The other day I had an interesting email exchange with a reader (Mario, or you may know him as the Italian “Debunker’s Debunker” from several posts ago) part of which revolved around the “reading” of texts in a religious manner.
He wrote:
You must admit that most people are capable of discerning the “qualitative” difference between sentences of these two types:
- John Doe, who has spent over 10 years in the death wing of Saint Quentin, will be electrocuted tomorow morning. The prisoner is unwavingly pleading innocent
- He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
I actually thought this was a really good topic and tried to elucidate a point, which he seemed to have pretty much dismissed out of hand. Not sure if he thought it was an attack or something. But the point I made was basically that we are accustomed to reading these two texts as differently: one as mundane, the other sacred. But is there any inherent difference between them? I offered the following thought experiment:
Imagine that a newspaper was the only source of written knowledge which was somehow miraculously preserved after the total destruction of civilization. It might very well become a sacred text [since it preserved something of the knowledge of a bygone era]. Over the course of generations of interpretations, we might very well see a vast exegetical tradition and religious institution build up around it. In this, our John Doe figure awaiting execution in prison might even become a sort of “New Jesus” awaiting execution on Golgotha, “unwavingly pleading innocent.”
I also offered an example of how you could read into the “mundane” news text from a symbolic/spiritual perspective. Since English is not his first language, he got a little touchy at my deconstructing his language. But the point was not to criticize but to enrich our discussion in a new direction. I went according to the following points:
- John Doe: Our modern day equivalent of what they used to call the character of “Everyman” in literature. John Doe is a name used to potentially describe any of us - especially when we have lost our identity. We “become” John Doe in death (ie, “His name is Robert Paulson“?), or in the eyes of the law sometimes. In other countries, they use other names. In Italy, the equivalent seems to be Mario Rossi. Curiously, the name of the person who originally wrote me this is also Mario, a connection or coincidence?
- San Quentin: Conveniently, the name of the chosen prison in this case is also the name of a Christian saint, Saint Quentin. Turns out Quentin also spent some time in jail.
He was so successful in preaching that he was imprisoned by prefect Rictiovarus, tortured, and then brought to Augusta Veromanduorum (Saint-Quentin), where he was again tortured and then was beheaded.
Without realizing it, Mario’s choice of prison just so happened to archetypally reinforce the very same story he told in his news-style text.
- Electrocution: Electricity, the new god of power and progress, perhaps somehow also the modern sword. Perhaps also electrocution represents a “shock to the system” required to “transform” the prisoner out of a state of captivity. Another interpretation could be that electricity (like the Logos or Plasmate) could represent a sudden intense in-dwelling of the Divine which will lead us up out of this corrupt “prison-life” we find ourselves in.
- Innocence: Perhaps the fact that our character maintains his innocence indicates why he needs to be “electrocuted,” since a jolt to the core of his being will be the only thing to wake him from his lull, where he is not only in prison, but he is without even an identity of his own: John Doe.
The point I am trying to make is that any “text” which you sufficiently invest yourself in can become sacred, and can be expanded into a full-fledged religious story-system and tradition. We see it happen all the time with various subcultural groups which spring up in response to a book, movie, record or some other cultural artifact. People become almost cult-like in their fervor. It’s not because these things are inherently sacred, it’s because people are inherently sacred. And we project outward that deeply complex inner sanctity because sometimes the easiest way to really come into contact with who we are is outside of us. Perhaps it is really our reflection in the walls and bars of the prison which allows us to really ascertain our own true identity (beyond just “John Doe” or “Mario Rossi”), uncover our innocence, and transcend it all in one final figurative moment of electrocution.
- END -
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11 Comments
Something similar happens in Yann Martel’s novel “Life of Pi”. The boy is stranded out to sea with only a very mundane (and pretty foolish) survival manual on board. It does give him some important clues and a few blind alleys, just like any of the three sacred text traditions he’d been following beforehand (he was a Hindu, Christian and Muslim, all in one).
