In his review of my book on the Roman Catholic Church system, Leszek Koczanowicz raised a question regarding the sources of success for what he called the “phantasmal bubble” of church Christianity. Encouraging me to undertake this topic in a subsequent work, Koczanowicz wrote then,

In accord with the suggested line of inquiry, Beata Anna Polak and I have undertaken the challenge and are preparing a new treatise. The goal is to address this question about the criteria behind the success of the system of the church as well as similar systems organized around a phantasmic consciousness. The subject matter (as evident) is ponderous—just right for a book. Within the timeframe of a lecture, however, I can only point to the premises of our analysis, supplementing those with a few illustrative examples. This text, therefore, will merely serve as a sketch with a few roughhewn details.

In the work reviewed by Koczanowicz I had used Bertolt Brecht's Stories of Mr. Keuner as both an ironic and astute commentary accompanying my investigation. In our forthcoming volume, we have also decided to employ a Brechtian annotation. Breaking down the sources of this ecclesiastical system's success, we refer to “Mr. Keuner and his niece's drawing”: “Mr. Keuner looked at the drawing his little niece had made. It depicted a hen flying over a farmyard. ‘Tell me, why does your hen have three legs?’ asked Mr. Keuner. ‘Hens can't fly, of course,’ said the little artist, ‘and so I needed a third leg to give it a lift.’ ‘I’m glad I asked,’ said Mr. Keuner.”