I. T(o)R(ah) round 2: Attorney or Trickster ? The art of tour and trial

You make my head spin You are my very own merry-go-round I'm always at the fair When you hold me in your arms I could travel around the world It wouldn't spin as much The Earth isn't round enough To make me as dizzy as you do (Edith Piaf – Mon manège à moi)

Hold on ... Oh, we're rolling! Hi folks ! « Salut la compagnie ! »

I'm sorry, but when I hear « la môme Piaf » and her spinning merry-go-round, I feel like Marcel Cerdan in the '30s; the boxer who was the star of Casablanca - my father's hometown.

What do you mean, I'm turning your head with my merry-go-round ? You haven't yet figured out who I am ? I'm the « aTToRNey ». Does that word ring a bell ? As it TuRNs out, « attorney » comes from the Old French « aTTouRNer » : a lawyer is the person you TuRN to when you're called to « TRial ».

Which trial, you ask? You know very well which one: the trial where I stand against the linguists, anthropologists and more generally the academic world, these modern day PhaRiSees, I call them « Pharisians » (à la « French », or, à la « Parisienne »), the guardians of the temple, who criticize me for making taboo connections between Greek, Hebrew and Latin. Yes - I already had a number of corporate executives against me, and now here I am, facing the Pharisians of linguistics and anthropology.

It doesn't bother me that much, though. I think it's the fate those who defend lost causes; it's the fate of the « Paraklet ». Sorry ? « Paraklet », the Greek word for lawyer, doesn't ring a bell either? We need to school you all over again. Alright, take out your Gospel of John.

Chapter 14, verses 16 and 17, Christ thus talks to his disciples :

« And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraklet, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. »

Then in verses 25-26:

« These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Paraklet, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. »

Then chapter 15, verse 26:

« But when the Paraklet comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. »

Lastly, in chapter 16, verses 7-8:

« Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Paraklet will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convince the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. »

The path of justice, Asha Arta in Zarathustra’s work: do those of you who watched my previous video remember? But let’s conclude with verse 14:

« He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. »

Of course, I know that the Church translated Paraklet as Holy Spirit. But if you really want to understand the Gospels, you must read them literally. And Paraklet in Greek is the one who helps, the Attorney. The Attorney Christ didn't get at his trial. Yes, you know, that famous trial 2000 years ago, when none among the common people, the elites or even his fans were able to - or even knew how to - defend him.

Christ - who was a « superlinguist » - was beyond understanding for the people listening to him, who were simply unable to grasp his intuitions about the similarities he had perceived between Greek, Latin, Hebrew and perhaps even ancient Egyptian, similarities which highlighted the common origin of humankind - just as I am today.

What? You think I'm too mystical? But I've already told you, you are the mystics. I'm not. I'm simply a researcher who discovers things, and an entrepreneur who must put on a circus show to try and convince the merry-go-rounders – I mean the managers (as in the French « manège », merry-go-round) of the big French corporations - of the importance of openness and cooperation.

It so happens that my anthropological and linguistic discovery has turned our understanding of the Gospels on its head. Ironically, it turns out a Jew ends up explaining to the Church that its founding text has been totally misunderstood for 2000 years. What can I say? There's nothing I can do about it. It's up to each of us to draw their own conclusions.

But since I've been called to stand in the « manège », pardon I mean called to take the stand in the trial, we're going to take a closer look at what a trial is, and more generally at pervasive procedures in business, especially in large corporations, and you'll finally understand what's behind the TowRah - pardon the « Ta Ra » sound.

See you in a minute!

As the enterprise nears completion and we will have produced all our witnesses, presented all our evidence, the case will be ready for trial... Claude Levi-Strauss, From Honey to Ashes

Hello, my name is Emmanuel Ifergan and, since 2014 – it’s been 8 years now – I've been developing a solution designed to facilitate cooperation between businesses. Since 2018, I have spoken, unsuccessfully, to hundreds of leaders of large French companies, explaining that bureaucracy, inertia, and demoralization are directly linked to the centralization of their management processes. And yet, despite all my efforts, not a single large French company has been able to even test this new approach.

What's stopping them? Mostly, the inability of large corporations to open to the outside world. Because opening a company is much trickier than it seems. It's an « interdisciplinary » subject, involving the finance, legal, purchasing and transformation departments, not to mention the operational business units; a task so immense that the CEOs themselves feel utterly helpless.

It is because I was facing such a roadblock that in 2020, as the country was in full lockdown, I chose to address the wider public to explain the huge significance of cooperation and fluidity of inter-company exchanges.

At first, this vulgarization focused on IT, law and management - fields I knew very well as I had practiced them for over 20 years. Gradually, however, my field of investigation broadened to include linguistics and anthropology, without ever losing sight of my primary purpose: to unleash the potential of organizations through cooperation.

Until, one day in autumn 2021, I discovered, in a moment of revelation, that the roots of the wording of contractualization and cooperation sprang from the depths of the history of our species - a discovery you won't hear the last of 😉

Now, let's get to work!