Posted on January 10, 2022, by Simon Elmer at Architects for Social Housing: https://architectsforsocialhousing.co.uk/2022/01/10/the-soothsayer-a-parable-in-five-prophecies/ [Simon’s website is worth following for very good analyses of a wide range of subjects, not only architecture]
I thought it was worth reposting this for everyone at TBP to enjoy because for me it’s a fable that sums up how it always has been for as long as humans have walked the earth – Enjoy the journey!
Over to you, Simon: “When the enemies of reason are victorious — as they have been for some time now in the UK — those of us still fighting on the side of reason have to employ another language in order to communicate with them, find other ways to describe the irrationality in which they are imprisoned. This is a parable for our times.
- First Prophecy: A man walked into the desert. There he had many visions of a future that only he could see, for he was a Soothsayer, honoured by the gods, feared among men. After forty days and forty nights he reached the other side of the desert, and descended into a river valley. There he came across a small village surrounded by fields in which the villagers were hard at work that Spring morning, tending to their herds and flocks.
‘Oh good people,’ the Soothsayer cried, ‘I come bearing bad tidings for you! Behold, the god of the river has spoken to me in the desert. He is wrath with you. For too long have you lived off the fat of the land he has watered, and now he demands the sacrifice of your best bull!’
The people of the village looked at him with amazement on their faces. ‘But who are you, Soothsayer, and why should we believe what you say? Spring is here, and we need our best bull to increase our herds for the Winter to come.’
‘Do not question the gods of nature’ the Soothsayer responded angrily, ‘or they will rise up against you! Have I not studied their ways under learned masters whose knowledge you could not possibly comprehend? Do as I say, or this very night your village shall be swept away in a flood of divine retribution!’
The people of the village went to the village elders to tell them what the Soothsayer had said. But some stayed in the fields to tend to their animals, and some went home to wash the dust from their clothes, and when they finally reached the village square the Soothsayer was there ahead of them. With many bows and courtesies, the elders invited him into the village hall — ‘to consider his warning,’ they said, ‘to weigh up the benefits and losses for the whole village, and to make their decision.’ The day was almost over when the elders re-emerged.
‘For the greater good!’, they cried, announcing their decision to the waiting villagers. ‘It’s a necessary sacrifice, and although our herd will be diminished until we can buy another, better to sacrifice one bull than to lose the whole village. Surely, anyone can see that? We shall do as the Soothsayer says!’
And that evening the whole village gathered to watch the sacrifice of their best bull in the village square. First the bones, horns and tail were thrown onto the fire as an offering to the river god. Then the best cuts of meat were shared among the village elders. Last of all the entrails and offal were handed over to the villagers. Some of them reported seeing the Soothsayer sitting among the elders at the high table, licking the blood and fat off his fingers.
The next morning nothing had changed. The river had not risen and the village was still standing.
‘You see?’ cried the Soothsayer triumphantly. ‘The river god is appeased by your obedience. He has spared your village from his wrath. But never forget, good people, that the gods of nature watch over you always, and their wrath is only averted for a time!’
- Second Prophecy: The summer solstice had passed, and the villagers were attending to their diminished herds, when once again the Soothsayer appeared to them, a shadowy figure beneath the noonday sun.
‘Alas, obedient people, I bring you more woe! In the night the god of rain spoke to me, and he is wrath with you! For too long have you grazed your sheep on the hills he has made fertile, and now he demands just payment for his beneficence!’
The people of the village looked at the Soothsayer in fear, for they had not forgotten that he had predicted their future before — though how he did none knew nor dared to ask.
‘What shall we do, O Master, to avoid the anger of the rain god?’
‘To me alone does he speak!’ the Soothsayer shouted, pointing to the sky (in which not a cloud could be seen). ‘Only through me will you find protection from his divine wrath. And this has he made known to me through portents, auguries and divination. The village shall hand over half its flock to me, his appointed and trusted emissary, and I shall see them returned to the gods from whose watchful care and bounty they came.’
Without waiting to consult the rest of the villagers, the village elders pushed forward and spoke in loud voices.
‘We shall do what you order, Master, in the sure and certain belief that you are, in truth, an emissary of the gods!’
After a quick calculation of the number of sheep in the village, the elders turned to the villagers, and raised the batons of their office menacingly over their heads.
‘O villagers, each of you must hand over a dozen sheep to this emissary of the gods, and be glad that we have his wisdom and knowledge to guide us through this terrible time. Only through obedience to his commandments shall we pass through the storm and see the sun again!’
Some of the villagers were not happy with this arrangement, which meant that those with two dozen sheep lost half their stock, those with four dozen a mere quarter, while those with only a dozen sheep were left destitute. They tried to point out that the man the elders now called ‘Master’ had asked for half the sheep in the whole village — but the elders would not listen. Instead, when the poorer villagers refused to hand over their entire flock, the elders sent a handful of guards (who until then had protected their homes from wolves and other wild animals) to take the sheep from the villagers by force.
