Possession
The closest to being
in control we will ever be is in that moment we realize that we're not. ~Brian Kessler
The fourth story involves a conversation with a friend.
She came over, asked, "Do you believe that those in power are
possessed?"
"By greed, so
their possessions actually possess them?"
I asked.
"No."
"By the economic
and social system, so that, like Fredrick Winslow Taylor said, "In the
past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first?"
"I don't
understand what that has to do with possession."
"The system owns
them. They serve the system, even when
it's killing them. Even when it's killing
the planet. They are
owned--possessed--by the system."
"I'm sure that's
true, but that's not what I mean."
"Do you mean possession
like in The Exorcist, with heads spinning, projectile vomiting, and all
that?"
"Yes. I mean, no."
Now it was my turn
not to understand.
She said, "I
don't mean Hollywood. Hollywood lies
about everything. The Exorcist is
to possession what The Day After Tomorrow is to global warming:
spectacularized to the point of being bullshit.
By possession I mean one being inhabited by another, controlling
or at least influencing the other's behavior.
Do you believe those in power are possessed in this way?"
"Absolutely."
She seemed a little
surprised.
I told her I think
it's very possible that possession is quite common, for better and for
worse. In my book Songs of the Dead
I wrote about rabies, a virus passed from creature to creature by saliva. Once the virus has entered someone's body,
the virus makes its way to the spinal column and brain where it reproduces,
then spreads to the salivary glands. I
went and got my book, read to her: "At that point symptoms diverge into
two distinct classes. In what's called
'dumb rabies,' the creature retreats steadily and quiety downhill, with some
paralysis, to death. in what's called
'furious rabies'...the creature begins to experience extreme excitement and is
hit by painful muscle spasms, sometimes triggered by swallowing saliva or
water. Because of this the creature
drools and learns to fear water--thus the frequent references to rabid
creatures being hydrophobic...but there's more.
During that final furious phase, the creature may, without provocation,
vigorously and viciously bite at anything: sticks, stones, grass, other
animals. This stage lasts only a few
days before the creature enteres a coma and dies. Once infected, death from the disease is
almost invariable."
I looked up from my
book. "This leads to the questions:
Who's in charge? Who is actually doing
the biting? Is it the creature, or is it
the virus?"
I continued reading,
"The virus knows that if it is to survive the death of its host, it needs
to find a new host, which means it needs to get [the creature]...to slobber on
or bite someone. Thus the painful spasms
on swallowing and the excessive salivation, which combine to led to the
drooling. Thus the furious biting.
"In some ways
central to this discussion is the question of whether you perceive the world as
full of intelligence, and so do not hesitate at the possibility of viruses
knowing, viruses choosing; or whether you believe viruses act entirey
unthinkingly, mechanistically, and so at most you'll allow viruses not to know,
but to 'know' that they need to find a new host. But in some ways that question doesn't matter
at all, because in either case the viruses cause [the creature]...to change his
or her personality...
"The central
point in R.D. Laing's extraordinary book The Politics of Experience was
that most of us act in ways that make internal sense: we act according to how we experience the
world. If, for example, I experience the
world as full of wildly varied and exciting intelligences with whom I can enter
into relationships I will act one way.
If I experience the world as unthinking, mechanistic, and compost of
objects for me to use, I will act another.
"Clearly the
virus changes its host's experience, at the very least by causing pain and
hallucinations.
"Now here's the
question...: As Old Yeller [to take the famous fictional account of someone's
'possession' by rabies] snarls and snaps at those he so recently protected,
what is he thinking? if I could ask in
language he could understand, and if he could answer in a language that I, too,
could understand, what would he say? is
he terrified at this awful pain, and is he, because of that pain, lashing out
at everyone around him? Is he
confused? Is he asking where this pain
comes from?
"Or does he have
his behavior fully rationalized? Has
he--or the virus--created belief systems to support this behavior? Is he suddenly furious at the thousand
insults large and small he has received from those who call themselves his
masters? Certainly throughout the movie
the humans--especially his 'owner' Travis--have treated him as despicably as we
would expect within this culture...Does he perceive himself as suddenly seeing
things clearly, and as hating these others and all they stand for?
"Or is he
delusional, snapping not at Travis standing in front of him, but instead
protecting him as he did before and biting at the rabid wolf who gave him the
disease? Is he seeing phantoms dancing
before him, just out of reach, so each time he lunges, it is at someone who is
not there at all?
"Or maybe Old Yeller
fights with every bit of his emotional strength to not lash out at the humans
who are his whole world, these humans for whom he has already many times
offered his life. Maybe he feels like he
has picked up some sort of addiction, a compulsion, and he just can't help
himself.
"Or maybe the
virus has insinuated itself into his brain in such a way that Old Yeller now
perceives the virus as God. He hears its
commands, and knows he must obey. maybe
this God tells him that he must convert these others to this one true religion,
and that in doing so both he and they will achieve everlasting peace and
joy--and a release from the torment of this world. Maybe he perceives himself as thus giving
these others a gift.
"We act
according to the way we experience the world.
The virus changed Old Yeller's experience of the world. When Old Yeller acts--or when any of us
act--who's in charge? Who actually makes
the decisions? Why does Old Yeller act
as he does? Why do any of us act as we
do?"
I looked at her. She looked at me.
I said, "This is
not uncommon. In that book I also wrote
about lancet liver flukes, who are parasites with three hosts: snails, ants and
sheep or cows. Snails eat shit, which
contain fluke eggs. The flukes develop,
emerge in snail slime. Ants eat this
snail slime, and thus flukes. Now how do
flukes get to a place where they get themselves ingested by cows or sheep? By taking over the ant's brain. As I wrote, 'The larvae continue their development
in the ant's gut, then chew their way out through the ant's exoskeleton. Because the flukes don't yet want the ant
dead, once they're out, they patch up the holes in the ant and cling to the
ant's outside. That is, all but one of
them cling there. One fluke is chosen instead
to chew into the ant's brain, where it actually takes over the ant's movement
and control of the ant's mandibles. Come
sundown, this fluke guides--convinces?--the ant to climb to the top of a piece
of grass and to bite down hard, then cling there, waiting for the third host, a
sheep or cow. If no ungulates shows up
that night, the ant climbs down in the morning to resume its normal life, until
the next night, when the fluke once again takes the reins and sends the ant
back up a blade of grass. When an
ungulate eats the grass to which [to whom, actually] the ant is clinging, it
accidentally eats the ant, and therefore all the liver flukes. The flukes--eventually there can be as many
as 50,000 in a mature sheep--make their way to the cow's or sheep's liver by
way of the bile ducts, and within a few months begin laying eggs of their
own. The eggs are deposited on the
ground in the creature's feces, where they are eaten by snails and the whole
story starts over.'
Now she was staring.
I continued reading: "And
of course there is single-celled parasite Toxoplasma gondii. These creatures normally cycle back and forth
between rats and cats, as rats eat infected cat feces, and cats eat infected
rats.
