Paranormal Investigation Notes

Chapter 285 Clergy
Culture... core?
This formulation made several people participating in the meeting a little confused.

During this period of time, because of the weirdness and inconceivability of this case, and the similarity with the so-called Cthulhu worldview, several people have already inquired and understood this set of worldviews.But few people have really thought about such things as cultural core.

Lu Ming continued: "Cthulhu's worldview has developed in such a long period of time that it has become rich and diverse, and many stories have been derived from it, describing many kinds of strange life. Its system, context, structure, The world view is very complete. But in my opinion, its core actually has only one point: indescribable fear, powerless despair.

All the stories in Cthulhu's world view have not deviated from this core. "

Several people were thinking silently.

Lu Ming turned and said: "One of the settings of Cthulhu's world view is: mythical creatures are beyond human comprehension. What purpose do they have, why do they do this, why do they have this ability, etc. Humans can't understand them all. Understood. At the same time, mythical creatures don’t care about humans at all—they don’t have any malice or kindness towards humans, and they don’t care at all. But because of their own strength, if humans just inadvertently come into contact with them, it will cause disastrous consequences.

There is a work that expresses Cthulhu's worldview, and the name is "The Color of the Stars".It describes a series of stories in which a mythical creature named "Star Color" descended to the earth by accident.

In this story, because of the arrival of the star color, the family living in the small town began to experience madness and mutation, but they didn't know why, nor could they understand it all.This is indescribable fear.

They are innocent and kind, and they try their best to save themselves, but they can't stop the madness and mutation from continuing.This is helpless despair.

In the end, the whole town was shrouded in the strange light of Xingzhicai, and everyone mutated and died. Xingzhicai left the earth and returned to space—no one knew why it came, and no one knew why it left. "

Feeling this indescribable fear and powerless despair, even He Wei couldn't help but tremble in her heart, and truly felt the horror of this set of worldviews.

Lu Ming was silent for a moment before continuing: "Okay. Now we remove the appearance and only grasp this cultural core. The question is, did this cultural core appear out of thin air? Was it simply created by a certain writer? I think, probably not.

Just like "Journey to the West", we all know that it was created by a novelist named Wu Chengen in the Ming Dynasty.But before Wu Chengen, the stories about Tang Monk learning scriptures had already been widely circulated, but the fragments were scattered and unsystematic.What Wu Chengen did was to organize these legends, stories, and myths together, create a complete system and context, and add his own originality to finally form this story.

As an analogy, we have reason to believe that the Cthulhu worldview did not appear out of thin air.It also has a complete cultural heritage.The role played by that great writer at that time should be the same as that of Wu Chengen who created "Journey to the West", a master, not an initial pioneer. "

He Weiming realized, "Standing on the shoulders of giants."

"Yes, that's what it means." Lu Ming said: "So, when we try to introduce Cthulhu's worldview to explain existing events, we don't have to get entangled in specific worldview expressions and literary stories, but point directly to its core. "

Lu Qingliang was a little confused: "Then who should we go to? Go to a professional Cthulhu worldview creator? A novelist? Or a film director who filmed Cthulhu's story?"

"Of course not. First of all, let's make it clear that before the birth of science, human worldviews were presented in the form of religion. Different worldviews gave birth to different religions, and religious beliefs participated in the creation of cultures. The two grow and complement each other. Then,' The cultural core of indescribable fear, helpless despair, and the culture and worldview it represents should also have corresponding religious beliefs.

The process of sorting out this context in this way is as follows: First of all, some people in ancient times believed that the origin of this world and the universe is unknowable and beyond human understanding.They are in awe of the great, powerful, and indescribable existences that exist in the dark, and they carefully keep a distance from them.

During the long inheritance, they formed their own unique culture, and 'summarized' some unique ways and taboos to get along with or deal with this indescribable existence.As a result, it formed its own unique religious belief system.

This religious belief system has participated in shaping their culture and formed this unique cultural core.In the follow-up, in the confluence and integration of various thoughts and worldviews from all over the world, many variants may have been produced.

In the end, this cultural core was touched by the writer who created the Cthulhu worldview, which inspired him and allowed him to create the unique cultural phenomenon of the Cthulhu worldview.

Therefore, at this moment, if we really decide to introduce the Cthulhu worldview, a way of understanding the world, to participate in explaining the situation we are facing at the moment, what we should look for is the origin of this cultural inheritance, that is, The religious person who upholds this worldview. "

He Wei looked at Lu Qingliang with some doubts: "Is there such a religion in the world?"

Lu Qingliang thought for a while, then shook his head: "I can't think of it, I haven't heard of it."

Lu Ming said: "It doesn't necessarily have to be a systematic religious system, it may also be a local belief system that doesn't even have an official name. There are many, many such belief systems, especially in economically backward areas, where there may be one in every village." a belief."

He Wei remembered the village where Po Dong'an lived in the last case.That village and several surrounding villages believe in Dong'an God. Obviously, there is no systematic religious system, but even this local belief actually represents some cultural core.

She murmured: "Then, now, are we... looking for someone who believes in 'agnosticism', er, God, clergy, to help us interpret the current situation?"

Although his own conclusion was like this, when He Wei really said it, Lu Ming instinctively felt a little ridiculous.

At the end of the trouble, one's side actually wanted to get help from a witch or a divine man?

Lu Ming nodded silently.

Zhang Dingshan tapped lightly on the table: "Try first before we talk. If it doesn't work, we have nothing to lose."

