as professedly irreconcilable doppelgaengers. Readers shall individually determine the actual exchange rate to the real world of human mind's ultimate 'values'.

Persecuted groups pleading for tolerance, freedom of speech/worship and cultural pluralism surfing the stormy waves of an ocean of spleen and tears are -once in a position of power- persecuting not only their former foes, but any dissident group as well: Christians persecuted pagans and dissident Christians; GLBT groups lobby to criminalize so-called homophobes etc.

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It turns out that the same groups who once finger-pointed kangaroo courts that were harassing them on the basis of special laws -or the vaudeville surrogate of the nowadays ridiculed impiety and blasphemy laws of yore-, frantically applaud when foes are the target; the cutting of some corners becomes the heroic remedy to save the world from unspeakable evil, and the principle of coherence or 'the concept' nothing more than figures of speech.

The camel and the tent analogy work very well considering vexed controversies in the USA. Zealots worked hard to get the State meddle in controversies relating to race relations and religious content. The so-called Bible wars of the XIX century in urban settings between an increasingly sizable Catholic constituency and then dominant Protestant denominations over which version(s) of the Bible should be allowed in public schools had already sapped Christian unity (=no Bible in school is better than the 'wrong' version of the same) 856.

While awarded early victories in matter of segregation and religious content, fundamentalists are now awash in a tide of social alchemy and 'progressive' measures from a myriad of State authorities they had invited to join first.

Acquiescing to 'special laws and taxes pending war time only' in the defense of 'the best of all causes' brought the necessary consequence that people are still paying taxes directed to fuel wars -and counter crises and natural catastrophes- of bygone ages, and abiding by security restrictions and garrison state provisions supposed to 856 Prothero 2007:96ss.

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be transient concessions of bygone war seasons.

The 1917 U.S Espionage Act might be an example. It was amended in 1918 to include all-encompassing provisions punishing with up to 20 years prison terms whomever might be construed as working against the U.S government in any way, shape or form, or sympathizing with said government's enemies in any way, shape or form.

Third parties may be specifically commissioned to herald the thunder of illumination. There is something terribly crucial they have seen, read, heard, witnessed; you have to hear about right now: that shall change your opinion entirely...

The messenger of immemorial literature rushes onstage with a crucial dispatch bearing exculpatory evidence just as the guillotine is being released on the frail little creature of the moment, who has an instant to shoot a last desperate stare to the artificial kin members' heart of darkness. Some beautiful soul in attendance -just like Jason in No Retreat No Surrender- yelps:� Don't do that!� (=tragic urgency shtick). The obtuse human mind screams its angst at hasty judgments, and related claptrap.

The ad guy and the PR gal may also ponder at which point an espresso coffee commercial -or politicized harangue- might be inserted for maximum cash-

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counter -or ballot-box- yield:

When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham!

Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." (Genesis 22:9-12).

As this writing contends, whether stories are forensically true or false makes no difference as far as the public's reaction is concerned:”[The public] only wanted one thing from [a given public figure]: a story. He told it so well that we forgave him almost everything. ”;“[it] helped people to believe.”;”We want -...original content regardless of its validity. We're here for the scare, not for the plausibility”.

The present writer wishes to extend to the matter at hand a statement Campbell referred to the relationship between religion and science: “the origin of the mythological symbols is not pseudo-scientific, pseudo-historical -...- they [=mythological symbols] are not the consequences of observations; they are the consequence of observations misinterpreted through projections from the human psyche”857.

Other investigators used a similar procedures to plant false memories 857 1972-2:The Function Of Mythology.

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of even more unusual events. In one study, college students were asked to recall actual events that had been reported by their parents and one experimenter-crafted false event (Hyman et al., 1995). The false event was an overnight hospitalization for a high fever with a possible ear infection, or a nonexistent birthday party with pizza and a clown. Parents confirmed that neither of these events had happened, yet participants were told that they had experienced one of the false events at about the age of 5.-...- As for the false event, by the end of the second interview, 20% of the participants had remembered all or part of this creation. In a separate study, Hyman and collaborators created even more unlikely false memories, such as attending a wedding reception and accidentally spilling a punch bowl on the parents of the bride or having to evacuate a grocery store when the overhead sprinkler systems erroneously activated. This time, approximately 25% accepted all or part of the false memory by the end of the third interview -...-. A recent doctoral dissertation project also succeeded in planting false memories via suggestion that ostensibly came from relatives of the participants. -...-events that would have been traumatic had they actually occurred -...-. These investigators reported that just over 25% of their participants created a rather complete false memory, and another 30% created a partial memory.

Clearly, these methods are capable of inducing false memories in a sizable percentage of people. (Wells&Loftus no date:154).

You tell your friend that you’ve run a mile in under seven minutes, when in reality your best time was a tiny bit over seven minutes. A few days later, you tell someone else the same thing. After repeating this slightly exaggerated claim over and over, you could eventually forget that you hadn’t actually broken the seven-minute mark. You may come to believe it to such a degree that you might even be willing to bet money on it. (Ariely 2012:71). [the book] became an international bestseller, winning its author numerous awards. Now, it is more or less accepted that the book is a fraud. -...-however, [the author] still insists that he is telling the truth.

-...-This highly disputed memoir is the product of the so- called recovered memory therapy. -...-It is well known how highly suggestive recovered memory therapy is (Salecl 2000:no page).

As of the time of this writing (March 2011), there have been 267 DNA-based exonerations and 200 of those were cases of mistaken eyewitness identification (Wells&Loftus 2013:617).

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For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. (2 Peter 1:16).

To challenge the veracity of a person's memory is one of the boldest things one can do in the way of attacking deep-seated conviction.

Memory is the peculiar domain of the individual. In going back in recollection to the scenes of other years he is drawing on the secret store-house of his own consciousness, with whicha strangerm ust not intermeddle. To cast doubt on a person's memory is commonly resented as an impertinence, hardly less rude than to question his reading of his own present mental state. Even if the challenger professedly bases his challenge on the testimony of his own memory, the challenged party is hardly likely to allow the right of comparing testimonies. He can in most cases boldly assert that those who differ from him are lacking in his power of recollection. (Sully 1887:232).

TRIPADVISOR, the popular travel portal, comes under popular and judicial scrutiny in Italy858. It appears that many comments/reviews on the site to describe products and providers might be inauthentic with the purpose to artificially promote -or demote- certain services or providers.

Providers exist allegedly offering businessmen ready made campaign packages to flood the internet with positive reviews. Federazione Italiana Pubblici

Esercizi -which federates hotel, catering and entertainment businesses- is exploring the possibility of a class action against the website.

Other providers offer to buy phone-verified Gmail accounts (US$10 for 100 accounts); to “buy twitter followers” (1 million followers for US$ 1.500); “Facebook likes” (10.000 likes for US$ 100); or “Youtube comments” (US$ 38 for 858 Anfo.netweek.it, July 7, 2014.

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75.000 comments): hyperreality steals the day.

The 'authentic' messengers of higher good rushing onstage to let people know lest doom unfolds are -once again- the ad guy and the PR gal for hire working for so many dollars an hour, with their retinue of fitful gasbags (=influencers, community builders) eager to make a supercharged ethical statement about themselves:

In a related study, Salganik and his coauthors, acting not unlike propagators, attempted to influence the process. They told people, falsely, that certain songs had been downloaded in large numbers, even though they had actually proved unpopular. More particularly, the researchers actually inverted true popularity, so that people would see the least popular songs as having the most downloads and the most popular songs the fewest. Their key finding was that they were able to produce self-fulfilling prophecies, in which false perceptions of popularity produced actual popularity over time. When people think that songs are popular, songs actually become popular, at least in the short run.

