The Spirit of Idolatry is a subtle lure. In some ages, men bow to Dagon and Baal and in others it is Abstract Freedom and Empirical Knowledge. Placing any forbidden obsession at the apex of human consciousness and desire causes an ontological distortion in the perceiving eye and its corresponding soul — projecting into infinity our dilemma of unrequited thirst for completion, for the substance which the world cannot of itself give to us.

No temporal peace or earthly rapture -- no golden calf forged in the cauldron of our longing could ever prove sufficient to quell the mystery of our incessant quest for the union of all things -- the absence of which condemns us to carnal bleakness and confines us to the velvet-lined misery of incommunicable despair. As we wrestle at night in the desolation of solitary thoughts, that droning din of meaninglessness that runs across our soul like a saw blade bears witness to the Spirit of Idolatry -- a Cassandra warning for us against the barren antipode we have sought refuge in. Those deaf and sterile gods we are enthralled in stark fealty to will not answer us in that hour of excruciating need. They have always fallen, and they are falling even now as still-born hearts conduct their inevitable masquerade: a denial of life they present as window-dressing for public consumption -- to be revealed utterly on that final and terrible Day of Reckoning.

Glenn Fairman writes from Highland, Ca.  He can be reached at arete5000@dslextreme.com and at www.stubbornthings.org and on Twitter.