Paranormal incident investigation notes

Culture...core?

This formulation left several people participating in the meeting confused.

During this period of time, due to the weirdness and incredible nature of this case, as well as its similarity to the so-called Cthulhu worldview, several people have inquired about and understood this worldview. But a few people really haven't thought about things like cultural core.

Lu Ming continued: "The Cthulhu worldview has developed richly and colorfully over such a long period of time. It has spawned many stories and described many kinds of strange lives. Its system, context, structure, The worldview is complete. But in my opinion, at its core, there is actually only one thing: indescribable fear and powerless despair.

All stories in the Cthulhu worldview have not departed from this core. "

Several people were thinking silently.

Lu Ming turned to say: "One of the settings of Cthulhu's worldview is that mythical creatures are simply incomprehensible to humans. What is their purpose, why do they do this, why do they have this ability, etc., etc., are all beyond the reach of humans." Understand. At the same time, the mythical creatures don't care about humans at all - they have no malice or kindness towards humans, they don't care at all. But because of their own power, if humans just accidentally come into contact with them, it will cause catastrophic consequences.

There is a work that expresses the world view of Cthulhu, and its name is "Color of Stars". It describes a series of stories about a mythical creature called the Star Color that accidentally landed on the earth.

In this story, due to the advent of the Star Color, a family living in a small town began to experience madness and mutation, but they had no idea why and could not understand it all. This is unspeakable fear.

They are innocent and kind, and they try their best to save themselves, but they cannot stop the continuation of madness and mutation. This is helpless despair.

In the end, the entire town was shrouded in the strange light of the Star Color, and everyone mutated and died. The Star Color 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 worldview.

Lu Ming was silent for a moment before continuing: "Okay. Now we remove the appearance and only grasp the 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 Cheng'en, the story about Tang Monk's Buddhist scriptures had actually 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 does not appear out of thin air. It also has a complete cultural heritage. The role that that great writer played at that time should be the same as that of Wu Chengen, who created "Journey to the West". He was the culminating figure, not the original 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 the Cthulhu worldview to explain existing events, we don't have to get entangled in specific worldview expressions and literary stories, but go straight to its core. "

Lu Qingliang was a little confused: "Who should we go to specifically? A professional creator of the Cthulhu worldview? A novelist? Or a film director who has filmed a Cthulhu story?"

"Of course not. First of all, let's make it clear that before the birth of science, human worldview was presented in the form of religion. Different worldviews gave birth to different religions, and religious beliefs participated in creating culture. The two grew and complemented each other. So,' The cultural core of indescribable fear and powerless despair, the culture and world view it represents, should also have corresponding religious beliefs.

To sort out this context, the process is as follows: First of all, some people among ancient humans believed that the origin of this world and the universe is unknowable and cannot be understood by humans. They were in awe of those great, powerful, indescribable beings that existed in the dark world, and carefully kept their 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. Subsequently, through the intersection and integration with various trends of thought and world views from around the world, many variants may have emerged.

Eventually, this cultural core was exposed to the writer who created the Cthulhu worldview, inspiring 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 adheres to this worldview. "

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

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

Lu Mingdao: "It does not have to be a systematic religious system, it may also be a local belief system that does not even have a formal name. There are many such belief systems, especially in economically backward areas. There may be one in a village. A belief.”

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

She murmured: "Then, now, we are going to... are we going to find an 'agnostic', uh, god, clergyman, to help us interpret the current situation?"

Although this was his conclusion, when He Wei actually said it, Lu Ming still instinctively felt that it was a bit ridiculous.

At the end of the fight, we actually want to get help from a goddess or a divine man?

Lu Ming nodded silently.

Zhang Dingshan knocked on the table lightly: "Try it first and then talk about it. If it doesn't work, we won't lose anything."

Lu Qingliang scratched his head: "Okay, then I'll go and find out where this kind of belief exists."

After the meeting, in the headquarters of the Planetary Security Bureau, in the office belonging to the second operation team, Lu Qingliang fell into deep thought.

Even for professional logistics personnel like Lu Qingliang, there are still huge difficulties in doing this.

