Some observations on Master Morality and Slave Morality (In memory of F. Nietzsche) --Dedicated to a wonderful atheist!

I am currently reworking this chapter with the missing characters.

These latter characters (Chapter X still waiting the dawn of my daystar) are said to be “religious,” and we will find them almost shipwrecked by the Hudson River’s banks, Northeast of the Isle of Manhattan, and the Phoenix Bird is quite moved to let out a few tears when coming across a renown evangelist, Harold Camping.

Please wait for the warmhearted winds of June, such meaningful a month for those who regard themselves as wayfarers, pilgrims, sojourners.

But if impatience has already ruffled your feathers, then, you can already scroll down to see the development of this mad story in process…still wanting of more felicitous yeas and nays.

We are being ferried around the isle of Manhattan, and we are soon to approach other wonderful characters: Chapter X.

It is, nonetheless, heartbreaking to see these former Christians, Protestant and Catholics, shipwrecked by the Hudson River’s upper northeast side.

It is apparent the impatience of the Prince-Philosopher when being lectured about religious beliefs, but the promised of a barbarian beauty (a wild lady) in the woods of Transylvania, Princess Shanti, could still swell his heart with an incompressible “butterflying-verve” for the beauty of life.

“Life is still a marvelous journey.”

All the same, we are not sure whether his worldview on religion, or metaphysics, has been affected by these fleeting figments and spirits (ghosts, phantasmagoria, delusions, web of dreams) roaming and roving, back and forth, the Isle of Manhattan.

Meanwhile, allow your mind’s pinions free rein, leeway, into the mad odyssey of these three sojourners: a frisky squirrel, a wondrous bird and a philosopher.

Awh! The cool chilly winds of the Eastside of Manhattan (Jennifer Gems and Natasha Blavatsky’s amazing stories) could grant me pinions and strength (puissance) to continue writing, and writing, till that glorious sunset, ‘illumination,’ is finally revealed in the holy communion —the most meaningful nexus in the entire universe— of light and waters by the Hudson River.

According to Jennifer Gem, a disciple of mysteries would seek to comprehend this holy conjunction of the elements, water and light, and let their ‘love-making transcendence’ impress your mind in the meaning of life.

If you can crack open the love-making operations (e.g., morning-veils and the evening misty gauzes of Mother Nature) then, you are indeed an enlightened human being!

At this point, you have finally transcended the seeming dichotomies and paradoxes of existence in the transcendent flight of that blessed Phoenix Bird!

Beyond religion, beyond philosophy, beyond arguments, beyond belief or unbelief, you have tasted the Kingdom of God within you!

Affectionately,
Eddie Beato

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Phoenix Bird vs the Philosopher-Prince and Squirrel Parsifal Concerning Panpsychism and Christianity

Phoenix Bird: (glowing confident) I have further added additional drafts to my conversations on religion, and I am infinitely indebted to those dear ladies, Jennifer Gem (the seagull of metaphysics) and Natasha Blavatsky (the Celtic woman), whose souls we left behind in my journey around Manhattan (Upper East Side), but their profound teachings on psychic energies, as indistinguishable from kinetic energies, have become my most powerful weapon against the grizzly bear (Nihilo) of my dread in Post-America: rampant atheism.

Nothing new under the sun, but herein you may cherish my reasons for cultivating religious feelings. I finished these conversations with some additional lines on my slow conversion to Catholicism, which, on closer inspection, some of its practices and rituals, may smack of the Hellenic people’s zeitgeist.

Long live such archetypes sculpted in the collective psyche of my people.

What great a satisfaction to say I have not betrayed my personal convictions, and if psychic energies, ‘the fireworks and sparks of the spirit,’ could be compared to the building blocks of our inner house, then I have to say that I am now reaping the best harvest and gleanings of a spiritual life.

True! Shanti has become a repository of my desultory writings, some dating back to my mid thirties.

Now in my 50th-Seaport, as I approach my sunset of completeness, I have decided to cull my writings introspectively and retrospectively of the subtle psychological changes that could have molded my worldview, ‘then and now,’ the underlying thread of my meditations and reflections, nevertheless, have little changed the latter from the former.

As guided by the insights of my inner scribe, I am presciently aware of my writings scarcely deserving the merit of ‘congruous, coherent or consistent,’ nonetheless, should be appraised as a slow grueling, painstaking self-exertion to a ‘systematic comprehensive framework’ to my personal religious beliefs.

My main thesis is why we cannot tackle the complex conundrums of human existence through the one-side path (the one-eyed Cyclops in the Odyssey of Homer) of rationality or materialism.

