Review

Well, that went more or less to plan! Not peasant, but par for the course – for the age that is. In future years, had the technology been available to record it, it would have counted as a “snuff movie”. However it was nothing out of the usual in these barbarous times.

So I am going to have to put my thinking cap of about the next step. I need to contrive something that will do what in future centuries will come to be called making it go viral. (No don’t try to look that up, the knowledge behind the phrase will not be discovered for a very long time.) The tale of a wonderfully charismatic preacher of modest origins with a deeply humanitarian message who is done down by the self interested leaders of the local religion, manipulating a barbaric occupying power into executing the man, is a good yarn. However, I am far from sure that it is adequate for my intended purposes.

I spent a long time assessing the possibility of dramatic violations of the rules I have set down for the operation of this that I have dreamed up. I just about managed to stick to them while letting rumours run wild that he had performed certain acts of a sort that I do not allow to be done. It has done wonders for what, in centuries to come, will be called his “street cred”. However, they cynics will always be sceptical. It is going to take something more for his story to achieve what, in centuries to come, will be called “lift off”.

So the issue is this: do I do something really flash-bang dramatic that will prove to be an unambiguous launch pad (to employ another future metaphor)? Would this be accepted as real, or would that strange thing the human mind simply dismiss it as impossible and for that reason something that could not and therefore did not happen? Perhaps a more oblique approach could have a better chance of success? Yes, that’s it, a bit of smoke and mirrors that convinces the acolytes that something quite extraordinary really has happened, and then let their conviction spread to a wider and gullible pubic. Good!

Hum! I’ve been doing a bit of research. I have got my eye on a man from the capital of the province of Cilicia of what, in centuries to come, will be called Turkey. His views are a more than a little rabid at the moment, I am going to have to contrive what, again in centuries to come, will be called a transient ischaemic event, but nobody will suspect that I have broken my rule and intervened. He has more or less the right sort of mind – ‘pedantic formulator’ might be an unjust characterisation but one that works for me. He will cast the tale of the preacher, his judicial murder and subsequent events in a light that with luck will cause its widespread acceptance. I have hopes of universality, but cannot allow myself to bank on that. The human apes are far to adept at dreaming up and then believing mystical nonsenses of all sorts.

I have a horrible feeling that, as they will put it in centuries to come, it is all going off the rails. My man has had his troubles quashing all sorts of nonsensical variants on his teachings. Maybe I should have anticipated that any set of beliefs would accumulate all sorts of ridiculous excrescences. But it is worse than that. My man has over‑intellectualised it, drifted way away from the original humanitarian message of love and natural justice. To be fair, he did write one good piece that put philanthropy highest among the virtues, but I worry about some of the rest of his stuff. It seems to be an immoveable fact that these humans’ drive to survive physically results in beliefs that the mentality will persist after the body has ceased to function. What he somewhat encourages – and I fear that his writings will be used more greatly to that effect – is the pernicious idea that the quality of this extended life will depend upon the world view one accepts, indeed upon acceptance of a set of beliefs whose formulation does not even stand up to rigorous logical scrutiny. For many this is just a harmless comforting nonsense, but I fear that it will come to be used to justify a great number of wicked deeds.

Yet again, I have concerns. Some time back, after a period of horrible things being done to the adherents to the belief-set I had established with fair success, despite some modifications to it which seriously bother me, the state took it over. You would have thought that I would have been pleased. I set aside the uncomfortable fact that the great ruler attributed an imagined intervention by me in one of their battles to his so called conversion. That is something I never do. I discount the problematic matter that his motivations were more political rather than ones of conviction. What worries me is the institutionalisation of the thing. Yes, this is going to spread the message as widely as I could have hoped. But I fear they will distort it horribly. In fact I have a feeling it may already have started. The control freaks, the sociopaths, the ambitious, the social climbers are taking over and will wreck it. The ludicrous hair-splitting over miniscule details of of what was never intended as a body of theory will get worse. Nasty things will be done to people in the name of correctness of belief and others will scramble over and damage each other in what, in centuries to come, will be called ‘climbing the greasy pole’. Time, methinks, for a long rethink.

Oh! how I wish that my good friend Lucifer had not hoofed off and set up on his own. He does not even answer the phone – for the rather good reason that the little ones are not going to invent that for a good few centuries. He would surely tell me that what I have in mind is as ill conceived as my previous attempts. And I have an uneasy feeling that he would be right, but I would dearly love to argue it out with him. I suspect he would even misquote a funny man from centuries to come and say “that would be another fine mess you would get them into!” But I have to decide by myself, and am inclined to give it a whirl.

It has taken quite a lot of preparation. It takes at least three generators to create the sort of person I need. That is working within the restrictions – the restrictions that I decided to impose upon myself when I started the whole venture, way back. You can’t just start with a baby and achieve what is needed, you need to get the whole family environment right. As it is, I have an uncomfortable feeling that he will not be content just to take dictation but will weave in all sorts of stuff of which I will not approve of, drawn from the surrounding culture. But I don’t think that can be helped.

This will be my third big initiative. I still can’t make up my mind if I am being clever or stupid. Probably all would have gone wrong whatever I did. My first attempt was with that chap from place called Ur between the two great rivers. His family grew into a tribe that got into all sorts of trouble and mischief and ended taking over a piece of land by methods which I find it hard to stomach. I did at least get some sort of an ethical system into their heads, although they elaborated it preposterously. Then I chose, rightly or wrongly, to have the second attempt, the one about which this note starts, to have roots into the first. I think I shall keep to this principle, the new thinking will at minimum share in some form some of the literature of the first and at least nod in acknowledgement to the initiator of the second.

The potentially disruptive habit of placing wagers upon future events has, regrettably, become well established. I shall not indulge, partly because only old Lucifer would take a bet from me that my venture would succeed – were that dear person to be at hand. More importantly still, I fear I should lose my stake. Prediction has never been my strong point – else I would not have foolishly and weakly relented but would have drowned the lot of them when I had the chance. I can dream that the new outlook on things will supplant the older ones. I have attached to it a name that has two meanings: one relates to a common greeting and means ‘peace’, the other, which I have to admit seems a little big-headed, has to do with doing what I want. I can but dream.

But I also have nightmares. Nightmares of schisms and bloody wars between factions and differing world views. I have done what I can, and now can, or at least shall simply watch. If this does not work out, I wash my hands of it all (as someone once said).