The novel begins by quoting "-JOB, iv, 12-16" (See here) The quotation ends: "...and I heard a voice..."
In a human brain, the speech center is both essential and permanently active. Linguistic interaction humanizes, socializes and transforms psychophysical organisms into self-conscious individuals. We internalize speech as thought which continues even unconsciously.
We can imagine that we are being addressed, can vividly imagine that we are being addressed and can mistakenly think that we are being addressed. Some people hear voices...
Another speech function associated with religious inspiration is glossolalia (which I have heard), spoken syllables with linguistic structure but no semantic content. It is scarcely surprising that the speech center and vocal chords are capable of generating such sounds.
Poul Anderson's fictional premise - not too far-fetched - is that a future technology will be able to fake an inner voice and personality directing an apparent "prophet." As I said before, diabolical.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I remember that very apt quote from the Book of Job that Anderson used! And in my copy of THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN I copied under the AV version the same passage from a Catholic translation, the NAB.
Since I believe God is real, I don't think it is impossible for there to be genuine visions of saints and angels sent by Him. Or for God to appear to certain persons in dreams.
Ad astra and Merry Christmas! Sean
One of the reasons human beings are so good at self-delusion is that it makes lying much more effective if you believe it yourself. There’s an evolutionary arms race at work there.
A former acquaintance accused of abusing her children claims not to know what the word "abuse" means.
But is very ready with denunciations of everyone else. Why are some people like that?
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: I agree, I think it is very possible for some con men, charlatans, and false prophets to believe their spiels. Which helps explain why the Catholic Church is so slow, wary, and even reluctant to believe in apparitions of the saints. The authorities of the Church were RELUCTANT to accept as genuine the apparitions at Lourdes and Fatima (and Zeitun for a more recent example).
Paul: Why are some people like your former acquaintance? My answer is because such persons are just plain BAD.
Ad astra and Merry Christmas! Sean
Some people are simply very good at deceiving others(*); that usually also involves a good intuitive sense of what they want to hear.
Some at deceiving both themselves and others, and some are the victims of malfunctioning minds.
People who hear voices in their heads are legion: I assume that people like Muhammed and St. Joan are in that category. Both lived in environments where a supernatural explanation of the phenomenon made as much sense as any other(**), and both were apparently extremely charismatic and capable of convincing others.
(*) I think Joseph Smith simply made up the Book of Mormon out of whole cloth pretty much as L. Ron Hubbard did Scientology, and for much the same reasons -- it's saturated with tropes circulating in the area at the time in the "Burnt-Over District" of upper New York, from the Ten Lost Triibes to treasures buried in Indian mounds. Though I don't doubt that nearly all of his followers -- Brigham Young, for instance -- were perfectly sincere. Smith was a classic frontier confidence man, albeit an unusually talented one; he just liked fancy uniforms and power and lots of pretty women.
(**) Note that the people who tried Joan didn't deny she was hearing voices that were objectively real -- they just argued it was demons rather than angels.
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