On the theology of covid
‘Man is a religious animal’ is a quote frequently attributed to Mark Twain but I believe he stole it from Tertulian, not only because I vaguely remember reading it in one of his writings but it is such an important insight that it must be attributed to one of the early Christian writers, be that Ephrem, Justin, or others. Whoever said it first however is irrelevant since it remains as true today as it always was, religious here being understood in it’s spiritual, metaphysical or eschatological sense not in the organized cult community meaning. The idea that man has an innate proclivity towards the search and understanding of a higher meaning of existence, a reason of being that transcends the physical, sensorial understanding.
Both of these meanings however I find that apply, in different degrees, to the current covid phenomenon. If anything the past two years have shown to the astute observer is that Godless societies, and I mean especially the West, have succumbed easily to a new teaching that offers a novel perspective on life, on individuality, on personal responsibility and communal salvation. Prophecies have been spoken in the form of computer models, proof has been shown as highly questionable official ‘studies’, and commands have been given so all may be saved.
When people are confronted with the idea of their own deaths, there are some yet unexplained processes in their brains that make them more extreme in the decisions and attitudes they express. When one is reminded of his imminent death, perhaps even immediate, the person becomes much more ‘individualistic’, tribal and animalistic. That has been long explored in monastic life, and Buddhism teaches one, among other things, ‘how to die well’ and there are endless teachers on spirituality available on everyone’s pocket computer and life and death are clear and solvable riddles today for anyone who looks. Or at least the beaten paths are accessible for all who search.
But death and dead people are foreign to contemporary western culture and as much as TV broadcasting is filled with news of deaths, the average contemporary western man has never seen a corpse nor contemplated his own death. And so many have not been paying attention to life and the thought of their demise is a strange and terrifying novelty. And those who recently have heard that they might die are now swept away by the avalanche of the new religion.
For make no mistake, this is what this is, and many other people have noticed it, the new religion of the ages, the next step in our evolutionary understanding of the meaning of life. Or at least some would have us believe it is .
The whole symbolistic panoply of the covid phenomenon is to vast for me to uncover here and now, but I want to point out a few obvious generalities that may have escaped the inattentive layman.
First, I believe the fact that the story begins in the Far East, a place of mystery and unknowns for the rest of the world is highly symbolic. The mythological charge of Asia is grand and difficult to penetrate to a foreigner. They eat chicken legs there for snacks and strange animals and bugs and who knows what.
And so an unknown fish market lady one day sold a bat to a customer that took it home and cooked it, than ate it with his family and they all got sick. Unbeknownst to them the bat they ate had a parasite inside, a virus that spread thru their bodies and made them sick, and when they breathed and coughed they passed it to their Neighbours down on the hallway, and they also got very sick. And soon the all-knowing government intervened and locked them all in their blocks of flats, nailing the doors out, but the virus escaped, and some other people were filmed falling flat on their faces on the street and that was broadcast all over the world as ‘leaked’ videos from inside the contagious zone. The government took quick action and ordered everyone to stay in their homes and sent trucks to spray all the streets with chemicals and clean the people but the evil was to strong. It soon jumped way over to northern Italy where in a few days time, many octogenarians were decimated. The event was transmitted all over the world and two years later, here we are.
The bat origin is charged with mystical references and has easily identifiable archetypes. Suffice to say here that the association with the devil in Christian mythology is inescapable. Bats due to their nocturnal existence were always associated with evil forces in the west, depictions of demons and devils from the 12th to the 16th century, when winged, show bat wings. Sleeping upside down, the bat was always associated with the dark side, when the opposite of truth is not a lie but un-truth, the opposite of truth, the inverted truth. Everything evil, wicked, malicious is the inverted version of the good, right, correct.
Another highly symbolical aspect is the 19 of course. Don’t forget associations with September 11 (9/11) or the emergency number 911, but Importantly while the modern world inherits the numerological division by 12 from the Sumerians, and it still applies in time keeping, or length measurements (ie. Inches) the primary division in algebra today is decimal and one (1) to ten (10) is the contemporary agreed universal measure. 1 to 9 is universally understood as beginning and end, alpha and omega, (10 being God) hence all-encompassing, comprehensive. The numerological aspect of covid-19 is anything but random, and while you may be fooled thinking that it designates the coronavirus disease 2019, you might remember that it was in February 2020 that the first case was announced and only afterwards history was changed in Orwellian fashion to show that in fact it was first discovered in November 2019. As with the new Omicron variant history was being made elsewhere as it went.
