"After Hell" & The Paradise of Audio Drama

Having just launched the horror site, "All The Hells", how I could I not listen to an audio drama called "After Hell"?

"After Hell" a supernatural drama, a mix of police procedural and "28 Days Later"-style Armageddon story. It's enthusiastically presented and - the key to any good audio drama - uses an intelligent sound design to create spaces, describe scenes, illustrate scenes in detail.

I was sent one of the new CD copies from SciFind Ltd., UK based aggregator of all things scientifically fictional. I was sold on the concept, sight unseen - or sound unheard.

I love audio drama - as anyone who has heard my delightfully self-indulgent (yes, delightfully!) "Wretched Goo Of The Imagination" podcasts will tell you. One of my first forays into media production was the recording of a thrilling audio space adventure with my older brother. It was entitled "Face To Face With The Planet Scanodon!" and recorded in the living room of our Ohio apartment on glorious reel-to-reel tape. I wonder if

my parents still have that tape in storage somewhere.

And I have not grown up - have not "changed my principles", let's say - that sounds better - one iota since then. Here is the planet Scanodon at The Cyclopedia Of Worlds:

And, heck, here's a movie of the planet Scanodon at The Cyclopedia Of World's video channel, that you can watch till your eyes cross:

The quality of writing and production design may have improved since I was seven years old, but the subject matter...remarkably the same.

Writer-director Joe Medina at Ollin Productions has put together something he should be proud of with "After Hell". I think Orson Welles would agree with me, if he were animated and rotting next to me in some kind of horrific horror story way, that audio drama - radio drama, we used to call it - is it's own, self-contained media form. Audio drama, like music, engages the mind and imagination directly - and can - in partnership with our brains - describe atmospheres, textures, spaces, and all manner of impossible absurdities (see again, The Wretched Goo Of The Imagination) with ease. I love it. And will do more of it myself some day, when I finish these several dozen other projects.

Well done, to Ollin Productions and the entire "After Hell" crew. Keep up the good work. We want more. We need more.

"All The Hells" Flickr Group

A heartfelt thanks to the large number of people who have so positively responded to "All The Hells" in its first weeks on Earth.

I wanted to direct your attention though to the new "All The Hells" image group at Flickr. The "All The Hells" site is "all my own work", but the images in the Flickr group are a collection from a wide variety of photographers and artists, from several different continents, who have provided "All The Hells" some of its inspiration, vision, fuel for its fires.

Some of the images are terrifying, some sublime, some obscene, some inexplicable. They are all, as are the artists who created them, worth repeated study. I hope to provide in-depth pieces and posts on each of these artists as "All The Hells" unspools.

Until then, study them yourselves. I would avoid doing so just before bed, however, or if you're alone, because you may begin to feel like...you're not alone.

New Horror Fiction Site - "All The Hells"

I invite you to read rabbit + crow's new meta-horror fiction site, "All The Hells":

http://allthehells.nealromanek.com

Read also the accompanying Twitter:

http://twitter.com/allthehells

Great Movie Monologues 5 - "Jaws"

Watching "Jaws" (1975) again, I am reminded - again - of how perfect a film it is. Performances, music & sound design, editing, and writing come together to make a masterpiece. In truth, none of these elements is perfect in the film - close, but not quite. But somehow they were brought together, on a production where everyone seemed convinced they had a disaster on their hands, to produce one of the greatest horror movies and greatest adventure movies.

At night, aboard the fishing boat, Orca, our three heroes - Brody, a police chief afraid of water; Matt Hooper, a young marine biologist; and Quint, a seasoned shark fisherman exchange comical stories about their scars. When Hooper asks about the scar of a removed tattoo on Quint's arm, actor Robert Shaw launches into one of his best scenes as an actor and one of the best monologues in movies:

QUINT: (pointing to the tattoo) That's the U.S.S. Indianapolis.

HOOPER:  (breathless) You were on the Indianapolis?

BRODY:  What happened?

QUINT:  Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into her side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. We'd just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half-hour. Tiger. thirteen-footer. You know how you know that in the water, Chief? You can tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know...was that our bomb mission was so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin' by, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and sometimes that shark he go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't even seem to be livin'... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah, then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin' and your hollerin' those sharks come in and... they rip you to pieces You know, by the end of that first dawn, we lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks there were, maybe a thousand. I do know how many men, they averaged six an hour. Thursday mornin', Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boson's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, he was like a kinda top. Up-ended. Well...he'd been bitten in half below the waist. At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot - a lot younger than Mr. Hooper here - anyway, he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol' fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know, that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.

(with a smile - or a sneer?)

Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

---

go to Great Movie Monologues 4 - "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp"

"Knowledge and Propaganda" by Joseph Goebbels

Background: This speech was given on 9 January 1928 to an audience of party members at the so-called "Hochschule für Politik," a series of training talks for party members in Berlin. It is Joseph  Goebbels' (1897 - 1945) most extended discussion of the nature of propaganda by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.

The source: "Erkenntnis und Propaganda," Signale der neuen Zeit. 25 ausgewählte Reden von Dr. Joseph Goebbels (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP., 1934), pp. 28-52.

To learn more about the National Socialist propaganda machine, go to Calvin College's German Propaganda Archive .

Knowledge and Propaganda

by Joseph Goebbels

My dear fellow party members!

Our theme this evening is hotly disputed. I realize that my viewpoint is subjective. There is really little point to discussing propaganda. It is a matter of practice, not of theory. One cannot determine theoretically whether one propaganda is better than another. Rather, that propaganda is good that has the desired results, and that propaganda is bad that does not lead to the desired results. It does not matter how clever it is, for the task of propaganda is not to be clever, its task is to lead to success. I therefore avoid theoretical discussions about propaganda, for there is no point to it. Propaganda shows that it is good if over a certain period it can win over and fire up people for an idea. If it fails to do so, it is bad propaganda. If propaganda wins the people it wanted to win, it was presumably good, and if not, it was presumably bad. No one can say that your propaganda is too crude or low or brutal, or that it is not decent enough, for those are not the relevant criteria. Its purpose is not to be decent, or gentle, or weak, or modest; it is to be successful. That is why I have intentionally chosen to discuss propaganda along with a second theme, knowledge. Otherwise, our discussion this evening would be of little value. We have not gathered to discuss lovely theories, but rather to find ways of practically working together to deal with our everyday challenges.

