Do not forget the Mesoamerican myth about how Tezcatlipoca defeated Quetzalcoatl. The “smoking mirror”. The mirror that lies. The mirror that tells the person watching it something other than that which is real. Even if the real mirror says one thing, the smoking mirror can tell a girl she is fat when she really isn’t. That is the power of myth.

All too often, a political dynasty becomes a victim of its own lies, where the political leaders not only believe their own propaganda but let their very identities become defined by that lie. Divine Right Monarchy is one example. The worst example, though, ought to be the Ptolemaic Dynasty, which systematically deified its rulers. The latter half of the Ptolemaic Dynasty was so subsumed by the most depraved variety of familial infighting that it gave rise to some of the worst horrors of modern times (such as anti-Semitism…). Let’s put it this way. Any political system that could let Ptolemy Physcon (who called himself Ptolemy Euergetes II) run around loose must be remarkable stable and robust, for a more fragile system would have collapsed much sooner.

There are reasons why I am utterly concerned whenever any political leader dons the halo and seeks religious sanctification as a means of obtaining political power. It’s all understandable from an atheist standpoint, I suppose, as a means of keeping political order, but the abuse of religious sanctification for political purposes effectively trivializes religion. The trivialization of religion through the abuse of divinity is part of what made Ptolemaic pretensions (as well as the pretensions of Nero and Elagabalus) so offensive.