The nitty gritty is the phenomenon of psyche as the wonder of the world…which is to say that God is pleased to being worshipped by those whose collective mind is but a projection of His existence.

This assertion may seem blasphemous to some religious people, because God, as being uncreated, eternal and self-sufficient (aseity) does not need the believer or worshiper anymore than subject-and-object-co-dependency would need each other for a firmer hold or footing in the threshold of reality.

The atheist would not believe in the existence of God, Bravo! but no one would deny the reality of kinetic energies (e.g., thoughts, feelings and web of dreams) constantly surging from our brain’s deepest trenches, but also from our heartbeats, bosom and pit of the stomach; however small bits of psychic energies, could find their periodic manifestation as a projection of ourselves (e.g., forebodings, hunches, ‘Déjà vu,’ premonitions, gut-feelings, and so on) in the grand canvas of existence.

We may deem such a subject-object’s co-dependency as ‘the phantasmagoria of life,’ and this may explain why folks who are fond of ghosts are said to be recipient of a far-greater reality, ‘a wonder-world,’ teeming with mysteries and illusive denizens, ‘figments of our mind,’ scurrying back and forth into the uncharted territories of human existence’s profoundest echo-chambers.

Some truths could be deeply felt as touching deep into the very nature of being, ontology, as a reservoir of both positive and negative feelings.

For when all said, we are but cathexis of living thoughts and emotions roaming, to and fro, in the non-spatial realms of our consciousness.

It is the wisdom of ages, that if we are to conquer ourselves, we must, day and night, enter into a rigorous self-examination of our interior’s deepest reaches, and therein, come to grips with your thoughts, cathexis of energies, as perhaps the greatest awakening to the illusion of life.

Once there, become a master of yourself, and command your mind to obeying you, because, although you are mind, it seems as though we are constantly being assaulted by an army of treacherous invaders, ‘fears and angsts, and concerns,’ unflaggingly robbing us of the peace of Christ.

​It is very probable that such energies (love or hatred) could color our worldview, and it some cases, the reality of demons could be traceable to the lower manifestations of such psychic phenomena.

The same could be said of a holy person, a saint, whose mind is set on heavenly things, may eventually become recipient to a host of blessings and gifts from the generous storehouse of the Almighty!

From such vortex of sentient energies one is daily tasked to elevating our basest, essentially uncouth human nature to the higher spheres of love, contemplation, charity, purity and the eternal joys of the gods.

​Such joys and revelations are indeed the best harvest of Christianity.

Such lucky a believer could little be persuaded, either through arguments or philosophic inquiries, to swap the spacious skies of inner illumination for the dry and barren lands of the children of rationality.

It is to me rather surprising that some former hardcore Christians could become atheistic, and it may lend credence to the heretical gnostics when speaking of the Kingdom of God as an internal revelation of one’s divinity and heritage with the gods:

John 10:34, Jesus quotes Psalm 82:6 to his accusers, saying, ‘Have you not heard the law says, I said you are gods.’

Herein I would like to touch upon the homeless child of perdition, (the Antichrist) today a serial killer, murdered his mother (Mary Barnes Chapter VI), and is now hellbent on scissoring the umbilical cord from the sacred womb of that holy woman…that exalted conception in the beauty of creation.

What child is this?

Herein, my dear reader, you may relish my high regards and respects for religious beliefs and why, thanks to Jennifer Gem, I now admire the ancient Greeks.

The Persians could not conquer the heroic and indomitable spirit of the Hellenic people, but the former were conquered by a bunch of nomadic denizens drawing a line between the forces of good and evil!

Islam can win proselytes very quickly because it is fired with a self-inflation of ‘we versus them’ as a very powerful psychological weapon to waging wars at any front or level.

The same could be said of any religion, but overtime, the adhesive glue of people, race or religion, is weakened by an unhealthy dissolution into the witless perorations of philosophers.

A strong nation such as the rise of China, could be traced to the adhesive glue of nationalism, but it is in the spirit of their ancestry, soil and volk, such resilient a people may seem to be destined to become the masters of those homeless children dissolved in the tides of history.

The Europe of F. Nietzsche is dying, and the hollow coffin of nihilism (especially where Protestants and Reformers sought to comprehend the Word of God as totally in harmony with critical thinking and science) has only spawned a generation of staunch atheists.

God is dead!

The results have been devastating…rampant atheism!

A week ago, I came across a wonderful YouTuber, Ms. M, (a.k.a., daughter of Lilith) who was a former evangelical Christian, today has taken into the social media to attacking ‘Christian Zionism.’