What is propaganda, and what role does it have in political life? That is the question of greatest interest to us. How should propaganda look, and what is its role in our movement? Is it an end in itself, or only a means to an end? We must discuss that, but we can do that only when we begin with the origin of propaganda itself, namely the idea, then move to the target of propaganda, namely people.

Ideas in themselves are timeless. They are not tied to individuals, much less to a people. They rest in a people, it is true, and affect their attitudes. Ideas, people say, are in the clouds. When someone comes along who can put in words what everyone feels in their hearts, each feels: "Yes! That is what I have always wanted and hoped for." That is what happens the first time one hears one of Hitler's major speeches. I have met people who had attended a Hitler meeting for the first time, and at the end they said: "This man put in words everything I have been searching for for years. For the first time, someone gave form to what I want." Others are lost in confusion, but suddenly someone stands up and puts it in words. Goethe's words become reality: "Lost in silent misery, God gave someone to express my suffering."

Some kind of idea is at the beginning of every political movement. It is not necessary to put this idea in a thick book, nor that it take political form in a hundred long paragraphs. History proves that the greatest world movements have always developed when their leaders knew how to unify their followers under a short, clear theme. That is clear from the French Revolution, or Cromwell's movement, or Buddhism, Islam, or Christianity. Christ's goal was clear and simple: "Love your neighbor as yourself." He gathered his followers behind that straightforward statement. Because this teaching was simple, crisp, clear, and understandable, enabling the broad masses to stand behind it, it in the end conquered the world.

One then builds a whole system of thought on such a brief, crisply formulated idea. The idea does not remain limited to this single statement, rather it is applied to every aspect of daily life and becomes the guide for all human activity — politics, culture, the economy, every area of human behavior. It becomes a worldview. We see that in all great revolutionary movements, which begin with a clear, crisp, understandable, all-encompassing idea. They spread more and more and become a mirror of life that reflects all activities of the peoples, and indeed in a particular way.

Then one can say that a person has a worldview—not because he knows a lot or has read a lot—but because he sees all of life from a certain standpoint, and measures everything by a certain standard. I am a Christian when I believe that the meaning of my life is the heavy responsibility to love my neighbor as myself. Kant once said: "Act as if the principle of your life could be the principle for your entire nation." I am a National Socialist not when I want this or that from politics, rather when I consider all aspects of daily life. I must act in all things by putting the good of the whole above my personal good, by putting the good of the state above my personal good. But then I also have the guarantee that such a state will be able to protect my personal life. I am a National Socialist when I see everything in politics, culture or the economy from this standpoint. I therefore do not evaluate the theater from the standpoint of whether it is elegant or amusing, rather I ask: Is it good for my people, is it useful for them, does it strengthen the community? If so, the community in turn can benefit, support and strengthen me. I do not see the economy as some sort of way of making money, rather I want an economy that will strengthen the people, make them healthy and powerful. Then too I can expect that this people will support and maintain me. If I see things in this way, I see the economy in National Socialist terms.

If I develop this crisp, clear idea into a system of thought that includes all human drives, wishes and actions, I have a worldview.

As an idea develops into a worldview, the goal is the state. The knowledge does not remain the property of a certain group, but fights for power. It is not just the fantasy of a few people among the people, rather it becomes the idea of the rulers, the circles that have power. The view does not only preach, but it is carried out in practice. Then the idea becomes the worldview of the state. The worldview has become a government organism when it seizes power and can influence life not only in theory, but in practical everyday life.

Now we must consider who is the carrier, the transmitter, the guardian of such ideas. An idea always lives in individuals. It seeks an individual to transmit its great intellectual force. It becomes alive in a brain, and seeks escape through the mouth. The idea is preached by individuals, individuals who will never be satisfied to have the knowledge remain theirs alone. You know that from experience. When one knows something one does not keep it hidden like a buried treasure, but rather one seeks to tell others. One looks for people who should know it. One feels that everyone else should know as well, for one feels alone when no one else knows. For example, if I see a beautiful painting in an art gallery, I have the need to tell others. I meet a good friend and say to him: "I have found a wonderful picture. I have to show it to you." The same is true of ideas. If an idea lives in an individual, he has the urge to tell others. There is some mysterious force in us that drives us to tell others. The greater and simpler the idea is, the more it relates to daily life, the more one has the desire to tell everyone about it.

If I believe that the nation must be governed by the principle that the common good comes before the individual good, I will tell it to those to whom it applies. As soon as I realize that this principle is not only of a transcendental nature, but that it applies to daily life, I have the need to tell it to those in the economic world. And if I see it applies to culture as well, I have the need to tell it to those people involved in cultural activities. The great masses will never be won simply by such a sentence; it must cast its shadow over all areas of human life.

You see how an idea spreads and becomes a worldview, and how the bearer, the individual, reaches out to form a community, and how an organization, then a movement grows from the individual. The idea is no longer buried in the heart and mind of an individual. Now there are four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, eighty, a hundred, and ever more. That is the secret of ideas; they are like a wildfire that cannot be restrained. They are like a gas that seeps through everything. Where an idea finds entry, it enters, and soon that person is influencing others. The others cannot stop it. They may believe they can stop the fire by force. They may even be able to do so for two, or ten, twenty, or fifty years. But that is not significant in the larger course of world history. It is irrelevant if something happens today or tomorrow, or even years in the future.

It is possible to slow an idea by force for a certain period of time. In reality, however, that advances the idea, for force drives out that which is weak. The elements that do not really belong collapse. Suddenly, the individual becomes a community, a movement, or if you prefer, a party.

