Vision of Tarot

  "And it came to pass in the thirty and fourth year... there arose a great storm... behold, the whole face of the land was changed, because of the tempest and the whirlwinds and the thunderings and the lightnings, and the exceeding great quaking of the whole earth... And many great and notable cities were sunk, and many were burned, and many were shaken till the buildings thereof had fallen to the earth, and the inhabitants thereof were slain, and the places were left desolate... And it came to pass that there was a thick darkness upon all the face of the land... it did last for the space of three days..."

  "What is this?" Brother Paul demanded in the darkness, unable to see anything at all.

  "This is the cataclysm that came upon the world at my death," Jesus said beside him.

  "That much I gathered," Brother Paul said. "Fire and water and air and earth—the four basic elements running wild in the form of volcanoes and floods and storms and earthquakes. And now a fifth element, darkness. But why did these nations of ancient America have to suffer; they had no knowledge of you or responsibility for your death! And what were you quoting from just now?"

  "Chapter 8 of the Third Book of Nephi," Jesus answered. "Of The Book of Mormon."

  Suddenly it fell into place. "The Book of Mormon!" Brother Paul exclaimed. "Of course!" For Lee, as a Mormon, would naturally believe in the version of history and religion presented by his own Holy Book. Brother Paul had reviewed Mormonism along with the of his studies with the Holy Order of Vision but had not actually read The Book of Mormon. Now, belatedly, he recalled the summary. Christianity had come to the New World, and the history of these converted tribes had been recorded on gold plates by the last surviving member of those tribes, a man called Moroni. The tribes had faded out about 400 A.D., and the plates had been buried in the side of a hill in the state of New York, America, until revealed to the founder of the modern Mormons, Joseph Smith, in 1823. Smith, and later Brigham Young, led the Mormons to Utah where most of them remained until the current extra-terrestrial colonization program provided new worlds to conquer.

  Well, why not view the Mormon version of Christian history? The Mormons had been able to justify many of their claims through discoveries in archaeology, linguistics, and ethnology. The Book of Mormon did not conflict with the Bible; rather it augmented it.

  Light returned upon the blasted land. Jesus stood up tall and spoke, and his voice reverberated through all the continent. "Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son of God. I created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are. I was with the Father from the beginning. I am in the Father, and the Father in me, and in me hath the Father glorified his name."

  "I came unto my own, and my own received me not. And the scriptures concerning my coming are fulfilled."

  "And as many as have received me, to them have I given to become the sons of God; and even so will I to as many as shall believe in my name, for behold, by me redemption cometh, and in me is the law of Moses fulfilled."

  "I am the light and the life of the world. I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end..."

  Brother Paul listened, fascinated. Lee had played the part of Jesus-the-man before; how he played the part of Jesus-the-Deity. He was far more effective this way, in his familiar text of The Book of Mormon. Yet Brother Paul thought he preferred the man.

  "And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit."

  And what of racism? Brother Paul wondered. Suppose a black man had a broken heart and a contrite spirit?

  Jesus went on to deliver the Sermon on the Mount, adapted directly from the Old World Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Then he commissioned twelve Disciples and founded his Church. It was an auspicious announcement.

  At last Jesus and Brother Paul returned to the Old World. They looked at the broader history, seeing the new Church of Christianity infuse the Jewish Diaspora, the region where the Jews had been scattered by the deportations of assorted conquerors. But as the missionary message of the Apostle Paul took hold, there were an increasing number of non-Jewish Christians. The Jewish Christians did not view these with favor—but soon the Gentile Christians outnumbered the Jewish Christians, and eventually that latter faded and disappeared.

  Jesus shook his head. "I hardly know what to think," he said. "I preached the dedication of self to the ends for which we live, rather than to the means by which we live. Ceremony misses the heart of religion. Thus I never set special restrictions, but—"

  "We are far from Galilee," Brother Paul reminded him.

