Everyone seems to be playing the same game by the same
	rules, thus leading the illusion of universal reality. But it's
	all really only a game people are playing. Things like society's
	laws are only real because people agree they are, but in the
	material world they don't exist; they're made-up, and people made
	them up.
		If laws were real it would be impossible to break them. For
	example, try breaking the law of gravity - real laws take care of
	themselves! The imaginary, agreed-upon laws are real only insofar
	as people agree they are, and accordingly patterntheir behavior
	by them. However, all the agreement in the world can't suppress
	the real nature of life and nature's true laws; nature behaves
	according to how it behaves. It exists beyond all man-made laws.
		The point is: society's laws are a living demonstration of how
	something imaginary can become a reality of life when everyone is
	imagining it all at once. Shared, common beliefs constitute a
	reality in themselves independent of the realities they once
	referred to. That's why in most situations people aren't reacting
	to things of the situation themselves, but their own perconceived
	beliefs about the things or situations. Therefore it's the belief
	that determines a person's reality; whether or not there's any
	basis for the belief doesn't matter. Belief doesn't have to be
	valid in order to shape thought.
		In fact, the chief function of belief is to shape
	thought, and belief is mainly used to disseminate information
	that has no basis in reality. Because if something is real,
	there's no reason to believe in it - it simply exists, and that's
	that. There's no need to believe that you have to eat - you get
	hungry, you eat. Correspondingly, there's no need to believe in
	sleep or sex or breathing. It's only as things become less actual
	that belief is required, and the less actual they are, the more
	belief becomes necessary.
		I see the process of belief as a process of self-deceptoin.
	Basically it's a vehicle by which ideas can gain control over
	people's minds and therefore their lives. Beliefs dictate precise
	parameters of people's conciousness of their behavior and
	perceptoins. A belief paints the world in its own image.

	- Barry Alfonso, from an interview in Re/Search #11 - Pranks