Each movement begins as a party. That does not mean it has to follow the methods of parliamentary parties. We see a party as a part of the people. As an idea spreads, becoming a worldview that spreads to the community, the community will want to give the idea practical form. The party will feel the necessity to organize. Someone will suddenly have the idea: "You think the way I think. You are working over there, I am working here, and we know nothing of each other. That is absurd. It would be better if we worked together, if I did my part and you did yours. Would it not be good if we met every month and talked?" That is an organization. Gradually, a strong organism develops, a party ready to fight for its ideals. A party that does not want that will indeed continue to preach its ideals, but will never bring them into reality.

A recent example may help. Our movement is often accused of losing its character as a movement. We are accused of taking the vast, broad and ever-moving system of thought of the völkisch movement and forcing it into a Procrustean bed. We supposedly had to chop of the legs of the movement that stuck out, eliminating important parts of the völkisch idea. National Socialism is only a surrogate for the real movement, some say. In fact, the völkisch movement ran aground on this matter. Each declares his own particular interest central to the völkisch movement, and accuses anyone who does not share his views as being a traitor to the cause. That is the way the völkisch movement was before the war. If someone had been able to take this great idea — and the völkisch idea was greater than the Marxist idea — and develop out of it a tightly disciplined political organization, then the völkisch idea, not the Marxist idea, would have won on 9 November [1918]. Marxism won because it had a better understanding of political conditions, because it had forged the sword it would later use to conquer the state. If a völkisch organizer had understood how to form a great movement — it is a question of life or death for our nation — the völkisch idea, not Marxism, would have won, It was a worldview, but it did not understand how to form a party and how to forge the sharp sword that would have enabled it to conquer the state.

The state needs a worldview. Christianity also conquered the state, and in the moment that it conquered the state it began to carry out practical political activity. You can with justice claim: "Yes, but at the moment Christianity took over the state, it began to cease being Christian." That is the tragedy of all great ideas. At the moment they enter the realm of this life of sin, of the all-too-human, they leave the heavens and lose their romantic magic. They become something normal. We are not discussing whether or not one can change the nature of life. Things have gone on this way for millions of years, and will go on in the same way for millions more. You will have to ask a higher power why that is so. At the moment an idea takes practical form, it loses its angel's wings, its romantic mystery. If someone had had the courage to strip the völkisch idea of its romantic mystery, if one had taken account of the hard facts, it would not look as romantic today as it does to some dreamers. But it would have kept millions of German children from starving. For me, it is more important that a nation lives than that an idea remains as pure as possible in the heads of a few dreamers.

You can see that a movement needs an organization if it is to conquer the state — and it must conquer the state if it wants to do something of positive and historic significance. I have often met the kind of wandering apostle who says: "Well, everything you are doing is fine, but you really must also take a stand against foreign words in the German language." And another comes along who says: "Well, everything you say is good, but you must have a point in your program that says allopathy is dangerous, and you must support homeopathy." If the movement were led by such apostles, the Jew would end up in charge. The Jew would find something new every day until nothing was left. It is not the task of a revolutionary fighting movement to settle the dispute between allopathy and homeopathy, rather its task is to take power. The movement must have a program such that every honest fighter can stand behind it. Now, it is certainly true that the modern German cultural establishment produces every manner of nonsense. I know that this nonsense is poisoning the German national soul. There are those who say: "Something has to happen. You have to do something. If you want to fight the movie industry, you must build your own theater, even if it at first has only the most primitive equipment. And if you see that the children are being poisoned by what they read in school, you must begin to win children's souls and give them the antidote." My reply is simple: You can spend ten years giving the antidote to the poison that is produced by a badly led cultural establishment, but a single decree from the Ministry of Culture can destroy all your work. If you had spent that ten years winning fighters for the movement, the movement would have conquered the Ministry of Culture! Everything else is mere piecework.

If a movement wins political power, it can do those positive things it wants to do. Only then does it have the power to protect its accomplishments. At the moment a movement or party wins control of the state, its worldview becomes the state and its party becomes the nation. The nation is not the 60 million people who live in it. That is a confused mixture. One says yea, the other nay. That is not a nation. A nation is characterized by consciousness. Instinct alone is not enough. Only when I am aware that I am a member of the nation, when I am consciously a German, do I belong to the German people. The Great Elector did not say: "Think and remember that you are a German." Rather, he said: "Consider well that you are a German." Consideration is at the level of consciousness. Such consciousness belongs to the entire nation. Adolf Hitler rightly answered the court in Munich in this way when he was asked: "How could you think of establishing a dictatorship over sixty million with such a tiny minority?" His reply: "If an entire nation has become cowardly, and there are only a thousand left who want something great, and who have to power to transform the state, then these thousand people are the nation." If the others let a minority conquer the state, then they must also accept the fact that we will establish a dictatorship.

The same is true of a movement. If a movement has the strength to take over the state, than it has the power to transform the state. I am the last to complain that the Marxists rule us today. As long as we do not have the strength to overcome them, they have the political right to rule us. I am surprised how little they use that right. I would do things differently. That is their tragic misunderstanding of their own worldview. I do not complain that the gentlemen of the Berlin Police use their power against us, only that they call themselves democrats and claim that they allow freedom of thought and of speech. That is nonsense. That is lying hypocrisy, for in truth these gentlemen are dictators.

If a movement has the strength to take over government positions of power, then it has the right to form the government as it wishes. Anyone who disagrees is a foolish theoretician. Politics is governed not by moral principles, but by power. If a movement conquers the state, it has the right to form the state. You can see how these three elements combine ideals and personalities. The idea leads to a worldview, the worldview to the state, the individual becomes a party, the party becomes the nation.

