E P I L O G U E

The sacred allegiance of our contemporaries to denary fixed ratios and percentages, to denary centuries and millenniums, in short, to the denary system, illustrates once more that it is not always easy to differentiate the well-founded and the arbitrary, or the rational and the irrational, or the natural and the supernatural. Yet, granted that there is, indeed, a fuzzy border between the two, there are those who stand very clearly on this side of that border and those who stand, even more clearly, on the other side.
   When it is everyone's right to take any position whatsoever this is precisely the reason that we, too, have such a right; a right wholly or partially denied us in the numerous countries where the state is misused as an instrument of monotheist oppression, discrimination, indoctrination and/or propaganda. It is precisely the reason that no-one who supports or permits such abuse, or is co-responsible for it, should have the nerve to call any of the stories here collected "offensive". Offensive is it not to be treated as a person, as an equal citizen, because the state chooses one's denomination, or that of one's children. This is blasphemy: blasphemy against justice.
   More than our citizenship is at stake here, for we must also be concerned about what is being sold as truth worldwide and on a large scale. People's personhood may demand deep respect, but not so their juggling with statements of belief where the truth is known to be different, or where it is only appropriate to be silent, or only candid to admit that one does not know. The liar as liar or the supernaturalist as supernaturalist is not the person as person. Therefore we do not insult supernaturalists as persons so long as we recognize their personal rights -- so long as they recognize ours. One does not insult a person by pouring scorn on and ridiculing a lie, however much the liar may feel insulted. The unkind remark is directed at the lie, not at the person, who, as a person, is free to lie and invited not to lie.
   "Why should we care about what is believed or said by millions and officially propagated?" some may ask.
   We should, for where anything can pass for true and respectable under a religious flag, there anything can, in the long run, pass for scientific and humane; there anything can, in the long run, pass for relevant and just; there anything can, in the long run, pass for moderate and good.
   We should, if we care for those values which return again and again in the several tales of this book as the natural alternatives to supernaturalism, exclusivism and extremism: truth, relevance or inclusiveness and neutrality, equality or moderation. They are the fundamental values of the DNI (the Denomination of Neutral-Inclusivity), a normative doctrine that asserts the primacy of value over authority, godly or otherwise.
   Four years ago the author published the Model of Neutral-Inclusivity in which the DNI was introduced for the first time. Everyone interested in the author's opinions, as distinct from those of the characters in Six Warlocks, is referred to this predominantly philosophical work of nonfiction. Reading and studying the Model (a book almost ten times the size of the present one) will be the more rewarding because, rather than an attack on what is wrong or bad, it is first and foremost a defense of what is right and good.