  Indeed they were! Now the center of the stage was Rome, and Rome was in a centuries-long struggle against the empire of Persia to the east. The battle line swung back and forth, and for a time Rome governed sections of Asia Minor, importing their slaves, prisoners, soldiers, and merchants into the Imperial City. With these people came their religion: Mithraism, the faith of the Magi, later called "magicians." They worshiped earth, fire, water, winds, sun and moon; and men completely dominated this religion. Perhaps for this reason, Mithraism spread like wildfire through the Roman Empire after its two-thousand year quiescence and sometime persecution in Asia. Rome never conquered Persia, but the Persian religion bid fair to conquer Rome. Except for the competition of Christianity! The two religions soon became rivals for the spiritual domination of the Empire.

  Mithraism had a lot going for it with its essential monotheism and magic. But its exclusion of women weakened it. Christianity did not treat women well, but at least it allowed them to join. Thus the man of the family might worship Mithra, while his wife had to be content with the religion that would accept her, however grudgingly. Slowly and subtly, Christianity gained.

  Jesus and Brother Paul came to stand in a Mithraic chapel in the city of Rome. It was a subterranean vault, lighted only by a torch. Its chief feature was a magnificent carving of a bull-slaying scene, brilliantly colored. There were several altars, one of which was evidently used for the sacrifice of birds. There were benches of stone with space allowed for kneeling during the service. The chapel was small, but well made.

  "This is pagan, yet I would not condemn it," Jesus decided. "Worship should be an internal experience rather than a public display, and this private chapel is a step in the right direction. I wish I could talk to these people, and tell them of—"

  There was noise. "I think they're coming," Brother Paul said.

  But it was not a body of worshipers who came. A mob of Roman soldiers charged in. They overturned the altars and attacked the great bas-relief carving with hammers. In moments they had destroyed the chapel.

  "But this—this is horrible!" Jesus cried, a tear on his cheek. "Religion is a principle, not a law. Those who have not found the way should be converted, not brutalized! Who has done this thing?"

  They soon found out. The Christians had done it. They had made a deal with Gracchus, the Urban Prefect of Rome. Persecution of the Mithraists followed throughout the Empire, and the religion was essentially shut down in favor of Christianity.

  "But this is not my way!" Jesus protested. "Religion is inseparable from morality. How can there be persecutions of others in my name?"

  Yet it was so. Other religions shared the fate of Mithra, and Christianity was supreme in Rome. As people of the northern European tribes were converted, they brought their pagan values with them and their pagan holidays. Christian titles were applied to these celebrations: Christmas, Easter—but their essence remained pagan and, therefore, were easily commercialized.

  "By their fruits ye shall know them," Jesus said sadly. "They have made of my ministry—a business!" Yet he could only watch.

  Now Jews were persecuted by Christians and so were heretics: other Christians who differed from the official Church line. Yet the Church itself squabbled and split, following the pattern of the Empire. Later, armies of pagan Christians were sent back to the Holy Land itself to fight civilized non-Christians: the Crusades.

  "I cannot stand by and watch!" Jesus cried. "Where is there now the
sympathetic understanding I preached, treating others as one would wish to be treated himself? My name has been attached to a monstrosity! I must correct—"

  History rushed on heedlessly. The Church fashioned in the name of Jesus no sooner became established than it began to fragment in the nature of human (rather than divine) organizations. Disagreements arose about the specific nature of Christ. Schismatic churches fissioned from the main mass: the Arians, the Nestorians, the Monophysites. Finally the Church itself split into an Eastern and a Western branch. Jesus and Brother Paul chose to follow the West—and it fractured into Catholic and Protestant groups, and the latter into multiple splits. The Lutherans, the Calvinists, Episcopals, Presbyterians, Puritans, Baptists, Congregationalists, Quakers, Methodists—on and on until there seemed to be no counting the individual sects. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw no abatement of the proliferation until it reached the situation on contemporary Planet Tarot.