The important thing is not to find people who agree with me about every theoretical jot and tittle, but rather that I find people who are willing to fight with me for a worldview. Winning people over to something that I have recognized as right, that is what we call propaganda. At first there is knowledge; it uses propaganda to find the manpower that will transform knowledge into politics. Propaganda stands between the idea and the worldview, between the worldview and the state, between the individual and the party, between the party and the nation. At the moment at which I recognize something as important and begin speaking about it in the streetcar, I begin making propaganda. At the same moment, I begin looking for other people to join me. Propaganda stands between the one and the many, between the idea and the worldview. Propaganda is nothing other than the forerunner to organization. Once it has done this, it is the forerunner to state control. It is always a means to an end.

Although I must hold unshakably and unalterably to the idea, propaganda adjusts itself to the prevailing conditions. Propaganda is always flexible. It says different things here than it does there. It cannot be polished, laminated and stuffed; rather it must occupy the space between the one and the many. I talk differently on the streetcar with the conductor than I do with a businessman. If I did not, the businessman would think I was crazy and the streetcar conductor would not understand me. That means propaganda cannot be limited. It changes according to whom I am trying to reach. Let me tell a good story about a party member in Berlin who since 1919 has promoted the National Socialist idea. At first, he beat his head bloody against a wall that we want to avoid. He began by distributing the wildest anti-Semitic publications on the street. He knew it was bad stuff, but there was nothing better, so he read these books or newspapers in the subway. Everyone could see that he was a harmless crank, and when he stood up and left his newspapers behind, someone regularly would say: "Sir, take your newspaper along with you." He would angrily take his paper and leave it with the conductor, saying: "Here, German brother." And the conductor certainly thought he came from the nuthouse. He gradually realized that the methods that worked with friends and comrades do not work with strangers.

In other words, there is no ABC of propaganda. One can make propaganda, or one cannot. Propaganda is an art. Any reasonably normal person can learn to play the violin to a certain degree, but then his teacher will say: "This is as far as it goes. Only a genius can learn what remains. You are not a genius, so be content with what you have learned." I can certainly teach any reasonable person the absolute basics of propaganda. But I will soon recognize the limits. One is either a propagandist, or one is not. It is wrong to look down on a propagandist. There are people who say a propagandist is merely a good drummer. This displays a certain envy and lack of ability. They are mostly mediocre philosophers whom the masses ignore. You have seen often enough — no one can deny it — that our movement has good speakers. Since our opponents do not have good speakers, they say: "Well, they are only good drummers." Hitler was called the "Drummer of National Unity" for five years. When they realized that this drummer had ideas that didn't fit into their way of thinking, he was suddenly a "crazy politician" who had to be dealt with. It is foolish to look down on propagandists. The propagandist has a certain role within the party. It is good for our young movement that we are young and lacking in really great leaders — though naturally not in comparison to other parties. The great leaders we have cannot stick to a particular area, but must be able to do everything. They must be propagandists, organizers, speakers, writers, etc. They must be able to get along with people, find money, write articles, and a lot more. That is why it is wrong to say that Hitler is merely a drummer. That is what is great about him, and what separates him from everyone else. He is a politician, and also a propagandist, while the leaders of other parties understand neither politics nor propaganda. You can see how propaganda relates to the worldview and to the organization. After we have finished the hard work of moving the idea and the worldview from the individuals to the masses, propaganda has the task of taking the knowledge of the mass and enabling it to take over the state.

Let me give an example.

What good would it do if everything we know to be right stayed in our few heads! The few would doubt the rightness of the idea, since they would see that no one was joining them. And if we did not have the people — from the lowliest S.A. man who distributes newspapers to the best speaker, or the leader of the party, all our lovely knowledge would be useless, for only we would know it. The others would continue their nonsense, and the German people in the end would perish.

Propaganda is absolutely necessary, even if it is only a means to an end. Otherwise, the idea could never take over the state. I must be able to get what I think important across to many people. The task of a gifted propagandist is to take that which many have thought and put it in a way that reaches everyone from the educated to the common man. You will all grant me this, and as further evidence I can recall a Hitler speech in Jena. Half the audience were Marxists, half students and university professors. I had a burning desire to speak with both elements afterwards. I could see that the university professor and the average man had understood what Hitler said. That is the greatness of our movement, that it can use language to reach the broad masses.

Of course, the style will vary according to the speaker. It would be a big mistake to expect everyone to treat the idea in the same way, for as great as it is, so different are the individuals who are to be reached by it. You will surely hear some people say that they like one speaker, while others prefer another. It would be a mistake to try to make the soft-spoken speaker into a thundering orator, or a thundering orator into a soft-spoken chap. Neither would accomplish anything. The soft-spoken speaker would never reach the heart no matter how hard he tried, nor would the thundering orator succeed in speaking quietly. Everyone would go home dissatisfied. The bigger our movement gets, the more kinds of people it can house, and each will reflect the movement a little differently. No two things in God's world are alike. Everything is a little different. Thus one person reflects things differently than another.

As propaganda draws an ever-growing following to the idea, the idea broadens, becomes more flexible. It no longer stays in a few heads, but wants to include everything. At that moment it becomes a comprehensive program. We can happily see that that is the case in our movement. You will never find millions of people willing to die for a book. But millions of people are willing to die for a gospel, and our movement is becoming more and more a gospel. All that we have come to know in our individual lives is joining to form a great faith that lives unshakably in our hearts. Each of us is willing, if necessary, to give his all for it. No one is willing to die for the 8-hour day. But people are willing to die so that Germany will belong to the Germans. What Adolf Hitler prophesied in 1919 is becoming clearer every day: "Freedom and Prosperity!" The movement is increasingly freeing itself from the all too human, and becoming a powerful force. The time is coming when people will not ask us what we think about the 8-hour day; but rather when Germany is seized with desperation they will ask: "Can you give us back faith?" If a movement has brought the idea from the individual to a worldview, building in the end a clear gospel for which each is ready to die, that movement is near victory. That does not happen in the study, but rather in battle, in bitter battle each day with the enemy, bringing him to see how he has led the nation down the wrong path. I must say that I learn the most from reading the "Berliner Tageblatt" [A newspaper hostile to the Nazis]. That is a fine example of the Jews at work. From the Jewish standpoint, I've never noted a single mistake, whereas the nationalist papers make mistakes all the time.

