Actually, Robert, I'm pretty sure that that's how it got done in many if not most cases (I'm being careful here because in this we haven't narrowed it down- we're looking basically at all people/all time/all religion). Here's why, it's Jospeph Campbell 101, really (read his stuff, I'm just throwing down the big chunks). First, you have to understand the evolution of the subjects of myth from the earliest times on out. First, the objects of worship were mainly animals (think cave paintings)- animals were mysterious, powerful creatures, non-humans that man lived among (and often had to eat, which goes to hunting rituals, etc.). Next, it was cosmology, and this is probably where you want to start screwing into it. Depending on case, you might be dealing with pure celestial gods, god-men, or god-animal hybrids. Somewhere around this point, what you saw was the elevation/integration of rulers; they were merging with the whatever local god(s). The local ruler assumed the role of god's representative on earth- he was the local rep :), and this got bought into bigtime, mainly because there was a lot of theatrical stuff that got done to support it (pay no attention to the man behind the curtain- at the high end, things like where they'd engineer hidden mechanical devices to make thrones rise, fires start, temple doors open, you get it). Word spreads of this kind of power, and shit runs downhill like in any organization. People weren't always as afraid of fucking up for communal (or personal) reasons as they were for supernatural ones. Pissing off the earthly local demigod is bad enough, and without question it points to the possibility of really pissing off the Big Dogs.
So, yeah, no doubt- I can see it. Why bother tying up valuable resources when you can use what to your average local was not recognizable as paranoia, but consequences. And, of course, this was supported by interpretation of omens and so forth (think of the prophets as the marketing dept.) that, go figure, supported whatever the agenda needed supported.
See, I'm a religious person, but it doesn't mean I don't recognize the same evils that occured through organized, politicized religion. Basically, I view it as a top-down management fuckup situation. Here, take a look at even a basic concept about equatorial religion that Campbell speaks of to see how far and for how long bad things can get done:
…In those zones, furthermore, the common sight of rotting vegetation giving rise to new green shoots seems to have inspired a mythology of death as the giver of life; whence the hideous idea followed that the way to increase life is to increase death. The result has been, for millenniums, a general rage of sacrifice through the whole tropical belt of our planet, quite in contrast to the comparatively childish ceremonies of animal-worship-and-appeasement of the hunters of the great plains: brutal human as well as animal sacrifices, highly symbolic in detail; sacrifices also of fruits of the field, of the first-born, of widows on their husbands’ graves, and finally of entire courts together with their kings. The mythic theme of Willing Victim has become associated here with the image of a primordial being that in the beginning offered itself to be slain, dismembered, and buried; and from whose buried parts then arose the food plants by which the lives of the people are sustained.
So, not that anyone around here needs any more grim reminders, but that just reinforces how much power you can yield, either by mistake or intention.
Just my .02
best,
rde
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