Those who put up a struggle were thrown into a fenced enclosure they called a ‘stockade’. Nobody had heard this word before or knew when it had been built or by whom; but the other villagers took note, and no matter how many sheep they owned, they obediently handed over the dozen designated by the elders. In the confusion, few thought to ask what the Soothsayer whom they now called Master would do with the sheep, and those who did were shouted down by the others.
‘Better to lose half our flock than the whole village! Do as our elders say! They understand these matters better than you, and the emissary of the gods has spoken! Or do you no longer believe in the gods of nature?’
To this question few had an answer, and by late afternoon the Soothsayer had received half the entire village’s sheep. With the help of a few other villagers (to whom he had promised rich reward) the Soothsayer took these over the brow of the hill and disappeared — nobody knew where. Some of the bolder villagers let it be known that they hoped they had seen the last of the Soothsayer, and refused to call him ‘Master’ (except of the other villagers). But the majority laughed and called them ‘Unbelievers’, warning them of the fate that awaited those who denied the gods of nature.
- Third Prophecy: The winds of Autumn were blowing through the village, and the sheep that were left had all been slaughtered, when the Soothsayer returned for the third time. He came as the shadows of evening fell, and his face was terrible to look upon.
‘O vain and ungodly people’, he cried, ‘your sins have not been hidden from me! The god of storms has spoken to me in the desert, and he is wrath with you! Ask not what you have done, less you sharpen his fury! This very night your village shall be laid low by his tempests. Have I not seen it all in your future? Do I not have secret knowledge unfathomable to your shallow thoughts and selfish desires?
‘Harken to me, you who are faithful to the gods, and close your ears to the Unbelievers! The storm-god demands a sacrifice to appease his most just and fearful temper. Greedy have you been all the days of your lives, and now the reckoning is upon you! The god of storms, most merciful of all the gods, demands that you lay all your coins and jewels, your richest cloth and your least trinket — yay, even your children’s inheritance, in heavy chests and leave them in the village square. There shall his trusted emissary convey your offerings to a place too sacred for you to enter, where they shall be returned to him from whom they were granted only in loan. Unworthy and godly people, in the purity of poverty alone lies your salvation from the winds of justice. This is your last chance of salvation!’
As he said this, some of the villagers — mostly those who had refused to acknowledge the Soothsayer as their Master but some others too — saw sweat trickling down his face, and could hear the tremble of doubt in his voice. And they said to themselves — ‘Liar!’ But when they repeated this out loud, they were seized by the village guards, whose ranks had swollen with many of their fellow villagers, and thrown into the stockade. This too had grown in size, and outside stood more guards, members of a newly-created village militia, who hid their faces behind brightly-coloured scarves.
Long into the night the rest of the villagers laboured to gather their coins and jewels, their least trinket and their richest cloth, and anything else they had put aside after long labour for the future of their children. And everything was piled in heavy chests in the village square, where yet more guards stood, armed now with long spears and heavy shields that had never before been seen in the village.
And throughout the gathering the Soothsayer that some now called ‘Lord’ urged the villagers to hurry, less dawn come and their village be swept away by the terrible wrath of the god of storms. And so it was that, even as the last chest was taken on mules over the brow of the hill and into the desert, the dawn broke bright behind them, with a blue sky overhead. A great cry went up from all the villagers (or at least, from those who were not imprisoned in the stockade).
‘We are saved! Once more the Soothsayer has spoken the truth, and saved us from destruction!’ And turning to the Soothsayer they knelt before him. ‘Tell us, O Lord and most certain emissary of the gods of nature, are we now saved from their wrath? Are all our many sacrifices sufficient to appease them for their many and generous bounties, of which, until now, we have proved so unworthy? Are the gods of nature pleased with us?’
The Soothsayer looked at the villagers with a smile on the side of his face — the side turned away from them. ‘We shall see, obedient and fearful servants of the gods. Yes, we shall see.’
With that he turned and walked up the hill in the same direction in which the mule train had disappeared. And as the sun rose it glittered on the Soothsayer’s robes, which were as rich as any in the village had once been, even among the elders. And around his neck there hung the heaviest of necklaces, which glinted in the morning light so that it dazzled their eyes. And some of them said they heard the clink of coins in the heavy bags he bore under his cloak.
- Fourth Prophecy: Throughout the remainder of the year there was huge relief in the village. They had sacrificed their best bull, and given away half their sheep flocks, and to the Soothsayer they had handed all their coins and jewels, their richest cloth and least trinket, and the wealth they had stored against their children’s future — but the village still stood against the wrath of the gods of the river, the rain and the storms. Now, surely, their future was assured! They could work and save for another bull, breed more sheep and build up their lost wealth. Their children would never see the future they had planned for them, nor, perhaps, their children’s children; but when the villagers who were now living were dead, their grand-children would still have the village!
But as dusk rose in the valley one cold Winter’s night, a figure appeared on the brow of the hill. It was the Soothsayer that the villagers now called Lord, and this time he came not alone but with a company of armed guards, among whom the villagers recognised many of their former friends and members of their families.