I now want to outline the essential characteristics of propaganda. We have already agreed that propaganda is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Its task is to spread the knowledge of National Socialism to the people, or to a part of the people. If propaganda does that, it is good; if not, it is bad. The German Nationalists claimed that Hitler's propaganda before 9 November 1923 was too loud, too noisy, too popular. Hitler replied: "Munich must become National Socialist. If I achieve that my propaganda will have been good. If I had wanted to make you happy, it would have been bad. But that was not my intention." You cannot evaluate propaganda in midcourse, but rather you have to wait until it reaches its maker's goal. You cannot say that our propaganda was wrong because the government banned it. That is false. Under Jewish police officials, our propaganda would be wrong if it were not banned, for that means it would be harmless, The fact that it is banned is the best evidence that we are dangerous. If the ban is lifted, do not come to me and say that the Jew has seen the error of his ways. It will be lifted when the Jew sees that it is not achieving his purpose. You can say what you want. The Jew will put away his dagger only when he sees that it is better not to use it against a propaganda method, or when he sees that the dagger has already done its duty.

Success is the important thing. Propaganda is not a matter for average minds, but rather a matter for practitioners. It is not supposed to be lovely or theoretically correct. I do not care if I give wonderful, aesthetically elegant speeches, or speak so that women cry. The point of a political speech is to persuade people of what we think right. I speak differently in the provinces than I do in Berlin, and when I speak in Bayreuth, I say different things than I say in the Pharus Hall [A meeting hall the Nazis often used in Berlin]. That is a matter of practice, not of theory.We do not want to be a movement of a few straw brains, but rather a movement that can conquer the broad masses. Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths. I find them by thinking, or at my desk, anywhere but in a meeting hall. That is where I transmit them. I do not enter the meeting hall to discover intellectual truths, but to persuade others of what I think to be right. I learn methods there that I can use to reach others with what I have found to be right. The speaker or propagandist must first understand the idea. He cannot do that in the middle of making propaganda. He must start with it. Through daily contact with the masses, he learns how to communicate that idea. It is not the task of propaganda to discover knowledge, but to transmit knowledge. It must adjust to those it wishes to reach with that knowledge. The propagandist's speeches or posters that are aimed at farmers will be different than those aimed at employers; those aimed at doctors will be different than those aimed at patients. He will adjust his propaganda to fit those he is speaking to. You can see that all the critical standards used by other parties to evaluate propaganda miss the point, and that most complaints about the NSDAP's propaganda result from a false understanding of propaganda. If someone tells me: "Your propaganda has no civilized standards," I know there is no point in even talking with him.

It makes no difference if propaganda is at a high level. The question is whether it reached its goal. My first goal when I came to Berlin was to make the city aware of us. They could love us or hate us, as long as they knew who we were. We have reached that goal. We are hated and loved. When someone hears the term National Socialist, he does not ask: "What is that?" Once we have reached the first goal, we can work on turning hate to love and love to hate, but never to indifference. The battle against indifference is the hardest battle. There may be two million people in this city who hate my guts, who persecute and slander me, but I know that I can win over some of them. We know that from experience. Some of those who persecuted us and fought most bitterly against us are today our most determined supporters. You see that the important thing for propaganda is that it reach its goal, and that it is a mistake to apply critical standards that are irrelevant.

Let me give another example. If someone asks me what I think of another person, it is silly for me to say: "I like him, but he cannot play the piano." The answer will be: "So what? He is a corporate lawyer. Why don't you see if he is good at what he does?" That is a good answer. And it applies just as well to propaganda.

Our propaganda follows a clear line. Adolf Hitler once told me that it is not necessary to give a programmatic speech to a public meeting. The public meeting requires the most primitive approach. If the fine gentlemen say: "You are only a propagandist," the answer is this: "Was Christ any different? Did he not make propaganda? Did he write books, or did he preach? Was Mohammed any different? Did he write learned essays, or did he go to the people and say what he wanted to say? Were not Buddha and Zarathustra propagandists?" True, the philosophers of the French Revolution built their intellectual foundations. But who got things moving? Robespierre, Danton, and the others. Did these men write books, or did they speak in popular meetings? Look around today. Is Mussolini more an author or a great speaker? When Lenin took the train from Zurich to Petersburg, did he repair to his study and write a book, or did he speak to thousands? Fascism and Bolshevism were built by great speakers, by masters of the spoken word! There is no difference between the politician and the speaker. History proves that great politicians were always great speakers: Napoleon, Caesar, Alexander, Mussolini, Lenin, name whomever you want. They were all great speakers and great organizers. If a person combines rhetorical talent, organizational ability, and philosophical ability, if he has the ability to transmit knowledge and to gather people under his banner, then he is a brilliant statesman.

If someone tells me today: "You are a demagogue," I answer him in this way: "Demagogy in the good sense is simply the ability to get the masses to understand what I want them to understand." Of course, I can adjust to the feelings of the broad masses, which is demagogy in the bad sense. Then I change not only the form of what I want to say, but also the content.

