I read in Fortean Times (“so it must be true”) that a few years back a group of those Philippine Christian worshippers who have themselves nailed to crosses at Easter time were pleased, at first, to see that they’d been joined by a young Japanese man.

Crucifixion season in the Phillippines. As painful as Civil War re-enactments?

He, like them, was dressed in a loincloth, and he had real nine-inch  nails driven through his hands and feet to keep him up there. So they thought he was a Japanese Christian, and he, like them, was there to share an experience with the late Jesus, and thereby acquire some of his holiness.

They wondered a bit, though, about the make-up and the film crew. And they weren’t pleased at all when they discovered that he was a Japanese bondage film star, and he was shooting a porno.

Every action that they took, he took too. The only difference between them was the narrative inside their heads about the meaning of they were doing.

It’s a parable.