The Order of the Elephant’s Foot
This place is a message…and part of a system of messages…pay attention to it!
Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.
This place is not a place of honor…no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here…nothing valued is here.
What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
The danger is in a particular location…it increases towards a center…the center of danger is here…of a particular size and shape, and below us.
The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.
The danger is to the body, and it can kill.
The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.
The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.
***
You Only Guide Me by Surprise is written, produced and edited by Landry Ayres.
Clips from the following pieces are included:
The Regulation of Atomic Radiation, courtesy of the U.S. National Archives
The nun who broke into a US nuclear-weapons facility, The Washington Post
The Doomsday Clock, explained, Vox
Nuclear Waste: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
The Nuclear Radiation Series, CENCO and Periscope Films
How an 85-Year Old Nun, Activists Infiltrated Top U.S. Nuclear Site, Exposing Dangers & Urging Peace, Democracy Now!
Atomic Energy Can Be A Blessing, The Christophers
Atomic Blast!, First Pictures (1946)
Atomic Alert, Elementary Version (1951), courtesy of the Prelinger Archives
Duck And Cover, a Civil Defense Film (1951)
The sacred texts included in this piece are:
שמות 26 1:5 (WLC)
שמות 27:21 (WLC)
Isaiah 2:4 (KJV)
שמות26:31-37 (WLC)
ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΤΘΑΙΟΝ 27 (TR 1550)
מלכים א 8:6-12 (WLC)
All Western Leningrad Codex texts were read by Abraham Shmuelof. Greek texts courtesy of Anton Tasos. Isaiah read by David Suchet.
FURTHER READING:
Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert MacFarland
99% Invisible - Ten Thousand Years
The Nuclear Priesthood by Paul Farley
I Think I Am a Verb by Thomas Sebeok
Measures: Monastery for an Atomic Priesthood; Hanford, WA
The Atomic Priesthood Project by Bryan McGovern Wilson
Cumbrian Alchemy by Robert Williams and Bryan McGovern Wilson
Lessons From Chernobyl for Japan by Ellen Barry - The New York Times
A transcript of this episode can be found here.