You cannot tell me that things have changed. Formerly, speakers built movements; today we live in the age of the press, and it is the writers who are influential. This theory is obviously false. Of course the press is important. But if you examine well-written editorials, they turn out to be speeches in disguise. The Marxists did not win through their editorials, but rather because each Marxist editorial was a little propaganda speech. They were written by agitators. They sat in their offices or in smoke-filled bars, writing not elegant, intellectual and polished essays, but rather brutal, direct words that the average man understood. That is why the masses devoured the Red press. We must learn from their example. Marxism did not win because it had great prophets — they had none. Marxism won because its nonsense was promoted by agitators of the ability of August Bebel and Lenin. They led Marxism to victory. If the völkisch movement had had such agitators at its disposal, its stronger intellectual foundations would surely have led it to victory. Some critics complain: "All you do is criticize! You only complain. You can't do things any better yourselves!" Others say that "the Angriff [Goebbels's newspaper in Berlin] is entirely negative. Say something positive for a change." Well, I am not in a position to say anything positive about Isidor Weiss [the Jewish Vice Chief of Police in Berlin, and a regular Goebbels target]. I can only be negative. And there is nothing positive I can say about the Republic. There is nothing positive about it. I can say something positive only when I eliminate the negative. The most brilliant statesman on earth could do nothing with this Republic. And Marxism preached only the negative for sixty years. The result was that it took over the state on 9 November 1918. Hitler once said: "Keep those know-it-alls who always want to do something positive away from me." We can do something positive only when we have first gotten rid of the negative. A leader does not emerge from a conference table. He develops from the masses, and the more a true leader rises from the masses, the more he draws the masses to him. The mass is the weak, cowardly, lazy majority of people. One can never entirely win the broad mass. The best elements from the mass must be put in a form where they can be victorious. That is the task of a brilliant mind. We thank fate that it has given us one of these minds, a mind superior to all others, whom we willingly serve. That is the proof that we will win. If others find their wisdom in majority rule, but a movement is led by one person, that movement will win. When it wins is irrelevant. It will win because that is the way things are. Look around as much as you want. You will everywhere see our movement's intellectual foundations.

The task of the leaders and followers is to drive this knowledge ever deeper into the hearts of our shattered nation. Each must make that clear, each must think things through. Everything we do must be clear. We will never give up. If everything is clear, one does not have to be an outstanding speaker. If he can say it all in a few words, he is a propagandist. If we have an army of such propagandists, from the littlest to the Führer himself, and if each spreads our crystal-clear knowledge to the masses, the day will come which our worldview takes over the state, when our organization seizes the reins of power, when we are no longer members of a slave colony, but rather citizens of a political state that we ourselves have formed.

That is our task on this planet: to create the foundation on which our people can live. When we do that, this nation will create works of culture that will endure for eons in world history!

---

Zombie Survival with Max Brooks

In his intro to George Romero's zombie masterpiece Night Of The Living Dead, Max Brooks explained: "Yes, there were zombie movies before Night of the Living Dead, just like there were space movies before Star Wars ..."

Likewise, there were technical manuals describing how to survive hideous, unnatural apocalyptic threats to human survival before Max Brooks' "The Zombie Survival Guide", but...

In 2003 Max Brooks (son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft - a legacy which I'm sure must haunt Max constantly, like some relentless zombie that just won't stay down) published "The Zombie Survival Guide", a meticulous textbook on how to survive in a world plagued by the shambling hungry dead.

I love "The Guide" (as those of us on the front lines call it) very, very much. I bought it for my girlfriend - now wife - hoping it would make her get serious and face the genuine threat closing in on us from all sides. She read it, and she laughed and laughed and laughed. I was ready to go machete-shopping. But I'll take what I can get.

Max's follow-up book, "World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War" is now available for study. Last September, even before the book was on the shelves, the film rights to "World War Z" were the object of a massive bidding war between the production companies of Leonardo Di Caprio and Brad Pitt. Brad won - by shooting Leo's agent through the head with a speargun. That's the only way you can kill them.

On a gloomy Tuesday night a couple weeks ago, Max began the Barbican Centre's "Max Brooks' Festival of The (Living) Dead" with his brief introduction to the first film of the series, Night of the Living Dead. The film was followed by a Q&A moderated by horror film scholar and Time Out writer, Nigel Floyd. Copies of the new zombie book were available for purchase and Max was ready for autographing.

In a quiet half-hour before the evening kicked off, I interviewed Max Brooks about "The Zombie Survival Guide", about "World War Z", and about the horror, the horror of it all.

I asked him about the genesis of the first book. It thought it must have had its origins in American post-9/11 trauma. But Max had originally written it in response to the hysteria over Y2K.

Remember Y2K?

To refresh your memory: In the days before The Terrorists, and the bird flu - but after the Soviet evil empire - we lived day and night with the imminent threat that computer clocks would automatically reset themselves to the Year Zero at the stroke of midnight Jan. 1, 2000 A.D. If we failed in this task, banks would implode, planes would fall out the sky, and Tetris would fail to work properly. The next millenium would begin in a Age Of Darkness. Oh, our hubris! We had dared make machines in the likeness of our own mind, and one absurd oversight would lay low man and machine alike, for a long, long time. Or is that lie low? It's lay low, I think. Anyway, you know what I'm getting at. To avert the disaster, billions of dollars were exchanged among big companies and many computer experts were interviewed on television.

And "Y2K" stands for "Year 2000". Catchy, eh?

Max had been a writer of spec motion picture photoplays and believed that was where his future career lay. But year after thrilling year of sitting on executive couches hearing bulemic business majors say "We loved it. But it's not for us. What else do you have?" was losing its luster. Amid the Y2K ruckus, he wondered what the threat of a national zombie disaster might look like. With Vulcan-proof logic, he created a flawless handbook for survival in that emergency.

The book was a labor of love and, as labors of love will, went into a drawer and bided its time. In the meantime, Max was a staff writer on Saturday Night Live for a couple seasons, but still wasn't having great success with his original longer-form material.

The zombie myth rises from the fear that nothing in earth or heaven can stop an evil whose time has come. On the flip-side, nothing can stop a zombie book whose time has come. So one day, in a year when the ghosts of September 11 were still very angry, and a new Golden Age of Zombie Movies was beginning, and Iraq was making good on its promise of becoming a real slaughterhouse, a friend said to Max: "Hey! What about that zombie book? I really liked that zombie book."

Phone calls were made, manuscripts mailed to and fro, and "The Zombie Survival Guide" rose from its drawery slumber and was published in 2003.

Max had been training for years to write "The Zombie Survival Guide". He was a history major in college and an Army ROTC student. "Most of ROTC was basically survival skills," he said. It might as well have been zombie apocalypse survival school. He wasn't just making it up when he said that the M-16 was a crummy gun that was destined to be a liability when the zombies arrived. He had fired M-16's and learned first-hand why they were undesirable and what was the better alternative was. M-16 fans on the net are miffed at his appraisal of the gun. But who'll be laughing when the zombies come? Max also dipped back into his ROTC survival manual when writing the chapters on the zombie threat in various terrains.

