.....The Last Times, or the apocalypse, can function as an immensely potent symbol, striking some of the deepest chords in the human psyche, eliciting a response on a massive scale. But such symbols, precisely because of the power inherent in them, will often be appropriated by small groups of people, deliberately manipulated, and used to exploit others. What is more, such symbols, all through history, have displayed a disquieting tendency to break free from those who seek to control them and to run amok, becoming what the French writer Michael Tournier calls “diabols”. According to Tournier, a “diabol” is a symbol which has become autonomous, a law or principle unto itself, a Frankensteins Monster on the loose, enslaving -- if not destroying --the very people it was meant to serve. Symbols can be dangerous; and, as Tournier says,he who sins by symbols will often be punished by symbols....

The Messianic Legacy
Michael Baigent
Richard Leigh
Henry Lincoln
1986