An additional factor in the reluctance
on the part of many of us to go over
to the LA had to do with timing.
In fact, there were probably quite a few of us
who’d thought of going over out of practical
considerations from the very start.
To be sure, I myself had given it some thought
but soon came to the conclusion that accepting
the considerable consequences
of holding out would at least be preferable
to losing my dignity and compromising
my beliefs. I say this though with complete
awareness of the absurdity of any
considerations as to belief. What beliefs
could we or anyone else possibly
have had after such an event? Yet it somehow
offered one a sense of identity to be
able to say, “I’m not going over,”
as if the declaration opened up a whole
set of legitimate beliefs and convictions
that you otherwise would never have been
aware of let alone thought to claim as your own.
Of those who went over, there were two groups – namely,
those who’d gone over immediately,
and those whose enthusiasm ran out after
the initial elation of heroism
that holding out churned up had subsided.
After a point, additional LA recruits
became fewer and farther between; before long,
the greater accord had dwindled down to
a number small enough that we were easily
spotted in a crowd. Essentially, there were two
reasons for this. For one thing, it can’t be
denied that those of us who remained were those most
convinced that the ascendancy of the LA
had been a misfortune for our Venue
and that, even if it was ridiculously
sentimental to suppose that things might ever
go back to the way they once were, at least
there should be a small but certain group who might stand
as a protest to everything that had been lost…
not in the Breach – for, of course, we didn’t
yet know enough to mourn everything that surely
had been lost in the Breach – but rather in the loss
of the countless possibilities that
one after the next had been eliminated
in the decisive hours after Scrawl had come forth.
In a word, the very existence of
a group of hold-outs posed something like a statement
to the effect that all could have been otherwise,
even if by this time there was no sense
in guessing exactly how it might have been so.
But past this honest desire hid a deeper fear –
one rarely mentioned in conversation.
It had to do with the stage the LA had reached
in its young theology. Specifically,
it involved speculations as to how
Menahmen had died. As with a wealth of details
concerning events in the life of Menahmen,
the Fragments were quite contradictory
and vague with regard to how he had met his death.
The only thing that was sure was that he’d become
unhappy with the men he’d created
(the texts repeatedly say that he “went away” –
though it didn’t seem at all unreasonable
to suggest that the phrase “going away”
should be taken as a metaphor for dying).
Beyond this, next to nothing was known. The LA,
in their over-eagerness to fill out
the many gaping holes in “the Life” (as that part
of scripture that records the events in the life
of Menahmen came to be known), began
to scavenge about for an arch-villain on whom
blame for Menahmen’s death might with great convenience
be placed for a good eternity (or,
if not for eternity per se, then at least
for that smaller eternity that would fill out
the uncertain and indeterminate
bounds of a worldly faith). Whereas the Menahmen
Fragments were not particularly forthcoming
in themselves on the debated issue
of a possible betrayal, the Tales indeed
were a potent source, filled with innumerable
examples that might be put to good use
by the LA’s ambitious religion-builders,
including those tales that were surmised to have come
from the legends of the old Deity
(in which, by the way, the Lesser Accord scarcely
took even small interest – unfortunately,
for they just might have learned a thing or two
and avoided repeating several mistakes).
There were tales of lost sons who forsook their fathers
and fathers who in turn forsook their sons,
women whose intrigues ruined the lives of the men
whom they were supposed to love and vice versa,
disciples who led their masters into
the arms of their murderers, wily beasts who duped
their innocent friends, brothers their brothers, sisters
their sisters, and so forth.
It didn’t take
a magus to predict that sooner or later
the LA would earmark one or several of
the “Greater Men” for a glorious scene
of betrayal, and sure enough speculations
that one of the so-called Greater Men had plotted
Menahmen’s ignominious downfall
became a favored topic for conversation.
Although it wasn’t certainly a dishonor
to espy one’s idealized portraiture
flying along the Periphery, one didn’t
wish to make any moves in the real world that might
receive negative interpretation
in the metaphysical one (not to mention,
moreover, the repercussions that likely would
be felt again back in reality).
So after a certain point there was little choice
but to accept one’s fate and rejoice either that
one had done the best one could to preserve
the First Accord from oblivion or that one
had performed a not inconsiderable role
in the founding of the new religion.
[Next: Neither Entirely Old nor Entirely New]