The Two Main Religions of Geltvelt
There are two dominant religions in Geltvelt, one of which will probably seem quite familiar, but the other is so strange that I fear my readers will suspect me of the kind of gross exaggeration and fantasy of which travelers to exotic lands are often guilty. I must assure my readers that I am reporting the facts as accurately as my abilities permit.
Mammonism. The more sensible of these two religions is Mammonism. Nearly everyone in Geltvelt is an adherent of Mammonism. Worshipers believe that they attain spiritual power through the lavish expenditure of glitter gelt in huge, magnificent temples known as mallmarts. The mallmarts are filled with dozens of shrines called booteeks. Worshipers make great show of divesting themselves of their glitter gelt in these shrines. In return they are given tokens and idols collectively known as meistuf. Understand that this activity is of a purely spiritual nature and is not to be confused with the exchange of glitter gelt for Manna. Manna is necessary for life in Geltvelt. Meistuf has no practical purpose whatsoever. It is greatly valued however because it confers upon its possessor a spiritual quality called cashay. In their pursuit of cashay, Geltveltians accumulate huge quantities of meistuf which they store in large sheds. Every so often it becomes necessary to clear out the sheds in order to make room for fresh meistuf. They do this by holding “shed sales.” Geltveltians rise very early in the morning to attend these shed sales where they obtain meistuf for as little as one-tenth the amount of glitter gelt that would have been required at a booteek. Cashay is thus spread throughout the land. Do not think, however, that the meistuf and its attendant cashay must diminish in value by this process, for many wise Geltveltians pick up meistuf at shed sales and then make it available through a magic auction called a mee-bei for large amounts of glitter gelt, often even more than it was originally exchanged for at the booteek. It seems that mee-bei auctions greatly enhance the spiritual content of meistuf. The Geltveltians are a extremely spiritual people and spend most of their waking hours in the pious pursuit of cashay.
Deliverancy. The other religion is Deliverancy. While Deliverancy is somewhat less popular than Mammonism, most Geltveltians subscribe to them both and see no contradiction in this practice. To understand the bizarre nature of Deliverancy one should know something about its history, a story with useful lessons in how a potentially dangerous movement can be transformed to the public good. The nominal founder of the religion was a prophet of antiquity known simply as the Ancient Peace Sage. This sage preached an extremely subversive and radical doctrine based on poverty and pacificism. He renounced both riches and violence in all forms, declaring that the Unnamable All loves everyone and has forgiven us all our crimes, follies, and transgressions, and that therefore we should all do the same; we should love those who hate us, help those who hurt us, and be kind to those who are cruel. Punishment, he said, compounds rather than cures evil. As if that were not radical enough, he said that the pursuit of meistuf was vanity and the road to destruction; he even insisted that a Troll could no more enter the empire of the Unnamable All than a mammoth could fly to the moon. It is a testament to the extreme depravity of those times that he actually attracted a considerable following in spite of the bizarre extremity of his teachings. Naturally it was necessary for the authorities to get rid of him. Were such radical teachings ever to gain power it would mean the end of prisons, floggings and executions—the pillars of pubic safety and order—to say nothing of the highly profitable and entertaining riding off to war on mammoths.
The exact pretext on which the sage was charged (it being difficult to come up with capital charges against someone who does nothing but preach universal love) is lost in the mist of history, but he was finally arrested and duly hanged. That, unfortunately, was not the end of it. The movement actually begin to grow dangerously. The death of their leader, given that he professed to love even those who would cruelly put him to death, only convinced them of his perfect goodness and the righteousness of his cause. Something clearly had to be done. The authorities assigned one of their best agents to seek out and arrest the subversives. He was highly successful in rounding up the radicals, but each new mass execution only seemed to make the movement grow. Then, one day as the agent was on his way to one of the movements more notorious strongholds, a sudden revelation came to him, as he later recalled, “like a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky!” “Why am I pursuing these people?” he thought. As a later historian put it, “Stand up to a rampaging mammoth and you will be crushed, but climb its back and you can ride it to safety.”
The Transformation of Deliverancy. And that is exactly what this brilliant agent did; he joined the movement he had been fighting and gradually became its leader, subtly changing its doctrine as he did so. He took advantage of the fact that extreme poverty and pacificism may seem attractive in the abstract (at least to degraded types with warped minds) when one is asked to actually put them into practice it is another kettle of fish. After all, loving those who hate you and renouncing meistuf just plain goes against trelvian nature. The extreme goodness of the Peace Sage, the new doctrine argued, was due to the fact that he was not mortal but rather the embodiment of the Unnamable All, and that his arrest and execution were necessary to deliver the trelves from their crimes, follies, and transgressions. He was the spotless sacrifice required to obtain forgiveness from the All. This change in doctrine had the effect of making the movement much more attractive while simultaneously pulling its teeth. It was no longer necessary even to try to adhere to those impossible commands of the Peace Sage; one merely had to “believe” in him in order to enter the empire of the All in the next life. One had only to say “Lord, Lord,” and it mattered not what else one did. The movement was thus transformed from something extremely dangerous into a useful tool of society; now the attention of the Elves could be focused on their future bliss rather than what they perceived to be their present misery.
So Deliverancy is a source of comfort to many Geltveltians, particularly those less successful in their pursuit of meistuf. Foreign visitors must remember this and refrain from expressing disgust or shock when they first encounter the many miniature gallows that are displayed everywhere in Deliverancy shrines. For the pious, the gallows is a symbol of deliverance. Foreigners should also be careful about asking the wrong questions. You see, although the commands of the Ancient Peace Sage are utterly ignored by modern worshipers, they were preserved in the sacred texts. A visitor once presumed to ask some faithful Deliverancans why, since they worshiped the Peace Sage as the embodiment of the Unnamable All, they did not renounce riches and violence as he had commanded. He was greeted with confused and dumbfounded stares, but one of the Geltveltians had the presence of mind to notify the authorities. The impertinent stranger disappeared and was never heard of again.
