For a long time now I have been wondering what the IFI Lies are. I was intrigued to find this out, and yet at the same time it didn’t really matter. And yet at the same time it was of no consequence to me, and yet at the same time I couldn’t have cared less. Then one day a wondering preacher came into town and started (as is the way with preachers) haranguing the populace for the hypocrisy of their ways and their indifference to issues of morality and personal responsibility. After he had finished addressing the crowd and was getting ready to leave I came up to him and asked him to explain, if he would, the meaning of the IFI Lies. Regarding me in surprise, presumably surprised that I should care about such things, he explained that to me in kindly tones that the IFI Lies were the foundation stone of what is called the ‘social confabulation’, and that the social confabulation forms the matrix of meaning within which all social interactions take place. The IFI Lies do not themselves constitute part of the narrative structure of reality, but rather they exist on a level of formatting that must necessarily remain inaccessible to those who live in this realm. A special class of officer has been created whose job it is to prevent anyone from coming to know about or otherwise tampering with IFI Lies, or possibly adjusting them in order to enable certain cheats to become possible. Even these special officers however have no idea of the true significance of what they are doing; they are led to believe something entirely different, something of a vaguely religious nature. The overall result of this dislocation, this translocation, is that everyone within the remit of the social confabulation becomes functionally disconnected from the essential core of who they really are, and can only live as shades, as echoes. As Philip Pullman says, the cord between us and our daemon is severed; we have to live alone, apart from the consolidation of having a soul. No one knows what the core essence of who they really are is, or even that there is such a thing, let alone that we have lost all connection with it, and so this disconnection creates no discernible problems for us. Our sense of well-being is only skin deep however; it is made up of nothing but shadows. The inhabitants of this world are but poor unhappy creatures who persist in imagining that it is somehow possible to find fulfilment in this life in the absence of spirit. Having imparted this information to me, the preacher then turned to leave. ‘But how do you know about the IFI Lies then, if no one is permitted to know of their existence?’ I called out after him as he walked away. Without looking back at me, he called out ‘Because I am the Hierophant – I am he whose job it is to guide the aspirant to the seat of the mysteries’. So spoke the Hierophant, and I was never to see him again…
