Pedram’s Reviews > The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History > Status Update

When you feel like kicking yourself around the block, you are in the grip of the intropunitive force. At times, whole herds of humans have unleashed this impulse in an orgy of self-punishment.
Once a year, during the festival of Muharram, the Shiite men of the Middle East parade through the streets pulling out their hair, lacerating their scalps with swords, and even injuring with wounds that kill.

"Cultures spring into existence only when the crowd is large enough. The phenomenon that creates the Beatles, that makes a Hitler, that launches a new philosophy like communism or Christian Fundamentalism—these are all entelechies at work, waves rolling over the surface of society"

Notice how Mr. Bloom capitalizes Christian Fundamentalism but not the commie ideology? W.