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from our bodies so they act independently, as though they were human, believe that we already possess the divine power to bring something to life that does not exist. What an illusion! We have, in fact, brought nothing to life!
    We have instead granted the greater part of the short life that was gifted us to our shadows! We have not created life; we have lost it! We have not created; we have squandered! And we have squandered sinfully.

THIS IS THE AIM OF THE ANTICHRIST! TO DESECRATE ONE WONDER THROUGH ANOTHER
    It is not possible to talk about the Antichrist if one has not met him; and by this I mean if one has not met him actually and in the flesh. As for me, I have met him in many forms. Since my early youth our paths have crossed. I spoke before in such detail about the theatre of shadows because it was there that I first encountered him.
    My first contact with the Antichrist happened many years ago, when I was still a boy and saw the wonder of the living shadow for the first time. There came a large vehicle, powered by unseen forces, which stopped at an open plaza outside of town and sent forth a large machine that was covered with a small canvas tent. Then a large tent, also of canvas, was pitched, spread and domed, and one could see upon entry that the interior of the dome was a blue sky with numerous gold and silver stars scattered about. And it was as real as the firmament. The human eye is not capable of seeing more of the actual heavens than can be shown on the spacious dome of a marquee, and the spectators’ eyes therefore saw just as much or as little as they can see of the heavens when they look up at night. Blue was the dome, and the stars were just as unreachable and just as distant as real stars. Since we are not tall enough even to reach the roof of a circus tent erected by men, it was all the same to the people who sat under this roof if the sky was real or a reproduction. Neither one of them was within reach of their hands.
    Consequently, they were quite willing to believe that the fake was real. And as it was very dark below and within this canvas tent the people inside believed that they were sitting under a bright and starry summer-night’s sky. We heard an unfamiliar rattling and a humming and buzzing and chattering and thundering from some strange origin. And above and below we saw some kind of four-sided cone that was born from a minuscule square hole, the brightness of which was enveloped by black walls. This cone grew slowly and symmetrically over the spectators’ heads, ever fuller, ever clearer, with its edges becoming more clearly visible in the pale light until it reached and filled the screen, as though a river of pale light were to pour itself into a sea of pallor, illuminating the latter through its own brightened pallor, so that it became visible as a four-sided sea. And we could see the vertical and horizontal threads stretched out on the four-sided sea. The four-sided cone that whirred above our heads made an incredible noise, and when we looked at it we were led to believe that the ruckus came from the billions of dust particles within rubbing against one another. Our ears were shocked that such minuscule molecules of dust and nothingness, even though there were billions of them, might be able to emit such an audible whir. So that we could no longer hear the sound of the dust molecules, an orchestra below the screen began to play marches and waltzes. And this, indeed, drowned out the whir of the dust molecules.
    When the first shadows came to life on the rectangular screen and the marches and waltzes played up from the orchestra, the drums beating and the cymbals clashing, we could no longer hear the whirring of the dust particles. But we felt that the little square hole above our heads at the back of the crowd, the birthplace of the dust-laden cone, was the place where the life-sized shadows acquired their lives. Clearly, they sprang from the tiny four-sided hole and could