  "No, no!" Jesus protested. "I am not certain any of these fragments really relate to my ministry. Go back; I want to talk to someone before—"

  They went back. "Here," Jesus said, more or less randomly. History paused in place.

  France and England, two Christian nations, were making war upon each other. The lot of the majority of people in both nations was worsening. "If I can stop it here, set them right—"Jesus said with somewhat wild-eyed hope. "I can not stand idly by; I must do something."

  "You can't do anything physically," Brother Paul pointed out. He understood some of Jesus' agony but doubted that it was wise to attempt to change history even in Animation. Precession might make things worse than before. "Maybe you could generate a vision—"

  Jesus stopped where he was. They happened to be in a small village of France. "I will speak to the first person I see!"

  Soon a country girl came into sight, going about her chores. She was dressed in dirty peasant clothing and could not have been more than thirteen years old. "Lots of luck," Brother Paul murmured sadly.

  Jesus appeared to the girl. He manifested as an intangible but visible presence. At first she was amazed, then frightened, but in due course she responded. She began to take action in the world. She got an army and went to fight the British. Her name was Joan of Arc.

  Jesus and Brother Paul watched her fate with intensifying dismay. "She tried to spread the Word of God that I had given her—and they burned her for heresy!" Jesus cried.

  "That is the nature of politics and of the Inquisition," Brother Paul said grimly.

  Further along, in time and geography, they spied a Christian city adding a new level to a protective wall that had sunk into the porous subsoil. "We shall never make it stable until we offer a sacrifice," the superstitious people said, and the Christian authorities agreed. So they made a vault within the wall, placed a table and chair in it, and loaded the table with toys and candy. Then they brought an innocent little girl to this play area.

  "Uh-oh," Brother Paul murmured. He recognized the child: Carolyn, lost as he departed his college Animation. "I don't like this—"

  "We cannot interfere," Jesus reminded him.

  The child was thrilled with the things. They occupied her whole attention. And while she played merrily, making exclamations of discovery and joy, a dozen masons efficiently and silently covered the vault and finished the wall. The priests blessed the proceedings and went their way—and the wall was stable.

  Jesus looked at Brother Paul. "In my name, this too?" he inquired, almost beyond shock.

  "Let's go get that girl out of there," Brother Paul said tersely. "We can do it, now, without changing history." But Carolyn had already departed the role by the time they got there; the chamber was empty.

  "The center is empty..." Brother Paul murmured, beginning a chain of private reflection.

  Abruptly Jesus turned to him. "I have been praying to my Father for enlightenment on this problem. I see that my sacrifice did not bring salvation to the world, and this is why I was not released to Heaven when I died. The sins of the world continue unabated, defiling my name and that of my Father. Yet there is also good in the world, as there was in the city of Sodom. I cannot deny you are a good man and an honest one; I must therefore believe you when you inform me you are a child of Cain. How can there be one good son of an accursed race? I have begged God for a resolution to this paradox—and He has answered my prayer."

  Brother Paul remained silent, uncertain what was coming. Was this the bargaining-with-God stage of an adjustment that seemed more difficult for this man than death itself? Or was it acceptance?

  "It is true you are damned," Jesus continued. "But only one-eighth of you is guilty. Seven-eighths of you is innocent, and that is the portion I have come to know as friend. It is as though a demon inhabits you. Since you were born with that demon, it can not be excised—yet I cannot allow the good in you to be relegated to Hell for the sake of your evil portion. Yet I know it is not possible to separate the good from the evil; both are part of you. I could cast out an ordinary demon or heal an ordinary ailment or forgive an ordinary sin. But I cannot grant a place in Heaven to a Son of Cain. It is beyond the power of the Son to reverse a dictum of the Father."

  Jesus' eyes seemed to glow. "But I can save you," he continued. "All that is necessary is for me to assume the burden of your sin. I must go to Hell—so that you may go to Heaven. For the sake of the friendship we have and the good that is in you, O lone man of Sodom, I do this willingly. It is my bargain with God."