True, the most popular songs did in fact recover their popularity, but it took a while, and songs that had previously been among the least popular—before the inversion— continued to be at or toward the top of the list. This is a striking demonstration of how people’s behavior can be affected by an understanding, even a false one, of what other people think and do. (Sunstein 2014:26).

Wrestler Tito Santana for example foiled Greg Valentine's plans, who had won over JYD via an illegal maneuver. Santana informed the referee, who reversed the victory formerly awarded to 'The Hammer' Valentine, who was then counted out resulting in JYD's victory.

Psychologist Cialdini assures that sales can be dramatically increased if 864

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the strategy of hinting at potential losses -rather than gains- and at exclusivity of information is aptly employed859:

So, what does this fact mean for decisions involving risk? People tend to be risk averse when making decisions about potential gains, but people tend to be risk seeking when making decisions about potential losses. (Huettel 2014:48).

The discovery usually serves to put into a backdated 'moral' perspective the possible abuse or excess on the 'good guys'' part (=the wrath of the righteous):”burnin' with determination to even up the score” 860. Once again, grandiosity -a psychological condition within the narcissistic personality disorder spectrum- may either constitute a pathological sense of superiority and boastful uniqueness, or -if political opportunity chimes in- as “simply being right”.

Sherman laying waste to a portion of the Confederacy, looting and burning, could be interpreted as getting even for what all those poor slaves had been suffering at the hands of those awful, racist rebels in the South (=wrath of the righteous).

Milosevic and other Serbian leaders, too, went to war in the defense of their idea of Belle Epoque nation-State: a pacified administrative jumble of different 859 At a conference, Cialdini (2001) used this example. A beef retailer split his customers in three groups, and solicited them to buy his goods as usual, but adopting the scarcity approach (=a shortage is soon to come because of future weather condition), and the scarcity and exclusivity approach (= a shortage is soon to come because of future weather condition. This constitutes privileged information gotten from authoritative insiders on a confidential basis). The alleged result in carload sale were 10 (standard request); 24 (scarcity); 61 (scarcity and exclusivity). It won't elude readers how this is a reworking of popular doom and gloom scenarios: a meteor, nuclear strike, ...ist insurrection... is going to strike, lest the horde as one...

860 Lyrics from Rocky IV soundtrack Hearts On Fire.

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creeds and cultures against any form of exceptionalism. For some reasons, the Serbian attempts to salvage the 'great cause' went down in history as experiments in mass-murder, supremacy and brainwashing, unlike their Unionist predecessors.

Irony has it that Serbia -and its patriotic ethos, whatever one may think of it- used to be the godly 'martyr State', in whose name WWI was started.

A few years later, Serbian maximalists might have stepped on the right side of history as bulwark against purported islamofascist rogues. Also, the fact that Milosevic tried to turn Montenegro into an aggressive fiscal paradise and offshore centre famous for its brass-plate banks, secrecy and lenient due diligence may be another possible -albeit nearly unknown to the general public- reason for the regime's demise.

Of course, the postulate of the goodhearted Yankee fighting prejudices on a routine basis doesn't quite explain how the Back to Africa movement 861 -under the patronage of many eminent reformers both Black and White, including President Monroe in early XIX century- in pre-civil war USA didn't quite take off as Northern support for the initiative lacked due to basic absence of concern, and -irrespective of nativist propaganda- Black masses were less than enthusiastic about the idea of “going back to Africa”. Lincoln, too, considered relocating Blacks to Central America, but Africans – who had been exploited in the South- started to be 861 Movement to encourage the emigration to Africa of slaves of African descent. It led to the establishment of colonies for that purpose such as Liberia, whose capital Monrovia was named after U.S President Monroe (181725).

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seen as a handy reservoir of cheap -and now mobile due to emancipation- labour for the North.

Further emancipation from the remaining shackles of segregation was later needed in order to fully mobilize the Black population's industrial and purchase power for consumerist society's greater good as war measures had anticipated during WWII: that's a line of thought Herbert Spencer -the Victorian reformer and philosopher- had clearly outlined.

Durkheim also suggested morality is among modernity's greatest output: because the modern (XIX century nation) State needs to harness everybody's productivity (as Marx would have it) to feed the societal machine, social violence -hence taboos, castes, prejudices that might fuel or favor it- has to decrease dramatically.

The same alleged disinterestedness and rapture for idealistic and humanitarian causes would triumph in South Africa decades later, too862:

The very success of the Afrikaner economic movement began to undermine the collective sense of a common Afrikaner identity. By the early 1960s, Dr. Albert Hertzog and other leaders of Afrikaner workers were arguing that the geldmag (finance power) of the new Afrikaner capitalists had betrayed the volk. By 1980, these Afrikaner entrepreneurs had largely turned their backs on Afrikaner volkseenheid (unity of the volk) in the name of profit. De Klerk and the Afrikaner establishment could jettison their entire political past 862 With due adjustments, O'Meara's analysis could apply to the situation of the Acadian francophone minority in New Brunswick (Canada).

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with relative ease after 1990 precisely because the creation of Afrikaner business and a wealthy Afrikaner middle class had forever separated their interests and their futures from those of their less privileged volksgenote (members of the volk) (O'Meara 1997: no page, emphasis added).

The dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan is interpreted as a compassionate -if Machiavellian- effort to spare bigger trials, much as the amputation of a limb or two -if unfortunate- can spare a patient's life. Naturally, even the Jacobin, Amin, Soviet, Khmer Rouge or NSDAP regimes thought they were just amputating a limb or two -metaphorically speaking- in pursuit of a greater good, which prompts the party liner to scream his carbon-copied execration:

On the other hand, like most of the rest of us, one may invent a false, finally unjustified, image of oneself as an exceptional phenomenon in the world, not guilty as others are, but justified in one's inevitable sinning because one represents the good. (Campbell 1949:221).

Alternatively, the masses grieve they had no opportunity to toe the party line protecting the victims at all costs. Martin Luther King wrote in 1963:”Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid ”. How many songs, soundtracks and the like elatedly take the pledge to “always be there for [insert favorite frail little creature here]”? Strong In The Rain is a poem by Japanese litterateur -and Nichiren Buddhism devotee- K. Miyazawa (1896-1933): “if there is[...]in the east[...]west[...]south[...]north[...]he goes there...Everyone calls him Blockhead No one sings his praises Or takes him to heart... That is the kind of

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person I want to be “863.

The (former) victims -now on a pedestal- are the object of envy, too. The (formerly) wrathful pack that used to relish the atrocities it committed now crawls in self-denial envying the victim's supreme ethical status as moral vanguard; pencilnecked sweat-hogs now wish -in tune with the new party line- they had suffered so much, too.

