Greenshimmer, your mention of the Mayflower creeped me out. I was reading more of Crowley's writings, and found that he wrote a play called "The Ship." The plot's a little hard to figure out, because his followers tend to write in language that's as obscure and flowery as his. But basically, it involves a number of characters, including a virgin and a king. The king is assassinated and his body is dismembered. The commentator who's describing the play talks about a lot of stuff that combines Crowley's philosophy with talk about the play, so it's difficult to tell which is the philosophy and which is the play. But it's clear that this last bit is part of the play: "as the dawn's light . . . prevails," the young king "awakes and is reborn."greenshimmer wrote:Actually, the camp is part of the religion. Daniel went the previous year and said that its purpose was to learn about the religion. The skit was also related to the religion--remember he talked about the Mayflower? He waid it was creepy too.
Apparently in his play, Crowley regarded the "ship" as the body and its cargo as the soul.
In the only production the play has ever had, the death didn't really take place; it was portrayed symbolically. But what if the Order of Denderah has decided to carry out in reality the actions described in the play?
The Mayflower isn't the only mention of a ship in the videos, either. Remember "Proving Longitude Wrong"? That involved ships too. I can't imagine that this is a coincidence.
All of this seems to me to support my theory that Bree will do the sacrificing, rather than be sacrificed. The death of the old king, though, makes me wonder whether it'll be Bree's dad, rather than Daniel, who's the victim.
Anyway, back to your theory. I think your ideas about the diet being a form of purification makes a lot of sense. I don't think she's spent the entire time fasting -- she was allowed milk and cookies one day, after all -- but the idea that fasting is part of the "diet" seems consistent with what we've seen.