—Of course I do, let me finish. Of course it’s madness, but the madness comes first. It’s an essential of the human condition, the worse the human condition the greater the madness and your revealed religion simply comes along to channel the madness, give some shape to it. For these unlettered hordes mired in poverty the only things that are free are sex and religion, and the poorer and more illiterate they are the more they procreate and the more ornate these religious pantheons and rituals become. Some Filipino crucifies himself at Easter because Jesus drove him to it? No, no he’s mad from the start and religion gives it an outlet, gets it organized, penitents flagellating themselves with scourges till the blood pours out in those streams of madness throbbing away skindeep all over Mexico, Sikhs, Iraqis, Afghanis they’re all raving maniacs to begin with looking for some grand design that they can fit into, some system of absolutes where they can find refuge, that’s what the true believer is isn’t he? And the more chaotic the times, the greater the demand for these absolutes, it’s what drove Dostoevski’s heroes over the brink wasn’t it? this panic at living in a meaningless universe? Take the deep bedrock madness of the Germans from Peter the Hermit and Thomas Münster right down to the death camps they try to masquerade as nationalism, like that exquisite distillation of total madness that’s peculiarly Japanese. The Italians channel theirs through the Vatican in a wholesale mayhem of crime and opera, the Russians drown theirs in a sea of vodka and the English cross dressing theirs under the skirts of the Anglican Church or they’d be as frankly mad as their neighbors across the Irish sea.