ANDREW HAMMER: When Howard (Bloom) talks about "ecstatic submission," what I remember about these sorts of experiences in the military (the call and response of cadence is an example), they felt a lot like a fantasy of being gods, being invincible.

This seems emergent from the shared fantasy amongst the chorus, embodied by the leader; to be joined into a single divine body. The chorus desires this deeply, and the leader embodies that it is possible.

Richard: The other side of “ecstatic submission” is the dead and/or mutilated soldier. Don’t fall into the trap of idealizing “group ecstasy.” The corollary of the soldier’s omnipotence is his death and body mutilation: return to non-living matter.

Maybe Howard can incorporate the concept of OMNI-DEATH into his study of OMNOLOGY. World War II as OMNI-DEATH. The atom bomb as the omnipotent power of technology, also OMNI-DEATH. Hiroshima and Nagasaki as OMNI-POTENT DEATH.

The ending of DR. STRANGELOVE tells the entire story: the omnipotence of death; the desire to return to non-living mater (slip of the tongue I meant matter, but mater is even better).

And the way "Dr. Strangelove" salutes Hitler ("Mein Fuehrer, I can walk") at the end of the world, just as the hydrogen bombs are being dropped— “ecstatic submission” and the end of the world and “ecstatic (omnipotent) destruction” are nearly simultaneous events.