ABSTRACT
In the ancient world the priests were also the astronomers and calendar keepers who made it possible for the kings to "predict" when the Nile would overflow, when spring would come, and so on, thereby tricking the people into believing they controlled these life-giving powers or had divine contacts who did. The manipulation of the balance of power among nations has always been one of the most important strategies of statecraft. All rulers of states, except some of those suffering from our virulent myth of modernism, have taken it for granted that each individual will expand his own power until something or someone stops him. The reason the statesmen grasped this strategy so easily was that it is also basic to all of all everyday lives. Dominance, the dependency of some people on others, is one of the primary goals in social interaction.
