A Fantastic Tale

- And An Excerpt -
Post 319

Let me spin you a tale that is just too fantastic to believe. It has a love story, it has plenty of drama, it has action, and betrayal, it has reversals, and complexity, and dark grit, it has lovesick vampires and shadowy ghosts… all the way ‘round, it has the greatest of Hollywood potential. Its only problem is that it’s just “too far out there”; it’s too unbelievable even for our modern fans of “out there” Hollywood stories like; Planet of the Apes, War of the Worlds, Matrix, Independence Day, and New Moon. This tale might be too advanced to connect with this still shortsighted generation, but the next generation will eat it up!
So without further ado, let me spin you a tale and an excerpt:
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Long ago and far away, or not so far away and still to come-- I forget-- there was a Dark Empire with an insatiable desire to oppress the world with unspeakable suffering and great extortions for the sole purpose of making its empire dominate the earth to its own advantage. As is the case with all empires of that time and Age they had their own deity, whose name was Draco.
Draco was commonly called The Beast by both the fearing nations as well as the multi-faceted empire that claimed him. As evidenced by the artfully crafted huge multi-metallic image standing in the square of the empire’s great city, he was an unspeakably horrible monster with armor plated scales, a long thick tail, almost oversized claws and teeth, and four muscle-bound massive legs with oversized feet that appeared capable of easily catapulting his enormous frame, but his main feature that brought fear to every man was his seven fire-breathing heads and ten horns, whose horny heads were so filled with consuming rage that they constantly attacked one another when they weren’t devouring the nations of the earth. With this deity as their standard the empire was undefeatable in battle, and the nations fell like trees before the pyroclastic winds of a volcanic eruption… that is; when Draco could get all his heads to focus on the same target and work in unison.
The greatness of every deity is also his weakness, and Draco was no different. The only consistent hope of the world’s nations was that these many heads would find many simultaneous distractions to keep its unspeakably consuming potential diminished, but with seven devouring heads consuming seven individual nations at a time before moving on, this was little consolation. Yet periodically, the many heads bound at the base of their long necks like Medusa’s snakes, all began to fight amongst themselves simultaneously and the nations had respite, if but for a moment.

There was a seemingly insignificant tiny nation among the many larger of the land, that, like the many others, fell before the wrath of Draco and his empire when he came though. The result was a once happy, healthy, powerful, carefree and wealthy people became just another nameless addition to the starving hoard of slave nations providing for the welfare of the empire. The telling of the tragic details of this tiny nation would be a fascinating tale all its own but this is not the focus of my story today. Nor will it seem that my focus is on the very small number of individuals from that tiny nation that banded together without a national flag yet in a power far greater than their size and independence should be able to muster.
There sponsorless numbers were so small in fact that their existence went totally unnoticed by anyone for a time, until their growing grassroots voice began to scare the frightened leaders of their slave nation; “Don’t draw the attention of even a single head of Draco!” was their plea to the small force of men who had a knack for gaining followers at an inspiring rate even without the power of a political identity to cohese them. They were called rebels, but what were they rebelling against no one knew; clearly it wasn’t the tiny slave nation, nor even the great empire, yet they had an additional creed all their own that made their unique independence quite apparent. While remaining collectively flagless, they were collectively the hardest working assets to the struggling slave nation as well as the hardest working appeasement to the great empire, yet they were nonetheless almost their own nation because of their unexplainably unique mindframe of creed-loyal unity among themselves that stood like an impenetrable wall in the face of every obstacle. Eventually this nameless little group was unofficially tagged with the label Messtians, just to give them an identity when people spoke about their exploits in quiet circles. And their exploits were indeed worthy of talking about, but this is not the focus of my excerpt.

Over time this flagless grassroots collection of ghostlike Messtians had gained a name among the nations for their seemingly unplanned yet timely aid to the poor-and-suffering of all nations, as well as, along with the aid, giving a specific message of hope for the otherwise hopeless future. This recognition eventually reached the ears of the empire’s religious necromancers, who, calling upon their dark forces for insight, began to devise an ingenious plan to foil the Messtians without the need of even locating them. The problem is that this creative plan would have to be implemented behind the back of Draco, who was, shall we say; “less than delicate” in the matter of destroying his enemies, and thus incapable of defeating what he could not find by force.