I certainly found your analysis of the John Doe story quite plausible. Yes, indeed, it is a sacred text. Funny that Mario should have chosen such a rich example.
Well done, both Tim and Mario.
Occult Investigator,
as you want to share with your blogging community part of our private exchange, it is fair to everybody to make them privy to the rest of the story.
In his return e-mail to the one where Occult Investigator so deftly analyses the John Doe line (with focus on Saint Quentin, Electrocution, Innocence, plus Spending and Death Wing for good measure), Debunker’s Debunker wrote:
As for literalism and John Doe’s little example, one should consider that DD’s English, though fluent, is not “mother tongue”. So John Doe line was translated … literally (!) from Italian. How would it lend itself to “Freudian analysis” if rephrased thus:
• John Doe, who has been on death row for over 10 years in Saint Quentin’s prison, is due to be executed by electric chair tomorrow morning. The prisoner has always proclaimed his innocence
By the way, John Doe was meant to “spend” his time at Alcatraz, but as DD remembered that it must have been closed down quite some time ago, DD had to move him to Saint Quentin.
Somehow, without realizing it consciously, Occult Investigator has given the key to the right understanding of his “three points” [Look at Tim Boucher’s site “FAQ: What are your religious beliefs?]. This is really a marvellous example of how mind works; you think you are dodging tricky questions, and instead you are giving yourself away.
1. … that is why an experienced Internet surfer like Occult Investigator can do away with them
2. … that is it, religions were only hopeful precogs of The Net. Now we have the Real Thing
3. … that is the crowning statement! Now we can Google to God™®!
It is all clear now, that is what John’s Gospel was pointing to!
“You search the Scriptures because you believe they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!†John 5:39.
As Bill Clinton would say: â€it is the Internet, stupid!â€
Mario (a real mame!)
Debunking the debunkers
mario, i read that 5 times and i don’t really get what you are trying to say. as far as your rephrasing, i don’t think it makes a damn bit of difference.
i dont think it makes any difference either, your alternate wording. i am looking at the substance of what you said, rather than worrying about the wording. and if you could get your thumb out of your ass for 20 seconds, you might realize that im actually trying to find something of value in what you’re saying - rather than dismissing you out of hand like youre doing to me
On my own blog last year, I wrote a fictional short story about “Jesus Lopez from Pacoima”. It was a satirical retelling of the Christ story, with Jesus (pronounced Heh-ZEUS, the Spanish way) attributing his miraculous powers to merely being smarter than his peers.
In the story, I had Jesus ready to be executed for a crime he didn’t commit, only to be spared at the last minute because he was discovered to be a resident alien from Mexico. He was deported for three days, then returned to Pacoima, where he was greeted as a prophet and a hero. This was my humorous re-imagining of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.
Reading this exchange on this site reminded me of one reaction I received for my story: a woman from a Latino-based blog found the last entry of my story (focusing on Jesus’ execution pardon) and thought it was a factual news item. She linked it on her blog and sincerely thought it was a true item. I never proposed, at any point, that my story was anything other than fiction.
Eventually, I had to e-mail the woman and respectfully explain that it was made-up. She took the link down, but it struck me as oddly apt that she would consider my satire factual and true.
The question is: would this woman have continued to believe my story to be true, had I not informed her of her mistake? Was she looking for the sacred in my writings, or was she just looking to reinforce what she already believed, which was that the death penalty was wrong and that Latinos get the shaft by the legal system? If I were a con man, I would’ve let her believe my story until it was discovered to be a hoax. Certainly, I didn’t mean to consciously perpetuate the myth– my story was meant to debunk the act of elevating the mundane to the status of the holy.
Jesus Lopez is appalled when he is deemed holy by his peers, for the simple fact that he found extra beer in the back room of a ditching party (a dig at the story of Christ turning water into wine). He has contempt for his followers, along the lines of Brian in “Monty Python’s Life of Brian”.
Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted all of my old Archives, so the Jesus story is gone. But I bring it up because my anecdote is a true-life scenario that addresses the topic of your debate.