‘God-fearing people of the village!’ the Soothsayer cried in a loud voice, and all the guards clashed their spears against their shields. Some of the villagers began to protest, but the guards grabbed them from among the others and slew them there in the village square where the bull had been sacrificed, the sheep gathered and the chests piled high with the former wealth of the village.
‘God-fearing people of the village!’, the Soothsayer cried again, and this time the village was silent. ‘Have I not returned just in time? Do we not see here the origin and cause of the ills which, alas, still afflict you? For see, the Winter is drawing in, and many shall die if you do not heed my commands. I have spoken to the god of winter, and he is wrath with you! For though many have obeyed the gods of nature, still some among you doubt my words.’
A murmur of assent ran through the crowd of villagers, and following it a wave of fear — though of what exactly none yet knew. Some began to pick up sticks and clubs that lay nearby. Others ran to their farms and returned with pitchforks, hammers, scythes and axes. Still others picked up stones and flaming brands from a fire that the guards had kindled in the village square.
‘And where are these accursed few,’ cried the Soothsayer, ‘whose selfish acts alone place your village — nay, your very lives in peril? Tell me! Show me where they are, and be avenged upon these murderers!’
At this the entire crowd of villagers pointed as if with one finger to the stockades whose prisoners had so swelled in number that the fences that enclosed them now ringed the entire village.
‘There! There they are!’ the villagers cried with one voice. ‘Murderers and Unbelievers among us! We must purge ourselves of those whose lack of faith threatens all our futures. Kill them! Kill them! Kill them all!’
Few spoke truthfully of what was done that night in the stockades, where the formerly warm firelight from the village homes did not reach. But all agreed that the guards of the Soothsayer who all now called ‘King’ had no part in it — having, indeed, no need to, for no more terrible revenge could be taken than that wrought by the villagers themselves. And as the morning light dawned red on the cold dew, they barely noticed that the village still stood, and the wrath of the winter god had been appeased, saving them all from disaster once again.
- Fifth Prophecy: That Winter was long and dark, and with their herds and flocks gone and their wealth spent, many of the villagers died of cold and hunger, or merely from lack of care — for all now suspected each other. Some, indeed, doubted that Spring would ever come again. The bodies of the Unbelievers were disposed of by the guards, but the stockades soon filled again with more villagers who dared to speak against the Soothsayer. But at long last the new Spring arrived, and the trees they had not cut down for fuel began to bloom again. The next day, the elders who now called themselves ‘Knights’ summoned the villagers to the village hall. In a great chair warmed by a roaring fire sat the Soothsayer, surrounded by many guards, and their faces were hidden by the visors of metal helms.
‘Obedient and pure people of the village’, the Soothsayer said quietly (and as he spoke a smile escaped from his cruel mouth), ‘the gods of nature are pleased with you. So pleased, in sooth, that you have no need for me anymore. The trusted emissary of the gods has other disasters to avert, other villages to save, other offerings to convey. This very day I shall depart back into the desert. But to assure the safety of my journey (which I undertake for the good of all people of faith) the god of the desert demands a sacrifice. Faithful and fearful people of the village, I know I do not need to explain why, but the desert-god demands the lives of your children.’
In the hush that followed the Soothsayer looked at the terrified villagers, and saw on their faces neither doubt nor opposition.
‘Yes, fearful and faithful people. One child must be sacrificed for each of the forty days and forty nights I must walk in the desert. Who among you will dare to deny me now, after all I have done for you?’
It was with unwavering and emotionless hands that the villagers slit the throats of their children, their eldest son and their newest-born baby, every morning and every night for the next forty days, there in the village square where their best bull had been sacrificed, where they had gathered their sheep and packed their wealth into chests for the Soothsayer, where the Unbelievers had been slaughtered by their own hands.
And nobody asked why the Soothsayer left the village with such a long train of carts on which so many chests and bags were packed, nor why he was followed by so many sheep, nor why the Knights left with him, dressed in the richest of robes and wearing the heaviest jewellery while the villagers were left in rags, nor why the sound of coins and jewels clinking under their cloaks accompanied them all the way up the hill and disappeared over the brow.
But all kept count of the number of days and nights they must make sacrifice, and on the forty-first day they built a high statue of the Soothsayer that all now called ‘God’. And in words carved on the base of the statue they wrote:
‘For truly, only God himself could have saved our village, and by obedience to his wise council alone has a terrible fate been averted.’
From that day onward, in each season of the year, the villagers made offerings to their God at the foot of the statue: sacrificing their best bull in the spring; in the summer slaughtering half their sheep no matter how few they had; giving away their wealth to the Knights who returned every autumn to collect it; and in the middle of winter, when their hope was at its lowest, killing the Unbelievers among them. And they called these practices and the beliefs on which they were founded ‘Religion’. And only by following their commands (it was said now by all) was the village saved from the just and terrible wrath of the gods of nature.
