Robert Heinlein - A Stranger in a Strange Land

Jubal made a croaking noise. "Was that it?"

"Huh? I believe it was - allowing for your horrible tall-corn accent. Jubal� are you hooked? Have you just been stringing me along?"

"No. Stinky taught it to me - and he says that it's heresy of the blackest sort. By his lights I mean - I couldn't care less. It's the Martian word Mike translates as: 'Thou art God.' But our brother Mahmoud says that isn't even close to being a translation. It's the universe proclaiming its own self-awareness� or it's 'peccavimus' with a total absence of contrition or a dozen other things, all of which don't translate it. Stinky says that not only it can't be translated but that he doesn't really understand it in Martian - except that it is a bad word, the worst possible in his opinion and much closer to Satan's defiance than it is to the blessing of a benevolent God. Go on. Was that all there was to it? Just a bunch of fanatics yelling Martian at each other?"

"Uh� Jubal, they didn't yell and it wasn't fanatical. Sometimes they would barely whisper, the room almost dead quiet. Then it might climb in volume a little but not much. They did it in sort of a rhythm, a pattern, like a cantata, as if they had rehearsed it a long time� and yet it didn't feel as if they had rehearsed it; it felt more as if they were all just one person, humming to himself whatever he felt at the moment. Jubal, you've seen how the Fosterites get themselves worked up-"

"Too much of it, I'm sorry to say."

"Well, this was not that sort of frenzy at all; this was quiet and easy, like dropping off to sleep. It was intense all right and got steadily more so, but - Jubal, ever sit in on a spiritualist sance?"

"I have. I've tried everything I could, Ben."

"Then you know how the tension can grow without anybody moving or saying a word. This was much more like that than it was like a shouting revival, or even the most sedate church service. But it wasn't mild; it packed terrific wallop."

"The technical word is 'Apollonian.'"

"Huh?"

"As opposed to 'Dionysian.' And both rather Procrustean I'm sorry to say. People tend to simplify 'Apollonian' into 'mild,' and 'calm,' and 'cool.' But 'Apollonian' and 'Dionysian' are two sides of the same coin - a nun on her knees in her cell, holding perfectly still and her facial muscles relaxed, can be in a religious ecstasy more frenzied than any priestess of Pan Priapus celebrating the vernal equinox. Ecstasy is in the skull, not in the setting-up exercises." Jubal frowned. "Another common error is to identify 'Apollonian' with 'good' - merely because our most respectable sects are all rather Apollonian in ritual and precept. Mere local prejudice. Proceed."

"Well� things weren't as quiet as a nun at her devotions anyhow. They didn't just stay seated and let Mike entertain them. They wandered about a bit, swapped seats, and there was no doubt that there was necking going on; no more than necking, I believe, but the lighting was very low key and it was hard to see from one pew to another. One gal wandered over our way, started to join us, but Patty gave her some sign to let us be so she just kissed us and left." Ben grinned. "Kissed quite well, too, though she didn't dally about it. I was the only person not dressed in a robe; I was as conspicuous as a space suit in a salon. But she gave no sign of noticing.

"The whole thing was very casual� and yet it seemed as coordinated as a ballerina's muscles. Mike kept busy, sometimes out in front, sometimes wandering among the others - once he squeezed my shoulder and kissed Patty, unhurriedly but quickly. He didn't speak to me. Back of the spot where he stood when he seemed to be leading them was some sort of a dingus like a magic mirror, or possibly a big stereo tank; he used it for 'miracles,' only at this stage he never used the word - at least not in English. Jubal, every church promises miracles. But it's always jam yesterday and jam tomorrow, never jam today."

"Exception," Jubal interrupted again. "Many of them deliver as a matter of routine - exempli gratia among many: Christian Scientists and Roman Catholics."

"Catholics? You mean Lourdes?"

"The example included Lourdes, for what it may be worth. But I referred to the Miracle of Transubstantiation, called forth by every Catholic priest at least daily."

"Hmm- Well, I can't judge that subtle a miracle. To a heathen outsider like myself that sort of miracle is impossible to test. As for Christian Scientists, I won't argue - but if I break a leg, I want a sawbones."

"Then watch where you put your feet," Jubal growled. "Don't bother me with your fractures."

"Wouldn't think of it. I want one who wasn't a classmate of William Harvey."

"Harvey could reduce a fracture. Proceed."

"Yeah, but how about his classmates? Jubal, those things you cited as miracles may be such - but Mike offers splashy ones, ones the cash customers can see. He's either an expert illusionist, one who would make the fabled Houdini look clumsy� or an amazing hypnotist-"

"He might be both."

"-or he's smoothed the bugs out of closed-circuit stereovision to the point where it simply cannot be told from reality, for his special effects. Or 'I've been 'ad fer a button, dearie.'"

"How can you rule out real miracles, Ben?"

"I included them with the button. It's not a theory I like to think about. Whatever he used, it was good theater. Once the lights came up behind him and here was a black-maned lion, lying as stately and sedately as if guarding library steps, while a couple of little lambs wobbled around him. The lion just blinked and yawned. Sure, Hollywood can tape that sort of special effect any day - but it looked real, so much so that I thought I smelled the lion� and of course that can be faked, too."

"Why do you insist on fakery?"

"Damn it, I'm trying to be judicial!"

"Then don't lean over backwards so far you fall down. Try to emulate Anne."

"I'm not Anne. And I wasn't very judicial at the time. I just lounged back and enjoyed it, in a warm glow. It didn't even annoy me that I couldn't understand most of what was said; it felt as if I got the gist of it. Mike did a lot of gang-ho miracles - or illusions. Levitation and such. I wasn't being critical, I was willing to enjoy it as good showmanship Patty slipped away toward the end after whispering to me to stay where I was and she would be back. 'Michael has just told them that any who do not feel ready for the next circle should now leave,' she told me.

"I said, 'I guess I had better leave, too.'

"And she said, 'Oh, no, dear - You're already Ninth Circle - Y0U know that. Just stay seated, I'll be back.' And she left.

"I don't think anybody decided to chicken out. This group was not only Seventh Circle but Seventh Circlers who were all supposed to be promoted. But I didn't really notice for the lights came up again� and there was Jill!

"Jubal, this time it definitely did not feel like stereovision. Jill picked me out with her eyes and smiled at me. Oh, I know, if the person being photographed looks directly at the cameras, then the eyes meet yours no matter where you're seated But if Mike has it smoothed out this well, he had better patent it. Jill was dressed in an outlandish costume-priestess outfit, I suppose, but not like the others. Mike started intoning something to her and to us, partly in English� stuff about the Mother of All, the unity of many, and started calling her by a series of names� and with each name her costume changed-"

Ben Caxton came quickly alert when the lights came up behind the High Priest and he saw Jill Boardman posed, above and behind the priest. He blinked and made sure that he had not again been fooled by lighting and distance - this was Jill She looked back at him and smiled. He half listened to the invocation while thinking that he had been convinced that the space behind the Man from Mars was surely a stereo tank, or some gitumick. But he could almost swear that he could walk up those steps and pinch her. He was tempted to do so - then reminded himself that it would be a crummy trick to ruin Mike's show. Wait till it was over and Jill was free - "Cybele!" - and Jill's costume suddenly changed - again