The Great Heresy

It was a quest that devoured centuries and people. Of the Great Heresy, little was known beyond the epithet that had been ascribed to it. Gradually, the blade of the Maya was replaced by the fire of the Inquisition, and that one, for the zeal of today’s sceptical theologists. With the discovery of Troy, the wall which kept myths and reality apart fell with a repercussion worthy of its sibling in Berlin. Archaeologists no more uncovered ruins, but erected them; palaeontologists built skeletons of fantastic beings that had only existed in their imagination, anthropologists invented virginal tribes living in the core of the Amazon Forest. One way or another, they all searched for Atlantis. I laughed at their chimerical quest, all the while engaged in studying obscure versions of bibles belonging to every possible religion, retracing the silent steps of the Great Heresy, whose singular name stood out from the pages in botched lines by the unsteady hands of frightened priests. Believers and prophets alike succumbed at its mere mention and, at times, the main cult was almost brought down as heresy by the heresy itself.

"Almost" was enough to justify its systematic extermination by the religions of all times. However, that sect was never completely eradicated. Some said it had escaped to the mountains, others said it had taken refuge in the valley of the shadow of death, the most dreaded infernal plan besides hell itself. Going back over the path traced by that human hunt, I was able to delineate a search area. It was harder to assemble an expedition than to pursue this heresy through maps rotten by time. My plea was refused several times, not because my goal was far-fetched, but because this utopia didn't involve Atlantis. Finally, after two years of endless negotiations and bribes, I set off to the frozen mountains of the Alps.

The expedition was full of hindrances. Due to the lack of money and to the general greed, we didn’t hire the aid of local guides. In less than three days, we were lost. Besides, in the anxiety of the trip, we had neglected the adverse climate and also miscalculated our provisions. The cold, the hunger and the lack of hope demanded a scapegoat. The first death under the freezing weather was the excuse everyone was waiting for to strike a mutiny. Everything was already set: a small package was given to me, containing food enough for a day. In the imagination of minds dulled by the cold, the distance of a day was all they needed to be free from any feeling of guilt. Only the cold and the hunger would be held responsible for my death.

I saw my ex-companions disappear under a snowstorm, without looking back even once. With a sigh that froze in mid-air, I realised that that wouldn’t be the last mutiny of that group, but it was perhaps the least cruel. When despair took over their hearts and the supplies they had taken from me ended, they would choose another victim and take everything from him. Maybe they would leave him food enough for half a day. And so forth, until they left nothing but bones. Far from the civilisation at least by fifteen days, I hadn’t got any hope left. It was either finding the sect or dying.

My strength was almost failing me when I saw multicoloured blurs against the snow. Those were butterflies that flew absent-mindedly, as if they had been taken to the heights of mountains by some mischievous wind and never realised it. Soon, the shy hope that trembled on those wings gained force in the merry chirping of tropical birds that surrounded me, curious. A column of vapour stood before me, white among the shades of white, in which those same birds plunged and soared. I reached it running, stumbling and rising again, driven more by survival instinct than by physical force.

It was Shangri-la, the magical valley of the fairytales. An immense gap cut the top of the mountain, outlined by a smouldering curtain which betrayed its volcanic nature. Inside it, a silver ribbon winded through green fields, interrupted at times by geysers. Flowers in profusion announced an eternal spring, celebrated by exotic birds. I blinked several times, sceptical. I pinched, I shook myself. The mirage, however, insisted in being real. And just ahead, overriding that eden, a city thrived.

It was a small city made of scattered houses. At first, I didn’t recognise them as structures made by human hands, but as gigantic nests weaved from a jumble of wood, leaves and flowers, in a kitsch preadamite style that bordered on the schizophrenic. It was like a huge slum, every dwelling in a singular fashion, with blaring colours and materials strung together at random. The people who walked among the houses were a living mirror of them, dressed in clothes with cuts and styles so different that they seemed to belong to different epochs, casually placed in the same period of time.

I darted to the city like a madman, running on adrenalin. They barely noticed me. There were others running just like me, to the most varied directions. I tried to explain to a group that I was a foreigner. I could have told them that I was an alien that they would hardly have shown any interest. Some of them stared at me, unresponsive, others seemed vaguely annoyed. Then, without pronouncing a word, they left me under my bewildered gaze. Some of them went running and screaming, others dancing. Some simply lied down and slept. One of them remained standing by my side and, kind, sheltered me under his roof with the same nonchalance and joy of someone who adopts a dog. Lost dogs, by the way, abounded in his house, among cats, rats and everything else that seemed to be alive.