Simon Elmer – Architects for Social Housing
Sorry AP– the story was highly predictable and I’m not sure I agree with the premise. This soothsayer resembles more accurately a govt or political control than any action by “religion.”
It is the govt which first taxes a percentage, then forcefully confiscates our wealth, then imprisons dissenters and finally sacrifices our children in their war games.
Yes, Javelin, the soothsayer is indeed the allegory for the government. Didn’t you see that? But religion is also the government or has been for many millennia. It is only recently that government has been detached from religion in a scecular state. But nevetheless religion has always directed government.
In UK our monachs have always relied on their appointment as authorised by God. ” In God We Trust!. The motto is French for “God and my right”, meaning that the king is “Rex Angliae Dei gratia”: King of England by the grace of God. It is used to imply that the monarch of a nation has a God-given (divine) right to rule. … Another Old French phrase also appears in the full achievement of the Royal Arms: “Dieu et mon droit”
Do you see it now?
Seemed like a cheap shot at faith too. Government religion sans Christ becomes a totalitarian faith.
Israel Asks for a King
8 When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as Israel’s leaders.[a] 2 The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. 3 But his sons did not follow his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice.
4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead[b] us, such as all the other nations have.”
6 But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. 7 And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.”
10 Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle[c] and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”
19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”
21 When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the Lord. 22 The Lord answered, “Listen to them and give them a king.”
Then Samuel said to the Israelites, “Everyone go back to your own town.”
Here’s a parable for you. Its called Progress is My Religion, Mammon is my God and all within Capital and nothing outside Capital and nothing against Capital.
Philip II: (1527-1598)
William Thomas Walsh
http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=1889B28539B7506D637C3D5605BFD2A0
Now, in the phrases I have italicized, there is a subtle if
unintentional appeal to one of the most indefensible superstitions of
our day: the superstition of Progress. The emphasis and repetition of
the word “modern” seem to imply that time is a necessary element of
truth, that later institutions or customs or manners are necessarily
better than those preceding them. This is part of the strategy of the
anti-Catholic campaign of the last three centuries to isolate the
Catholic Church by making her appear to belong to the past, to be
only a surviving anachronism in a better world. In the Middle Ages
very few people were stupid enough to assert that their Christian
culture was better than that of Cicero or Pericles because it came
after them. The Christian idea was better because it was given to
men from above, by the Son of God; it was independent of time,
would have been equally divine before Pericles, and would remain
so after the death of the last pagan. But the school of thought, or
rather of feeling, which Professor Merriman here reflects, does not
dare face that fact; it cannot logically meet the claim of the Church to
be divine, it cannot refute her truth; therefore it shifts its ground to
one of time, and says that she is old and out of fashion.
Philip II would have replied something of this sort: “What are
these sound principles of economics, these controlling forces of the
modern world, these unsympathetic forces of modernity to which you
appeal as to some authority greater than the Catholic Church in your
judgment of Spain? It is true that they oppose Spain and all she
loves; but it is false that they are new or ‘forward looking,’ or that
they have any authority. These forces existed in Spain centuries ago;
they betrayed, exploited and oppressed her, but she conquered
them. They existed in the time of Nero even more perhaps than
today, but the Church rose from the catacombs and drove them into
exterior darkness. They jeered at Christ on the cross, but Christ
arose from the tomb, and His justice scattered them to the winds.
Why do you call them new and modern, then? And because for the
time being they have established an almost universal rule of usury,
exploitation, intrigue for the enslavement of millions, and the neglect
and denial of the rights of God and humanity, why must you assume
that this is the permanent reality, and that the Church of Christ, with
her supernatural powers of recuperation and defense, will not rise
again in the wrath of God’s justice and sweep away into the past all
your usurers and hireling economists justifying usury and other forms
of theft?
The principle of toleration, as invoked by the enemies of the
Catholic Church, set free in the same arena two irreconcilable
forces, one or the other of which must prevail. “He who is not with
me is against me.” The plea for tolerance of anti-Catholic ideas
weakened the Church. Since the Church was the only possible court
of appeal against the tyrannies of the State, the effect was to
unbridle the latter and to concentrate in the hands of politicians all
the power that had been delicately balanced between the two
institutions in the Middle Ages. The State (unless it became Catholic)
could not fail to follow up this advantage and in the end to make itself
absolute by kicking away the ladder of tolerance on which it had
raised its head above the Church. So it was, at least, in Western
Europe. In Germany, as Bernhardi noticed,41 the totalitarian view of
Treitschke was derived from Luther. Out of the ferment of the
sixteenth century, set in motion by the spirit of contradiction which
had repeated through centuries the gibes and taunts of the
Pharisees and the Sadducees, there proceeded, in two apparently
divergent streams, leading according to circumstances to
Communism or to Fascism, a single impulse toward some ultimate
State-absolutism, which would be the antithesis in every respect of
Christianity
I don’t take ‘cheap shots’ at religion: I expose and oppose its evils wherever I find them.
