Part III. Holmes’s Investigation September 22 - 27. Switzerland - Liechtenstein (Zurich - Vaduz - Geneva)
The Last Gambit · перевод (English) · раздел 9 из 17
Перевод исходного произведения; точность перевода оценивается отдельно.
Part III. Holmes’s Investigation September 22 - 27. Switzerland - Liechtenstein (Zurich - Vaduz - Geneva)
The plane from London has arrived just in time. Holmes stood in queue to the passport control when an announcer informed of arrival of another plane from Frankfurt am Main. Soon a German speech sounded from an appeared second queue. Holmes automatically noted a stout person dressed in light-coloured coat and grey hat.
– And what is interesting in that man? - Holmes thought, and caught that it was the newspaper clasped to fatty’s case that had roused his interest.
The paper was Russian and called “Izvestiya” (“Proceedings”), but Holmes really couldn’t understand why it had attracted him. While he reflected upon this, fatty in light-coloured coat entered the passport control cabin and Holmes lost him from his sight. Having received his luggage Holmes came out to the departure hall. He was trying to find his firm representative, when he saw that newspaper again. It was on a chair where stout man had left it instead of throwing it away to the rubbish bin. Stimulated by strange feeling of interest Holmes went to the chair, when someone called him.
– Good afternoon, Mr. Holmes, my name is Louis Renier. Let me take your luggage.
Holmes stopped and shook hands with a tall slender man with a little silver lock in his raven-coloured hair.
– I’m ready to drive you to your hotel, - thoroughly choosing English words he told to Holmes with a noticeable French accent, - And if you like, we can walk down the Old Zurich in the evening.
Holmes was nearly ready to follow Renier to the car, when he suddenly stopped.
– Excuse me, Mr. Renier, one minute please.
He left his companion in perplexity, moved to that chair, took the Russian paper and put it into a pocket of his coat. He could hardly explain to astonished Renier why he had taken the paper written on a language not familiar to him. But his partner was a tactful person and didn’t ask any question but drove his London ’s guest to the hotel, where the “Ernst amp; Young” firm had reserved a room for Holmes. Saturday’s evening and the whole Sunday Holmes spent in “ Zurich dwarfs’” citadel. He walked down narrow streets and thought of the power that without an army and weapon had got world bankers. And why such luxury as neutrality is permitted to Switzerland? And why isn’t that country a member of the UN? Too much of questions…
At Monday a conversation in Zurich took place and it continued for the next day in Davos. Holmes thought of that not bad place, found by world money sharks. That small resort town has become the real Mecca of world largest financiers or, precisely, of those who thought that they were taking part in possessing the goals of world politics. On the back way to Zurich, Lois Renier suddenly suggested to visit Liechtenstein where, as he told, lived his last years a famous Russian arts patron and emigrant - count Pfanfaltz. He lived in the bounds of Vaduz - a centre of a tiny state; to which money from the whole world are injected only because it has proclaimed its territory free of fees. Nearly ten minutes they wandered the narrow streets full of tourists. Than the same time they drove down the serpentine-road and soon reached the gates of “Askania-Nova” - that was the name of count’s villa. A master was at home, that was a quite rare thing. Despite of his age he travelled much - he bought rarities of Old Russia and returned them to his motherland.
Over tea served by the count they told of last doings in America. Everyone was sure that the world had changed after it, and that there was not a country that hadn’t been inflected by this event in this or in that way. Holmes asked the count of Russia and it’s perspectives from the point of American tragedy. He kept silence for a minute looking over a landscape beyond a window and than got up and after an excuse went to his library. He returned with a thick yellow envelope. Imagine Holmes’s surprise when the count revealed the “picnics” that he had discussed with Watson two days before! By the Renier reaction Holmes found that he had seen this papers before too. Besides the familiar “picnics” there were some more documents in the envelope.
The count showed to Holmes copies of the first page of the paper “Trud” (“Labour”) #107 (19554) by May 9, 1985; the ninth page of the weekly “Argumenty i Fakty” (“Arguments and Facts”) #43 (836) by October of 1996 and the first page of “Chas Pick” #151 (880) by October 14, 1997.
– Look, Mr. Holmes, don’t you find anything strange at these photos of superior leaders of Soviet Union?
– Frankly speaking, if there weren’t that white arrow, marking the half-head of Gorbachev in “Arguments and Facts”, I wouldn’t notice it in “Trud”. But how do this pictures connected to the “picnics” and moreover to the tragedy of “black Tuesday”?
And here is the full photography of the first page of “Trud” by May 9, 1985:
The count settled back in his redwood armchair with an elegant carving and, refreshing in his memory pictures of the past, started his story, which made a grate noise in arts patrons’ society.