Much as it in actuality turns out to be flimsy, heedless and 863“Strong in the rain Strong in the wind Strong against the summer heat and snow He is healthy and robust Free from desire He never loses his temper Nor the quiet smile on his lips He eats four go of unpolished rice Miso and a few vegetables a day He does not consider himself In whatever occurs His understanding Comes from observation and experience And he never loses sight of things He lives in a little thatched-roof hut In a field in the shadows of a pine tree grove If there is a sick child in the east He goes there to nurse the child If there’s a tired mother in the west He goes to her and carries her sheaves If someone is near death in the south He goes and says, ‘Don’t be afraid’ If there are strife and lawsuits in the north He demands that the people put an end to their pettiness He weeps at the time of drought He plods about at a loss during the cold summer Everybody calls him Blockhead No one sings his praises Or takes him to heart That is the sort of person I want to be” R. Pulvers translation.

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unaccountable, the sweet human soul loves to toy with grandstand fantasies of absolute morality and suchlike, just like the carbon-copied heroes and saviors of folklore, folklure and fakelore, for those who can actually tell the difference.

Video messages on the Youtube Mormon Channel may be exemplary.

One recites “Motherhood is an eternal partnership with god”, whose theoretical wisdom -theological claptrap set aside- can hardly be questioned. One is left to wonder, however, why most countries the world over had to set up humungous welfare apparatuses to cater to a burgeoning juvenile population allegedly victim of family neglect, abuse and other ills which can hardly be constituted as “direct participation to the work of god” (to quote the same 2010 Mormon video message).

According to data overviews864, as much as 70 to 80% or more couples with disabled children get divorced: so much for “always being there for you”. Of course, nothing works better to rebuild psychological integrity later than getting on one's high horse shaking fists, shedding tears, and contributing to this, that or another 'great cause': the 'kind of person' one does (not) want to be.

Gnosticism and pop culture can join hands in Candi Staton's You Got

The Love reworked in endless variations since 1986 (still prime-time TV soundtrack in 2006):

864 Sobsey 2004:63ss.

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But you've got the love I need to see me through Sometimes it seems the going is just too rough And things go wrong no matter what I do Now and then it seems that life is just too much But you've got the love I need to see me through When food is gone you are my daily need, oh When friends are gone I know my saviour's love is real You know it's real -...-Time after time I think "Oh Lord what's the use?" Time after time I think it's just no good Cause sooner or later in life, the things you love you lose But you got the love I need to see me through The song -as Staton recounts865- was originally created for an obscure, direct-to-video, third-rate movie about an obese man trying to lose weight; it could have easily been a blockbusting catastrophe, inequality or genocide movie. When international acclaim came, Staton claims at first she denied ever registering such a song because she had no recollection.

The Rorschach test effect is evidently at work. “Always being there for [insert frail little creature]” is one irresistible commodity everyone can restyle to fit one's circumstances, needs and beliefs: “responsibility transfer” is a versatile tool, as any psychologist might recommend. “You” in the song can be anything or anyone: Jesus, “being White and proud”, Zoroaster, Buddha, “rainbow nation” credos, Pol Pot, oneself...

Also in 1986, Bon Jovi released another hit song: Livin' On A Prayer, which also proved to be irresistible over the decades: a salad bar of mythological images as good as any positive psychology seminar. It was also restyled as a part of a

865 Heawood 2006:no page.

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concert that followed the Twin Towers attack (America: A Tribute To Heroes).

In the present writer's opinion at least, Livin' On A Prayer is -unlike

You Got The Love- too contextualized to allow for a full, unrestricted Rorschach effect:

Once upon a time Not so long ago Tommy used to work on the docks Unions been on strike He's down on his luck... it's tough, so tough Gina works the diner all day Working for her man, she brings home her pay For love - for love She says we've got to hold on to what we've got Cause it doesn't make a difference If we make it or not We've got each other and that's a lot For love - well give it a shot Eminent Portuguese writer Alรงada Baptista presents a pinpointed snapshot -allegedly from his own autobiography-. The quintessential motif of having failed to protect the victim at all costs floats atop a stormy sea of other motifs in a short paragraph: crossing the helpless victim's stare; the sullen departure motif (it's the last day at school and the author shall never see the victim again); the helpless victim looking (back) for a redeeming gesture that is not going to come as etched on the author's mind; the rationalization of one's behavior out of intimate shortcomings...alleged autobiography ends up looking exactly like notes from any major mythological book.

Phil Collins' 1989 hit song Another Day In Paradise follows adding the mytheme of the hero's wounds within the exemplum of the journey as tribulation.

If in a tasteless autobiographical note -or in a commercial song- one inserts 'you 872

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know who' and 'you know what', third-rate pathetic rhetoric becomes an irresistible commodity warranting the rewriting of history books while party liners scream their cosmic realization:

Não dei um passo, não fiz um gesto para o defender. A certa altura cruzaram-se os nossos olhares, ele como que à espera das minhas palavras e eu não abri a boca. Pergunto-me porque é que fiz isso. Por causa da minha timidez: eu não era capaz de enfrentar aqueles que me estavam a defender. E logo isto aconteceu no último dia e nunca mais o vi. Como recordação ficou-me aquele seu olhar inquieto e surpreendido com a minha indiferença, no meio dos que lhe batiam, à espera dum gesto meu. (Alçada Baptista 1998:32).

She calls out to the man on the street "Sir, can you help me?

It's cold and I've nowhere to sleep,Is there somewhere you can tell me?" He walks on, doesn't look back He pretends he can't hear her Starts to whistle as he crosses the street Seems embarrassed to be there -...- She calls out to the man on the street He can see she's been crying She's got blisters on the soles of her feet Can't walk but she's trying Oh think twice... Oh lord, is there nothing more anybody can do Oh lord, there must be something you can say You can tell from the lines on her face You can see that she's been there Probably been moved on from every place Cos she didn't fit in there Oh think twice... (Phil Collins 1989).

Ekphrasis—the rhetorical technique of description that purported to present visual images through the medium of words—appears among the progymnasmata [ preliminary education] by the first century A.D. -...- Among the greatest of the rhetorician’s skills was his ability to bring the things of which he was speaking seemingly before the eyes of his listeners, so that these images might be imprinted firmly on their memories. (Koortbojian 1995:36-7).

Such is the “comedy of innocence” that interests the contemporary reader, and has replaced the archaic version. Some may remember face (=good guy) wrestler Marty Jannetty in 1990, who shielded with his own body the hurting knee

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of tag-team partner Shawn Michaels (the duo Rockers) from further foul play while Michaels howled in pain on the canvas.

Reality melts in a sort of apocalyptic Bambi effect, whereby U.S deerhunting industry collapsed after the release of the Disney movie:

'We all stood and looked at him. We were looking at that slender neck and those poor little ears, that I had seen bleeding one day, and that large jacket, which he wore with the sleeves turned back, and those two little sickly arms, which had been raised so many times to save his face from a beating. Oh, at that moment I would have thrown at his feet all my toys and all my books; I would have taken the last piece of bread from my mouth and given it to him; I would have undressed myself to clothe him; I would have fallen upon my knees to kiss him.

(De Amicis 1918:71).

Of course, the dynamics above are at odds with the horde in fusion that clamors to march on Paris; engages in mass-murder; that posts tauntingly online pictures of missiles destined to Iraqi civilians (= the possible victims one had no way to know existed); that raids shops with German names in the UK during WWI, while police in attendance smirks smugly; that buries an enemy country under a deluge of incendiary bombs, whose colossal amount gets bragged about in the mainstream press in the face of Socratic dilemmas, and other existential claptrap.