Ah, the ROTC survival manual.

When my father retired from the Air Force, he taught Junior ROTC and we had several of those survival manuals around the home. It's a must-have for writers, by the way - particularly writers of adventure or action. Or comedy. In fact, I actually quoted directly from the "Mountain Terrain" chapter of the ROTC manual in the Mountain of the Imagination podcast. I finally sold my copy of the book a couple months back, before the move here to London. Was that wise? There are factoids I learned from that book that are still indelibly etched upon my mind. For example, in most Middle Eastern countries, though belching after a meal is good form, "breaking wind in public is considered a serious breach of manners". Also when you are climbing a mountainside, your body should be aligned with the force of gravity (standing straight up and down), not parallel with the surface of the slope (on your belly, in position for a fatal slide). And also, snow is a much better insulator against radioactive fallout than you'd think.

The ROTC manual is extensively illustrated with line drawings of military personal serenely coping with a variety of dangers. It is probably one of the best basic survival manuals in the world. Next to Max's book.

Knowing the ROTC book as well as I do, "The Zombie Survival Guide" is all the more enjoyable. You think, "He's got all this survival stuff absolutely correct! The zombie info must be accurate too."

But my favorite part of the book is the concluding section of "Recorded Attacks", starting with 50,000 year old rock paintings in central Africa depicting the walking dead with arms ravenously outstretched, to a 2002 zombie appearance in the Virgin Islands (where, coincidentally, Brooks spent a college year abroad). Most of the major historical periods and world cultures get their chance to do battle with the undead.

I love zombies. But greater than my love for zombies is my love for Roman history - particularly British Roman history. So, when you've got zombies vs. legionaries in Roman-occupied Britannia ... the only thing that could make it more sublime is if the legionaries had light sabers. And there are lots of Roman-era accounts of zombies in the book. In fact, I wondered when I first read them "Why so many? Hmm. Maybe this Brooks fellow just likes Romans. Well, good for him. Or ... wait a... could it be ... is it just because the Romans kept better records?!" So I asked Max, why so many Roman accounts? And he replied that it was because, yes, the Romans kept better records. Of course, the important lesson to learn form the Roman stories is that the discipline and training is the best defense against the zombie horde.

The new book "World War Z" in some respects begins where the "Zombie Survival Guide" accounts left off. It assumes a world-wide zombie outbreak and is a collection of first-person accounts of encounters with zombies during this period. The book was much more difficult, Max said, than the first, primarily because of the massive amount of research necessary. Not research about zombies - he already knows about them - but research about modern places, professions, technology, society in many different parts of the world. As with "The Zombie Survival Guide", the stories in "World War Z" will only be as effective as their factual, mundane details are. Most horror is based on the supposition that the audience will suspend disbelief. The goal of Brooks' kind of horror verite is to leave no room at all for disbelief. The wonderful result is either fascination, dread, or belly laughter.

He was inspired by Studs Terkel's "The Good War", a collection of personal narratives of WWII veterans and by the work of Ed Victor, whose 2002 book coldly examines the causes and conditions of a Third World War from the point of view of some far-future historian. Wonderful. Max Brooks is the Peter Watkins of the zombie world.

As if all these great zombie doings weren't wonderful enough for the fans, Max's next project is the adaptation of the accounts at the end of the "The Zombie Survival Guide" into graphic novels. People have said that writers seeking the best home for their stories work toward becoming tv writer/producers. But the best avenue, we are learning, particularly for those of us who like to write spectacle is the graphic novel. Later, during the Q&A with Nigel Floyd, when Max announced this plan to the pre-movie audience, a collective gasp of excitement filled the theater.

I asked Max if he was planning then on promoting "World War Z" at Comic-Con next year. He said he didn't know and confessed that he had never been to Comic-Con. I was shocked. There is, literally, no other event in the world with a more zombie-receptive audience.

To whom do I address my complaint? To Max's representation? To the publishers? To Comic-Con itself?

Guys, why hasn't Max been down to Comic-Con yet? Why is this? It's only the most important yearly event for horror, fantasy, and sci-fi entertainment in the world. Do you not want Max to do well? What do you have against Max that you are holding him back like that? I believe you're jealous. Yes, I do. I do believe you are. That is why you won't let him go to Comic-Con. I'll say it once: get Max's ass down to Comic-Con in 2007. And get him on his own full-on panel. Not one of those little panels. One of those massive Hall H panels. If you don't, then ... well, I can't be held responsible for the consequences.

It was a great night really. Great to meet Max and talk with him. Great to see one of the best horror movies ever made - maybe one of the best movies ever made. But best of all, I learned the most important fact I am likely to learn about my new life in here in London:

During Nigel Floyd's Q&A, an audience member asked: "Max, what is the best place in London to hide during a zombie outbreak?"

Max said without a second's hesitation: "HMS Belfast."

Thank you, Max, in advance, for saving my family.

Damn, I forgot to ask ...

... can we bring the cats with us?

---

Comic-Con 2006 - Harryhausen's Medusa

Gator Rain Zombie

26th of June.

june 26

6.26.06

I hope it rains today.

Hot. Humid. Hot. It's like Florida out there - but in a good way.

Why is Florida so evil?

Why do only bad things happen in Florida?

Why, when I type "Florida" do I always type "Floriday" and then have to correct it?

I'm glad we have alligators in America.

Do zombies rot faster in hot weather than in cold?

Do zombies rot at all?

If you wait long enough, will a zombie just decay away into nothing? Or has the decaying process been arrested by his/her zombism?

I've never been so tired.

Solstice Tips For Vampires

Today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. There are more hours of daylight today than on any other day. This phenomenon is caused by the sun's swelling to more than seven times its normal circumference. The resulting increase in electromagnetic output naturally increases the number of hours and minutes that it is daylight we have at this particular time of our lives.