I found this package with “picnics” and copies of some other papers inside my letterbox at 17 of August in year 1998. I remember this date well because of the financial crisis in Russia reported by every television channel. Looking through the “picnics” I firstly thought that someone was trying to play a trick on me, since I never considered myself a specialist in solving riddles. But those, who had sent the package, obviously knew of my enthusiasm on paints and the first item I read was evidently the article about the restoration of Rembrandt’s “Danae”. That pearl from the Hermitage collection had been nearly completely destroyed by one maniac on 15 of June 1985, only 37 days after the appearance of the sinister picture of General Secretary’s half-head in holiday’s essay of “Trud”. Many foreign specialists told that the paint couldn’t be restored. That maniac made two knife strikes and than threw a concentrated sulphuric acid grout to it. I remember, that when I had got know of that act of terrorism act against Rembrandt’s masterpiece I at first even fell ill because of high pressure. And that day I saw the Petersburg’s paper “Chas Pick” #151(880) by October 14 from which I got know that on the day festival of the Protection of the Virgin [34] the noticeable exhibition, called “‘Danae’ - Rembrandt’s masterpiece’s destiny” was going to open. The paint had been restored, and I considered that event to have a mystical sense.
Mr. Holmes, you have asked if it is connected with “Trud’s” picture and with the “picnics” and moreover with the terrorism of 9.11 - that’s how does the day is written in Europe and America? I think that it is, but to explain this mystical relationship I need to remind the legend of Danae and her son Perseus.
Danae was a daughter of king of Argos - Acrisius, to whom the Delphi ’s Oracle had predicted to be killed by his own grandson. Acrisius imprisoned his maiden daughter to an underground bronze tower to avoid such a destiny. But the Zeus, the Olympus ’s Lord, became enamoured to her. He had reached her in a form of a golden rain, after what the futures hero of the ancient Greek mythology Perseus was born. Acrisius put his daughter and her son into a barrel and threw them to the sea. Great Pushkin has originally described the development of this myth in his “Tale of Tsar Sultan, his son Guidon and fair Princess Lebed’”, removing the tragic final from it. I consider that Pushkin tried to correct the catastrophes repeating scenario, which is peculiar to the whole so-called Christian culture. As you can remember the Danae’s myth finishes too tragically for Acrisius. After a long journey and many great deeds Perseus had arrived to Argos to take part in the Olympic Games. There on a disk throwers competition he… снёс полбашни (these words the count said on Russian, though he generally told the story in English, so he retold quickly), sorry, pulled down a half of his grandfather’s head.
– How do you think, Mr. Holmes, why one year before the “Chas Pick” reported of the restoration of the Rembrandt’s masterpiece in October 1996 one of the most wide read newspaper in Russia - “Arguments and Facts”, had carried back to the main symbol of “Danae’s” myth?
– I can hardly say anything and I would like to have a pleasure to hear your version.
– I consider, - continued Pfanfaltz, - the real causes and sources of the “black Tuesday’s” tragedy couldn’t be explained from the defective materialistic or from equally defective idealistic point of view of modern average man. Yes, there of course was a terrorist plan, there were kamikaze-terrorists, but all of them including undercover scenarists were only the executors realizing some enveloping matrix-scenario, tracing its roots back to the distant past of the modern civilization, and moreover may be even the preceding - existing before the Flood - culture, which reflection we can see in ancient myths and legends. Symbolic and figurative part of these myths has incarnated in the cultural monuments on which many generations of great sculptors, artists, architects, composers, and also poets, writers, dramatists worked on.
As I see it, the world is one and indivisible, unified and complete, everything in the world is in cause-and-effect relationship. This may mean the only thing: any casual event comes as the casual only because we aren’t able to see the previous, the preceding events, and also the consequent events that are produced by this event.
The reorganization and cutting of the Russian Empire in its USSR bounds (named Perestroika) has begun under Gorbachev and that improper deed was immediately “casually” reflected in the mythological symbol - half-scull of “Perestroika-foreman” showed to more than 200 millions of Soviet people at the sacred day of nearly each Russian in the world - the Victory Day, the day of victory over the fascism, which was equated to the German nazism in the middle of the 20th century. What could the appearance of this symbol on the first page oh one of the most wide-printed papers in USSR mean?
As I understand it, it was the Danae’s myth matrix algorithm activation inspired by somebody. Different people take the activation process differently; the vast majority doesn’t notice it at all. But in distant past as well as in our technocratic times all over the world, and particularly in Russia, there were those who took, as one can call it so, the excited state of energy-pumped matrixes very painfully. Early they were called “God’s fools” or fools “in Christ”; today they usually become the patients of psychiatrists. They take the “destructive matrix algorithm activation by pumping it with energy”, as the normal man will feel the pain of the salt in his wound. Mr. Holmes, have you seen the film “Matrix” or you have considered the watching of it to be just a wasting of your time?
– Yes, count, I’ve seen it and even have read an interesting analytic article devoted to it. And why do you ask?
