betty: . It seems nowadays, too many people succumb either to the magic of doctrinal rhetoric, or to the magic of Sorcerer’s Tricks of misdirection and fundamental falsification of the natural order as ordained by God.
Spirited: Why do people succumb to Sorcerer’s Tricks? The success of dark magic relies on a number of destructive forces.
First off, there must be within the intended victim a weakness, an unfulfilled desire or longing for ‘something’ that renders him/her vulnerable to seduction. Second, there must be within the intended victim a willingness to be seduced, an openness to being overcome, a readyness to view the world darkly through the lens of the sorcerer.
And finally, it would not be possible for sorcerer’s magic to seduce if seeds of discontent were not within each and every one of us.
When Dr. Jekyl’s magic elixir was applied to his own discontent he was transformed into Mr. Hyde, Karl Marx into a demonically-occluded monster, Nietzsche into a madman, and Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin into murderers. When applied to certain segments of our population the transformation is into a mindless mob screaming for the death of George Zimmerman.
It is by means of these "seeds of discontent" that the sorcerer leads us into self-deception, self-delusion, and finally spiritual death.
So of course the sorcerer has every incentive to sow as many seeds of discontent as he possibly can. The rest is all (rhetorical) smoke and mirrors....
But it continues to astonish me that so many Americans today seem to be falling for the sorcerer's "tricks."
Thank you so very much for your outstanding insights, dear spirited irish!