The crowd's inconsequential wishes and infantile reactions seem to prefigure the world as a never-ending Tom&Jerry cartoon, whereby characters relentlessly pursue their inclinations. They let off steam hitting one another with clubs; they exchange brutal blows; they blow up -or cause the other to blow up- in 874

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an explosion; they jump off -or cause the other to jump off- a cliff; they ingest -or cause the other to ingest- nails or poison, yet in the end nobody's really hurt: the story always ends on a happy, reconciliatory note.

To categorically state the end note is one of duplicity, tragedy, slaughter etc causes the precious human soul to wriggle in agony screaming its pain along with Luke Skywalker as he realizes (=thunder of illumination) Darth Vader is his father after all866. Original footage of the famous Milgram obedience study (1961 867) eerily looks like a botched Tom&Jerry cartoon.

This point isn't exactly moot. Luke Skywalker -Tolstoy's Ivan Ilyc if one wants to sound more profound and intellectual- screaming his angst joins the party liner screaming his horror as he reads rewritten history books giving him shocking information he couldn't possibly have known, nor guessed; or accounts of the indignities this, that or another savior-hero, pariah group etc was subjected to.

Isn't Munch's 1893 The Scream one of the most famous -and highly prized in its many versions- paintings of all times? Is it just because of the brute painting's alleged art and craft, or rather because it injects immediate, psychical

866 The original scene is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlHIxZyJHg4 867 Participants were required to administer a series of ever greater electric shocks to a man strapped to a chair in another room in case he failed to answer each question in a long list. An experimenter in white lab coat urged participants to continue as “teachers” even as groans, whimpers and desperate pleas to stop were heard (=recorded sounds were played) from the “student” strapped to the chair. 65% of Milgram's participants were willing to admnister the highest electric voltage on the scale. In later years, opinions surfaced questioning various aspects -hence the validity- of the Milgram experiment and its countless clones.

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truths into most people? Is it by sheer chance that the head of Munch's Scream looks uncannily like American-Indian petroglyphs on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe?

Edvard Munch, well known for his haunting painting The Scream,was an irritable and solitary figure. He frequently behaved peculiarly and unpredictably. In midlife, Munch was hospitalized for anxiety and persecutory delusions (Steinberg and Weiss 1954). (Polimeni 2012:92).

Two people walk quietly on a bridge (= another mythological motif) in the background, while the scream takes place in the foreground. Screams are everywhere. Do singers not often emit a long howling, screeching or other noise (=vocalization= phatic act) to enrapture the listener? Muslim mystics -whether Sufi or Dervish- practice rituals (zikhr) in which communion with god is professedly realized through rhythmic breathing, singing and moving in a group setting.

As his angry father thrashes the Bruce Lee shrine he built inside the garage, young Jason (No Retreat No Surrender) howls the Skywalker “Nooo!�, and runs away in emotional agony: the insensitive parent just shredded Jason's cherished Bruce Lee poster.

Such scenes are a dime a dozen. The sacred symbol (of the day) embodies the main actor's ultimate concerns. In Chinese Connection, 1972, a faithful Chinese disciple crawls on the floor to save the picture of beloved master Ho Yuanjia, the Chinese hero, from desecration: evil Japanese assault him as he's thus powerless. In 876

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Ip Man, valiant Chinese takes from the evil Japanese a bag of rice stained with the sacred blood of another (deceased) Chinese as prize for a death tournament.

In Pet Sematary (1989), a friendly ghost -trying to prevent a transgression that would result in horrible consequences- yelps alongside Luke Skywalker before disappearing: he realizes the transgression shall take place in every case. Of course, to either hear Luke Skywalker's scream, or Woody Woodpecker's famous laughter depends on socio-political expediency and individual propensities. What could readers make of it?

Is this Skywalker illumination routine unique to a salad bar of sci-fi antics awash in quantum mysticism? Is it unique to how rewritten history books are approached? Or isn't it rather unique to the human psyche as such, being thus adapted to all and sundry? An example -as apolitical as it gets- may help to explain the dynamics undergirding the rewriting of history.

Anthropologist Laura Bohannan spent considerable time among the Tiv people of Nigeria collecting their folk stories. One time, however, they asked her to tell one story from her culture, so she on purpose chose that seemingly universal masterwork that is Hamlet. Surprisingly enough, the tribe elders corrected her on a number of points. The chief concluded:

That was a very good story," added the old man, "and you told it with very few mistakes. There was just one more error, at the very end. -...877

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"Sometime," concluded the old man, gathering his ragged toga about him, "you must tell us some more stories of your country. We, who are elders, will instruct you in their true meaning, so that when you return to your own land your elders will see that you have not been sitting in the bush, but among those who know things and who have taught you wisdom. (1966:49).

Details the elders picked apart varied:

“Not yesterday, not yesterday, but long ago, a thing occurred. One night three men were keeping watch outside the homestead of the great chief, when suddenly they saw the former chief approach them.”.“Why was he no longer their chief?”.“He was dead,” I explained. “That is why they were troubled and afraid when they saw him.”.“Impossible,” began one of the elders, handing his pipe on to his neighbor, who interrupted, “Of course it wasn’t the dead chief. It was an omen sent by a witch. Go on.” -...- Determined to save what I could of the mother motif, I took a deep breath and began again. “The son Hamlet was very sad because his mother had married again so quickly.

There was no need for her to do so, and it is our custom for a widow not to go to her next husband until she has mourned for two years.”.“Two years is too long,” objected the wife, who had appeared with the old man’s battered goatskin bag. “Who will hoe your farms for you while you have no husband?” (Ibid.:46).

If to a baffling exchange with tribal chieftains during fieldwork in Nigeria readers substitute 'you know who', 'you know what', and schizophrenic fixations derived from war propaganda and/or the 1960s, then readers can easily understand how it all works. Nigerian chieftains, too, 'rewrote' Hamlet to match their cultural, political and social values.

The 'good guys' are never evil, never cynical, never duplicitous: they simply had no opportunity to know the truth. 'Good guys' never turn their coat when they change their mind; rather, they awake to the enemy's real, quintessential 878

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nature: the good old Socratic concept.

In 2013 former Italian prime minister Monti -now chasing after electoral success making all sorts of promises to both left and right- showed 'good guys' are always well-meaning, as he censored the last row of tax and due diligence provisions his government urgently approved: “Io non lo volevo� (It wasn't me who wanted that).

The same crowd frantically clamoring for total war or cheering indiscriminate mass-bombing or reprisals may at a later date hide behind the fig leaf of perfunctory ethical dilemmas and protestations of good faith: a comedy of innocence. If 'the good guys' venture too far - and that cannot be simply explained away -, it is because the enemy -and the enemy only- had provoked them. After all, the enemy went just too far: there are no excuses for that.

This line of reasoning can unsurprisingly be applied to all and sundry.

MacNeill868 discusses the gimmicks of the hoaxing post-modern academic left in the perspective that such antics are an understandable reaction against Fascist excess and brutality.

Fascists, however, were convinced that they were in turn reacting against Social-Communist excess and brutality the Bolshevik revolution, and a host

868 2011: lecture 14.

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of local variations, epitomized. Fascism in Italy was expressly banded and funded after WWI to counter a radical Social-Communist wave ( biennio rosso, red twoyear).

In Germany, Jewish-German journalist Eisner proclaimed a SocialCommunist regime active in Bavaria between end 1918 and mid-1919; following Eisner's assassination, the fleeting regime assumed a Soviet identity under JewishRussian leader Levine. In Hungary, between March and August 1919, a Soviet-style Republic was established under the leadership of Jewish-Hungarian activist Bela Kun. In Belgium, leader Leon Degrelle would later band Fascist party Rex (from

Christus Rex, Christ the King, 1930-44) after a past as Christian activist from -in Degrelle's own appraisal- a Jesuit family.

