ПЛЯСКА ВИТТА

You're about to see a short excerpt from the film "Paracelsus," directed by German director G.W. Pabst in 1943. It depicts the so-called St. Vitus Dance—a historical name for a group of neurological disorders. The disease was named after the Christian martyr St. Vitus. In the Middle Ages, people believed that uncontrollable dancing and convulsions were caused by evil spirits. On screen, the crowd, mesmerized by the abrupt movements of a mental patient, begins to mechanically dance after the jester, succumbing to his hypnotic influence. Some critics saw in this scene a subtle allusion to the fascist propaganda that so captivated the German people at the time. And indeed, if you look at this film, it becomes an accurate reflection of what's happening today—a world ruled by similarly possessed people. It's hard to call them human; they are masks of hell, leading this dance of hatred, war, and malice throughout the world. This dancer foreshadows the image of mass propaganda, which similarly compels people to move in time with the obsession that the forces of evil are now bringing into the world. But let's think now: what happened to all those people who were so captivated by Goebbels's speeches? What did they understand later, when their earthly journey ended? What did they learn after their deaths? Surely they realized that there was nothing in the world for which people needed to kill each other. That the entire understanding of "truth" and justice instilled in them by fascist propaganda was simply a demonic lie. They believed that Bolshevik and communist evil could only be defeated by hellish means, and that justice could only be achieved through fear and violence. But now they know that evil only multiplies evil and makes the devil stronger. Now they know that they lived their lives in vain, because they were given it for something completely different from what they lived for. Now they know for certain that all the world's evil resided in only one place—in their own hearts. And that there was no other battle to wage except the inner battle. How did they feel when they saw the goodness God had prepared for those who loved Him and understood what they had lost? And most importantly, for what? For a piece of foreign land? For the murder of innocent people who had done them no harm? For the sake of their own superiority over others? Was it all worth it to now find themselves alone with the unsleeping worm and the dark, invisible fire that never dies? God is Love. And no matter what a person does, no matter how they justify themselves, everything that is against love is always against God. This short, very short life is given to us for only one thing—to clothe ourselves in Love by grace and to become love ourselves. For only Love gives a person the opportunity to enter into eternal life. There is no other way! Now these people know that it would be better for them to be killed than to kill; it would be better to give what is theirs than to take what is not theirs; it would be better to be unhappy themselves than to make others unhappy. But this knowledge is now useless to them, just like the knowledge of the dead rich man in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. These people are too late and have failed to live their lives correctly. For those who still wander the earth, it is not too late. But they watch the dancer-propagandist, they listen to "Radio of a Thousand Hills," they plunge into the swamp of hatred and malice and begin their St. Vitus' Dance, living out their worthless lives in this dance. "This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light" (John 3:19).