In COVID-19: The Great Reset, published last July after the first lockdown had generally been lifted, Schwab and Malleret wrote:
‘During the lockdown, many consumers previously reluctant to rely too heavily on digital applications and services were forced to change their habits almost overnight: watching movies online instead of going to the cinema, having meals delivered instead of going out to restaurants, talking to friends remotely instead of meeting them in the flesh, talking to colleagues on a screen instead of chit-chatting at the coffee machine, exercising online instead of going to the gym, and so on. Thus, almost instantly, most things became “e-things”: e-learning, e-commerce, e-gaming, e-books, e-attendance. Some of the old habits will certainly return (the joy and pleasure of personal contacts can’t be matched — we are social animals after all!), but many of the tech behaviours that we were forced to adopt during confinement will through familiarity become more natural. As social and physical distancing persist, relying more on digital platforms to communicate, or work, or seek advice, or order something will, little by little, gain ground on formerly ingrained habits.’
We can see how this revolution in human behaviour from our old ‘animal’ habits to new ‘technological’ behaviours is being implemented — ‘forced’ is the word Schwab and Malleret use — by looking at some of the new social practices, meanings, values, relationships and kinds of relationships being created by the emergent political and legal forms of the biosecurity state. A crucial aspect of these have been analysed by Giorgio Agamben in Medicine as Religion, another of his commentaries on the coronavirus crisis also published last May, in which he compared the ascendancy of medicine during this crisis to the emergence of a new religion.
Agamben argues that modernity has had three great systems of belief: Christianity, which is a residual but still functioning ideology, formed before capitalism but adapted to its needs, capitalism itself, and science, which Agamben calls ‘the religion of our time’. And while these systems have occasionally come into conflict, for some time now they have reached a more or less peaceful co-existence. With the coronavirus crisis, however, this peace has shattered, with science coming into direct conflict with both Christianity and capitalism. The focus of Agamben’s article is how this conflict has been manifested, which he says is not, as has happened in the past, through conflicting dogma or principles, but in what he calls ‘cultic practice’, which in science coincides with technology. On the character of this conflict, Agamben makes a number of observations, four of which I want to look at here.
First, he observes that it is not surprising that this conflict with both Christianity and capitalism has arisen in that field of science in which practice precedes dogma, and that is medicine, which borrows its fundamental concepts from biology. Unlike biology, however, medicine puts those concepts into practice according to an exaggerated dualism that draws on Christian concepts of good and evil. In medical practice, disease is the evil whose agents are bacteria and viruses; while health is the good whose agents are medicine and therapy; and as in every dualism, its practitioners, in seeking to do good (eradicating a virus), can end up doing a greater evil (killing more people through lockdown). It’s in this context that we should understand the biologically nonsensical declaration of Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, that he will ‘stop at nothing to halt the spread of coronavirus’, which means even if, in attempting what is a medically unattainable and even undesirable goal, he kills and ruins far more people in the attempt.
Second, Agamben observes that, although Christianity has known similar totalitarian tendencies, this was limited to certain cultic practices, such as the monks who turned life into a permanent act of praying. What we are witnessing now, in contrast, is a cultic practice that has become ‘permanent and all pervasive’. While medicine was once a practice to which we submitted when necessary by visiting a doctor or undergoing a surgical procedure, the entirety of human life has now been refashioned into what Agamben calls ‘an uninterrupted cultic celebration’, in which the enemy, the virus, must be combatted unceasingly and without possible truce. Again, it’s in this context that we should understand the declaration of Chris Whitty, the Government’s Chief Medical Officer, that ‘we will not get to the point where there is zero risk’, a statement that condemns us to Hancock’s unceasing battle against an invisible enemy, and effectively puts the country on a war-footing for the foreseeable future.
And third — and this is the observation I want to extrapolate from — Agamben argues that the cultic practice of medicine is no longer free and voluntary but has been normalised as obligatory. Although the collusion between religious and profane power is certainly not new, what is completely new, he argues, is that this new obligation does not apply to the profession of dogmas but exclusively to the celebration of the cult. Profane power, manifested through the rapidly expanding apparatus of the biosecurity state, now ensures that the liturgy of the new medical religion is observed in actions. It’s in this that Agamben sees the extent to which capitalism and Christianity, which he calls the religion of Christ and the religion of money, have ceded primacy to medicine. For to follow its liturgy and perform its cultic practices, we have been compelled to renounce our freedom of movement, assembly and expression, our work, our family, friendships, loves and social relations, even our religious and political convictions. While the Church has suspended religious services and turned its cathedrals into vaccination centres, capitalism has accepted losses of productivity it would never previously have countenanced — though doubtless, as with all previous crises, in the expectation of recuperating its losses in future opportunities for investment and expansion.
So what do these observations tell us about the social practices, meanings, values and relationships emerging from the new political and legal forms of the UK biosecurity state? In making the distinction between dogma and cultic practice, Agamben means, by the latter, those repetitive behaviours which have a purely religious basis and whose assumed efficacy is therefore a matter of faith. The performance of these behaviours, therefore, is not only a declaration of belief (the repeated injunction to ‘follow the science’) but also of obedience to the orthodoxy of this new Church of Medicine. And, like all orthodoxies, the purpose of their repetition is to identify heresy and apostasy. It’s in this sense that I will refer to the followers of this aggressive new religion as the ‘COVID-faithful’.
