W.W.C.B.? -- What Would CAS Be?

If he were an element? -- I('ve) suggest(ed)... Technetium.

If he were a celestial body? -- I suggest... Hyperion.

If he were a nation? -- I suggest... INDIA.

And a good (re-)introduction to the richness, strangeness, beauty and horror of India is William Dalrymple's Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India. Glimpses of gods and goddesses, of the godly, the ungodly and the godless, as Dalrymple engages issues around everything from ritual sucide-by-starvation to theophanic prison-guards to obese Muslim hereticas to sacred epics 'fifteen times longer than the Bible' to skull-polishing astrolatrous anchorites:

Quote:

Here on the boundaries of life and on the cusp of reason, they pray and meditate, daily confronting their fear of death. Caught suddenly by the influence of the goddess, these crazed anchorites roll on the ground in ecstasy, screaming 'Jaya Tara!' ('Victory to the goddess Tara!'). It is here, within the bounds of the cremation ground, on nights with no moon -- the most inauspicious time in the month according to orthodox Hindus -- that they perform their tantric rites. (chapter 8, 'The Lady Twilight')

OK, I hae ma doots that there was QUITE so much psychobabble in the interviewees' responses before Dalrymple translated 'em -- 'access the shakti'? yecchhh! -- but it's a highly enjoyable and highly enlightening read.

Final thought: there isn't one.