The Nature and Origins of Murder Worship
The Ultimate Disease
by
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I’ve spent months debating with myself over whether or not this part should be included in this book. After all that time, even as I proceed to type it out, my indecision is as pronounced as ever. One side of my mind complains: "If 55 years out of the womb and 30 years of writing have taught you anything at all, it’s these two facts: (1) Your capacity for wordiness is more than one man in a billion can stand, and (2) the only way you can even begin to restrain it is to limit the scope of each writing as much as is conceivable. In this composition, it means restricting yourself to defining ‘murder worship’ and to describing the effects which make it the ultimate disease." Another side of my mind contends: "Do you realize how crucial are at least three of the issues you’ve left hanging in the air?! "On one hand, as even you must admit, what you brand supreme deceitfulness and ‘murder worship’ is applauded by most. Which is more likely: that the majority is monstrously out of step with rationality, or that the minority is so? If, then, the former is the more unlikely situation, why should rational people give any credence to you when you say that the majority is out of step? And monstrously out of step???!!! "On another hand, you even go so far as to say the majority is zealously engaged in such monumental opposition to truth WITHOUT BEING AWARE OF IT!!! For all of that, that lack of awareness is THROUGH THEIR OWN FAULT!!! How is that even remotely possible?! "Finally, you inform us even mentally retarded ‘murder worshippers,’ as you label them, are exquisitely apt at annihilating the distinction between double effects and vital links in the chain of causes. How could the mentally retarded manifest a skill which presupposes perhaps a decade or more of rigorous drilling in what, according to your thinking, should be called ‘murder worship apologetics’?! Isn’t it more likely they’re merely picking up what’s so obvious all but your perverse minority can easily master it? "Without an answer to those questions, so great is the violence your thesis manifestly does to even the most rudimentary levels of common sense, it rightly merits nothing but indifference even from those with but a minor talent for critical thinking." Ah, my dear reader! It’s not a charge to be taken lightly. But, convinced it means unveiling the well hidden origins of murder worship, what a multitude of issues I see opening up before me the instant I consider answering such questions! God have pity on me. For, notwithstanding how well aware I am of the fire’s capacity to incinerate me, this silly "moth" is too much in love with the glitter of his own words to pay much attention to the dangers clearly involved. Mindful, then, that what follows is mostly theory, let us now embark upon the task of answering an extremely weird question couched in terms dear to those of us fascinated by computers: IS THE HUMAN BRAIN ITSELF PERHAPS A KIND OF BIOLOGICAL COMPUTER CAPABLE OF BACKGROUND TASKING SO SOPHISTICATED THE BRAIN ITSELF
CAN TRULY BE CALLED: An Artificial Intellect? In our quest for the answer to that question, we shall first explain what "background tasking" means. That done, we’ll examine in what sense the brain itself is an artificial intellect. We shall then pass on to speculate regarding what prime directives might be indelibly programmed into every purely human brain as a result of its animal origins. After that, we’ll inquire into what makes each of us responsible for the deceitfulness which those prime directives infallibly (i.e.: without fail) precipitate in his background tasking brain’s artificially intelligent operations. Those, then, are our chief objectives. Before starting after them, a possible danger should be forcefully brought to the reader’s attention: Investigating the brain’s prime directives will elicit ideas which may well precipitate, in some readers, a grave psychological crisis. It depends on how inflated and critical to your sanity your delusions of grandeur are.
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About the Book
One of the oldest and most familiar pieces of advice ever given to the human race is the one which says: "Know yourself." But, precisely how should one go about pursuing knowledge of one’s self? Up until perhaps the last four or five hundred years, the answer generally given was introspection, which is to say turning your power of attention inward in search of the innermost depths of your own mind. As the common opinion went, that meant a rather significant amount of seclusion, asceticism, and meditation as one tried to blot out every bit of external stimulation and distraction. In this book, a man who spent 13 years in pronounced seclusion, asceticism, and meditation (followed by 25 years of moderate efforts in those directions) seeks to tell the world what his heroically intense, inward glance has revealed to him regarding the inner, hidden factors behind the tendency of human beings to approve of abortion, euthanasia, and war upon non-combatants. What’s presented here is thus "depth psychology" of a narrow but unusually penetrating kind. Indeed, it goes so deeply into one of the subliminal areas of human motivation, some readers should perhaps be warned that what is said may cause them serious mental stress. If nothing else, some will find themselves driven to rage against the author in a most ferocious manner--perhaps even in a homicidal manner. For, what is said here about fundamental, hidden human motivation even in the depths of "saints" is--unless seen from eternity’s point of view--markedly degrading to say the very least. On the other hand, all those truly interested in self-knowledge should greatly desire to know whatever a 64-year-old master of introspection has uncovered in his self. So greatly should they desire to know it, that, no matter how insulting the findings he presents, they can remain content to say: "On a venture as important as life is, I desperately need the assistance of one able to paint what is truly the ‘worst case scenario.’ Since this is manifestly the most appalling ‘worst case scenario’ I have ever encountered, what can I do but thank its author for presenting it to me?" Come, then, dear reader and see if you, too, agree: This is, indeed, the most appalling assessment of hidden human motivation ever presented to the world. At least, so it is unless, like God, you can observe the glorious future motivation which--from the viewpoint of One beyond time--somehow already underlies the repulsive current motivation.
About the Author
Born April 13, 1936, in New Orleans, Louisiana, the author graduated from Jesuit high school, in New Orleans, in 1953. A single fruitless semester studying music at Loyola University of the South in New Orleans was followed by almost two years of floundering in a sea of confusion, and the author then joined the U. S. Air Force on Dec. 7, 1955. Honorably discharged in April of 1960, the author underwent another two and a half years of floundering so severe, he came extremely close to a mental breakdown. In desperation, he gave away everything he owned and, for thirteen years, took to the life of a wandering hermit. In search of as much time and energy as possible for inner reflection upon self, God, and the nature and purpose of reality, he criss-crossed the United States on foot four times. At first, he lived off of whatever food and clothing he could beg; but, after learning how to live on a dollar a day or less, he turned to working at various monasteries in the winter time in exchange for the two to three hundred dollars required to feed and to clothe himself during the next spring, summer, and fall of walking. The monasteries also provided access to libraries in which he could read, and extract notes from, the great writings of the Catholic Church. In the course of that thirteen-year odyssey, there was a four year period during which he refused to speak to anyone (except on very rare occasions) and communicated only by means of written notes. In August of 1975, the author’s father lost his mind, and the author’s siblings insisted he was the only one in the family with the time and ability to tend to their father in his hour of need. Thus, after thirteen years, the author’s preferred lifestyle came to an end. Dire poverty then gave way to economic independence, and total seclusion gave way to what little privacy can be enjoyed by bachelors who prefer to avoid partying and to stay home and--as much as possible--to bury themselves in as much reading and writing as the world around them will allow. After his father’s death in 1981, the author took care of his mother until her death in 1996. In this book, the self-educated author of dozens of mostly unpublished books and pamphlets seeks to share with others the avenues of thought down which his mind was lead by thirteen years of heroically intense inner concentration followed by twenty-two years of moderately intense inner concentration.