People, we’re all being manipulated. It’s like right out of some horror movie. Our minds are controlled. Our bodies no longer belong to us. We are incapable of acting in our own self interest. We’re like the proverbial lemmings heading for the cliff.
In her article “In Parasite Survival, Ploys To Get Help From A Host,” (NY Times, June 26) Natalie Angier states that parasites are “an evolutionary force to be reckoned with, a source of nearly bottomless cunning and breath taking bio-inventiveness.” A chilling description of an alien foe worthy of stalking the pages of the best science fiction thriller.
Yes, it’s a sad fact. We, us humans, are not the only intelligent creature capable of making strategies and plans. But since the parasite doesn’t live very long, it needs to think and act quickly and effectively. There are numerous examples of a parasite growing in one bug or animal and then directing that being into the jaws of another where the parasite can continue to grow and thrive.
Case in point: One parasitic worm growing in a pill bug needs that bug to be eaten by a bird. A rational pill bug hides away in the day time only to come out at night. But the parasitic worm is working on that pill bug, eating away at its intelligence. Gradually, it begins to manipulate the bug to the point where that worm-infected bug defies all natural pill bug instincts and reasoning, and comes out in the day time to be devoured by a bird. Hint: parasitic worm equals lust.
“The senses, the mind and the intelligence are the sitting places of this lust, which veils the real knowledge of the living entity and bewilders him.” Bhagavad Gita 3:40