What the necromancers did was to begin an official recognition of the Messtians.
They published throughout the empire and their slave nations the glories and virtues of the Messtians, and praised them with great exuberance and honors as being the much-needed helpers of the poor-and-suffering in these sorrowful dark times.
Of course at first the slave nations were not buying this and could see through the illusion, but couldn’t see the reasoning behind it. And while the quiet circles left off talking about the Messtians to begin talking of this new development and its meaning, the necromancers remained consistent and even provided funds and manpower to help the Messtians do their work in their own unregulated way. This was stunning. This was confusing. This was unexplainable and unexpected. But many, many people were helped, far above what the Messtians could do without this aid, and this was all in the open. It seems that the force of the grassroots Messtians had won the contest and the dark empire was seeing the light! This was a great and glorious day indeed!
But in the elation of this great aid to relieve the long-experienced suffering, what the people failed to notice in their evaluations was that they were still slaves to the empire. This was not the message of hope in aid given by the Messtians, but who in their right minds could look a gift-horse in the mouth?-- (an ancient phrase, meaning to scrutinize the quality/health of the greatly beneficial gift, as if you were making a purchasing decision to accept or reject it).
Draco was angry. And I mean really angry, because they were no longer feeding his wrath to the degree he had grown accustomed to, yet it couldn’t be denied that a healthier happier slave population could produce far more for the empire with far less effort to maintain them. This was a win-win for both parties.

But this was not the end goal of the necromancers and those to whom they besought council. This was only the first phase of a much greater plan.
Official Messtian Centers were set up all over the land and the grandest of them was in the empire city itself. People flocked to these centers for food, medicine, and labor instruments to make their life and work easier, and so the vast and desperate needs of a people-long-neglected, quickly made it necessary for the people to pay for their gifts, but such things were to be expected, after all, the benevolence of even the Great Empire could not be expected to be bottomless and provide so much for nothing. The people were just happy to finally get what was previously ungettable at any price. These Messtian Centers were a godsend!
But soon the laboring people were incapable of coming up with payment for what they desperately needed, and so it became necessary for the empire to raise the taxes on the people’s services to the empire. This was reasonable; after all, these were hard times for everyone, and the Messtians had the longstanding right answer; “Have a servant heart to all,” and this attitude seems to have proven successful to this point.
Nobody hardly noticed that the Messtian leaders of the Messtian Centers, though expressing feeling bad for collecting funds from the poor and needy, were nonetheless collecting an ever-increasing sum for what they distributed. What they did notice is that it was becoming ever-increasingly more difficult to come up with the required sums that the Messtian Centers required.
Eventually the Messtian Centers were forced to resort to more “forceful” tactics to get the people to give to the Centers, and an additional timely motive was the cost of defense against Draco and his empire of wrath. And so the Messtains published official bulletins declaring that for every coin brought to a Center they would defend one of your family members from Draco. Of course no one knew just how much defense was needed so the more you gave the better chances of success you had.
This seemed to work and the Messtain Centers grew quickly. Where they were once simple warehouses filled with boxed goods, they now became great palaces filled with elaborate treasures that seemed to have no function or intention of being distributed, but the reasoning was that by magnifying the Centers the people were more likely to feel them successful and be more willing to give to the cause.
This went on for some time.
But eventually there was a quiet yet growing stir among the nations regarding a small group of Messtians who were claiming that the Messtian Centers were not Messtian at all. How ridiculous! And how offensive to the greatly respected name of the Messtians who had spent so much effort to relieve the suffering of the poor-and-desperate slave masses!
Instead of being heard, these rebels were first shunned in fear and confusion but then hunted down and turned in to the Messtian Centers where they were made examples-of to anyone who would support the violence of Draco over the benevolent Messtian Centers that boldly stood against him. And clearly they were succeeding, as evidenced by Draco’s less frequent desolations of the cities that had Messtian Centers.
The Centers that became warehouses, became palaces, and the palaces became cities. Cities of unspeakable wealth and luxury. And always carefully maintained by specially trained Messtian priests, lest the success fall into decay and they would no longer be able to help the people.
Nobody asked why Draco left these cites alone, it was just accepted as the mysterious power of the Messtians.

