Corporations may behave like sentients, but at about the sentience level of a spoiled brat. And, as anyone who’s ever served time as a sibling likely knows, knocking down an obnoxious, spoiled brat can feel quite satisfying and yet lead to huge "judicial" problems; but they can be caused to fall down nonetheless.

Click here for a bigger image.

Keep in mind that the intelligentsia of the time – in their post-Catholic, pre-Scientific mezzanine – held quite a lot of regard for bodies: the body politic, a body of law, the body of the church, celestial bodies, etc. Artwork of that time focused on the glory of the human body, even when depicting gods. In another example, most of the better-known astronomers of the Renaissance earned their living as physicians, not much unlike our dear Dr Locke a few generations later. Cut a patient open to examine the placement of bodily organs, in microcosm, then project that to behold – in macrocosm – the placement of celestial bodies. Quod est superius est secut quod est inferius: as above, so below.

Much of the intelligentsia of the time (e.g., in Britain at the Royal Society) held considerable regard for a worldview known as Hermeticism, a Hellenistic Egyptian syncretism which is just about the same as alchemy. Envision a fading echo of wisdom nurtured in the library at Alexandria, prior to when Christians burnt it down and murdered the head librarian.

Lost throughout the Dark Ages (at least, lost from anywhere north of Tangiers and west of Istanbul), the literary body of Hermeticism resurfaced in Europe through the efforts of the infamous deMedici family, the dynasty immortalized by Machiavelli. In their quest for power, the deMedici family funded translations of classical works, and they sought esoteric secrets from imperial power-mongers of the classical world. Revisiting classical texts, which the Roman Catholic Church had tried to obliterate, seemed like a fairly good strategy.

This actually worked. Arguably, the translation efforts helped spark much of the Renaissance itself. Looking back to the stories of classical times caused a few notable Italian thinkers to ponder a bit differently about their present, thereby manifesting a vastly renewed look at the future: tail wagging the dog, the rest of Europe followed. Those texts and subsequent esoteric philosophy also informed the establishment of the British Empire, whose military-industrial complex, with power based on corporate organization, successfully contested the Roman Catholic Church and its allies.

There is a pop culture notion of alchemy that seems to convey some Disney Corp cartoon scene of costumed mice attempting in vain to transmute lead into gold. In contrast, the more esoteric focus of Hermeticism (with texts circulated in Latin, of course) placed considerable emphasis on embodying spiritual essence, manifesting it into flesh… rather akin to evocation, mind you. Building things simply brought one "closer to god," joining in a process of Creation.

1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8