To a certain extent, I may agree with her, but I think atheists like her are simply creating a vacuum in the American society for the proliferation of Islamic zealots.

The same is going on in Europe.

The problem with atheists is that they are psychologically homeless. In other words, they have neither soil nor volk, and so this new queer breed of atheists are worse than Frederick Nietzsche.

In just a few weeks, Ms. M (a.k.a., daughter of Lilith) has garnered a substantial number of subscribers, especially people from the Middle East, even as far as Africa, and I guess there are folks (neo-abc) out there boiling with antisemitic feelings. Like F. Nietzsche who sought notoriety by attacking Christianity (The Antichrist) atheists have little bearings with the founding fathers of our Western society.

Would you rather support a people historically hostile to anything Western?

No doubts, Ms. M (Lilith’s daughter) is an intellectual prodigy. She is a ridiculously intelligent woman, and I wish she could touch upon the greatness of some pagan people, especially the Ancient Greeks!

If you identify yourself as a Greek Pagan, I have to congratulate you!”

Philosopher-Prince: “My dear friend, long has been your dissertation on religion, and some may find it a ‘tour de force’ to listen to your long-winded sermons for hours on end, but with some jocularity and glee, I can still ply my mind for the cracking of religious beliefs, and why we need religion to keeping the cattle of humanity’s revolting inequalities with some hope for the future.

I grew up Catholic, during my youth, dabbled with some evangelical Christian exegesis, but upon coming across F. Nietzsche’s writings about the Ancient Greeks, I simply became a pagan Greek in my heart!

But it was when I read Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann about the greatness of the Ancient Greeks that my life took a 180-degree turn forever!
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So much to unpack with it comes to the multifarious syncretism of religious heritage…because to every one there is given a ‘spiritual landscape.’

Whether religious beliefs are simply delusional bubbles, anymore than hallucinogens, or the power of music (or numinous experiences) you cannot crack open the profoundest depths of the human psyche without the agency of the ‘transcendental.’

Ms. M (Lilith’s beloved daughter, a radical feminist) refers to the Judea-Christian religion as essentially Patriarchal and ‘Abrahamic’ but I wish she could delve deeper into the undeniable influence of the Ancient Greeks and goddesses, especially Athena, the ‘cult of womanhood,’ the mystification of such vital feminine aspect of our psyches, later worshiped as Maria, Mother of God!
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As much as the Protestants reprimand the Catholics for adopting such pagan practices, one cannot deny a sublime form of worship and exaltation in the mystification of woman, “Mary,” whose loving hands could nurse the child of humanity in her motherly bosom.

Interesting, it is to be observed that the Cult of Mary is a high-flown deification of goddess Isis or Athena, whose mystification is but a reconciliation with the creative forces of Mother Nature, nay, from a human perspective, it is a vindication with the sacred chalice of life, the Womb of Creation: motherhood.”

Phoenix Bird: “My beloved friend, to kill this sublime concept, ‘Maria’ (however platonic, beautiful, and divine) may bring about a sick society bereft of the nursing hands of Mother Nature. Its healing powers cannot be overstated!”

Philosopher-Prince: “Psychologically homeless, we are believed to be committing suicide in masses:

The results could be frightening, because a sensitive rift between mother and child could bring about the abortive phenomenon of the serial killer, whose hellbent vengeance against the fundamentals of life, may send shivers down our spine.”

Phoenix Bird: “Such devils (misogynists) are running amok in modern society, and this is the main reason why I would rather re-embrace the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri in the uplifting mystification of Beatrice!

Ms. M’s internal fights against a religion she deems harmful ‘insidious’ could be one of coercive authority, well-known distortion of the humble teachings of Christ, for the most part for profitable gains, and of course the inevitable consolidation of church and state.

I would forgo touching upon the relative semantics of ‘power’ as essentially wrong or ‘evil’ because, according to Nietzsche’s moral genealogy, the ‘Will to Power’ is at the very core of creation…’and whatever enhances the feeling of power is good’ to quoting the Master of Morality.”

Squirrel Parsifal: (making a serious face) “Pay heeds my dear fellows, it may be insane to say that if you don’t have your horns and fangs, and even your sharp claws to defending yourself against the reality of the grizzly bear, then you are more liable to being destroyed by other predators.

That the nomadic predators of yore may use the power of religion to subduing the strong is one of the most effective and efficacious ways to controlling the masses (the Roman Empire appropriated Christianity, and may have tweaked it as an excellent dose-religion of resignation and obedience for the masses.)