So you see it is very simple.

If you are a vampire, you may want to take extra-good care of yourself by observing some of these simple guidelines:

- Take a flask of blood to bed with you and if you feel peckish prior to sunset take sips in moderation to get you through to nightfall.
- Feed thoroughly on multiple full-hearted fresh victims the night before, this also can help to keep you from waking hungry. A shocking number of injuries occur from evening falls caused by - quite unnecessary - low blood blood sugar.
- Capture and chain up your victim near your resting place so that when you wake you can immediately "tuck in".
- If you must leave your lair before it is fully dark, wear a hat - sombreros are surprisingly effective.
- Accept that this is a stressful time; talk with your fellows about it and don't be afraid of admitting your own anxiety. You will find that you're not the only one who feels that way.
- If you find the summer solstice too upsetting, consider seasonal migration. Many have found it beneficial to spend June and July in the Southern Hemisphere and the December holiday season in the far North, thus taking full advantage of the dark hours each hemisphere has to offer. One enterprising fellow we know spent a long dark winter in Antarctica posing as an ornithology student observing penguins.
- Don't become depressed; use this time for reflection on your own immortality and when you find yourself resenting bikini-clad hotties and muscle-bound volleyball jocks bound for the beach, imagine the looks on their faces as you unsheathe your pearly fangs and descend like a vengeful wraith to suck the life from their bodies as, paralyzed, they shriek for mercy.
- Drink plenty of water.

Six-hundred Three-score and six

So what's all this 666 Satan nonsense anyway? Is Satan even mentioned in the The Revelation of St. John the Divine? I guess he is toward the end of it. He's cast into a bottomless pit for 1000 years. Then he gets out on parole because God's got a couple jobs for him. I bet he's sick to death of being thrown into bottomless pits.

I loved the Book of Revelation when I was a semi-Christian adolescent. What semi-Christian adolescent doesn't love Revelation? Show me a semi-Christian adolescent that doesn't love the Book of Revelation and I'll show you an unusual semi-Christian adolescent. My Jewish friends - and I always seemed to have a lot of Jewish friends - were utterly fascinated:

JEWISH FRIENDS: "What? The beast? What? The seas will turn red? What? A lake of fire? You're kidding, right?"
TEEN NEAL: "No. No. It's totally a prediction of the future. And the future is now. We are living in the end times! And then the Messiah will come again!"
JEWISH FRIENDS: "Oh, the Messiah. Got you. Wait, what do you mean come AGAIN?"

And then I would cut their heads off and send them to the Pope in a cedar chest.

Ted Long, whose dad was a clergyman of some stripe, told me that he wasn't allowed to watch "The Omen" (1976) or any other movies depicting diabolical forces. Whereas my verygreat parents took me to see "The Omen" as soon as it came out. I was very young. The movie scared the hell out of me, and seeing David Warner's severed head roll and roll and roll through the air no doubt caused irreversible trauma. But I absolutely loved it. I saw the movie several times in the theater. I read the novelization. I watched it when it came to network tv.

The Revelation, the final book of the Christian Bible, is one extended William Burroughs story with a bit of Steven Spielberg thrown in. In Chapter 13 (13! oooh! scary!), it famously declares that those who enjoy numbers games might find it interesting to unlock the secret of the number employed by a type of mythological ocean beast that appears in Chapter 13. The number is six-hundred three-score and six (666 in our system of Arabic numerals). The book specifies that the number is ultimately the number of an unnamed man, though it has become a big hit throughout the world and is used as the symbol of the ocean beast's authority. This beast, which is described as the most powerful military and economic power on earth, has seen to it that no one can buy or sell anything unless they have the number either in their head or in their right hand. The Revelation doesn't say whether or not you get to choose. But I'm thinking you probably do get to choose. Most powerful entities will give you a choose between two similar options in order to maintain an illusion of a free society. I think I would choose the number on the forehead, because as long as you need the number to function in the world, why not make it easy to see? Since I store my PIN numbers in my brain, I'd like to think I'm already halfway there.

There is another beast hanging around too - a land beast. And it's got the ocean beast's back. If the ocean beast were Yoda, for example's sake, then the land beast would be Mace Windu.

Maybe that's a bad example.

How about: if the ocean beast were The Emperor, the land beast would be Darth Vader.

Still not very good.

Okay. If the ocean beast were the USA, the land beast would be Britain (or Israel). Or vice-versa maybe actually. Or maybe The World Bank? Anyway, I think you get the point.

And no, I don't think the beast really IS the USA.

Okay, sometimes I do.

But then I imagine Jesus snatching away my Bible and hitting me in the head with it and saying: "Why don't you get out of the house and go help somebody?"

I do enjoy sitting around and figuring it all out. But I think it bores Jesus to tears. Jesus didn't seem to be much of a brainteasers sort of guy. That's why the book of Revelation makes me a bit suspicious.

"I dare you to figure out the special meaning of this secret number" just doesn't seem to be in the same spirit as "Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel."

It says at the beginning of the Revelation: "Dudes, an angel showed up and told me for sure that all of the following prophecy is Jesus-approved and so it's totally true and it's a prediction of the future and so here you go."

But Homie did tell us: "Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet."

We want power. Oh, how so very much we want power! And what greater power is there than to know the future? I think that's why the Revelation has such a broad appeal - especially for the troubled teenager who has been thrown into an unfamiliar maze of personal and societal powers, and for those millions of us at war with the World, and for the nutcases like myself who feel utterly powerless or all-powerful, but rarely, humbly, in between. If only we could get that man's number (which is the number of the beast that comes out of the sea), then we would have an edge, and maybe then we'd feel safe, and maybe then we would be able to conquer our enemies and our demons and ...

And if only ...




Here's the famous Chapter 13, from the New Testament's Book of Revelation:

1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.

6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.

7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.

10 He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.

11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.

12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,

14 and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

17 and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

In Voluptas Mors

by Philippe Halsman, in collaboration with Salvador Dali, 1951