My two cents: it doesn’t matter how you word the John Doe sentence, because people have their own agendas and will interpret it any way they want to. Both of your arguments, and the comments of others, only serve to reinforce your respective viewpoints. Meanwhile, no meaningful communication has been made, and thus no light has been shed on the topic because both of you are working with theoretical examples.
I suggest that, in order to test both of your respective arguments, both of you should try writing a sacred text, and see who out there takes it seriously and who out there thinks it’s crap. My forecast: it all depends on how convincing it is.
well im glad you came out of your commenting-hibernation to write that, james. ive actually thought a lot about what you’re describing, in terms of sort of inventing fictional items and releasing them into the wild as though they’re true. and im still not sure how i feel about it. i wrote a while back about a podcast i listened to where they invented this story about how the CIA funded reality television in order to dismantle old hollywood power structures. fake but sort of believable….
maybe another really good example of the lines being blurred is philip k dicks whole mystical experience and subsequent novels. its like he managed to sort of enter into the fictional world of his novels, or it managed to enter into our world. and his writing before that is brilliant, but once it starts to really blur together it takes on this whole other intense level.
also reminds me of something we talked about a while ago, how james joyce (or somebody after him?) claimed that if civilization ended and all that was left was a copy of ulysses (or was it FW?) then, all of human history and knowledge could be recreated from it…
i think this whole discussion is probably one of the wildest mysteries there is, the line between fact, fiction and “truth”…
Occult Investigator Says:
>i dont think it makes any difference either, your alternate wording. i am looking at the substance of what you said, rather than worrying about the wording. and if you could get your thumb out of your ass for 20 seconds, you might realize that im actually trying to find something of value in what you’re saying - rather than dismissing you out of hand like youre doing to me John: the answer is in FAQ, go and look, as I suggested. The full Q&A version, which Occult Investigator deftly removed from comments, is:
1. …OI: beliefs are for those who have no experience of something… …DD: that is why an experienced Internet surfer like Occult Investigator can do away with them
2. OI: Religions, [] are nets which we cast in the hopes of catching god. .. …DD: that is it, religions were only hopeful precogs of The Net. Now we have the Real Thing
3. … OI: Religions are better used as search engines… DD: that is the crowning statement! Now we can Google to God™®!
I know it seems a sick joke, but believe me; Occult Investigator is really convinced the Net is God; he is the High Priest and Oracle™® who can help the faithful Google to God™®
my god, you’ve expertly undone my very own DA VINCI CODE!! now the whole world knows my secret plan to replace GOD with the INTERNET!!!
i stand debunked!
mario: with skills like yours, you ought not to waste them here on small fish like me. please, the world needs you. no, the GALAXY needs you! i think i hear jesus coming to lift you up into heaven and to punish me for all my evil sins of using the internet to make a metaphor about searching for meaning!
i’m so worthless i could cry!
Occult Investigator, do not worry. Jeez-us loves you too. You may soo get Dick plasmating you with permeate (or is it permeating you with plasmate?)
Cheer up! You are a modest Gnostic, but not bad at all as a story teller.
Speaking of Dick, the one thing that always has stood out in my mind about his writing is the fact that he devolved heavily into methamphetamine use in order to meet his pulp-novel deadlines. It seems that after “The Man In The High Castle” his writing (in my opinion) worsened in overall quality but at the same time showed an immersion into his own fiction (perhaps fueled by his drug use) that began to blur reality and fantasy. I’m not a fan of the latter-era Dick novels but I also can’t help but notice that his imagination ran wilder while under the influence of speed, binding him to the “truth” of his fiction more than most writers who keep their imaginary worlds at bay.
To borrow a phrase from someone on this site, Dick seemed to be “googling God”, but in his own pre-Internet way. Maybe that’s the trick: learning how to tap into that intersection between what is real and what is not, an artistic or creative Twilight Zone. It certainly helped Dick’s works to become so visionary in today’s post-post-modern world.
man, you dont like his later work? what about scanner darkly? thats sheer genius, in my opinion. and i think it happened just before his “break down”