Machinamentum Pulcra Occisio Animum

'The Beautiful Mind Destroying Machine', or perhaps 'The Machine Destroying the Beautiful Mind'. Rather it may be translated as 'The Mind Destroying the Beautiful Machine'. I do love the ambiguity of Latin grammar. It fits quite well into my general aesthetic sensibilities. This piece is a madonna of sorts, attempting to express a certain contemplative state regarding religion as a technology, a thing created by or manipulated by mankind (depending on your viewpoint). In spite of whatever one may think, it is clear that many of the rituals, icons, tenets and traditions of religious peoples have mundane origins. This 'technology' of religion, which can trace its roots back to every early administerial state since the dawn of civilization, is inescapably woven into every large-scale public institution we have, but to focus there would be simply to spy the edifice of a much greater mechanism. This technology has affected how we organize society certainly, but it also affects how we think, how we speak, and even how we love. Like any fruit of the human mind, so ubiquitously accepted, we cannot begin to determine where we begin and the influence of this technology ends. After all, our technologies are us and we in turn are them. So I return to the doublespeak nature of the title of this piece and I ask: Have we corrupted religion? Was there a pure and innocent connection to the numinous which, like so many virtuous intentions, was tainted and manipulated by bad actors, opportunists, poor theorists, and the power hungry? Was it ignorance or greed that drove this corruption? Or both? Or perhaps, instead, was religion the corruptive force? Did the intellectual ease of un-evidenced belief provoke centuries of irresponsible weak-willed men, satisfied to gaze at the heavens as the earthly realm sank into depravity? Is religious violence, or the desire for establishing hegemonies, really just men striving to safeguard this ignorance from uncomfortable questions? I believe that the answer is both and neither. The wheels of this great reverberating machine of belief and doubt and ignorance and truth keep turning in their seemingly infinite clockwork web. Their teeth grind away as we join in unison, and those who find some glimmer of Truth may escape only to find themselves strangers... un-assigned cogs in a machine that only runs to wind itself.