This is a waltz
Thinking about our bodies
What they mean
For our salvation

Thom Yorke, Suspirium

In an industrial estate near the airport, there was a church — understand when I say church, I mean this in the loosest possible sense, it was only very vaguely organised around whatever precepts a church is supposed to have — which became famous briefly for the effect that it had on people, even skeptics. Maybe especially skeptics: never was there any group of people so inclined to belief, and so disappointed to be shut out of it, I think sometimes.

At some point during the very long and rambling services people would start to just give themselves over to laughter, the kind where you can hardly stand upright and in fact they couldn’t, one by one they would crumple and fold to the floor and stay there, on all fours rocking, or else on their backs laughing helplessly while the sermon droned on above their heads. This was held to be a sign of grace.

I watched a video of it once, and it’s uncanny; if anyone is faking, they’ve fooled themselves too and you know I think this is the best kind of trick, the one you pull on yourself. But it was the faces I looked at, really, and what I saw was what looked to me like relief. For a moment, they lost themselves.

The video doesn’t show what happens after, if like the last people to leave an orgy, they sheepishly collect themselves and do not meet anyone’s eyes as they leave. What is that like to give yourself over so completely, to trust that once you have, you’ll be able to come back? Is this the real faith, the belief that you can always come back?

Just once, I want to know what they know.