At the very top, the masters are creators of values, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they resort to violent means to enacting their laws, and this is the reason why the ‘state machine,’ in the last analysis, may be instrumental in keeping the seeming, relative peace, orderliness and civility of ‘civilized society,’ especially of private property, from the encroachments of any dangerous denizens or insurrection.”

Philosopher-Prince: “Christianity, the invention of masters, is remarkably pliable and resourceful to spinning all kinds of schools of thoughts, it is always being twisted, shaped or distorted for political purposes. But essentially, it is a religion of compassion, empathy, ‘misericordia’ and pity.

Later on, British author, Edward Gibbon (Fall and Decline of the Roman Empire) condemns Christianity for weakening the military discipline of the ancient Romans.

In ancient times, hunter gatherers, the strong male, as endowed by Mother Nature, would take the role of the protector, defender and provider, hence the early development of the patriarchal society.

To reverse to ancient times would be counterproductive and counterintuitive…because, women are known to have their basic instincts sharper than those of men in the serious business of survival.

Intuition, clairvoyance, and other baffling psychic faculties, seem to be imbedded in the very nature of womanhood, and this is the main reason why the ancient people (Teutons and Ancient Greeks) consulted the oracles, often a woman, priestess or goddess, when dealing with the incomprehensible unrolling scroll of destiny.

Ms. M (a.k.a., Lilith’s beloved’s child of perdition) proposes to getting rid of Christian Zionism as incurring conflicts with our noblest conception of justice, but who is going to fill-in the vacuum left behind by the ‘rational thinker and atheist,’ in the America of the barren lands?”

Squirrel-Parsifal: “You got it right! The nomadic folks (…) could still win the battle in the complex psychological warfares of the human mind…”

Phoenix Bird: “True, some off-shoots of mainstream Christendom in America, i.e., Protestants, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, Mormons, et al., are losing members, but I am not sure whether their progenies could withstand the rapid proliferation of other nomadic denizens coming from the other side of the globe?

For sure, their Gen-Zs would be overcome by the strong-headed zealots armed with the sword of religious fanaticism.”

Parsifal-Squirrel: “It is the way it is in the battlefield of survival.

Metaphysics can propel people to do the unthinkable, good or bad, the power to creating new values and societies, is beyond human capacity to resolving the complex problems of inequality…(facts of life) as averred by Jesus Christ himself two thousand years ago.”

Philosopher-Prince: “Delving deeper into the infrastructures of any society, the cohesive glue of people (s) is either of ‘soil or of volk’ to quoting Frederick Nietzsche, and is often fueled by the incomprehensible feverish passions of religious convictions.

Nationalism, of course, is a great collective glue, but I think that religion, such Islam or Christianity, could exert tremendous power on the human cattle, precisely because they offer alternatives to an existence full-fraught with revolting inequalities, sufferings and poverty (these are irrefutable facts of life).

Accordingly, to call this world a ‘midway hell’ is not an overstatement, and I am speaking for the countless humans born in this Wheel of Samsara as though predestined to a hell of sufferings.

Hell and suffering, therefore, are not abstract concepts, and as such, one should not extrapolate them to a hereafter, a posterior existence…you only have to pay a visit to a local hospital, sanatorium or war zone.

Now, it is totally fine for a person gifted with a high caliber brain to resist the imposition of religious dogmas as incurring conflicts with rational thinking, but as observed by Aristotles, one cannot deny an element of collective hysteria, frenzied celebration verging on madness, the numinous experience, ‘the transcendental experiences’ in the worship of forces, gods, spirits, et al., as perhaps a projection of our own psychic energies…” (Peruse Psalm 97, the psalmist seems to acknowledge the existence of other gods).

Squirrel-Parsifal: “To kill the gods is perhaps to murder yourself from enjoying a greater spiritual landscape in the phenomena of ‘panpsychism.’

I invite thee to come to the woods, and once there, ponder deep where are the most fascinating thrills and vims of the human heart.

Religious intoxications are at their best by the woods. And herein I must praise the bucolic Christians of yore, the dear children of Aurora, America ‘the beautiful,’ of Henry D. Thoreau.

You may argue against such delusional bubbles as the stuff of benighted primitivism, superstition and ignorance, but my dear friend, even F. Nietzsche admitted that life’s most interesting chapters and pathways are not always blaze-trailed by the power of rationality or ‘civilized society,’ logical thinking or ‘truths’ could become a cul-de-sac, a dead end (peruse Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche).