– Because one of the characters answered the question of what the Matrix was, in such way: “the Matrix is everywhere”. One, as he or she sees, can’t touch it, can’t see, hear or smell it, but, nonetheless, he or she can feel its influence in the way I can’t understand. My perception of the world is based on the same five feelings by which anyone makes his conception of the objective reality. Probably it can be felt by the sixth feeling that one knows of but seldom uses - the sense of proportion [35]. And exactly this hypertrophied feeling is taken as schizophrenia in the modern culture, which is based on “Oedipus complex”.
– Sorry for interrupting you, but as I know, the term “Oedipus complex” was firstly introduced by Sigmund Freud. What’s it relation to “Danae’s” matrix algorithm activation?
– And do you remember the myth about Oedipus?
– Only generally.
– Nevertheless, it’s very important what precisely do you know of it.
– So, Delphi ’s Oracle has predicted to Oedipus that he would kill his father and marry his own mother. And their children would be cursed by the gods and hated by the mankind. However hard Oedipus tried to avoid his destiny the prediction completely realized and Oedipus had a tragic end: as I can remember he blinded himself and his wife made a suicide.
– There is more than one version of this myth, but all of them finish tragically. Why? - Because the main characters having proper names absorb all the attention in the myth, but the Oracle is unnamed - it’s just some Delphi ’s Oracle that predicts futures events. Mr. Holmes, and are you able to distinguish the prediction and the programming of future?
– I’ll try to answer with old Chinese aphorism, that sounds nearly so: “If we wouldn’t change our current direction we have a risk to reach the place of destination”.
– Yes, this has some sense, - told Pfanfaltz after a pause, - but I have no answer for this question yet, and to find it let’s try to look through Oedipus’s story after the Oracle’s prediction of killing his father. To overcome the cruel fate Oedipus left Corinth and went to far lands, but he didn’t know that he had run from the stepparents and that the road that he had chosen led to Thebes where his real father Lai ruled. And to this Lai, as well as to Acrisius some time, the Oracle had predicted to be killed by, not a grandson, but by his son. And that’s why Lai had told to leave his little son in a wood to be eaten by wild animals.
– It seems to be another variant, where a child had been thrown to the sea, but waters brought him on the shore where king of Sickon adopted him.
– You are quite right and this variant shows the relation to Danae’s myth very well, Mr. Holmes. Anyway Oedipus was miraculously saved and adopted, in the first variant, by childless king of Corinth - Polybus. On his way to Thebes after leaving his stepfather Oedipus killed a noble man in casual fight. It had been his real father Lai, so the first part of the Oracle’s prediction came to be.
– Or the first part of program algorithm purposefully made by Oracle of Delphi.
– May be, - answered the count and continued. - Having solved Sphinx’s riddle, Oedipus freed Thebes. Grateful people made him their king. The widow-queen Jocasta whom he had married to was his mother. His children were the same time his brothers and sisters. After twenty safe years of Oedipus’s rule it was a plague and a savage famine. The same Delphi ’s Oracle had earlier predicted that the dearth would finish after Lai’s murderer would have been expatriated. Wishing to stop it Oedipus vigorously started to look for a criminal and having find the only survived Lai’s companions and got know that he himself was the murderer. Moreover, this eyewitness of the killing was at the same time that slave who had been told to leave Oedipus in the wood, but had felt sorry to baby and had given him to Corinthian herdsman, after what king Polybus adopted Oedipus. So Oedipus got know that Lai was his father, and that the prediction had come to life. Being mad of his deeds he blinded himself and Jocasta made a suicide.
As you can see, Mr. Holmes, the role of Oracle in this story is really mean, and it seems to be not a predictor, but a programmer.
– Yes, count; the relationship between these two myths is quite obvious, and the connecting-link is certainly the activity of the Delphi ’s Oracle. The only thing that we need to understand is what did it - programming or predicting of futures events.
– To answer this question one should learn to distinguish a prognosis from a programming. It seems that this would be a keystone for solving the Russian riddles. And as to “Oedipus complex” (yearning to kill father and to come into sexual relations with mother), which if to believe Freud the majority of men unknowingly have a tendency to, just from our rude analysis it’s seen well, what the exaggeration made by one the first-rate authoritative psychologists is based on. From that point of view Freud looks like a pitiful adept of the unknown Oracle of Delphi. But now it is much more important not by whom, but how are catastrophic matrixes algorithms realized. If the world is unified and complete and everything in it is in cause-and-effect relationship, then analysing the consequences one can understand the causes. To rise on such a level of understanding we should get out the borders of the system forming its behaviour stereotypes. It’s impossible to understand the behaviour of “maniac” in the borders of culture we live in. Rembrandt’s “Danae” is one of the best embodiments of the Danae’s myth, and since “the matrix is everywhere” and its destructive algorithm is activated, “maniac” looks for and finds material components of the matrix in Rembrandt’s masterpiece. You, Mr. Holmes, know the following.