But eventually and slowly, and I mean slowly, it began to dawn on the nations that they now had two oppressors rather than just one. And while Draco was clearly the scary one, the Messtians were the sneaky deceivers that were robbing them of whatever dregs Draco left behind. The sudden long-coming awareness that their benevolent defenders were really just leaches of a second prison, burned hot within their already bitter belly. This was a rage of long pent-up unquenchable fire that cast off every fear and caution in the effort to break free from… EVERYTHING!
This was the Age of Liberation!
But they took with them into their liberation the personal compilation of the confusions and resentments of the life they had lived, and they thought these were their own ideas, safe from outside abuse as they sought help from anyone NOT a part of their past.
And the necromancers grinned…
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Here is where I will park this tale for the time being, because this tale will needs become a book that cannot be included here. But my backstory excerpt and purpose for telling it should become apparent as we switch to today’s headline news as it relates timely to the body of my present work;
The Mystery Is Not The Beast.

If I were to write out in my own words this following fantastic tale, it would be immediately rejected as the work of a sick but creative psychopath that needs to be put away for the protection of society, but I didn’t write this, it didn’t come out of my head, this is headline news, in the real world, today.
May God help us all!... if we can even figure out who that God is.
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BBC News 3/17/2014
A tall, striking woman addresses a group of women sitting under a mango tree in a village in Western Burkina Faso. It is 35 degrees [c] in the shade and the air is dusty and stifling. The women listen in awe to 38-year-old Adjara who has just got back from the local town. "I am telling you the truth," she says. "I have seen it with my own eyes!" She is referring to the first hospital in the world to be built for the sole purpose of restoring the clitoris and about to open, she says, in the town of Bobo, 50 miles away. "We can be like other women!" she says.

The village of Moussodougou is about as deprived as you get in one of the poorest countries in Africa, Burkina Faso.

It has no electricity, no running water and only a fifth of the children have access to a school. While the men appear to sit around in the heat all day, the women fetch and carry water in tin basins and grind the local staple, millet and sorghum, for the daily meal.
And yet, Adjara says, "We might be poor but, sexually, things are changing." As she shows me around, she tells me that

every woman used to be genitally mutilated.

"I was five when I was taken to be cut. The old woman used the same knife for us all. It was so painful. I cried and cried." Adjara takes me to her home, a dark hut some 8m wide, where the shelves are weighed down with heavy, clay pots. "It was part of the wedding package," she explains. "When you get married, you get given these pots to take away with you by your mother. But if you weren't cut, you didn't get the pots and you couldn't get married."

Then, about 10 years ago, health workers came to the village and explained that the problems which used to be blamed on witchcraft - the death of girls after the mutilation and problems in childbirth which resulted in more deaths - "all were because of the cutting, they told us, and so we stopped".

And now they are being told that their clitorises can be restored and that the pain they endure whenever they have sex will end and they could even experience pleasure. "I am happy," said the husband of 24-year-old Bebe, who has come to wave her off for the trip to Bobo for the operation. "I did not like it that she cried out every time I came to her."
Twenty-six women clamber on to the 18-seat bus. They pile on top of each other, some carrying babies and small children. There is scarcely room to breathe but they chatter and even sing on the four-hour journey down red mud, dusty roads to the local town, avoiding herds of cattle and stray goats on the way.
It is dusk when the bus turns in to the hospital grounds. The Pleasure Hospital, as the sponsors call it, is an impressive sight - large, very new [and modern even in the American sense] but very closed. Fortunately, Adjara's husband works as a security guard here and so she finds them a room in the grounds and they all bed down on the concrete floor and wait.

The next morning, the local member of the hospital organising committee, Banemanie Traore, arrives with the devastating news that, although the government allowed the hospital to be built, they have said it can't open.

Banemanie is a beautiful, 59-year-old woman, her hair done in ringlets who tells me she was "restored, six years ago and I am now very happy". She wears a distinctive gold symbol around her neck, a swastika surrounded by a Star of David. She is a Raelian and therein may lie the problem.

The Raelians believe that planet Earth was created and is still governed by extra-terrestrials who will one day return to judge humanity. They believe in UFOs and that our purpose on Earth is the pursuit of pleasure.

