Beelzebubs-Tales-to-His-Grandson-by-G-I-Gurdjieff

"Further, if they decide—of course, as always by a 'majority of votes'—that you are 'guilty,' they would sentence you according to a code of lawsbased on former puppet plays of the same kind and collated by beings knownas 'old fossils.'"But if they happen, again by a 'majority of votes,' to find nothing criminalin your action, though this very seldom occurs among them, then this wholetrial of theirs, recorded in detail on paper and signed by the whole lot of them,would be dispensed—to the wastepaper basket, you think? Not at all—to theappropriate specialists, in this case, to what is called there the 'Holy Synod,'where the same procedure would be repeated, but this time you would betried by 'important' beings."Only after this lengthy 'pouring from the empty into the void' would theyfinally come to the main point, namely, that the accused is out of reach But itis just here that the principal danger to your person arises For when they arecertain beyond the shadow of a doubt that they cannot get hold of you, then,as I have already said, they will unanimously decide to do nothing more norless than 'anathematize' you."Do you know what this is and how it is done?"No? Then listen and shudder."The most 'important' beings will proclaim to all the other beings that in alltheir appointed establishments, called !churches,' 'chapels,' 'synagogues,''town halls,' and so on, special officials on special occasions, with appropriateceremonies, shall mentally wish you something like the following:"That you should lose your horns, that your hair should turn prematurelygray, that the food in your stomach should turn into coffin nails, that yourfuture wife's tongue should grow three times its length, or that whenever you