Bear in mind, at times, there is an odd operation to the human psyche, and the Homeric portals of the fantastic and beautiful could open new possibilities, new worlds and mountains, as yet untrodden by the atheistic mind.

Laugh out loud, at such point, you will realize that rationality, materialism and skepticism, are but one-sided Cyclops in the marvelous phenomenology of the human psyche, it is like taking the magic pill to surrendering yourself to the intoxicating powers of love-making with the vast cosmos.”

Phoenix Bird: “Now, you understand that religious beliefs (such as Christianity) could take millennia to creating a systematic comprehensive approach to the serious, complex problems of existence.”

Philosopher Prince: “But don’t you believe we have the freedom to choosing either Apollo or Dionysus?

If you choose Jesus it is because you may find life on earth to be unworthy, undesirable and full of sufferings. This is the main reason why Christianity may appeal to our feelings. Life can be tough…sometimes it may take a leap of faith to rise up in the morning.”

Squirrel Parsifal: “Now you are young, and good looking, and it seems your atheism could provide you with meaning and strength to inveighing the religious mind for any flightiness into metaphysics. Bravo!

Wait till you get older, and there is to be found a ‘geezer of devotion,’ or a matron of authority, clinging to faith and hope in the last throes of aging and decadence.”

Philosopher Prince: “Dear folks, churches are empty of true intellectuals and theologians. YouTube, one of the gods of the world, has become the new pill (escapade) for the terribly complex metaphysical problems of existence…and those who look too deep into the depths and riddles of this world, may still be transfixed by the incomprehensible and unfathomable cold stare of the Sphinx.”

Phoenix Bird: “Beyond Good and Evil, you may deem yourself a master of your own values, and I wish you good luck when you reach the old age of Faust (Dr. Faust, Part II, by Goethe) when it is time to depart from this crazy world, and perhaps your philosophic indulgences were correct.

You may say: what about if this is the only life?

Perhaps you could just enjoy your orgies and binges with those sinful Satyrs and Bacchuses.

I wish you good luck with that. If you live a virtuous life (as Plato says at the end of his Republic) you may live with the gods thereafter, to wording it in a more mundane way, but what about if there is something beyond the grave?”

Philosopher-Prince: “True, Christianity, like the pyramids of Egypt, can lend itself to all sorts of interpretations, and, wildly imaginative minds, could import all kinds of head-scratching prophecies and daunting rigmaroles, but I think the efforts of millennia, such as the ‘Myth of Christ,’ may have a deeper, indeed, transcendental necessity to the obvious absurdity of life (replete with struggles for survival)…as it pertains to human beings endowed with intelligence, consciousness and cognition.

Your arguments have won my regards for religious people: If God doesn’t exist, then, it is more difficult to tame the cattle of humanity, and only the most daring would be willing to set themselves free from the ‘slave morality of the herd,’ to quoting F. Nietzsche.

Dear bird of love, continue warbling your melodious songs of ‘compassion, empathy and pity,’ but Master Morality is beyond good and evil and it may use cruel means to achieving its ends.”

Squirrel Parsifal: “True! A religion without a sword is doomed to disappear, and masters are known to using ‘organized religion’ as one of the most effective methods of control.”

Phoenix Bird: “But pay heeds my dear friends here gathered in this most serious of discussions, we all need masters to lead us through the complex problems of existence, and if they have resorted to the ingenious fabrication of myths, metaphors and allegories, to help us make headways through the revolting absurdities of life, for when all said about inequalities, one is bound to admit a chasmic difference is wedged deep in the human heart, then I would not object to teaching a beloved child a more plausible explanation to the question of ‘suffering and evil.’

How can you understand the profoundest mysteries of evil without admitting an element of the super-natural?

At any event, accepting the existence of a Devil, it is not an altogether laughable, ridiculously ‘superstitious subterfuge’ to denying the darkest, indeed, most apprehensive and reprehensible facts about human nature —-could be weak to the core.

Nietzsche was duped by the devil himself: a dichotomy between the forces of good and evil may be beyond the agency of human consciousness and conscience (?).

That foul feelings, monstrous things, could take into physical forms over the long stretches of time are clearly evident in the horns and warts of the Old Serpent: Satan.

By contrast, there are beautiful creatures (e.g., the turtle-dove, the sea-otter, the nightingale, the squirrel, the weasel, the ermine, to name a few) hinting at higher realms of peace, goodness and spiritual evolution.”

Philosopher-Prince: “A turtle-dove, such lovely a bird reminds me of that sweet lady, Shanti.”