To better understand this, we can compare the compulsive washing of hands with disinfectant by the COVID-faithful when entering a shop to the Christian practice of touching the forehead with holy water when entering a church. I’m always struck by how the COVID-faithful come out of shops with their just-disinfected hands raised high before them, exaggeratedly rubbing them together in a public declaration that they are ‘COVID-safe’. We might also compare the religious fervour with which social distancing is maintained by the COVID-faithful, as a way both to protect themselves from the evil virus and to recognise their faith community, to the Christian practice of crossing oneself as a sign of obedience to their God and to ward off the presence of evil. And like the explicit instructions on how to make the sign of the cross depending on which Church you belong to, Government instructions telling us in extraordinary detail how to wash our hands function to sanctify this formerly everyday act as a new cultic practice. Or, again, the carrying of so-called ‘vaccine’ passports as a condition of entry or travel or passage across other symbolic boundaries can be compared to the crucifix Christians wear to identify themselves as members of their faith, or to the rosary with which they count off the prayers they have been prescribed to atone for their sins.
Finally — although this in no way exhausts the comparisons between the cultic practices of these respectively residual and emergent religions — just as the rite of Holy Communion reaches its climax with the transubstantiation of the wafer into the body of Christ, so its new equivalent is the taking of the vaccine which, like the eucharist wafer, purifies the impure body of the celebrant. Compare the exaltation with which the vaccinated announce on social media the conversion of their ‘vile body’ — as the Church of England describes the human corpse during The Burial of the Dead — into the ‘glorious’ body of those saved by God. And in scenes of ecstatic conversion, most recently staged in our nation’s cathedrals, these are accompanied by photographs documenting the insertion of the sacred vaccine into their profane body, accompanied by beatific expressions of their transubstantiation. Or perhaps a better comparison would be with the Catholic rite of confession, which must precede communion and which, like the vaccine, only confers temporary sanctity, and must be renewed at regular intervals by the priests ordained to administer its blessing.
In this regard, it is significant that the rite of communion was historically used by the Church to expose those who refused to partake, therefore identifying themselves as heretics or, worse, unbelievers. We should never forget that the immense wealth of the Church was built on the land it held through conquest, in return for duties performed in the service of profane power, and from the tithes and rent extracted at the point of a sword or, more recently, in a collection bag. As Agamben reminds us, religions have always relied on profane power to enforce orthodoxy with their spiritual power, and it is no different with the new religion of medicine, which has shown no hesitation in using all the powers of the state to enforce its cultic practices on heretic and unbeliever alike.
There is one point, however, where I depart from Agamben’s analysis, and that is with his assertion that the celebration of the new religion of medicine is confined to the repetition of cultic practices, and does not also require the profession of its religious dogma. Just like the Christian Bible, which few have read but many can quote, the dogma of medicine is equally unthinkingly quoted by the COVID-faithful, who repeat its catechisms in response to any attempt to question or correct the medically meaningless orthodoxies of the ‘New Normal’, whether that’s maintaining social distancing, wearing a mask in public, self-quarantining on the basis of an RT-PCR test, or the vaccination programme. In this respect, the COVID-faith more resembles the fundamentalist churches of the USA than Anglicanism or even Roman Catholicism. Like all fundamentalisms, there is only orthodoxy and heresy, complete and unthinking obedience to the word of the law or criminal transgression. The very act of questioning is now silenced at source. And as we are seeing with every new announcement by the high priests of medicine immediately made into law by the Government and enforced by the state, speech that is not authorised by dogma is now a crime, condemning the speaker to isolation, inquisition, conversion and, if its cultic practices are not embraced, punishment and imprisonment.
If you think such religious fundamentalism is a relic of the past or the purview of extremist cults with little political or spiritual influence over the materialist values of contemporary capitalism, consider the rapid rise and influence on world politics of Islamic fundamentalism over the past few decades. Or, better still, think of the influence of Christian fundamentalism on the politics of the USA, the greatest capitalist power on the planet, where no candidate for Presidency can hope to hold office without declaring ‘God bless America’ and affecting, at least, to believe in an interventionist God capable of saving its citizens from COVID-19 or any other plague of the devil. Or, closer to home, think of how quickly the market fundamentalism of neoliberalism has colonised the globe, substituting the value of the market for all other values, to the extent that ‘profit’ and ‘value’ have become synonymous and interchangeable in the language of economics.
St. Ignatius de Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order, famously said: ‘Give me the child till he’s seven and I’ll give you the man’. The sight of British children, despite being effectively immune to COVID-19, being subjected to the regulations, programmes and technologies of the UK biosecurity state by the institutions that should instead be educating, nurturing and protecting them from such cultic practices, shows that our Government has similar plans for their future. Just as the rights and freedoms we have so easily given up in order to observe these practices won’t be returned, as many people still imagine or hope, so too the habits we form in following these practices won’t so easily be broken, least of all among our youth; and we’re already two years into the indoctrination of a generation into the cultic practices and religious dogma of the UK biosecurity state.
