Our cheap and cheeky gods
From Mr Paul Williams Sir: Toby Young (Why our gods must die', 30 November) is right — something very primal is occurring in our current cult of celebrity, and a good dose of ancient history will probably help us to understand it.
It is becoming apparent that the collapse of classic monotheism in the West has created a vacuum that has started sucking back in the old ways of magic practice and worship of household idols. Anyone who doubts the existence of magic has only to attend a management personal development course, where the belief in the power of the mind to achieve -its full potential' through visualisation is alive and kicking.
But it is the progression of shoddy idols across the surfaces of our television screens and newspapers that is the most obvious form of this ancient psychic uprising. Our televisions are our shrines to these new cheap gods, and we greedily consume their CDs and magazine articles, hungry to know what life on the 'other side' is really like. Sometimes, a part of a celebrity's body can separate from the host and declare its own autonomous celebrity. 'Kylie's Arse' is the most noteworthy recent example; this peculiar organ leads an independent existence in the press, deserving its own column inches and photographic coverage.
Paul Williams
London SW2
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