Phoenix Bird: “At any rate, it may be possible that a society with little respect for ‘the sacred and divine’ could ultimately collapse into anarchy, chaos and destruction.

You may disagree on this notion: that the mystification of woman (Maria, Athena, and other goddesses) could instill greater love and respect for the concept of womanhood?”

Prince-Philosopher: “I would not disagree with you on that, but it is very hard to find your ‘heavenly maid’ unspoiled in the pubs of New York City.”

Phoenix Bird: “You murder the sacred, platonic idea, and such society may suffer the frightening reality of serial killers hellbent on destroying the sacred chalice of procreation (get it right because it is the vaginal organ of reproduction).

The problems of good and evil cannot simply be explained from a purely biological perspective. As conscious beings, perhaps with some pangs or qualms of conscience, it behooves us to pay heed to the profound teachings of the old masters.

But, what if you were wrong, and the Devil’s sophistry and persuasion, the Old Serpent, led you into the uncharted, unfettered, untrodden paths of human deception, delusion and well-known fallacies.”

Squirrel-Parsifal: “My comrades, as I have said, time and time again, there is nothing meaningful on this old planet Earth other than to reproduce and propagate like the ‘odious vermin’ of the Gulliver’s Travels (Jonathan Swift.)”

What is the intrinsic worth of the human species?

Phoenix Bird: “After reading the Antichrist by Nietzsche, he almost turned me into an atheist, but I had to be careful lest his philosophy lured me headlong into the uncharted realms of the human psyche... .”

Prince Philosopher: “In the beginning, Christianity (the religion of mercy) first and foremost, appealed to the disinherited, the botched, and the outcast (to quoting Nietzsche), but overtime, Christianity, like a pandemic, has spread all over the world.”

Squirrel Parsifal: (scratching his head): “My dear friend philosopher, it seems your apparent atheism may be an unconscious revolt against a former self, ‘a world of plurality,’ still grappling with the question of social justice as incurring conflicts with religious authority.

Congratulations, you are a gifted thinker, just be careful, lest the devil hold you by the horns, headlong into the pit of hell.”

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Additional Remarks On Religion:

(The conversations then took on the healing powers of literature, art, music and Mother Nature, and how the lowest passions are curbed by the flight of psyche into the higher realms of thoughts).

Philosopher-Prince: “ I am currently preparing for the warmhearted winds of June, but I have to confess my delight in the sudden ‘arrival of chilly winds’ in New York!

If truth were told, I love the winter with a propitious coup of coffee and books…

For some of my readers, this is the kernel of this chapter!

A book that has always won the highest praises by both the historian and the literati, the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, speaks at great length about the early developments of Christianity. This treasured book will occupy my fairest hours for the foreseeable future.

As I approach the Northeast Seaport, I am beginning to notice the subtle changes, both physical and psychological, already molding my decade-old views in the hurly burly bustles and stirs of my spiritual journey.

Books, I mus confess, have become a necessary medicine for the ills and vexation of ennui and angst, which as we age, seem to make us the more prone for melancholy, frustration and peevishness.

At any rate, I am less patient to bearing the common follies, squabbles and disappointments in my dealing with people scarcely worthy of my time. Solitude is now my reward.

Where is that woman of my inspiration?

Being unsociable should not make me the more unwilling to being polite, cordial and generous, but any friction with society could affect my inner peace (Shanti).

Nay, I have of late made greater efforts to rising earlier at 5:30 am, ‘the sacred hour of enlightenment,’ and with a grateful heart, share a good-morning coup of gladness with kindred souls.

An early warmhearted cup of coffee, the elixir of a long life, could grant my day with some felicitous hours of unremitting productivity.

And like Johann Sebastian Bach, notorious for his addiction to coffee, I have not, as yet, renounced this ‘magic drink’ to propelling my faculties, at full gears, into the higher realms of lightning bolts and thundering creativeness!

Music and literature have always tamed the vulgar and crass within me; art has always relieved me of any unnecessary load of qualms stemming from a keen conscience with any past moral missteps or blunder.

​But it is in classical literature, the older the better, where I have always found the most agreeable, undisturbed, blissful hours in the contemplation of time decked out by the master works of genius.

Edward Gibbon's literary works, so I would dare say, are rather sedative doses of wellbeing, better than the other indulgences of a youth fired by wanton passions, whose footnotes never fail to grant me a wondrous, indeed pleasant insight into the meaning of life.

Religion, never won my fairest hours under the heaven of music or art, and I always had to rise beyond the cloudy skies of fanaticism —the well-known conflicts stemming from human nature, which, at my age, should convince me that the Path of Light is a most personal journey (Peruse the Gospel of St. John).