In the commodious line of reasoning, however, the enemy -and the enemy only- triggers the “crisis of forgiveness”. Debord in another context terms this as being victim of the “tort absolu” (being irreparably wronged), which prompts the struggle about whether forgiveness might be appropriate. Of course, different constituencies may vary in their judgment about what constitutes “ultimate wrongdoing”.

As a result, different groups and constituencies may haggle over imposing their own thing as collective “ultimate wrongdoing”. Excess and gratuitous brutality become then the 'just payback' on the part of the righteous, akin to Hulk 880

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Hogan using illegal foreign objects to win a match just because “I feel strong about right and wrong, And I don't take trouble for very long”.

Academic cronyism transmits strange legends. For example, the fact that the Indian independence movement after WWII did not translate in a blood bath, but saw the British as simply leaving on more or less good terms, is usually credited to both Gandhi's strategy, and the 'morally superior' British ethos. Indians were lucky – in other words- that the British were those stupendous gentlemen they are universally reputed as being, and not the mass-murdering NSDAP brutes. This clearly ignores British brutalities or inaction of then recent decades (Sudan; the Boer wars, internments etc; the Bengali famine etc). The immediate animosity between the splinters of British Hindustan (India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh); or the clashes between various factions (Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian) also tarnishes the ideal of an idyllic transition.

The main problem lied with colonial empires being exhausted, and based upon untenable premises after WWII for both socio-economic, and geopolitical reasons. The Portuguese (not a contending party during WWII) tried to save as much of their empire as they could through improbable political expediencies (the

lusotropicalismo869 doctrine870), and armed repression, but in vain; and so did the 869 The Fascist regime in Portugal adapted various doctrines to signify how Portugal was a peculiar nation: pluricontinental, multiracial and multicultural since its inception, thus favoring exceptionalist doctrines to justify colonialism as the Portuguese way.

870 The French also tried to push some variations upon this theme by restyling their crumbling colonial Empire into a Union Française (1946-48), and a Communauté Française (1958-61). Both looked slightly similar to the

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French. European powers remained such only in the collective imaginary, or -in Britain's case- fictional James Bond movies. The mega-powers of Soviet USSR, and demo-plutocratic USA jockeyed for geopolitical positions the world over dancing over the dead body of the Shiva that European empires used to be.

Isn't Hulk Hogan loyal? Of course, when Randy 'Macho Man' Savage turns on Hogan like that, 'real American' Hogan “gotta be a man, can't let it slide”: he has to win the belt back from estranged friend Savage ”burnin' with determination to even up the score ”871.

It wouldn't be hard to quote elated praise directed to this, that or another dictator across the decades (Amin, Bokassa, Franco, Mobutu, Mussolini, Hitler, Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein...):

One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations. (W. Churchill, 1937).

If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons (W.Churchill, 1941).

Hitler is a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his lust for blood and plunder. (W. Churchill, 1941).

In the 1980s, Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell condemned the imposition of sanctions on South Africa as a means of ending apartheid, applauded South African President Botha, and encouraged British Commonwealth, with the French President acting as Head of State for the entire compact under provisions that varied over the years. Both attempts collapsed entirely.

871 Lyrics from Rocky IV soundtrack Hearts On Fire.

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his viewers to invest in Krugerrands. In the 1990s, Pat Robertson praised Zaire's President Mobutu on Zairian television as being a fine Christian, despite Mobutu's soldiers having recently killed a large number of pro-democracy citizens. At the time, Robertson was engaged in diamond mining operations in the country as part of a contract with Mobutu. Robertson signed another mining agreement with Liberia's President Taylor, who was also accused of widespread slaughter, and defended him as a fellow Christian. (Schuck&Wilson 2008:303).

Mother Teresa, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who did many good things for the world’s poor and was beatified by the Catholic Church, accepted over $1.25 million and the frequent use of a private jet from Charles Keating, the principal figure in the U.S. savings and loan scandal of the 1980s (Hitchens, 1995). Even though Keating was convicted of stealing millions of dollars from investors, Mother Teresa wrote a letter to the court urging leniency. The deputy district attorney in Los Angeles asked Mother Teresa to return the money, but she declined. She also accepted an award and a donation from JeanClaude Duvalier, the Haitian dictator who stole millions from his impoverished country, later declaring that "Papa Doc" loved the country’s poor and they loved him. (Padilla no date:4-5).

Some sources may have indifferently regarded boxer Cassius Clay, and Uganda's dictator (1971-79) General Amin -also a professional boxing champion- as icons epitomizing people of color's irresistible ascent: another 'psychologically positive' variation upon the theme of the resilient underdog with a vision who eventually triumphs. At any rate, could the imagery associated with people of color be anything but a positive one in our era?

This held in spite of the fact Amin had in 1972 expelled Asian-Ugandans at short notice with a corollary of vigilante/nativist violence, and property dispossession. At some point, however, 'the good guys' “gotta be men, can't let it

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slide”, as they finally awake to the tyrant's true goals.

On the same wavelength, Hulk Hogan discovered Savage's plans to have Macho-madness triumph over Hulkamania: it is as elusive to the common man as the reasons why some Muslim maximalist groups were alternatively labeled as the “freedom fighters” of the 1980s, the holy victims of the 1990s, the rogues of the 2010s.

Are we expected to agree or disagree with, laugh at or with the following articles appeared on the web discussing tragic circumstances and events related to WWII:

Now, more than 60 years later, it seems we must lower our estimates -...-. Many of those who lost families-...- and loved ones in the catastrophe have found dignity and meaning in the sheer magnitude and dark grandeur of the event, and to see -...- casualty figures reduced -...- to more “normal” (though still horrendous) levels seems incredible, even insulting. And there are the political distortions. The [insert group n.1 here] were the first to exaggerate the number of victims for propaganda purposes-...-. Finally, [insert group n.2 here] in modern Germany conjure up dizzyingly high figures -...-. That it has finally issued its report seems something of a miracle. And that its members have courageously and doggedly followed the logic of the evidence, knowing the unpopularity it may bring, speaks strongly for the integrity of the historians involved. (Taylor 2008: no page).

2. [enemies of the group] have grossly exaggerated the [group] involvement in [...ism], distorted the facts, and interpreted them according to conspiracy theories. [group members] were also victims of [...ism]. -...- 5. The deepest problem is posed by the quasi-religious character of the [...ist] involvement of some [members of the group].

6. There is no distinctive [group] radicalism. There is no ‘[group ...ism]’. [Group members] became [...ists] because of general 884

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mechanisms. 7. It was not [group culture] or [group] traditions but the social situation that led [group] to involvement in [...ism]. 8.

Participation in evil can begin with noble and selfless intentions.

(Krajewski no date:1).

There are at least two good ways to pursue the question of why there were so many [members of the group] in SDS [Students For Democratic Society]. The first would be a sociological research study in which a large representative sample of the [group member] veterans of SDS and the New Left are asked about the relationship between their being [members of the group] and their activism. (Rudd 2005: no page).

