"Stanislaw Lem - Memoirs Found in a Bathtub" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lem Stanislaw)

Most of the Neogene, we fear, will forever remain shrouded in mystery, for even chronotraction
methods have failed to provide the most fundamental details of the social life at that age. Any systematic
presentation of those few moments of history which we have been able to re-create goes well beyond the
limits of this introduction. So we will limit ourselves to a few remarks in the way of background to the
"Notes."
 Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html




The evolution of ancient beliefs underwent a curious bifurcation. In the first period, the
Archeocredonic, various religions were founded upon the recognition of a supernatural, nonmaterial
principle, causative with respect to everything in existence. The Archeocredonic left behind permanent
monuments -- the pyramids of the Early Neogene, the excavations of the Mesogene (the Gothic
cathedrals of Lafranss).

In the second period, the Neocredonic, faith assumed a different aspect. The metaphysical
principle somehow merged with the materialistic, the earthly. Worship of the deity Kap-eh-Taahl (or, in
the Cremonic palimpests, Kapp-Taah) became one of the dominant cults of the time. This deity was
revered throughout Ammer-Ka and the faith quickly spread to Australindia and parts of the European
Peninsula. Any connection, however, between the cult of Kap-Eh-Taalh and the graven images of the
elephant and the ass found here and there throughout Ammer-Ka does seem somewhat doubtful. It was
forbidden to utter the name itself, "Kap-Eh-Taahl" (analogous to the Hebrew interdiction); in Ammer-Ka
the diety was generally called "Almighty Da-Laahr." But there were many other liturgical names, and
special monastic orders devoted themselves entirely to an appraisal of their changing status (the
Mer-L-Finches, for example). Indeed, the fluctuation in the accepted value of each of the many names
(or were they attributes?) of Kap-Eh-Taahl remains an enigma to this day. The difficulty in understanding
the true nature of that last of the Prechaotic religions lies in the fact that Kap-Eh-Taahl was denied any
supernatural existence, was therefore not a spirit, nor was he even considered a being (which would help
explain the totemistic features of that cult, so unusual in an age of science) -- he was, to all extents and
purposes, equated with assets, liquid, fixed, and hidden, and had no existence beyond that. However, it
has been shown that in times of economic decline, sacrifices of sugar cane, coffee, and grain were made
to placate the angry god. This contradiction is deepened by the fact that the cult of Kap-Eh-Taahl did
possess some elements of the doctrine of incarnation, according to which, the world owed its continuing
existence to "sacred property." Any violation of that doctrine met with the most severe punishment.

As we know, the epoch of global cybereconomics was preceded, at the close of the Neogene,
by the rise of sociostasy. As the cult of Kap-Eh-Taahl, mired in complex corporational rites and intricate
institutional rituals, began in the course of time to lose one territory after another to the followers of
secular sociostatic management, there arose a conflict between the lands still ruled by that antiquated faith
and the remaining world.

Up to the very end -- that is, to the formation of the Earth Federation -- the center of the most
fanatic devotion to Kap-Eh-Taahl was Ammer-Ka, a land governed by a series of dynasties of
Prez-tendz. These were not high priests of Kap-Eh-Taahl in the strict sense of the word. It was during
the Nineteenth Dynasty that the Prez-tendz (or Prexy-dents, in the nomenclature of the Thyrric School)
built in the Pentagon. What was it, that first of many granite leviathans, that stern edifice which ushered in
the twilight of the Neogene? Prehistorians of the Aquillian School considered the Pentagon's tombs for
Prez-tendz, analogous to the Egyptian pyramids. This hypothesis was discarded in the light of subsequent