Provided as I was with food and a ceiling above my head, I could then devote myself to the observation of those singular people, searching in them some hint of the Great Heresy that had so shaken the ancient civilisations. Fearing that they might expel me should I reveal my knowledge about their past, I avoided mentioning anything related to my quest. Not that such precaution was necessary: the difficulty to communicate was obstacle enough. It wasn’t language the chief problem, since it was a simple patois derived from Latin, idiom I was familiar with. The dilemma resided in the incredible abstraction of thought that made it almost impossible to understand. Nothing seemed concrete to them: everything was specified, or rather, generalised, in accordance to a series of vague ideas which varied wildly from one person to another. It escaped my imagination how they reached an agreement upon anything they talked about. Because they were in constant interaction, even though they seemed remote to everything and everyone.

They spent their time as they saw fit. Few were the ones who did some sort of labour and, even so, sporadically. Despite that, their tables were always full of groceries and there was nothing they lacked. I remembered seeing something like that among South American tribes: the conquerors lived on the tributes of the conquered. That explained it all, except that I didn’t really know where the said conquered were. In spite of that apparent anarchy, there was a certain element of cohesion, some kind of tacit agreement among its inhabitants. No one interfered with another’s life if it wasn’t so allowed. Even when it came to crimes. Murders were not uncommon. The first time I saw one, I was shocked and screamed for help, but none came. People walked by the body, unconcerned, and even the murderer didn’t try to escape, remaining by his victim’s side. I then rushed to my host, who explained to me, somewhat impatiently and with great ambiguity, that the victim had been killed because she consented to it. The murderer had explained his motives, the victim found them reasonable, the crime was committed. The end. Sometimes, the victim herself aided her executioner in the fulfilment of that reasoning.

Therefore, they all did what they wished, but still respected each other. A kind of respect never seen anywhere on earth: in their interactions prevailed an unusual formality. Even parents and their children didn’t have that intimacy that can usually be found in families. Everyone acted as if they were true strangers to one another. They would engage in lively conversations in which they took turns in the roles of interviewer and interviewed. At every meeting, old questions joined new ones. Most of the times, the answers changed overnight.

Moreover, in my walks through the city, I saw at once that it lacked a building ruling over the urban mesh. As there weren’t any churches or government buildings, there weren’t any monuments on the streets. Nothing but houses and streets where people met at random. Was this the meaning of the Great Heresy? A community in which ruled the anarchy and the atheism? Even in the most undeveloped of tribes one could find a leader and a priest. Intrigued, I voiced my question to my host, by means of many feints and flourishes so to hide my true purpose. When he finally understood what I was saying, he stared hard at me for a long time, dismayed. Then, he burst in a long rosary of abstractions that lasted the whole night and part of the other day.

It was only in the morning of the third day after his lengthy explanation that I understood its meaning. He had bared to me nothing less than the entire belief system of his people. Tears filled my eyes. It was wonderful. It was terrible. How could I ever think they were atheists? They went beyond atheism, driven by a fanatical faith that exceeded the severe dogmas of every religion. Their faith was monotheist, and yet everyone worshipped a different god. However, not even then they were considered heretics. That plurality of gods, those heresies and those endless schisms were the basis of all of their faith. Without absolutes, they surrendered to relatives, to a multiple subjectivity that was revealed through their abstract language; every person merging in him or herself the god, the believer and the holy sacraments. It was human self-sufficiency in a degree never seen before. Hence, they walked this earth busy in dialectics that stripped them off their flesh and made them as free as the delusions that peopled their minds. Gods, all of them, and also a single god who enclosed all the human quest: the meaning of life. It was religion in its purer and literal state, re-ligare, the merging of the human being with the deity.

The Great Heresy was before my eyes, and yet I couldn’t see. Horrified, mystified, my sight blurred just like that column of vapour which thawed the snow and thawed with it. I realised suddenly that I had no thirst nor hunger anymore. At the houses, the food remained untouched. The goblets overflowed with wine and no one drank it. Birds hummed tunes that were lost in inexistent songs. My flesh became diaphanous. That language, now I understood it perfectly.