[Group members] were disproportionately involved in the 1960s student movement known as the New Left. Drawing on research data from primarily the USA and Australia, we explore some of the key factors that contributed to this prominence including the significant number of [group members] students at key universities, the impact of left-wing family backgrounds on many [group members] students, and the general influence of [group] cultural values and experiences. We argue that [group member] student radicals incorporated the whole spectrum of [group] identity from those who either rejected or expressed ambivalence about their [quality of group member] to those whose radical and [group] commitments were closely aligned. We also explain why the [group] contribution to the New Left had so little impact on mainstream [group] political culture. (Mendes 2009:1).

Would one champion or jeer the above in a crowded theater hall full of mainstream public? So the ultimate question is: is this (whatever it is) reinforcing or undermining the mos? Is this good or bad for 'the cause'? Does agreeing with this amount to obedience or disobedience? “ mos requires neither deliberation, nor judgment, but praise or blame�.

After all, obedience training and bonding around societal mos come first, no matter how 'persuasive' or 'fitting' anything may read. Is the prose below from a

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multi-award winning book, or from some 'impure' publication, whose author deserves to be dealt with impersonally inside the courts, or personally in a back alley?

[...ism n.1] espouses repugnant ideas, but [...ism n.2]'s ideas of equality, solidarity. social justice. an end to misery. and power to the oppressed are indeed beautiful. The New [...ist] Man- tireless.

Cheerful, clean, brave, thrifty. and kind to animals-is an ideal all humanity should aspire to reach. The problem, As even believing [...ists] admit. is that this utopian landscape must be stocked with ordinary people. [...ism n.2] is lofty and grand, but human beings are flawed creatures. unwilling to pay [...ism n.2] the tribute of sacrifice it demands (Rosenberg in Myers 2002:143).

Belief is essentially a test of loyalty to a system of power. To which degree is the reaction to the historical event/circumstances described above dependent upon the disclosure of the blanked parts in the otherwise preserved prose?

The masters of acceptable discourse, the craftsmen who shape the storyline, those who 'control the conversation' may at times push the boundary (Orwell's '2+2=5' concept) so that the ultimate test is administered to part true followers -who are one with the entranced pack- from opportunists and dissidents:�Even if such claims had merit -...- [people] cannot ethically stand by this [statement] whose end result can only be furthering discrimination under the guise of academic discourse.�.

Disbelief is invariably politicized, and interpreted to identify the 886

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dissident with the foulest anti-myths in their bloodiest variations, while at the same time

protesting

the

identity

of

one's

ideas

(=the

'good

guy's')

with

immaterial/immemorial -spiritual or otherwise- truths that can elicit the usual sentimental elation. Ovid872 has almighty Jupiter complain how he had given signs that under his mortal disguise hid a god; commoners had started to worship him, yet arch-sinner Lycaon seized the opportunity to mock their credulity.

The same religious and mystical verbiage is borrowed to parade crass political items under the blanket afforded by knee-jerk reactions following impassioned harangues. The very word liberazione (liberation) is in Italy used to denote not only spiritual salvation, but the more mundane last moments of the Fascist regime collapsing as one foreign occupant (Germany) retreated in defeat, and other foreign occupants (Anglo-Americans) advanced victorious.

Then Belgian Socialist leader de Man apparently referred to the collapse of the Belgian regime following German occupation during WWII as liberation (dĂŠlivrance). Various liberation or freedom fronts are/were active throughout the post-colonial world. Was Palestinian leader Arafat the liberator of Palestine (according to most Arabs or Muslims), or a terrorist (according to most Jews or Zionists)?

As in religious lore, the 'savior' (liberator or similar) may as well wield a 872 Metamorphoses 1.220ss.

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rod of iron. Strikingly awful behavior may be thus presented as a moral lesson, or the paradoxes of doubleness:

But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them--bring them here and kill them in front of me (Luke 19:27)873.

To all who are victorious, who obey me to the very end, To them I will give authority over all the nations. They will rule the nations with an iron rod and smash them like clay pots. (Revelations 2:26-7).

Accordingly, the trickster traffics frequently with the transcendent while loosing lewd acts upon the world. Gastronomic, flatulent, sexual, phallic, and fecal feats erupt seriatim. Yet the bricoleur aspect of the trickster can cause any or all of such lewd acts or objects to be transformed into occasions of insight, vitality, and new inventive creations. (Hynes 1993:42).

The most dynamic and trans-cultural of the trickster's attributes must certainly be his wild sexuality. All but universally, he is depicted with enormous genitalia and an insatiable sexual appetite. Stories abound wherein the trickster lures away wives and gets himself into trouble over his libido. There is no limit to the outrageousness of these mythic narratives (Campbell 1999:41).

Ironically, Sartre did imply that vulgarity might be a necessary component of existential authenticity. (Charmé 1991:17).

Incitement to hatred, division and violent settling of disputes may be(come) as (un)acceptable as the person wishing for it, much as in wrestling matches foul play, and the use of illegal foreign objects, may be accepted or rejected depending on who is doing what.

873 One of the lines of defense out of the embarrassment such direct, full quotations pose, is to disclaim the parable describes (alludes to, implies...) Jesus, father god or the like, as it's most often implied, but the literal, fictional character “A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. ”( Luke 19:12). Possibly a carbon-copy of 1 Samuel 11:12:”The people then said to Samuel, "Who was it that asked, 'Shall Saul reign over us?' Bring these men to us and we will put them to death." ”.

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Prominent Italian antifascists brothers Rosselli urged to support the Republican government during the Spanish civil war under the motto “ oggi in Spagna, domani in Italia” (Today [we fight] in Spain, tomorrow in Italy), whereas Jesus said: ”Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn "'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law- ” (Matthew 10:34-35)874.

Resistance against Fascist regimes, and their invading troops, was the due course of action to thwart their brutal goals. Resistance against the AngloAmericans or the Soviets embodied an irrational refusal to take a medicine that -however very bitter- cooperated all for the good of mankind. As repeatedly argued throughout this writing, the same concepts can be easily recruited to serve or condemn, promote or demote anything and anyone. The sole difference rests with the reader (voter, etc) and the elusive questions of credibility and emotion s-he bases his/her decision upon.

While it is fashionable to praise moderation and skepticism in the allegiance to any idea, party liners are always on the lookout for both people expressing views contrary to what's acceptable this season, and for people who are

874 As the present writer argues, it is easy to find passages from the early Christian tradition that contradict this image of Jesus, such as:”[A man said] to [Jesus], "Tell my brothers to divide my father's possessions with me."

He said to him, "O man, who has made Me a divider?" He turned to His disciples and said to them, " I am not a divider, am I?"” (The Gospel Of Thomas no date:no page, n.72 emphasis added).

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not enthusiastic enough:”A destroyer of faith-...- places himself in great spiritual jeopardy. He is serving the wrong master, and unless he repents, he will not be among the faithful in the eternities.”.

In fact, anything short of unbridled enthusiasm, display of fashionable loyalties, and

parroting of approved slogans might signpost doubtful moral

standards, hideous sympathies: foul allegiances that must at all costs be made public and uprooted:

When the teacher treats him kindly, the boy makes fun of him for it. Once the teacher said terrible words to the boy, then the latter covered his face with his hands and pretended to be crying, but he was laughing. (De Amicis 1918:66).

The legislation contained no provision for reporting incidents that turn out to be hoaxes as such. When an incident is discovered to be a hoax it might be dropped from the statistics, and it might not.

Even more disturbing the legislation contained no provision to exclude unsolved offenses, many of which are probably hoaxes.