Few would admit that their religious feelings, however once sparking with joys, mysteries epiphanies and reverence for things divine and beautiful, have nowadays suffered a desecration in the bloody Altar of Moloch: social media and the crisis of pseudo-Christianity.

If you are still trying to amend the fractures and cracks, I wish you good luck!

Late it dawned in my mind to see this truth embosomed in the heart of some human beings, for few really enjoy the Glorious Skies of Mount Olympus, and if they cannot enjoy the blissful evenings or mornings with the refreshing waters of literature, art and music, Mother Nature, then there is little hope for those enchained with the fetters of our modern mechanistic civilization.

Our society is a slaughterhouse for the soul, for though we enjoy the comforts and luxuries of civilized society, deep inside, we miss the blissful deities of the elements as the best companions to our existence.

To every one a candle, because wisdom and knowledge, not always dawn in our mind according to religious inclinations, but we would need a divine guidance or afflatus from above, to keep us going in the joy of living.

Indeed, we all depend on a moment of revelation, for like the old sage, saint or seer, the philosopher, we all depend on the grace of a superior power, impetus, puissance, genie, gods, divine inspiration to continuing the difficult path of self-improvement and perfection.

Religious fanatics may think themselves the only possessors of truth, beauty and divinity.

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The Philosopher’s Background with the Ancient Greeks, On Fate and the Myth of La Llorona…(the Wailing Lady)

Prince Philosopher: “From the outset, as much as I am quick to seeking friends along the path of peace and prosperity, and could not always hold in high esteem a sordid fanatic bereft of any conscience or respect for the sacredness of life, I am, nevertheless, mindful, that life, and by extension human society, in itself, would have little value unless it is aimed at the highest strivings and ennoblement of our mind.

My main task is to differentiate between a sordid fanatic and a zealot, ‘a holy knight,’ wholeheartedly committed to elevating the concept of the human type, which is to say the cultivation of the mind with the teachings of the old masters.

Speaking of religion is always a sensitive topic, incendiary and divisive, but I must admit that the existential vacuum created by the nihilist has left us all orphans and stranded in the perilous times of technocracy, whose subversive powers, ‘forgetfulness and death,’ are no less pernicious than the sour waters of the baneful River Lethe in the Odyssey of Homer.

I may argue that the moral lessons of any religious system are always bound-up with the ever-present challenges of survival.

Therefore, the collapse of empires, however recurrent, are often accompanied by the destruction of the most sacred symbols and cherished feelings. The glorious temple is soon desecrated, and the town is razed to the ground.

On the heels of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, even though I am an unapologetic atheist, I have, however tentatively, put forward my reasons for the cultivation of religious sentiments at a time of rampant nihilism, and aided by the observations of George Santayana and Spanish writer Miguel Unamuno, I have also praised those ancient institutions, which, like sentinels of time, could withstand the recurrent enemies of light, beauty and orderliness.

These great thinkers understood the deepest truths veiled in the form of metaphysics or religious beliefs, which, in earnest, is but the preservation of existence, the survival of a people, that is to say, when the bars and hinges of reason have finally snapped under the onslaught of nihilism, terrorism and sufferings, metaphysical ideas could furnish our existence with some consolations, a hereafter, a possible worthier existence, even if this latter is but a fantasy, a dream, a myth,

I would not still bargain it for the revolting meaninglessness and absurdity of this short existence.

Indeed, more than nationalism, a healthy dose of ‘metaphysics’ may seem to hold people together, strong, defiant and resolute, in a world ever spinning with unpredictable circumstances, vicissitudes and absurdities.

No one would argue the multifaceted face of that universal principle, that binding spirit, so veiled in the performance of one thousand rites, monotheism, polytheism, ritualism and so on and so forth.

What these postmodern thinkers have failed to comprehend, and finally unravel, is their inability to unsnarling the invisible knot that ties all these religious systems together.

Worse, unlike Nietzsche, who at least had a ‘relativistic perspective of good and evil,’ this generation of thinkers, would even take a stand against any god on the basis of their own morals standard —their free-for-all relativistic philosophies— which have finally crippled our children's masculinity and bravery, to facing the dread of terrorist groups the likes of ISIS, and other dreadful armies of zealous fighters, real enemies to our existence, crusaders in our midst, whose convictions are fueled by the sulfuric stuff of religious faith and fanaticism.

In many instances, their zealous fighters, like the ancient Teutons, are nourished on metaphysical ideas which could defy our comprehension, could even break down our mental fortitude and military stamina.

