To get on the path, everyone starts off following somebody else's kind of mystical
and ends up following their own kind. (It's magic.)

And now another Humorous Definition -- (or is that)
Another Definition Of Things Apparently Pertinent To Humor:
Satire: A gambit in the seeking of approval to compensate for one's lack of originality.

Query: What is the difference between devotion to some
already established ideas and criticisms of same?
Operationally, none, for in neither instance were you a creative force.

As they looked up at the alleged hero they were about to crucify, one citizen said to his neighbor:
"I am uncertain as to whether I should be in support of this action, or condemning it."
And his friend replied: "It's no matter to the likes of us -- what is to be played out will be played out.
Now let us go home."

The core myth of one cult tells of the day a spaceship landed, and from it stepped a group of aliens who introduced themselves as The Five Blind Boys Of Alpha Beta, and, as he reached out to shake their hand in welcome, the King of Earth said: "Ah, you sing gospel music." And the tallest of the five removed his shades and replied: "Don't mind if I do." And bit off the monarch's head, which, the cult members say, just goes to prove.

Though the majority scoff at splinter groups and factional activity,
they miss the fact that allegiance to any idea or movement
(religious, nationalistic, or otherwise),
no matter how large and widely respected,
is still a form of cultism.

Among wolves, the difference between the acceptable honoring of a wise, heroic leader, and the untoward devotion to some irrational mad dog is in the number of followers the woods provide for each -- and so too is this scenario played out in the neural wilds of each man's mind.

The mysterious stranger who so impressed the villagers left them with but this one message:
"To bacteria, there is no up, down, left, or right."

In regard to the ever-increasing depth and complexity of the more educated and sophisticated, the more conscious are nothing if not shallow and transparent.