Perhaps this is irrelevant to the task at hand, but as I was reading the Frank essay today, I thought of the John Updike poem below. I wouldn't have shared it except for the fact that I have just learned that at about the moment I thought of the poem, John Updike died. Feel free to ignore:

It all begins with fear of mana.
Next there comes the love of tribe.
Native dances, totems, ani-
Mism and magicians thrive.

Culture grows more complicated.
Spirits, chiefs in funny hats,
And suchlike spooks are sublimated
Into gods and ziggurats

Polyarmed and polyheaded,
Gods proliferate until
Puristic-minded sages edit
Their welter into one sweet Will.

This worshipped One grows so enlightened,
Vast, and high He, in a blur,
Explodes; and men are left as frightened
Of mana as they ever were.

-- AndrewCase - 28 Jan 2009