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    the hidden gateways that led to an unseen heaven and hell.  With

    his influence over an unprovable realm, the Pope claimed the right to

    control the uncontrollable.

    Medieval Christianity made substantial sums by selling its

    illusions.46   But the phantasms pardoners peddled--control and hope--

    were vital to individual survival.  (A study of 2,832 subjects by Robert

    Anda of the Centers for Disease Control showed that adults suffering

    from extreme hopelessness were four times as likely to die of heart

    disease.)47

    In real life, the average serf was nailed to the land as Christ had

    been nailed to the cross.  He was subject to famine and plague.  The

    major decisions that affected his days were made by the lord of the

    manor.  Periodically a serf's cottage was ravaged, his crops destroyed,

    his cattle taken, and his wife was raped by the troops of a neighboring

    noble, a passing foreign military group, a band of brigands, or

    sometimes by the troops of his own king.48  The serf had no hope; he

    had no control.

    But hope and control, as we've seen, are biologically necessary to

    both the immune system and the brain.  The church said this earthly

    life would be but a short period of torment followed by a stretch of

    time that counted infinitely more--an eternal afterlife.  Only one in a

    thousand, said the church, would make it to the golden gates of

    paradise. But that, at least, was hope.   And there were ways to

    guarantee that you would be among those bound for heaven's glory.

    You could show repentance for your sins.  You could purchase

    pardons that brought  you immunity to the results of your evil acts.

    You could share in the body and blood of Christ through the

    communion offered by your local priest on a regular basis for a small

    fee.  You could go on a pilgrimage.  No wonder the citizens of

    Germany found the Pope's excommunication intolerable.  He was

    excluding them from hope, snatching away the only thing which made

    life tolerable.  More to the point, he was depriving them of the fantasy

    of control, a necessary device for tricking the body into survival.

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