– And you, count, want to say that maniac has blocked the execution of that matrix algorithm?
– I guess, Mr. Holmes, that the matter was like this; and there are two proves. The first is that several restaurateurs and their families strangely died in car accidents. It can be interpreted as a showing of the alternative matrix-scenario algorithm realization. Unfortunately I can’t prove it by press essays. And though the Hermitage direction knows everything, they speak very unwillingly of anything of the kind. The second prove of blocking of the destructive algorithm is the appearance of the main symbol of the myth in “Arguments and facts” after eleven years; they said that it was a “casual” mistake of holiday picture montage. Something went wrong in matrix-scenario of destroying the country, proclaimed by West as “the Evil Empire”. And following my hypothesis the second attempt of activation the destructive algorithm after the eleven-year solar activity cycle took place. It seems to me that doings of that “madman” unconsciously resisted to the destructive Gorbachev’s activity, though many people consider both of them to be modern herostratuses. I understand that such a conclusion may seem crazy for the majority of those who had grown up in biblical culture, because the culture itself places bans on appreciating the stereotypes made by it. It means that one grown by such culture isn’t able to ask: is everything nice in his culture? Why there are so many people who behave as potential criminals? And how is the crime-committing algorithm realised in the frames of this culture? May be it is specially putted into unconscious psychical levels in such a way, that he trying to avoid the “predicted” evil would do an evil even worse? But so, making an analogy with myth of Oedipus, one can find the main author or “customer” of many crimes.
– I agree, count, your conclusions are so new and unusual that I need a time to find a place for them in my world understanding. And I think that there is a sense in analysing the events of “black Tuesday” from these positions. May be we can find a treacherous “nobody”.
– Do you mean the myth about Odysseus and Polyphemus?
– Quite right, count. The United States look like that Cyclops with both two eyes been burned out, who in rage is looking for the treacherous “Nobody” 1, touching modern “sheep”. Just today “the treacherous Nobody” is called Bin-Laden. And what does mean the appearance of that article of “Danae’s” restoration in “Chas Pick” #151(880) by October 14, 1997 in the context of your theory?
– It would be better if I translate some paragraphs of this article for you:
“Today’s world is full of cruelty and violence. In the end of 20th century more and more works of art become the victims of maniacs. Rembrandt is the leader in a field of such crimes. His paintings attract madmen with a peculiar force”.
Holmes, doesn’t it seem to you that the author who knows nothing of my theory gives proves of it though from another point of view?
– Excuse me, count, that I interrupt your line of reasoning, but why very Rembrandt attracts madmen with a peculiar force?
– I have an idea about it, but to understand it you should understand what role had painting played before cinema and television appeared.
– Do you want to say, that painting was like cinema and television in the modern times?
– Quite right, but… for the highest society. The modern science proved that musical and visual images go to unconscious levels of psyche passing over the consciousness. It is also known that one gets 95% of information through his vision (and 5% are left to audio, gustatory and other images). Hence painting played a colossal role in forming the worldview at the epoch before cinema and television. Since the majority of paintings of west European painters, at least before the middle of the 19th century, were on the biblical subjects, the biblical worldview of the Western “elite” was formed through painting. Paintings of west European painters firstly became taken to Russia during the reforms of Peter the Great, but especially great number of them was brought under Catherine II. For instance just in 1772 150 canvases of famous Flanders and Hollanders were bought at once and there were many Rembrandt’s paintings as well. Thanks to the peculiar style of painting his picture even in that time caused an unusually great influence on spectator’s psyche. Most probably he indeed was the first “impressionist” [36], from the viewpoint that his paintings as well as paintings of Cezanne or Monet weren’t acceptable to one’s eye from too near. People even said, that when one of his customers had tried to watch the details of a painting, Rembrandt told: “Don’t touch the canvas with your nose. Paints smell bad”. But that time the entrance to museums like Louvre, your National Gallery or our Hermitage was closed for the common people. To my view, in those times one “worked” on unconscious levels of psyche of the “elite” to make it loyal to the biblical worldview. But the one deal is to visit the church, make bows, and quite another deal is to read and recomprehend the Bible. And it seems that such great role in that “work” was given to Rembrandt’s painting, that nowadays in the Netherlands one called the highest building in Amsterdam [37] “the Rembrandt’s Tower” and “The Night Watch” [38].
If my comparisons of painting and television hadn’t caused an aversion of you, Holmes, I would like to return to your question about the context of my version of “Danae’s restoration. However I should read another extract from the above-mentioned “Chas Pick”:
“But nevertheless many people say that today “Danae” is just a ruin, though beautiful; that there is only a shade of great Rembrandt. In one paper it was even called a cripple, though still sensual and nice. Eugene Gerasimov himself, who had managed the restoration for many years, agreed that it isn’t Rembrandt we used to know. Those who remember the before-the-tragedy painting need to overcome a psychological barrier. But future generations will take “Danae” in some another way. People have become ever used to Venus Milossian without her hands or to Nica Samothracian without her head.”
