Page - 168 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/01

168 | Frank G. Bosman and Archibald L.  H.  M. van Wieringen www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/1, 145–171 and a first-person plural. Both have complications. In the English language it is often difficult to distinguish between the second-person singular and plu- ral, both for “you” and “your”. However, even more, the form “we” is used by the text-immanent author to address both the characters in the text (includ- ing himself as such) and to address the text-immanent reader (who is not a character in the text). This use of the first-person plural is known as an inclu- sive “we”, distinguishable from an exclusive “we” that only indicates the one speaking.19 Therefore, this inclusive “we”, incorporating the text-immanent reader as well, could be called a “text-immanent we”. To give some examples: right at the beginning of the text, in the prologue, the text-immanent author addresses the text-immanent reader – “You will hear …”, “People will tell you …”, “If you want to live, you need …” (all on p. 5), and “You belong in the next world, the new world” (p. 122). The text-im- manent “we” (as different from the character “we”) is found throughout the text whenever the text-immanent author starts to preach to the text-imma- nent reader(s): “We who were once so pure.…”, “We have been created in in His image.…”, “We have enraged God and will pay the price sooner than we think” (all on p. 17), or “Concealed in shelter that we have dug ourselves, we may experience deprivation and scarcity” (p. 122). This “inclusive we” bonds the text-immanent author and text-immanent reader. This direct influence of the text-immanent author, Joseph Seed, on the text-immanent reader accords with the drawing’s direct communication between the character Joseph Seed and the drawing’s text-immanent reader described above. Also, The Book of Joseph has a real reader, but now in two forms. In the first form, the most obvious form, the term denotes a physical reader who reads the physical book page after page. The second form is purely theoretical. We could imagine there are real people who are so attracted to The Book of Joseph that they consider themselves part of the (originally fictional) Project at Eden’s Gate. No reports have surfaced suggesting that “Seedism” is considered to actually exist. However, such a scenario is not impossible, since examples have emerged in recent years of the existence of belief systems with a fictional source.20 Let us now focus on the images used in The Book of Joseph, and especially the last one, depicting the Seeds as friendly monks in harmony with human- kind, flora, and fauna. Again, the real author, the artist, is an anonymous artist, employed by Ubisoft to contribute to a piece of promotional material 19 Lewandowski 1994, Vol. 2, 790. 20 Davidsen 2013.