How does a cult figure, in the eyes of some something akin to a messiah, make the transition to a political frontrunner - president even - where disappointment will soon crush what seemed to be a journey to a promised land?
Looking into the faces of a more than 16,000-strong crowd in a basketball stadium in Hartford, Connecticut this week, the Mandela magic I'd seen before was there too. Black and white, and the youth; they appeared in a state close to rapture watching Obama speak. Here and there one could see women crying and the some men wiping away tears too.
I'm surprised nobody was speaking in tongues and rolling in the aisles.
This wasn't a political rally, it was a gathering of Thulsa Doom followers.
I talked about the mindlessness here, where I neglected to mention one of the YouTube commentators credited Obama with giving her the strength to flush her cigarettes down the toilet. Can the laying on of hands be far off?
These are, of course, the first people to bristle and hiss like the snakes they worship at any hint of Judeo-Christian values in the public discourse. If it doesn't issue fatwahs, worship Gaia, or revel in the carnal, it deserves no tolerance...
Obama is not a political phenomenon. He's a mystical one. And that ought to scare the hell out of us.