Have I answered to your question, Mr. Holmes?
– I need to turn over it in my mind, count. Thinking so, you can discharge Herostratus and even anybody. By your extraordinary version you’ve nonplussed me. Though I’m not able to object to you thoroughly, I have an intuitive disagreement. In other words, I’m a child of the classical West culture; and that, which you try to lead me to by your argumentation, looks like accusing a certainly innocent of a hardened evil.
– I understand you, Holmes. The point is the words “certainly innocent”. An intuition is without controversy a powerful thing, but there is something subjective in it, so it often misleads when it’s ruled by a subjectivism. What can we say of Herostratus? - He had burned one of the seven Great Wonders - Artemis’s temple in Ephesus - and the Wonder was irretrievably lost. But since we investigating something and have touched Herostratus, we are to find out his motives. Those, for whom this name tells something, knows that he was extremely vain and decided to immortalize his name by destroying the temple. But we know it only from ancient historians’ statements. And, by the way, one of them, Plutarch, was the supreme zhrets, indeed znakhar he was, of the Oracle of Delphi. So we have started and returned to the Delphi ’s Oracle ones again.
Moreover, looking on the European culture, one can find that it’s far not so harmless, as one accustomed to it can think. The ecological crisis is in full view. And there are a lot of other things. Have you noticed the associative relation between “sensual appeal - cripples - armless Venus - Nica without head” in this fragment?
– ???
– And many others haven’t noticed. But in the meanwhile, since the end of the 19th century, when the surgery had become a craft, guarantying patient’s survival well (in Napoleon’s times nearly 1/3 of all surgical patients died of sepsis), the special subculture became to form on the West. Women with stumps have for some reason become erotic and sensual in it. And this subculture enlarges its influence: legless models with artificial limbs come on podium; one of the “Beatles” participants - Paul McCartney - is contracted with one-legged woman; in “Titanic” film, watched all over the world, in one dialog the main character all of a sudden and inappropriately mentions a one-legged prostitute, who had been his model in Paris; and so on. All is going of itself: some need to raise their busyness ratings and editions, and others are just bored and don’t know what to do. Finally the first group states the amputated-women to be a beauty ideal [39] and second without thinking it over “eat” this “exotics”. Whether we like it or not, but the cult of bodily injuries aesthetical appeal is formed.
Of course, he who was injured but not broken, who tries to live a normal life, to be useful for humanity and who have a success in it is worthy of respect. And the society should support him in it. It means that ramps and wheelchair elevators in the streets, at houses and in transport, the development of prosthesis, sport for invalids and all of a kind is necessary in the society with cripples. Let the relations of Paul McCartney and Heather Mills, who some time still having two legs posed for “erotic” magazines, be really pure. Let Amy Mullens, who has lost legs in an early childhood, live as others, go into track and field athletics for his pleasure and health and feel himself normal, not defective one…
But the question appears: how will an empty-headed crowd-man, looking only for pleasure, unconsciously react to the cult of injuries, if those who have them have reached something desirable for him, without what he really or imaginary suffers? Including special feelings in sex, which healthy one cannot get? Many people think, “All can be given for sex”, - and if an amputation helps to become more sexual attractive and opens a way to exotic experience in sex, then wait: the unconscious, and particularly conscious, behaviour algorithm of jaded and perverted crowd will react to the cripple-cult with growth of amputation statistics. It will correspond to the medical testimony, but naturally will be based on morally psychological hidden motive - one wants an “exotics”. If it seems for woman that to become sensual and get sexual power she needs to lose her leg - she will “lose” it, but essentially the leg will be torn away by unconscious psychological levels, which would provoke the corresponding injury or psychosomatic disease.
Whatever we think of scientology, but using its terms, this associative relation in the article I‘ve read is very bad “Ingram”, activated today by mass media and cultural workers. And so-called “body-art”, also actively cultivated, has begun from face and ear pricking, but now it becomes a “decorative-aesthetical” maiming and amputations oriented on satisfaction of low egoistic wills.
Don’t think, however, that we have digressed from a theme of matrix algorithms in myths and works of art appearance. What do we know of Artemis cult?
– As I remember, she was a goddess of hunt and her totem (spiritual, sacred) animals were a fallow-deer and a bear; she considered to be a protector of child-bearing; her Roman name was Diana. She was a virgin and was much more punctilious in this question than many other Olympus goddesses.
– You are right, Mr. Holmes; and one can read of it in myths about Artemis. But very few know that the special significance in her cult was given to eunuchs - forced guarantors of the virginity of those maidens, who hadn’t been defiled before meeting them. Ephesus, where was one of the main cult temple, wasn’t an exclusion.
