tremor oceani
So he stood for centuries on his Mount in Peril of the Sea, watching across the tremor of the immense ocean,-immensi tremor oceani,-as Louis XI, inspired for once to poetry, inscribed on the collar of the Order of Saint Michael which he created. So soldiers, nobles, and monarchs went on pilgrimage to his shrine; so the common people followed, and still follow, like ourselves.
Beelzebub then discusses some groups of learned beings in ancient times in the regions of Kurdistan and Turkestan, who assembled a conference, which included representatives from six or seven Asiatic and Mediterranean religions and cultures, to address this problem of war. A “learned being” of that time had discovered and then taught, that there appeared to be some kind of natural planetary process, some kind of balancing process on a planetary scale, that constantly alternated periods of overpopulation of animals and humans, with periods of their destruction, regardless of what individuals wanted to do. Wars were totally unconscious, unintentional mass events, over which humans had no control. A key element in this situation was the human practice of dominating nature, that at times involved massive animal sacrifice, (and, one might add, human sacrifice, especially in ancient Meso-America). And Nature had to constantly adapt herself to these destructive practices of humans. This conference also eventually broke up, as the participants proved incapable of dealing with this terrible trap that they had discerned. And whereas the motto of the original peace-seeking society was “Earth free for All”, after the break-up into different factions, the leading motto of some groups became “Earth only for Men”. This is an interesting adumbration of the deep ecology critique of the Judaeo-Christian domination of nature (”thou shalt have dominion over the beasts”).