The mythical story of covid-19 starts thus with a charged symbolical meaning, and understanding this new pseudo-mystical, makeshift belief system that requires us all to wear masks and wash our hands and take injections regularly if we want to have a life, is I think a necessary exercise. The symbolism goes much, much deeper but I’m only scratching the surface here to point out that there is more to this than meets the eye.
We are being told a mystical, unfathomable story. That there is an invisible force, minuscule but potent, incalculable yet omnipresent, mild in it’s strength yet mighty and dangerous. It might be here, or there. May be on the door knob or in the air, on a stranger’s breath or on your brother’s word. It might be passed on to you from someone you know, or from a stranger, it moves like the wind, like the Holy Ghost. Unknown, undetected, unstoppable yet fragile. There are billions of them, yet you can wash them away from your hands with soap. You can keep them at bay if you wear a cloth over your mouth and nose. You can even help other people doing that, but it’s best if you stay away from them. That is how you protect them, and protect them you must. And you have to test. Yes, test yourself a lot. That you may be deemed worthy to live.
The Ritualistic behavior required in this new cult is something to behold. Test, trace and close your eyes for you may be indeed the carrier of the evil. The bad that infects us all. And if you run wild infectious as you are, you criminal, you are no part of ‘the community’, you are the evil that you carry with you, a danger to all, a traitor.
There is an established Dogma in the new religion and it is as simple to understand as it is hard unpack and put back together because it lacks sense and logic. There is a sort of reasoning but the precepts follow their own logic and it’s internal circumference is vast and meaningless but ripe with esoteric colors. There is, in it’s broad sense, a good versus evil kind of story with several layers of meaning. One of those is that the Good is life, consumer‘s life, tax payer’s life, community life against the evil forces of the individual, potential carrier of infectious evil, dissenter, skeptic, hesitant, heretic. The one who is not in ‘it’ together, who does not protect the community.
There is salvation however. There is escape from this evil through medicines (pharmakeía, φαρμακεία: quite literally the use of medicine, drugs or spells). There is a vaccine, the Holy eucharisty which is the holly communion in which all in the community of believers must take, regularly, so they can be saved, temporarily, from the evil. The effects of the magic potion may wane but that is the way of all physical things, that is why one must follow closely the Dogma so all may be safe.
“Hands - face - space” was a popular slogan in the UK in 2020. It meant apparently wash your hands, cover your face, make space between you and others. These are the basic ritualistic actions that any believer must make in order to be part of the community. But it doesn’t stop there, you must act like ‘you’ve got it’, you may be the sinner at all times hence beware of yourself.
All believers must be at all times faithful to the Dogma for one slip may cost lives, endanger the community and the fight against devil is prolonged.
The element of fear is fundamental and must be pervasive because the evil is unfathomable, undetectable and presumably omnipresent. The vision of the dangerous ‘else’ is of an unknowable quantity of tiny particles spread unevenly across various planes, spaces of immediate infectiousness that can only be detected by measuring the people it has affected, a futile effort since it’s vector and velocity is unknowable and as soon as efforts to measure it are undertaken, it mutates to another form, a new variant or strain of this unleashed spiked unknown.
And here comes in action the priestly class of this new religion: the experts. They come in grades of course just like bishops are seconded by priests or pastors, who in turn are seconded by deacons, so we have high level experts supported by doctors and nurses. They sometimes speak in tongues but generally the message is clear.
All the elements of a cult, a belief system, a spiritual understanding of life are here: life vs. death. Righteous believer, follower of Dogma vs. deluded heretic. Saving, omnipotent state vs. invisible, dangerous enemy. All knowing, helpful expert class vs. dumb peasant ignorant of the holly Science. The saving injection, the ritual mask, the individual isolation in his communal responsibility.
All this is never going to end, and is just going to draw more and more people under it’s sinister umbrella unless many people understand that this is a false god, a telenovela with a bad ending, a nightmare.
…
There is a popular story about when Iuri Gagarin returned from space, that when he met the Russian Patriarch of the Orthodox Church he told him that he didn’t find God out there, to which the Patriarch responded: ‘If you did not find Him in your heart, you couldn’t have found Him anywhere else’
Merry Christmas!