In the UK, at least, we like to think of ourselves as moving away from religion and towards science, something which until now has distinguished us from the USA. But as the rapid and almost total conversion of 68 million people to the dogma and cultic practices of the UK biosecurity state has shown, we are, to the contrary, returning to a new religious orthodoxy. In Psalm 39, recited during the Anglican ritual of The Burial of the Dead, the priest warns the living:
‘I will take heed to my ways: that I offend not in my tongue. I will keep my mouth as it were with a bridle while the ungodly is in my sight. Lord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days: that I may be certified how long I have to live. Take thy plague away from me.’
Who cannot hear in this liturgy the dogma of the UK biosecurity state which, in an astonishingly short period of time, has found millions of willing and obedient converts to its cultic practices? Add to that the hold pharmaceutical companies have had over the US population for decades and the culture of health and safety through medication and fear they are exporting into the UK, and we have the material basis for our mass conversion to this new religion.
Simon Elmer
I won’t repeat here my previous analysis of the lack of evidence for the effectiveness of lockdown for anything other than increasing the number of deaths in the countries in which it was imposed, which in the UK, in particular, has been largely due to the withdrawal of medical treatment for life-threatening illnesses like cancer, heart disease and dementia in order to free up hospital beds for an epidemic that never materialised. But I want to say something about the complete irrationality of the predictions of corporate shills for Big Pharma and medical advisors to government, which are religious in their basis and rationalisations. Like the threat of an eternity of suffering in a hell from which only God’s love can save us, the estimation of a worst-case scenario by the medical profession has been used by our governments to justify any measures that will avert catastrophe. And just as the Church, unsurprisingly, tells us that only obedience to their laws will appease the wrath of God, so our governments, equally unsurprisingly, insist that only obeying its emergency measures will stop the worst-case scenario from coming to pass. Of course, like the priest, the politician’s proof that such measures work is that nothing even approaching the prediction of deaths from COVID-19 has come to pass, and asks us to imagine how much worse it would have been as we gaze at the images of eternal damnation the Government and media have painted for us on every available surface and screen.
A rational response to such evangelical fearmongering is to look at the countries where nothing like the level of lockdown measures in the UK were imposed, and where the deaths attributed to COVID-19 are nothing like as high, suggesting not only that the lockdown did nothing to stop the virus but that it increased the number of excess deaths in the countries where it was most strongly imposed. This is what I did in my article Lockdown: Collateral Damage in the War on COVID-10; and in response to the growing number of articles making the same argument the Government has now identified the wearing of masks in countries where the governments didn’t impose a lockdown, and in particular in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, as the real barrier to the spread of the virus. In other words, obedience to the rules of the Church of Medicine is the basis to our entry into the Kingdom of Biosecurity, but a little prayer helps too (and wearing a home-made face covering to stop a virus is nothing more than a prayer), which our local priest is happy to perform on our behalf for a small donation. ‘The world, alas, is full of suffering and death!’, these peddlers of purgatory gravely inform us. ‘But imagine how much worse it would be if we weren’t praying for you!’ Such are the self-fulfilling prophecies of doom and salvation preached by the evangelists of health.
In one of his series of commentaries on the coronavirus crisis, published in Quodlibet on 2 May under the title ‘Medicine as Religion’, the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben explicitly compares this rationalisation to religious practice:
‘That we are dealing here with a cultic practice and not a rational scientific demand is immediately obvious. The most frequent cause of death in our country by far are cardiovascular diseases, and it is well known that these could be reduced if we practiced a healthier form of life and followed a particular diet. But it has never crossed the mind of any doctor that this form of life and diet, which they recommended to the patient, should become the object of a juridical norm, which would decree as a matter of law what must be eaten and how we should live, transforming our whole life into a health requirement. Precisely this has been done and, at least for now, people have accepted, as if it were obvious, renouncing their own freedom of movement, work, friendships, loves, social relations, their own religious and political convictions.’
Unfortunately, under a sustained propaganda campaign of co-ordinated adulation — including the weekly ‘clap for the NHS’ ritual, public offerings of thanks on everything from house windows to billboards, and the elevation of health professionals to ‘front-line’ heroes in a war on COVID-19 — the medical profession has been encouraged to view itself as the highest and final arbiter of our response to the coronavirus crisis — if not as God, exactly, then as the guardians and arbiters of His laws. And they have not been reticent in adopting this new priestly role. In response to me posting my article Manufacturing Consent — which examines how the criteria for attributing deaths to COVID-19 in the UK has been set by changes to disease taxonomy made by the Department of Health and Social Care and instructions on filling out death certificates for COVID-19 published by the World Health Organisation — I was attacked on Twitter by a cabal of medical practitioners led by a doctor whose name I won’t reveal, but who diagnosed me as ‘mentally deficient’ and advised me to ‘get treatment’.