Offenses having the mere appearance of a hate crime are to be reported as such, including unsubstantiated telephone threats, anonymous graffiti and unproven claims of name calling -...-.The decision to even classify incidents as "racially-motivated" is fraught with issues of subjectivity and bias. Although "racially-motivated" seems to be a neutral term, it is not. In practice it’s been a code phrase for crime by white (and not black) racists. It creates the anomaly of white youth receiving a stiffer sentence for mere graffiti on a black business than a black youth might receive for the burglary of its owner! (Wilcox 1994:21).

Under Roman Emperor Decius (249-51 CE), Christians were required to publicly sacrifice in honor of the State, the Emperor and the pagan gods who presided over the Empire (=togetherness through belief), whose borders Barbarians 890

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besieged.

The contemporary elevation of remembrance, that is, of collective historical memory to the status of moral obligation-and in many countries of the European Union-...- a legal one as welltoo often appears like nothing so much as hyperthymesia writ large. (Rieff 2011:96).

What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. (Matthew 10:27).

Our normal affinity for the occasional thrill can make the risktaking sociopath seem all the more charming -...-. Such is the flavor of sociopathic “spontaneity”and risk taking and "charm," and though we may chuckle about the obvious come-ons when we read them, the overall approach has met with noteworthy success time and again (Stout 2005:89).

At a judicial conference in Maine, Hare spoke about the ease with which convicted offenders often are able to convince various religious groups, simply by using the right words and phrases, that they too had “found religion.” The tactic of the offenders was to tap into the groups’ belief that there is good in all of us and that everyone can be redeemed, even though we sometimes temporarily go off track. (Babiak&Hare 2006:56).

Most of us would be devastated and humiliated by public exposure as a liar and a cheat, but not the psychopath. He or she can still look the community straight in the eye and give impassioned assurances, on their "word of honor." (Hare 1993:112).

Remembrance might be enthralling, yet specialists detail how the human brain's memory capabilities are less than forensic. Schacter describes thus seven major and recurring problems with human memory:

1. “Transience--the decreasing accessibility of memory over time.

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2. Absent-mindedness--lapses of attention and forgetting to do things.

3. Blocking--temporary inaccessibility of stored information, such as tip-of-thetongue syndrome.

4. Suggestibility--incorporation of misinformation into memory due to leading questions, deception and other causes.

5. Bias--retrospective distortions produced by current knowledge and beliefs.

6. Persistence--unwanted recollections that people can't forget, such as the unrelenting, intrusive memories of post-traumatic stress disorder.

7. Misattribution--attribution of memories to incorrect sources or believing that you have seen or heard something you haven't.� (Murray 2003: no page).

Isn't enthusiasm -in fact- the sole way to approach the best of all ideas or the best of all causes? One has to be ready to elatedly go as far as required to serve the best of all causes while scoffing at possible collateral damage: spiritual commandos. Isn't this the method to the madness of all revolutions, with their mentally unstable, bohemian or poker-faced apostles leading the unwashed rabble in trance?

Apostles and leaders who can also come under the guise of the

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omnipotent Belle Epoque nation-State.

a sense of split -...- he sees himself in two roles -...- the role of the clown, that's the outer role that he plays -...- inside he's the savior and he knows it -...- an experience -...- of terrific drop-off and regression backwards, [then] -...- feelings of new knowledge -...- then there comes a sense of a terrific task and danger to be master, also of divine presences that will help one and -...- the final crisis. (Campbell 1970).

Well, Guinevere kept being abducted, and this time she's abducted by the lord of a castle which is equated with the underworld. Arthur doesn't go to get her back;Lancelot goes. And he goes with such speed that he rides two horses to death. -...-He's plowing along there, and a cart, driven by a churl, a peasant, passes him. In the cart are people who are being taken to be hanged or punished in one way or another.

-...-So he hesitates for three steps before getting into the cart. But he does get in, and an adventure begins. -...-He comes in to receive her great greeting and gratitude. But she's as cold as ice. Why? Because he hesitated for three steps before getting in that cart. How did she know? She's the goddess: women know these things. (Campbell 1989: A Noble Heart).

Clowns and fools -...- were the constant, accredited representatives of the carnival spirit in everyday life out of carnival season. -...- As such they represented a certain form of life, which was real and ideal at the same time. They stood on the borderline between life and art, in a peculiar midzone as it were, they were neither eccentrics nor dolts, neither were they comic actors (Bakhtin 1984:8).

Clowns have many striking trickster characteristics as well as links with shamanism. In earlier cultures clowns were frequently associated with obscene and scatological practices. Ethnographer Adolf Bandelier studied the Pueblo of New Mexico, and he described celebrations where the clowns performed sodomy, coitus and masturbated in front of the entire tribe. (Hansen 2001:30).

One part of the claim tends to slip past us unnoticed because we have heard it so often that we no longer see what it amounts to. I mean the claim to forgive sins: any sins. Now unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous as to be comic. We can all understand how a 893

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man forgives offences against himself. You tread on my toe and I forgive you, you steal my money and I forgive you. But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that he forgave you for treading on other men's toes and stealing other men's money? Asinine fatuity is the kindest description we should give of his conduct. Yet this is what Jesus did. He told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured. He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offences. This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin. In the mouth of any speaker who is not God, these words would imply what I can only regard as a silliness and conceit unrivalled by any other character in history. -...- A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. (Lewis 1943:28, emphasis added).

In Rocky IV (1985), a hand-picked, cold war style crowd of Soviet enthusiasts watching the boxing match under the piercing eye of a Gorbachevlookalike (=father figure who personifies the horde), instantly and spontaneously (=fusion of the horde) rises on its feet to cheer 'real American' Rocky Balboa as he proceeds to summarily defeat the Soviet champion.

In Ladyhawke (1985), at least some prelates at a medieval general assembly in a cathedral wave and cheer the hero who had just dispatched their bishop (=the bad guy). In The Running Man (1987), a felon has to participate in a televised, deadly gladiatorial game. Towards the end of the movie, the public starts

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to bet on -and sympathize with- the underdog. The opposite in fact applies: the underdog has been unjustly convicted as a set-up to cover government misdeeds up.

The 'good guy' (of the moment, of course, that is whoever won and suchlike), and his values prove just irresistible to the stupendous human psyche, and its circular proclivities. On the same wavelength, the Bruce Lee character raids the Japanese Bushido school on screen (Chinese Connection, 1972); Ip Man defeats the arrogant English boxer; young Jason overpowers the Soviet rogue -and by extension the crime syndicate that sent him-; Rambo ( Rambo II, 1985) brings home war prisoners from Vietnam (=the victims nobody knew existed)...

All those hero-savior figures represent, embody the fusion of the horde to the highest degree. They got the gnostic realization that renders alternative interpretations, ideas or courses of action not only inconceivable, but sinful (insane...) to the highest degree:”hyper reality that exists without permitting a question to arise”875;”No debunking, disbelief, or criticism (constructive or otherwise). ”;”to the point that they cannot imagine not sharing your opinion.”.

Opposing or criticizing what chances to be the upheld norm this season is rooted not in alternative opinions or sources, but in unspeakable covenants with absolute evil, whose sources are the foulest. Opposing patriotic extravaganzas amounts to being a traitor or an anti-national who hates the meek horde ready to 875 Gane 1991:138.