The castration is one the most ancient and mysterious phenomenon in the human history. Men serving Artemis during the rites exited themselves to the highest degree and castrated one another. After it they continued to “serve the goddess” but in women’s clothes. The history of the religious castration counts several thousand of years, and still can be found in the religious community of chiggers in India. This strange sect consists of pseudo-Muslims and Hinduists who esteem Bharukara-Mate - the goddess from Gujarat. Eunuchs serve to her as well as to Artemis or to Phoenician Astarta.
– Count, how do you think, what are the causes and goals of such a strange ritual as a castration?
– I think that this is a reaction on hypertrophied feeling of sexual instincts pressure, which men cannot resist. The castration is an attempt to escape this pressure.
In another even more tense case, this is a will to be saved from a psychological subordination to a woman through uncontrollable instincts, excited by so-called “demoniacal” women. Because of these traits of character and the behaviour of some women many cultures considered and consider women to be a social source of evil. But, as I see it, so-called men who can’t free themselves from the dictates of “demoniacal” women through the instincts are the evil as well. And this evil is even more dangerous because a “demoniacal” woman can easily arrest one's attention and a man is her captive and obedient servant. He plays dirty tricks on the quite, either disguising himself as a delicate and tolerant one (like Gorbachev did) or (like Hitler) plainly venting his angriness upon everybody who seems week to him.
In other words, the religious castration can express not only the weak will to struggle against the instincts. But as well a very strong demonism, pretending to something more than small demons busy with everyday routine pretend to. And what for the women with amputations claiming to an erotic appeal and a power based on sexual instincts - this is an answer of demonism. After an amputation some nervous system resources become completely free of controlling the lost parts of a corpse. And they now can be used for some kind of mystical psychological activities. Anyway, the Celtic epos researcher Shkunaev reports, that some characters of the myths “…had studied the secret knowledge and the druidic wisdom for seventeen years and after their right legs and left hands were cut off. It was a stable feature of one connected with the demonic incarnation of the other world”.
For an ordinary man of that time such injuries were incompatible with life. Even today the vast majority of people with amputations live thanks to medicine. And according to it just a look to these “devoted to the secret knowledge of cripples” was a signal of danger for all healthy of their tribe. But before they were maimed they were taught. And stirring up the instinct of self-preservation they were able to build some other superstructures in the psyche of their tribesmen while their will was depressed by the activated instinct. By the way, the cripple admirers are ridiculously called “devotee”, and it’s so near to “devoted”, isn’t it?
Dear Holmes, we have remembered all of this in connection with social mystics and human’s mystical abilities. Let’s return to 356 B.C. and imagine the conflict of the demonisms of two kinds that has a result of something similar to the incident in the Hermitage June 15, 1985. It was much easier for the historians of the past to justify the burning of the Temple on the basis of Herostratus’s vanity. They had no need to explain all the mystical motivation of his doing and thus undermine the power of different programming oracles, which they worked for. Even if Herostratus was vain and conceited and had no other causes, hidden by ancient investigators, he became a Providence ’s instrument concerning the Artemis cult. After the destruction of the Temple of Ephesus it has never raised so high once again. The rating has gone down, as one can say today.
So, Holmes, how do you think, why is the “Historical Picnic” called “in a name of Artemis”?
– Yes, count. It’s very hard. The amount of possible answers is so large that anybody can find an answer convenient to him.
– And this is the main basis of the Delphi ’s Oracle’s power as well as any other oracle power too. Do you remember the story of Lydian tsar Croesus? When he had asked the Oracle, if he should begin a war with Persians, it answered: “When Croesus crosses the river Halis [40] he will destroy the great realm”. Croesus has lost the war and the Persians conquered Lydia. Croesus tried to accuse an Oracle of deceiving him, but the znakhars answered that prophesy had completely fulfilled since no one had told Croesus what realm was going to be destroyed.
But this coin has two sides. From one hand the Croesus’s morality inspirited him to begin a war and, finally, his country was conquered. If he had another morality he would have conducted himself in another way… From the other hand, having understood Croesus’s objective morality and feeling the matrix-scenarios of the future events, Oracle programmed the behaviour of Croesus for the destruction of his own realm without any alternative. It didn’t say, “If Croesus crosses the river Halis he will destroy the great realm”. In Oracles words there isn’t a word “if”; so great and small “croesuses” can either oppose the whole “oracles” culture (including the modern Gypsy fortune-tellers) or execute the program without any alternatives.
And this is the answer to the questions about the “prophesies” to Lai, Oedipus, Acrisius: everything is coming true because they try to flee from their destiny instead of comprehending and changing their morality and world understanding and thus becoming independent from the fate - the program of the without a alternative “prophesy”.
