“Yes.”
“Then put it all together, Jared. Vision is the flowing river. The revealed religions of our culture are the highest expression of that vision, and the flow of the river is toward catastrophe.”
My mind boggled at this. When I failed to reply, Shirin shot me a glance from the corner of her eye and said, “You wanted to know why we’re doing this. Charles explained it the other night: Our objective is to change the direction of the flow, away from catastrophe. Nothing less will do the trick, Jared. Absolutely nothing.”
I shivered. “I think I understand why the crowds call B the Antichrist.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Do you know who the Baal Shem Tov was?”
“I have a general idea. He was a great Hasidic saint, sort of a Jewish Francis of Assisi, about five centuries later.”
“Close enough. Do you know the meaning of the name?”
“No.”
“A baal shem is a master of names—in other words, a magician. Baal Shem Tov means ‘master of the good name,’ which is to say a magician of the highest order, capable of wielding the name of God.”
“I see.”
“There once was a merchant who was afraid to travel to a nearby city, because the only route passed through a forest known to be inhabited by highwaymen. His wife said he should appeal to the Baal Shem Tov for help, but this just irritated the merchant, who didn’t believe the stories he’d heard about this supposed wonder-worker. His wife said, ‘Trust me. Go to the house of the Baal Shem Tov and slip his porter a few coins. The porter will let you know the next time his master is planning a trip through those woods, and you can go with him. No harm will come to you if you’re with the Baal Shem Tov.’ The merchant reluctantly took her advice and before long had an opportunity to travel with the Baal Shem Tov.
“When they reached the deepest, most dangerous part of the woods, the Baal Shem Tov called a halt so the horses could rest and graze. This stoppage terrified the merchant, but the Baal Shem Tov calmly took out his copy of the Zohar and began to read. Soon the branches alongside the road parted, and the robbers stepped out and approached, knives drawn. But when they were two or three paces away from the wagons, they suddenly started to shake uncontrollably. They didn’t know what to make of this, but they were in no condition to attack anyone, so back they went into the woods. After a few minutes they recovered and made a second attempt, with the same result: Before they could get close enough even to touch one of the horses’ noses, they were rendered helpless with palsy and forced to retreat. The merchant, cowering in his wagon, watched all this with amazement.
“When the Baal Shem Tov finally looked up from his book and gave the word to continue, the merchant threw himself at his feet and kissed his hand. ‘Now I understand,’ he said. ‘Now I understand why people call you the Baal Shem Tov!’
“The Baal Shem Tov frowned down at him and said, ‘So you think you understand that, do you? Believe me, my friend, you’re just beginning to understand!’”
The two visions
Once inside the park, B’s exhaustion seemed to slip away from her. She led the way and I followed, for all the world like a husband being towed through a shopping mall. I didn’t have the least idea what she was looking for, but she was certainly looking. When we finally stopped, it was in a spot that, for all I knew, might have been the same one we occupied the night before. We sat down facing a dusty clearing not much bigger than a dining-room table.
She said, “We have a lot to do here, Jared—a great journey to take—and I’m not sure I’m guide enough to see you through it. But I’ll do my best.”
I wanted to murmur a word of encouragement but decided against it. She reached in her purse and drew out of it our work of bricolage. Some reassembly was necessary, as the pen and the fuse were not snugly held in place alongside the film canister, and when this was done, she handed it to me and asked if I remembered what it was all about.
“The fossil represents the community of life,” I told her. “Animism is bound up with that community and resonates with it. The Law of Life, represented by the pen, is written in the community of life, and animism reads this law, as does science in its own way.”
“Excellent. I’ve called animism a religion, but there’s a very real sense in which animism-as-a-religion is an invention of Taker culture, an intellectual construct.”
“Why is that?”
“I told you that animism was once a universal religion on this planet. It’s still universal among Leaver peoples—peoples you identify as ‘primitive,’ ‘Stone Age,’ and so on. But if you go among these people and ask them if they’re animists, they won’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about. And in fact if you suggest that they and their neighbors have the same religious beliefs, they’ll probably think you’re crazy. This is because, like neighbors everywhere, they tend to be much more aware of their differences than their similarities. It’s the same with your revealed religions. To you, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism look very different, but to me they look the same. Many of you would say that something like Buddhism doesn’t even belong in this list, since it doesn’t link salvation to divine worship, but to me this is just a quibble. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism all perceive human beings as flawed, wounded creatures in need of salvation, and all rely fundamentally on revelations that spell out how salvation is to be attained, either by departing from this life or by rising above it.”
“True.”
“The adherents of these religions are mightily struck and obsessed by their differences—to the point of mayhem, murder, jihad, and genocide—but to me, as I say, you all look alike. It’s the same among Leaver peoples. They see what’s different between them and I see what’s alike, and what’s alike is not so much a religion (as religion is understood by Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus) as it is a religious vision of the world. There is in fact no such religion as animism—that’s the construct: animism as a religion. What exists—and what is universal—is a way of looking at the world. And that’s what I’m trying to show you here.”
“I understand … I guess.”
“Always keep in
mind what we’re about here, Jared. We’re here about visions, you and I. One vision is sweeping us toward catastrophe. This is a vision peculiar to a single culture, our culture, focused and sustained by the revealed religions of our culture during the last three thousand years. I’m trying to show you another vision, healthy for us and healthy for the world, that was embraced by hundreds of thousands of cultures through hundreds of thousands of years.”
“Okay,” I said. “But you can’t actually know how long it’s been embraced.”
“I think I can, Jared. Consider this: How long have people been living in accordance with the law of gravity?”
“With the law of gravity? Forever, of course.”