About 10 years ago, wealthy Raelians living in California and Canada launched a charity they called Clitoraid. They invited donors to "sponsor a clitoris", raised $400,000 and started building the Pleasure Hospital eight years ago. It is due to open in four days' time and women are arriving in Bobo from all over Africa for the operation.
Banemanie Traore is convinced that the Ministry has stepped in to stop the project for religious reasons. She says powerful Catholics in the country have put pressure on the government. "They don't want women to have pleasure," she says.
But, she adds, it doesn't make sense. "There are 130 million women in Africa who have been mutilated and who are denied pleasure. If someone has the idea to build them a hospital, you have to let them do it."

Meanwhile, a medical team from America has also arrived, led by Dr Marci Bowers, who was born Mark, and is recognised internationally as an expert in transgender surgery.

I meet her on her first day in Africa, looking slightly bemused at the dusty, mud buildings and the bedraggled street sellers who follow her everywhere, "It makes you appreciate what we have back home in Chicago," she says. She buys a silver bracelet from one vendor and a length of fabric from another.
"I came because I believe that Female Genital Mutilation is a crime against humanity and I am on a humanitarian mission. I am not a Raelian but I think it is a wonderful thing that they are doing." The five American medics are all giving their time voluntarily and they now have nowhere to operate.
A local doctor steps in to help. Doctor Da offers his clinic in Bobo, the Clinique Lorentia, for the operations. The village women queuing at the hospital are brought in twos and threes for the surgery. Bebe is among the first to be wheeled in to the operating theatre "I am not scared," she says. "I am just angry that this was done to me and I am angry about the pain and that, because of it, I have never enjoyed sex."
Bowers invites me to watch the surgery which, she explains, is a surprisingly simple one that can be done under local anaesthetic and takes about 45 minutes. The clitoris is a gland and, although the visible part is cut off during mutilation, the majority remains below the surface and can be pulled up and thus restored.
Meanwhile, word is getting out that the operations are being performed. In the reception area below, women are arriving from the capital, Ouagadougou and from Mali, Senegal and even Kenya.
Dr Bowers and her fellow surgeon, Dr Harold Henning from New York State, work in shifts to perform eight operations a day. Local doctors look on. The idea is that when the Americans leave after two weeks, local doctors will be ready to continue the work.
Dr Bowers is operating on her 29th patient when the news comes. The government has withdrawn the licences for the American surgeons to work in Burkina Faso and they must leave. "I guess they thought by closing the hospital they would stop us," says Bowers. "It didn't and now they have done this." The women waiting in reception are told their operations are cancelled.
I go to the regional Health Ministry in Bobo and ask why. The minister is out of the country but an official there tells me that it is for bureaucratic reasons. The hospital administrators failed to fill out the necessary forms to allow inspections to take place before opening. It sounds like a reasonable explanation until the Health Minister, Lene Sebego, tells a journalist from the Thomson Reuters Foundation that

"medical organisations should be focused on saving lives and not advertising their religion in an attempt to convert vulnerable people".

Prominent Raelians who had flown in for the opening of the hospital blame the Catholic Church in Burkina Faso, claiming that prominent Catholic doctors, enraged that foreign doctors were carrying out the procedure, had put pressure on the government to stop it. The[y] say that the Church also fear[s] that the Raelians might get recruits from among grateful patients[.]
Dr Brigitte Boisellier, president of Clitoraid, says: "This wonderful mission has now been stymied by the Catholic Church and its cronies, who are conducting a smear campaign against it for their own selfish motives." The Catholic Church in Burkina Faso has dismissed this allegation as “poisonous rumour”.
Whatever the truth, the women of Burkina Faso and throughout Africa are the losers. The expensive new hospital stands idle. Of the women from the village of Moussodogou, 15 of the 26 who took the bus journey were operated on and can look forward to a life without pain and the chance of sexual pleasure. Adjara, who did so much to get them to the hospital, was among those who did not get to the operating theatre in time. They go back to their village with little hope of return or of being restored.
- BBC News 3/17/14 (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26577358). used under critical review laws. Bold emphasis added.

Is this getting insane enough for you yet? Hang on, I assure you it’s only just getting started. But I have made my point: Mystery Babylon is alive and well!
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