THE MAGIC LABYRINTH by Philip Jose Farmer

He never found them.

The old Hermann Goring, the highly ambitious and unscrupulous opportunist, still lived in him. He did many things of which he became deeply ashamed and remorseful when, after many adventures and much wandering,* he was converted to the Church of the Second Chance. This happened suddenly and dramatically, much like the conversion of Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, and it took place in the small and sovereign state of Tamoancan. This was composed chiefly of tenth-century Nahuatl-speaking Mexicans and twentieth-century Navahos. Hermann lived in the newcomers’ hall until he was thoroughly grounded in the tenets and disciplines of the Church.

He moved out then into a recently abandoned hut. After a while, a woman named Chopilotl was living with him. She, too, was a Chancer, but she insisted that they keep in their hut a soapstone idol. It was a hideous figure about thirty centimeters high, addressed as Xochiquetzal, the divine patroness *See To Your Scattered Bodies Go for the details. of sexual love and childbirth. Chopilotl’s adoration of the goddess signified her passion for passion. She demanded that Hermann and she make love in front of the idol in the light of torches flanking it. Hermann did not mind that, but he did tire of the frequency of her insistence.

Also, it seemed to him that she shouldn’t be allowed to worship a pagan divinity. He went to his bishop, a Navaho who had been a Mormon on Earth.

“Yes, I know she has that statue,” Bishop Ch’agii said. “The Church doesn’t countenance idolatry or polytheism, Hermann. You know that. But it does permit its members to keep idols, provided that the owner fully realizes that it is only a symbol. Admittedly, this is dangerous, since the worshiper too easily takes the symbol for the reality. This failing wasn’t confined to the primitives, you know. Even the so-called civilized peoples were sucked into this psychological trap.

“Chopilotl is rather literal-minded, but she’s a good person. If we got too stubborn about her idiosyncracy and demanded that she cast the idol out, she might backslide into a genuine polytheism. What we are doing might be called theological weaning. You have seen how many idols there are around here, haven’t you? Most of them at one time had a multitude of worshipers. But we have gradually detached the religionists from them, achieving this through a patient and gentle instruction. Now the stone gods have become only objects d’art to most of their former worshipers.

“In time, Chopilotl will come to regard her goddess as such. I’m banking on you to assist her to get over her present regrettable attitude.”

“You mean, give her a theological goose?” Hermann said.

The bishop looked surprised, then he laughed. “I had my Ph.D. at the University of Chicago,” he said. “I do sound stuffy, don’t I? Have a drink, my son, and tell me more about yourself.”

At the end of a year, Hermann was baptised with many other naked shivering teeth-chattering neophytes. Afterward, he toweled off a woman while she dried him. Then all donned body-covering cloths, and the bishop hung around the neck of each a cord from which was suspended the spiral vertebra bone of a hornfish. They were not titled priests; each was simply called Instruisto, Teacher.

Hermann felt as if he were a fraud. Who was he to be instructing others, and acting, in effect, as a priest? He was not even sure that his belief in God or in the Church was sincere. No, that was not right. He was sincere—most of the time.

“The doubts are about yourself,” the bishop said. “You think you can’t live up to the ideals. You think you aren’t worthy. You have to get over that, Hermann. Everybody has the potentiality of being worthy, which leads to salvation. You have it; I have it; all God’s children have it,” and he laughed.

“Watch two tendencies in yourself, son. Sometimes you are arrogant, thinking you are better than others. More often you are humble. Too humble. I might even say, sickeningly humble. That is another form of arrogance. True humility is knowing your true place in the cosmic scale.