  Brother Paul understood the context—that of a single good man in a corrupt environment—but he wished Jesus had not used "Sodom" as an analogy. The word "sodomy" derived from that, and that prior scene with Therion...

  "The decision is final," Jesus continued. "The only question remaining is the manner of my entry to the Infernal region. I choose to make it in a way that will help expiate the regenerated sins of the rest of the world. If I am successful this time, the world will soon end, and my confinement in Hell will not be long. But in any event, you shall be saved—and for that I am prepared to trade the world. Farewell, Friend." And Jesus/Lee put forth his hand.

  Brother Paul, amazed, could only accept that hand and shake it solemnly. Here he had been reacting to a coincidental term and missing the serious import. Jesus was going to Hell—for him! Brother Paul could not at the moment even speculate on the larger meaning of this man's sacrifice.

  Jesus turned away. Before him opened out a vista of contemporary America in an area where high technology remained. In the distance was a hydrogen fusion atomic power plant, and there were people manning a computer in the foreground. Jesus walked toward that scene.

  Brother Paul realized what Jesus intended. He was going to renew his ministry on Earth, this time utilizing the physical host available to him: the body of Lee. This was the Second Coming.

  "Don't do it, Jesus!" Brother Paul cried. "They aren't ready for the Kingdom of God! They will crucify you again!"

  Jesus paused on the verge of the scene, turning to face Brother Paul momentarily. Bright tears made his eyes lambent. "I know it," he said.

  Then he turned again and walked on—into the present. His body solidified about him as he moved into the hall of the computer and around a corner, out of sight.

  Brother Paul closed his eyes, remaining where he was. It seemed only a moment before the terrible clamor began, and the hammering of nails.

  X

  Vision: 18

  And behold, a Philadelphia lawyer stood up to test him, asking, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' Jesus said to him, 'What is the law? How do you interpret it?' The lawyer said, 'You must love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.' Jesus said, 'Correct! Do this and you will live.' But the lawyer wanted to justify himself, so he asked, 'And who is my neighbor?'

  Jesus replied, 'Once there was a man who made a business trip from New York to Washington. He stopped at a restauran
t to eat, and when he returned to his car a hijacker rose up from the back seat, put a gun to his head, and forced him to drive to a deserted alley where he shot him in the stomach, took his wallet with all his money and identification, and drove away in his car, leaving him dying on the pavement.'

  'A priest came through that alley by chance, and saw the man, and stepped over him and went on, averting his gaze from the blood, muttering something about being late for his service. Then a young woman passed, a secretary; she heard him moan and was horrified, and skirted him and got away as fast as possible. Then there came a garbageman, stinking of his trade, a son of the race of Cain, black as a tarred feather. When the wounded man saw him, he said to himself, "This nigger will surely finish me off!"

  'But the black man had been mugged himself in the past, and had compassion on the businessman, and stopped and cleaned up his wound and picked him up and put him in his garbage truck and drove him to a doctor and said, "I don't know who this guy is, but he needs help bad. If he can't pay you, I'll make it good next payday; here's five bucks to start off." '

  Jesus turned to the lawyer. 'Now which of these three people, do you think, was the best neighbor to the suffering man?' The lawyer said, 'The nigger.' And Jesus said to him, 'Go and do likewise.'

  Brother Paul stood amid the temporary chaos of shifting Animations. Jesus was gone, surely to Hell—but what of Lee? Had he stepped out of Animation—or was he stuck in a self-made inferno?

  It did not seem wise to take a chance. It was possible to set up a given Animation more or less by choice, but once inside it, control or departure became problematical. As with boarding an airplane—as he had done!—it might be the right or wrong vehicle, but there was no getting off until it landed. Wherever that might be, safely or in flames. Lee might never escape Hell without help.