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endure sweet deprivations for the greater good; criticizing a certain religion shall mean one's corrupt soul is afraid of this, that or another sweet savior, prophet and the like who loved us so much; picking apart social alchemy shall mean one's 'heart of darkness' cannot accept that you-know-who suffered you-know-what, and that the horde in tears owes them really that much.

Coming from Los Angeles, young Jason becomes the quintessential Seattle guy as the movie ends (=the outsider as savior motif); Rambo is the (=not just another) 'real American'; Bruce Lee a true Chinese, and so on and so forth. The hero is 'the best among us', even when he's ridiculed, torn apart in agony, ostracized, and goes (temporarily) away in disgrace.

The hobo, “pencil-necked sweat-hog” or hillbilly watching the drama unfold can thus identify with the myth that became fact. The “pencil-necked sweat-hog” is no hero, but s-he very well might be as shown on screen.

Israeli Harvard scholar Ben-Shahar elatedly introduces role models: Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King, and at pivotal points Winston Churchill. Fears876, too, elatedly puts the British statesman right behind Caesar himself; Napoleon -to Fears- was kind of a bluff, but Churchill, attaboy.

876 2011: Napoleon And The Mantle Of Caesar.

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Aurobindonian mysticism makes the same demands in order for the 'fusion of the pack (artificial kin group etc)' to take place on the cause's service:

There must be in no part of the being, even the most external, anything that makes a reserve, anything that hides behind doubts, confusions and subterfuges, anything that revolts or refuses -...-. If each time the Power intervenes and brings in the Truth, you turn your back on it and call in again the falsehood that has been expelled, it is not the divine Grace that you must blame for failing you, but the falsity of your own will and the imperfection of your own surrender.

-...- Your surrender must be self-made and free; it must be the surrender of a living being, not of an inert automaton or mechanical tool. (MAISF001 no date: ch.5).

The joke, because it breaks down the control, gives the monitoring system a holiday. Or, as Freud puts it, since monitoring costs effort, there is a saving in psychic expenditure. For a moment the unconscious is allowed to bubble up without restraint, hence the sense of enjoyment and freedom -...- The rite imposes order and harmony, while the joke disorganises. (Douglas 1968: 364,369).

The analogy is fair for pollution is like an inverted form of humour. It is not a joke for it does not amuse. But the structure of its symbolism uses comparison and double meaning like the structure of a joke.

-...-Thus pollution rules can serve to settle uncertain moral issues.

(Douglas 1966:123,132).

These people have upset the social order-by disregarding the conventions of polite society or by violating laws-so we label them "mentally ill" and punish them by commitment to a mental institution. The patient knows that he is deprived of freedom because he has annoyed others, not because he is sick. And in the mental hospital he learns that until he alters his behavior he will be segregated from society. But even if he changes and is permitted to leave, his record of confinement goes with him. And the practical consequences are more those of a prison than a hospital record.

(Szasz877 1991:84).

877 Jewish-Hungarian scholar and professor of psychiatry.

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Mindful of Socratic dilemmas (=to know what's good is to do what's good), and other allegedly deep existential claptrap, 'the good guys' couldn't possibly embrace anything other than the best of all causes or the most justified of all ideas.

The Socratic dilemma, gem of pagan philosophy, was swiftly absorbed in Christian theology to electrify the partisans of heretic Hebrew messianism as appetitus boni (natural tendency towards what's good). The hero wouldn't suffer indignities, rejection, persecution and even slaughter if his ideas weren't the only true ones: that's why he can -and indeed shall- 'save' us.

Liulevicius878 talks of ideologies as “hijacked religious impulses”, but hastens to reject the saying that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter: freedom fighters just don't target the innocent. Liulevicius seems to ignore how unambiguous advocates of terrorism (“propaganda of the deed” or any other euphemism one might use) often sit atop the pedestals of patriotic zeal indeed as culture hero-tricksters who wanted to avenge ultimate wrongdoings by dropping a bomb or two; or by orchestrating a coup, or a few assassinations. Examples are innumerable: Gavrilo Princip (Yugoslavia); Mazzini, Cafiero, Pisacane (Italy); Mandela (South Africa); Mujica (Uruguay); De Valera (Ireland); Castro (Cuba); Singh&Datta879 (India), and so forth shine as both patriotic icons and 'godly

878 2003: Defining Utopia And Terror.

879 Indian insurrectionists who -in 1929- threw two bombs into the Delhi Legislative Assembly. They seemingly did not try to escape, and -during the trial that preceded execution- reclaimed themselves of the “ideals” of a diverse cohort of historical figures ranging from Sikh guru Singh to Lenin, Lafayette, Garibaldi, Washington and Reza Khan, founder of the royal Pahlavi dynasty in Iran.

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terrorists':

Surely, this illustrates why many critics feel that institutional politics are heavily influenced by the participants’ transference of religious commitment. (Castronova 2004:36). such sensations can be induced by rhythmic chanting and body movements, combined with loud music and colorful visual displays, all of which produce a condition of sensory overload and sympathetic nervous system arousal, coupled with simultaneous parasympathetic activation due to conscious “damping down” of arousal. This process then induces a neurological condition characterized by a sense of depersonalization and ecstatic union with one’s surroundings. -...-The two types of activities— religious rituals and patriotic rituals—use the same underlying neurological pathways and chemistry. (MacNeill 2011:49).

One regime's extradition of (alleged) transgressors -such as the French Fascist Vichy regime surrendering ideological transgressors to Germany- is the most barbarous act of contempt towards common humanity in search of sanctuary, or another fixation common to Graeco-Roman imagery. The opposite might chance to apply at all times depending on who does what: the so-called Bleiburg and Lienz “massacres” become Anglo-American “repatriations” (=importance of naming) of Fascist fighters, collaborators -and often their relatives- in Soviet hands. Some might have suffered hardship or perished in the process, yet – as one might expect when the opposite applies- the jury is still out regarding how – or how many of themactually

died,

and

whether

such

deaths

could

be

framed

within

a

“deliberate&systematic” attempt.

Naturally, it all depends on the definition one gives to terms. German 899

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and Japanese -recently, Iraqi or Libyan; erstwhile Vietnamese or Cambodiancivilians could be buried under a deluge of incendiary bombs under the assumption they partook of the body politic's collective responsibility, however embodied in a given regime only a percentage of the population actively endorsed. Interestingly enough, such is the law suicide bombers apply attacking Israeli civilians, and the NSDAP regime applied to all Jews it could seize.

Of course, the opposite may chance to apply. Myths and folklore have already probed the issue. In Genesis (18:23ss), Abraham discusses with god the impending destruction of impious Sodom and Gomorrah. Would god spare the city if 50 righteous people dwelt in it? 45? 40? 30? 10? The phobia about hasty judgments, and possible ensuing horrors doesn't prevent, however, from connecting the dots regarding:

The group’s growing presence in southern Chile, the main center of German settlements, provided further ammunition, not least because many contemporary observers saw German-Chileans as supporters, and even willing collaborators, of the Third Reich. A memorandum by the Servicio de Investigaciones, which was drawn up in June 1934, clearly underlined the growing significance of the region in general and the German-Chileans in particular for the development of the Chilean fascists (Klein 2004:596, emphasis added).

Ruiz880 claims that the Spanish inquisition in the XV century did not target Jews as such, but rather converted Jews, whose conversion was supposed to be inauthentic (for example they practiced some form of Judaism in secret). It is easy to 880 2002:Jewish Millennial Expectations.

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