After the discussion of the mechanism of oracles infliction on people and the society, we can return to the “picnics”. On the pictures of this “picnic”, as you can now make sure of, - count put the first “picnic” on the table, - in a symbolic form the matrix-scenario of the August 1991 putsch is shown. The titles of films written on the reverse side of paper determine the algorithm of development of the event in Moscow from 18 till 22 of August. Of course nothing was spontaneous and in itself, as all the mass media tried to show to the rest of the world. Preparations to the Russia ’s dismemberment were hold the whole 19th and 20th centuries. In August 1991 two untalented musicians - Eltsin and Gorbachev, simply played the last accord of the Requiem for the Great State. From that time the real cutting of the Russian Empire began. It was realized with the help of the West, but first of all the financial and intellectual resources of the United States were equipped. In other words, rich and prosperous America put her head under an axe of the History when it let the building of the World Trade Centre towers on the land of New York. Holmes, do you want to look at the History’s password?
The count gave Holmes a big magnifying glass in a massive bronze frames and asked him to look at low left edge of the third “picnic”.
On the teeth of a person with a heavy jaw and an axe on his right shoulder he read the word “ПАРОЛЬ” (parole). Holmes interrogatively glanced at count.
You are completely right; - he answered having read the question about the password meaning in Holmes’s eyes. - This is only a sign to the password. The password itself is on the shoulder of this fellow dressed as Gutsul - this is the self-given name of the Western Ukrainians.
After these words count invited his guests to his library, switched on his computer and they saw Bible texts catalogue. Count had Bibles on Russian, in English and on French. He searched through the English one for the word “axe” with special search-system. He chose one verse, printed it and solemnly read it with his low slightly cracked voice:
“Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire (Matthew, 3:10)”.
How do you think, why did I choose very this verse between all other including the word “axe”? - He applied to his guests and continued without getting a response.
– John the Baptiser’s relics that are hold in the Saint-Pantheleimons monastery in Greece on the Mount Aphon are especially respected today. This verse was a warning to him from above for his unrighteous mission, which he unthinkingly followed trying to make Christ follow the way paved by another thoughtless prophet Isaiah eight hundred years before. By the way, Isaiah’s death was even more terrible than John’s one. Judaic tsar Manasia ordered to saw him with a wooden saw. But before it happened, Isaiah had written his death pact similar to one that John The Baptiser unthinkingly proclaimed a short time before his death:
“Will the axe boast against him who hews with it? Will the saw exalt itself above him who wields it? As if a rod could sway him who lifts it, or a staff him who is not wood! (Isaiah, 10:15)”
You may ask why was the prophet, so respected in the Christianity, so cruelly punished. It’s a long talk and I can’t explain you all what I’ve understood now. All I can precisely say is that told the Great Russian writer Lev Tolstoy. The modern historically formed Christianity is far from the real teaching of Christ. And it’s because of “selfless” doings of the apostles and first of all of ex-Pharisee Saul who had “magically” turned into the apostle Paul.
Have you ever thought, Holmes, why in that story when Saul was on his way to Damask somebody called himself “Christ” behaved himself not as any Christian should?
– Pardon, count, I have rather superficial knowledge of “the apostles’ deeds” but your question isn’t used to be discussed. If Saul himself assured that he had seen Christ… And what was a contradiction between doings of this “somebody” and Christian moral?
– But look, Holmes! True Christ cured ills and cripples but Saul was blinded, though temporarily. Agree that God and his missioners can manage without such “side” effects!
True Christ has never compelled to follow him neither by the force, nor by the fear, nor by the “blackmail”. However, Saul was frightened and confused when he submitted to one, who had called him for service. In other words, he didn’t choose to follow Christ consciously and this is another proof that he became a victim of some delusion.
Even in the episode of banishment of merchants from the cathedral when Christ, if to believe the Gospels, used the rude strength, nobody was injured, nobody was in terror, and nobody’s will was replaced by the will opposite to his psyche.
True Christ frightened nobody, injured nobody and made nobody defective, blackmailed nobody (and especially blackmailed not by the words, but by his reticences as well), compelled or perverted nobody’s will [41] and he didn’t create any ambiguous situations, so no one can accuse him or God of such deeds!
– But who was that “somebody” whom Saul saw on his way to Damask?
– I consider the two incompatible moralities to appear in true Christ’s activity and in the activity of “somebody” who showed himself to Saul. Holmes, agree that such a conversion to “Christianity”, which Saul went through, would not have taken place, if true Christ had called him for a service.
– It’s so unusual to me, count, that I really don’t know what to say. I’m just an ordinary man, not a theologian. Why don’t you go to theologians?
– Are you serious, Holmes? For hat purpose should one ask theologians about such things? For God’s sake, they live not on the truth but on its perversion. I talk to you as to an average man - average thinking man of the beginning of the third millennium.
– Count, how do you think, how much thinking people asking questions that can puzzle the professional theologians can one find today - in the beginning of the third millennium?