Social media, admittedly, increases the stupidity and aggressiveness with which people speak; but I still find it worrying that a medical practitioner of some seniority should say such things in a public forum at a time of such confusion and doubt among the public about the Government’s response to the coronavirus crisis. Not too long ago, the same medical attitude prescribed lobotomies for anyone who didn’t knuckle down and toe the line, or collaborated in incarcerating women who refused to obey their husbands. It is perhaps not surprising that an increasingly secular population should seek hope of salvation from an invisible threat when medicine has become the religion of the biosecurity state; but it is more than concerning that professors and practitioners of medicine should feel authorised to make recommendations on draconian social measures based on irresponsible fearmongering by the Government that is quite blatantly in the service of expanding its powers over the population.
Simon Elmer
Excellent fable of why they are called Sheeple.
Same stupid and irrational behavior going on today with the jab following up on the Climate change hoax.
Most of the still running fear based religion still today is a simple scam for money: “Come into my temple and bow down to me the anointed one in the big robe on the pedestal up front and give me your money to avoid going to the hell I have created in your mind for you.”
Recall the other old story where the dear leader convinced all the towns people to go to the top[ of the mountain to be lifted up to heaven at midnight. Naturally did not happen, so he said he guessed he got the day wrong.
The other real favorite is the Thousand or so gullible idiots went with Jim Jones down to Guyana to drink the poison to get enlightenment.
So true UD – there’s no cure for stupid.
They only had one Soothsayer politician-priest but we have city, and county gov’t, each with many separate taxing and licensing agencies; and state and federal gov’t with countless taxing and licensing agencies. You get your pay and then each little god takes a piece so that all totaled, the welfare gods get about 50% of what you actually earned; interest and mandated insurances get most of the rest. And suffer them looking down their long ass noses at you because you don’t even have $400 cash saved or are building a million IRA for retirement. But hopefully all the Elite and their families took The Shot and we peons will be casting lots for their mansions pretty soon.
Yes, I would love to know if they really did get the shot or just a placebo:
I remember our Matt Hancock taking the shot on BBC TV and both my wife and I definitely saw him quickly take something (a vial I assume) from his pocket and give it to the nurse. I viewed the clip recently – that bit had been removed!
People wouldn’t sacrifice their children for fears sake, would they?
They are doing it now in Afghanistan sadly because they are so hungry. And in some parts of Africa it is de rigeur – *warning this article could damage your faith in human nature*:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15255357
“The mortality rate linked to the vaccines, according to Yeadon, is traceable in terms of lot numbers of the different batches, as some batches appear to be more lethal than others. When taking a look at the evidence available, the main goal with the injections all over the world is global depopulation, according to the lawyers involved. ”
Quote so nkit and thanks for this. It boggles my mind that such evil should prevail and I am sure this is why we are blamed for ‘conspiracy theories’. I wish they would stay as theories but regretably they are too often turning into ‘conspiracy facts’.
Music to go along with this?
Nice – thanks GNL a suitable accompaniment. 🙂
Thank you so much AP – yes I love the nuances of language and grammar and I shall report your findings to the author. At least this tells me of your diligence in reading the whole thing – indeed a compliment to Simon. 🙂
Dear Phoenix, thank you for the correction. However, according to the OED ‘wrath’ can also be an adjective, as a M16 variant of ‘wroth’. But I like words too, so have made the alteration on my website in the four places where the gods are now ‘wroth’ with villagers in the first four prophecies, and Peter is welcome to make the same changes here. Of greater concern is my spelling of ‘yea’ as ‘yay’, which really does need correcting. Best wishes, and don’t believe scientists who think they can predict the future.
Simon, I never thought to check the OED. To my American ear, it sounded incorrect, and by using generic online dictionaries I may have engaged in confirmation bias.
In any case, I do love how antiquated words have a particular linguistic cache and “mouth-feel.” Funny how the word “wroth” when said in one’s head ‘sounds’ so much different than “Roth”, which has a neutral or dead feel to it.
‘Struth.
I think only Admin can correct the posting here Simon.
…And they called such stories ‘Positivism’.
(I.e. scratching on the surface and missing the deep meaning.)
But ‘m’ the deeper meaning can always be found. I posted this for Rossa on another thread:
https://www.inc.com/peter-economy/17-inspirational-quotes-on-remarkable-power-of-your-mind.html
The point of Positivism is denying there even exists a deeper meaning worth looking for.
Simplest example: “Sex is just something you do.” (What about: Love, marriage, starting a family?)
Ah I see ‘m’. Had a look at it now as I didn’t understand the term’s meaning. OED says:
“Positivism is the belief that human knowledge is produced by the scientific interpretation of observational data. … There was a religious worldview, and a metaphysical worldview before the scientific interpretation was considered. The positivistic method should, said Comte, no longer aim at revealing ultimate causes.”
Thank you, yet another snippet in the memory bank. 🙂