In the world as vacuum (P183) there is no struggle between Man and bestial strength. The struggle between Castle Radium and BEM in Gilbert Hernandez' story (P180) could almost be taken as a parody of Man's religious struggle, as well as the more recent superheroic fantasies.
Bestial strength is forever linked with elemental fertility, and such images make their appearance in the Bible. Moses was supposedly a serpent-worshipper and medicine man, and there is the image of the golden calf in the desert.
The strength of the images is such that Christian saints are often represented in a poise of battle, as with St George and the dragon.
The syncretism of Christian with pre-Christian elements is apparent, and it seems that any new universe is formed from.fragments of old and new, without being completely systematic.
In the world of systematic order we inhabit, we are impelled to be logical, whereas a world of fragments has the logic of desire.
Anthony and Cleopatra (P183) desired to have a syncretic ritual, and so it came to be. The desire is to have a logical course of events by utilizing fragments from different cultures. Rather than being logical or systematic as is the modern way, the desire is to be logical in a basically illogical universe (see Corneille, prev.)
The modern order, in its attempt to be systematic, simply drives people further into a vacuum.of psychic nothingness. In an illogical universe (of balance and proportion) we are continually dealing with fragments which are formed from the internal logic of desire.
I happened to come upon a very good example of this in the Mexican church (dimensionantropologia). Mexico has always appeared to me to be baroque and quintessentially Spanish, but it's clear from this article that the medieval Spanish customs also appealed in a mysterious way to the Amerindian inhabitants.
The colonial evangelists held sway in a vague universe of stelae, feathered serpents and the recently imported Divinities. Rather than attempt a systematic abstraction of native into Christian belief, there were tangible emblems that can constitute a link.
There was the Tarasca, a medieval Spanish dragon. Colonial images of St Michael severing the head of a dragon, or the flowering of Patriarch Joseph's staff, found echoes with remnants of the old beliefs. Xipe Totec, the thunderer (rain) was identified with St Matthews ax.
The tangible and emblematic focus of the Spanish mission allowed tribes such as the Muevas to follow a logic to build a bridge to the rituals of the new church. Probably where there is a relation between dragon (snake), blood, rain (spring equinox.) See prev DH Lawrence, The Plumed Serpent.
The internal logic of desire may be on the bizarre side; by contrast, a world of pure logic outlaws the bizarre and ends up with a vacuum of psychic nothingness.
The reason is probably that the universe is balanced and proportionate first, and that is where desire originates. The female element.
Females tend to be the ones stitching the frayed tapestries of sequential events that constitute fate in the cosmos.