Lu Qingliang scratched his head: "Okay, then I'll go and find out where there is such a belief."

At the end of the meeting, Lu Qingliang fell into deep thought in the headquarters of the Planetary Security Bureau, which belonged exclusively to the second operation team.

Even for a professional logistics staff like Lu Qingliang, there are also huge difficulties in doing this.

He simply didn't know where to start in order to screen out the areas and people with such beliefs, and then screen out the "clergy" among them to assist his own side.

The earth is small, but it is too big.Beliefs and customs are all kinds of strange things, and there are too many local beliefs that are only restricted to the local area, and outsiders have no way of knowing it.

But there is no way, at this moment, I can only bite the bullet and do it.

The first thing he thought of was the Institute of Folklore, Religion and Cultural Studies.It just so happened that he knew many experts in related fields, so he immediately called and asked them one by one.

The final result disappointed him greatly.All the experts he knew said that they had never heard of this belief, and they did not know where such a custom existed.

After a busy night, I got nothing.

After falling asleep and getting up, and sitting in front of the computer for a while, Lu Qingliang gritted his teeth: "This is trying to force me to come up with a unique trick."

He picked up the phone again.

"Professor Ding, hello, I'm Xiao Lu. Oh, yes, yes, you said yesterday that you don't know. But now there is a situation like this. There is a project in our bureau that needs this kind of The sample was used for research, and the leader asked urgently, so he specially allocated a sum of money for the early information collection... Yes, yes, our leader said, who can provide valuable clues, or cooperate with the unit Sponsoring a project fund in name, or rewarding an individual with a bonus, it’s fine...Okay, okay, I’m going to trouble you..."

After hanging up the phone, Lu Qingliang made another call.

"Hello, Professor Lin..."

After dozens of phone calls in a row, Lu Qingliang let out a sigh of relief.

Those people are people in the circles of folklore, religion, and culture.The information they can get access to is always wider than Lu Qingliang's contacts in the circle.Using money to mobilize their enthusiasm is always more efficient than looking for things aimlessly.

It's just more expensive.

Fortunately, the Operations Department had sufficient funds, otherwise Lu Qingliang would not have dared to do this.

The power of money really cannot be underestimated.On the second day, information was fed back to Lu Qingliang one after another.Lu Qingliang continued to follow the vines, making money all the way, and mobilized some other people to help him analyze the information. After a few days of busy work, he finally got a general grasp of the situation.

Somewhat beyond Lu Qingliang's expectation, the people who believe in "agnosticism" are not as expected before, most of them are concentrated in economically backward areas.There are also covert transmissions in economically developed large cities.Some of these genres have even begun to shift to evil and dark directions, and have a tendency to become cults.

These things are not under the control of the Operations Department.Lu Qingliang directly handed over some of the selected information to the relevant departments and ignored it.

After mastering the region where the faith is located, the next step is much easier.Lu Qingliang directly contacted the local public security and cultural departments, and after they sent people to do some screening and investigation work, many "clergy" entered Lu Qingliang's field of vision.From this, Lu Qingliang started the third round of screening.

He wanted to select the most capable of these priests.

Only the best are able to help their side.

But at this step, Lu Qingliang encountered difficulties again.

For these clergy, what are the criteria for screening?That is, what is the standard for measuring their "ability"?
Measured by their success rate in resolving the incident for which the client seeks help?Or is it measured by the level of mana and compulsion of the gods they believe in?
It doesn't seem to be reliable.

In particular, after conducting some preliminary investigations on these clergy, Lu Qingliang found that each of them was full of all kinds of bizarre legends and rumors, and it was impossible to distinguish the true from the false.As a last resort, Lu Qingliang had no choice but to give up all the originally planned screening specimens, and finally only judged by the only one standard.

fame, or influence.

The greater the reputation, the higher the influence, and the more people think that this person is capable, the higher the score.

In this way, Lu Qingliang finally selected the top ten clergymen with the influence index.

These people belong to different sects, believe in different gods, and have different ages, genders, and regions.But the only thing in common is that the beliefs and gods claimed by these people all have characteristics similar to Cthulhu's worldview.

The gods have neither good intentions nor malice towards human beings.The gods do not care about human beings, the gods are incomprehensible.Dealing with the gods is more like an "equivalent exchange", that is, I sacrifice sacrifices, and the gods help me achieve a certain purpose.

However, the reason why I am a clergyman and you ask me to do things is because I have mastered certain skills in dealing with the gods, so that I can avoid some of the malice of the gods towards human beings, and will not be hurt by the gods.

Even the so-called faith is just a means to avoid the harm of the gods.

After reaching this step, Lu Qingliang shared the information of these ten people with the other three.Therefore, in the second operation team, except for Zhang Dingshan who was still at the temporary base and was in charge of making decisions on the fly, the other three, including Lu Qingliang, all started to go out in person and began to visit these people one by one. Ways to judge which one is the most likely to help your side.

In one day, the three interviewed a total of nine people.The last person was visited by Lu Ming.

All the way by plane and car, Lu Ming finally came to the outskirts of a certain county, in front of a single-family mansion with an idyllic ink style.

The mansion is beautifully built and occupies a large area, which is expensive at first glance.The owner who lives in it should be very rich.

This also met the previous screening criteria.After all, if you have great influence, you must have money.

At this moment, the gate of the mansion is open, and there is a person who looks like a security guard standing in front of the gate.

Lu Ming drove over directly and stopped in front of the door. The security guard didn't open the door, but came over and asked, "Do you have an appointment?"

(End of this chapter)