Pfanfaltz silenced reflecting upon something and excused himself. He went to his library and retuned with newspapers copies.
– Here, Holmes, listen:
“Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first - rock’n’roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me”.
And some more:
“I’m not against the Lord, Christ or religion. I don’t say that we are higher or better. I believe in God, but not as in an old man on the skies. I believe that all what did Christ, Muhammad, Buddha preached was right, but their interpreters did many mistakes” [42].
– Count, who did say it?
– This is the interview of youth’s idol of the sixties, John Lennon, which he gave to Maureen Cleave, a reporter of the London ’s paper “Evening Standard” in 1966.
– How surprising for simple “rock musician” and even for a popular one! I should say, I’ve never heard something of a kind in England; but even if I had heard it, it would hardly have attracted me without your unusual commentaries to the episode with Saul. However, Lennon was murdered. Were these words a cause, I wonder?
– I don’t know it. After his death the command came apart. One of them, as I remember, Harris studied Hinduism and, if to believe the press, was hardly ill. It’s a consequence of a worldview crisis, as I see it, or may be of those tasks, which were entrusted to them passing over their minds.
– I’m surprised not by this, count. But how you manage to trace all of this and, moreover, to have your own opinion on the questions seemed to go without saying?
– It’s considered, that in my age people use to sink into dotage. Russians call it “sink into a childhood”. May be it’s so, but very in childish age one is free of delusions and mistakes of youth and middle ages. So the systemic limits on psyche we discussed earlier could be overcome in the easiest way and thus the possibilities to get some new knowledge appear, of course if the senile brains haven’t completely depredated yet. Unfortunately it’s really hard to save the childish perception until the declining years living in our defective civilization, but… - here the teller paused and cheerfully smiled to his guests. - May be I’m the very rare specimen who “has fallen into childhood” just in proper time?
The count was far more than eighty, but he looked hale and hearty enough, his speech was connected and he thoroughly chose the words of the foreign language trying to express his thoughts very precisely and neatly. Some his thoughts seemed to be far from sensible but each time this feeling went away because of a vivid shine of his eyes strengthened by well-composed speech and a little reticence. Simply speaking, he made a wonderful impression upon a listener, may be even some kind of hypnotism. All this Holmes decided later, when he and Renier were far from “Askania-Nova”; and now Holmes attentively listened to count’s story.
– So, gentlemen, I am sure that the acts of terrorism in New York and Washington were hold in the “John the Baptiser’s Decapitation” not occasionally. Everybody should pay his checks: the circle has been enclosed. The Acrisius and his grandson Perseus myth algorithm, which first part was the seemed to be harmless photo in “Trud”, has finished sixteen years later with the bloody final that anyone could see. The west civilization considering itself to be a Christian one is a biblical civilization per se; however, it is started not from the crucifixion of Christ as the church canons and the official history assure the people, but from the act of “John the Baptiser’s Decapitation” [43].On September 11, 2001, the time of this civilization has ended. The epoch of Pisces has lasted for two millennia; it is followed, as one knows, by the epoch of Aquarius. Pisces (looking as fishes) is a symbol of the biblical civilization and we found such a symbol - “the dead fish” - on the third “Post Historical Picnic”. What does it mean? Just the fall of the biblical civilization. For an ordinary western man, who fights back all unpleasant “mystics”, it’s hard to believe in it. But if one don’t believe and don’t think about it, I would not like to say, there will be other signs, and unfortunately also tragic. Gentlemen, I see in your eyes that you are waiting for some clear explanations of my version or some proofs.
No use: there can be no logical proof on the basis of some axioms in the solution of these problems. God always talks with people on the language of life’s circumstances. And using the whole historical experience one can see that it is the life’s axiom, though somebody may express it more precisely than I did. One either accepts it on trust or doesn’t accept it “on trust” as well. Nevertheless, how the history’s oppressiveness shows, the majority of people want neither to hear nor to understand the sentences of this language.
Dear Mr. Holmes, you are young and have a certain experience in solving puzzles of such kind. My old friend Lois Renier told me of your visit to Zurich and I asked him to arrange our meeting. Obviously, you have expected to hear something else but I can’t help you any more. Yes, I know and understand something what I’ve told you of relying on my family traditions and legends. But the noble aristocracy in a majority of it has lost its creative potential; notwithstanding the fact that there are some its strange and curious representatives, who still is interested by new information or fresh ideas. What I have told you is not just my thoughts. For the last year I was studying the works published at the site www.dotu.ru. It is Russian [44] and I have no problems with it, since each and every idea can be interpreted unambiguously. And if you are interested where does the worldviews like one you’ve heard here come from, you should visit this site. You will find there many things that will help you to turn over a new leaf in your worldview and to escape the prison of old stereotypes. I also hope that you, Holmes, will help us to solve this riddle. I’m ready to give you all assistance I can give. Feel free to use any material I have.