He simply didn't know where to start in order to screen out the areas and groups of people where this belief existed, and then screen out the "clergy" among them to assist him.

Although the earth is small, it is also very big. Beliefs and customs are all kinds of strange, and there are too many local beliefs that are only spread locally, and outsiders have no way of knowing about them.

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

The first thing he thought of was the Folklore, Religion and Culture Research Institute. Coincidentally, he knew many experts in related fields, so he immediately called them one by one to inquire.

The end result left him disappointed. The experts he knew all said that they had never heard of this belief and did not know where this custom existed.

After a busy night, I got nothing.

After getting up after a good sleep, Lu Qingliang sat in front of the computer for a while and gritted his teeth: "You are trying to force me to use a trick."

He picked up the phone again.

"Professor Ding, hello, hello, I'm Xiao Lu. Oh, yes, yes, you said yesterday that you don't know. But now there is a situation like this. Our bureau now has a project that needs this kind of The samples were brought for study, and the leader requested it urgently, so he specially allocated a sum of money for preliminary information collection... That's right, our leader said, who can provide valuable clues, or cooperate with the unit? It’s okay to sponsor a project fund in name, or to reward an individual with a bonus...Okay, okay, okay, I’m sorry to trouble you..."

After hanging up the phone, Lu Qingliang dialed another number.

"Hello, Professor Lin..."

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

Those people are people from folk, religious, and cultural circles. The information they have access to and their connections in the circle are wider than Lu Qingliang's. Using money to mobilize their enthusiasm is more efficient than searching aimlessly.

It's just more expensive.

Fortunately, the Operations Office has relatively sufficient funds, otherwise Lu Qingliang would not dare to do this.

The power of money cannot be underestimated. The next day, information was fed back to Lu Qingliang one after another. Lu Qingliang continued to follow the clues, making money along the way, and mobilized other people to assist him in information analysis. After a few days of busy work, he finally had a rough grasp of the situation.

What was somewhat beyond Lu Qingliang's expectation was that most of the people who believed in "agnosticism" were not concentrated in economically backward areas as previously expected. There is also covert spread in economically developed big cities. Some of these schools have even begun to shift in evil and dark directions, with a tendency to become cults.

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

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

He wanted to select the most capable among these clergy.

Only the best will be able to help themselves.

But at this step, Lu Qingliang encountered difficulties again.

What are the screening criteria for these clergy? In other words, what is the standard for measuring their “ability”?

Measured by their success rate in resolving the issues for which help seekers seek help? Or is it measured by the level of mana and strength 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 discovered 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 to give up all the screening specimens originally planned, and in the end only one standard was used to measure the results.

Fame, or influence.

The greater the reputation, the higher the influence. The more people think this person is capable, the higher the rating will be.

In this way, Lu Qingliang finally selected the ten clergy who ranked in the top ten in terms of influence index.

These people belong to different schools, believe in different gods, and vary in age, gender, and region. But the only similarity is that the beliefs and gods claimed by these people all have similar characteristics to the Cthulhu worldview.

Gods have no good intentions or ill intentions toward humans. The gods do not care about humans, and the gods are incomprehensible. Dealing with the gods is more like an "equivalent exchange", that is, I offer sacrifices and the gods help me achieve a certain purpose.

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

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

After reaching this step, Lu Qingliang shared the information of these ten people with the other three. Therefore, except for Zhang Dingshan, who was still sitting at the temporary base and responsible for making emergency decisions, the other three people in the second action team, including Lu Qingliang, all began to personally go out and visit these people one by one. Through personal conversations and observations, method to determine which one is most likely to provide help to oneself.

In one day, the three of them visited a total of nine people. Lu Ming was responsible for visiting this last person.

After flying and driving all the way, Lu Ming finally arrived in front of a single-family house with a rather pastoral ink-and-wash style on the outskirts of a certain county.

The mansion is beautifully built and covers a large area, and it appears to have been expensive to build. The owner who lives here must be very wealthy.

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

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

Lu Ming drove over 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?"