The Tool of Manipulation

 

               The little boy held his right hand over his eye, struggling to keep the blood from dripping onto the floor. He was no stranger to his father’s fist or belt, having been on the receiving end of each of those far too many times. After being knocked to the floor or into the wall, he would curl up and go into hiding, to then listen to the cries of his mother as she too received the same blows.

              It took him a few years to learn how to answer without sounding disrespectful. His father was not an intelligent man and little Jeremy eventually learned how to twist and manipulate his words to convince his father in the direction he wanted him to go. This became a skill that he learned to use on others outside of his household. Saying the right thing at the right time often proved to be beneficial, especially when it came to making others think he had answers that could make them wealthy.

              He began leaking bits of information about supposed treasure that was in certain places around the county, that could be found by using magic stones that only he could read. He began to earn large amounts of money from those who believed his imaginative stories about buried gold, buried jewels or ancient civilizations prior to the arrival of the white man.

              He could see the greed and selfishness in the eyes of every man he met around town. He saw them come and go from the tavern, from the brothels, and from the multitude of churches, an odd combination of locations that puzzled him. He knew what many of them claimed to believe and he also knew the kind of lives many of them led, all of it a maelstrom of contradiction, that he knew he could use to his advantage.

              As he interacted with this collection of men, he began to ask questions of them about their faith, about their practices, and about their families. He began to paint a picture of a young man who was interested in religion, who was seeking after god, and wanted answers about the location of genuine religious truth.

              Over time the image he created of himself gained him a number of followers who considered him wise and humble, willing to ask difficult questions about topics that few were willing to breach. As he grew into his mid-twenties, he began spending more time alone in the woods, dropping occasional hints about visitation from angels and other beings who gave him wisdom and the location of hidden treasures.

              During one of his visits to the woods, he found an abandoned shack which he chose to convert into a headquarters of sorts. This became his new home that served as a foundation for his new ideas, his imagination and his teachings to others about his angelic visits. After many months of this type of activity, he began to share a story about a certain angel that told him about secret gold that contains messages about visitors to this part of the country long ago. He claimed the language was written in an ancient, unknown dialect from Egypt, which the angel taught him to interpret.

              With the angel’s directions, he found the gold, brought it to his secret hideout and began to translate the words. He finished the work after many month’s time and began to share the message with followers, who despite never seeing the original documents, confessed to handling them themselves and claimed to have assisted him in his translation work. After so many years of telling stories, of manipulating people’s ideas, and presenting himself as one who was wise and skilled, he began drawing people away from their current beliefs and into his own.

              His skills of manipulation had become so strong that many believed him, especially large numbers of women, who were easily convinced of his religious devotion, his willingness to contradict what was considered acceptable, and being willing to push the boundaries of the current moral code. God had spoken to him, and no one was going to tell him anything different. With the ability to emotionally control people, he gained a massive following and eventually put together a council that repeated his stories and agreed with his findings.

              After several years of telling these stories, he would often find himself thinking back to his childhood and his ability to manipulate his father. “This is really no different,” he told himself. “Everyone seems to be about the same, willing to believe whatever makes them feel good or in control. Everyone seems to love having the option to follow their passions, be comfortable, and use others to be in control.”

              He also thought back to his later years, watching the men from the town come and go from taverns, brothels, and churches, all of it a ridiculous hypocrisy. He then understood that people will believe whatever they want to gain whatever they want, regardless of it being inherently contradictory. Sex, power, pleasure, control, and money were the foundational beliefs that moved most people. Coming to this understanding allowed him to fabricate a moral/immoral system that put him in control, that allowed him to convince others that god was on his side and was moving he and them toward this ultimate truth.

              He wanted power, he wanted wealth, he wanted control over women, and he didn’t want to be limited to one wife but instead, fabricated a story about the legitimacy of wives, girlfriends, concubines, and lovers, all at the same time, pushing the story that lust and passion were what made man truly happy. He knew that all men were moving along these same lines of belief but what surprised him the most was that so many women were willing to go along with this twisted lack of logic.

              While his newly invented religion was wildly popular, there were still a number of men in town that saw through his lies and manipulation. Eventually his small hideout became too small, requiring that he find a new location in town that would allow for more people to attend his meetings and times of teaching. Two years into this newfound faith, Jeremy, now the head of a new church was arrested by the authorities in town and placed in jail. Three days after being arrested, several of his followers broke him out, packed up everything they owned and fled the town for a safe place in the wilderness.

              Jeremy and his followers moved from town to town, gathering new followers, to then be driven out of each town, to then move onto the next town, and find new followers there as well. It seemed as if word was moving around ahead of them as they traveled, a warning of sorts that something new and corrupt was growing in the East. Finally, this newfound faith fled into the desert, far, far away from their place of origin. With enough followers and enough money, they built their own town in a place that no normal human being would want to live, knowing that secrecy and control would allow them to exist as their own entity without having to answer to some other power outside of god.

              The heat, the lack of water, the lack of actual authority, and the oppression from government authority began to make their lives difficult. They began demanding the right to believe and practice what they claimed were words from god and refused to submit to the laws of man. As time passed, the world outside began to leave them alone, knowing that they did not want to turn Jeremy into a martyr in a land that claimed religious freedom.

              Eventually Jeremy passed away and was replaced by another who held the same beliefs and was willing to push harder again outside authorities. The new leader refined their belief system, worked harder at establishing their independent town in the barren wilderness, and found new and better ways to pull water from the earth, grown crops, and redefine morality. Though Jeremy had two wives, the new leader began to push for even greater freedom and license, taking for himself four wives and encouraging those on the council to do the same. For, as he said, “this is what all men want.”

              This pattern continued from one leader to the next, to the next and to the next, until the federal government finally stepped in and forbade the practice of polygamy, claiming that it was contrary to the health of everyone involved. Massive “families” were broken apart, bringing about anger and retaliation from this odd town in the empty, salty, barren wasteland.

              It all finally came to an end and the original writings were changed to match the current mindset of the day. Those on the outside marveled at how easy those in this odd town were willing to go along with the changing of the original writings, having proof that change was made and made willingly and deceptively.

              Centuries came and went and this odd town, now a city, eventually imploded on itself to be replaced by something much more reasonable and selfless.