This may explain why some of our young men and women are no match for the irrational conviction of some indomitable fighters.

Their kind, nonetheless, ‘the fanatic,’ proliferate like nits in a cobweb, or nest of one thousand dangerous spiders and scorpions scouting out of these dangerous caves in the precarious issues of existence. Meanwhile, the European people are too intelligent to believing in the antiquated ideas of Zarathustra.

Even Arthur Schopenhauer who was an atheist, has not approached the interpretation of any religious faith in the ‘empty husk of the dead letter.’

Their philosophical arguments, stated in a nutshell, is simply the emasculation of our youths in the serious business of war, heroism and survival.

These post-modern, avant-garde minds, ‘the new enlightened ones,’ are not only destroying the Roman Catholic Church, their infectious ideas could potentially disintegrate every other binding element in the collective consciousness of a people: Western Civilization.

Their toxic ideas, always detrimental to the healthy glue of survival with the aid of metaphysics and religion on the brink of non-existence, are aimed at nothing less, but on the total shattering of our society's most intrinsic fabric, our distinct characteristics and peculiarities, as preserved in the incomprehensible adhesive power of traditions, rites, art, music, custom and religious expression.

And herein lies the power of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycles, for he well understood, as also observed by Arthur Schopenhauer, and admirably elucidated by the devastating insights of Carl Jung, that some of the most ancient religious institutions are simply the historic embodiment of a people's idiosyncrasy.

However veiled in myths, legends and sagas, they are rooted, not on the high office of reason and enlightenment, but on the Supremacy of a Universal Will as the ultimate authority underlying every biological patterns in all the phenomena of Mother Nature, including Human Society.

The Altar of Our Faith, from this perspective, the will-to-exist, is the metaphysical stuff of spiritual stamina on the serious struggle of existence.

People who lack any conviction, any heroism, any faith, whatsoever, are soon siding with this or that party of our opposition: the serious dichotomy between the forces of good and evil.

Like Judas Iscariot, they are unreliable, disloyal and, in many instances, they could even become our worst mortal foes. While claiming kinship with humanity, they are soon forgetful of the bloody sacrifices of our ancestors.

Therefore, if we are to understand a people, in general, we ought to examine their most ancient institutions. This is common sense, for of all the ancient people, only those who have been able to preserve themselves in religious or artistic expressions have survived the wrath of time and the onslaught of nihilism.

Herein, I am bound to admit remarkable preservative powers in the Hebraic Religions, for the Semitic people, after thousands of years, have not changed a whit in their incomprensible mentality, their stubborn adherence to the "infalible religion" of their forefathers.

As we make use of condoms, forgive my avant-garde-diction, and other preservative devices against the widespread transmission of dangerous venereal deseases, so would these religious folks resort to the preservation of their heritage, their conservation against the “impurity of the heathens.”

Of course, sexually transmitted deseases, like some pervasive ideologies, could potentially wipe out entire communities and nations, as those hapless precolonial aboriginal people in America.

The Hebraic people, on the other hand, as to-day, would rather adhere to a strict, punctilious observance of their most sacred institutions, customs and religious literature.

Some do have as their greater metaphysical adhesiveness, a corpus of laws for ‘cleanliness and survival,’ their infallible Talmud (Torah) the Pentateuch, and the Holy Koran, which could ensure the continuance of their kin from extinction as a people in the embodiment of their collective psyche.

These ancient religious literatures, which, by the way, could not be subjected to a most rigorous exegesis in the light of reason and faith, have, nevertheless, worked as ‘metaphysical preservative condoms’ for these ancient Semitic people who have somehow been able to outlive the Ancient Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the mighty Persians, the Ancient Latin People of Virgil's Aeneid, and other strong people already lost in the prodigious genetic pool of humanities.

But most importantly, such old institutions, as those venerable teachings (Confucianism) in the preservation of the Chinese people, or the wonderful cultures of other asiatic people, are not just the ingenious works of one remarkable man of genius, or the great achievements of an enlightened emperor or pharaoh, but these glorious temples are the remarkable accomplishments of thousands of years of hard labor, persecution, wars and travails in the precipitous pitfalls and detours of fate and destiny.

Perhaps these old sentinels, these scattered stones may stand as great pillars to our western values, fundamentals to sustaining our fragile buildings from a total collapse of civilization.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

(At this point, the crew remained quiet, but the errant winds’ unceasing voices brought us closer to the haunting music of the Spirit Ream.

Meanwhile, Ana S. Manson’s soul seems to have been so engrossed in her own thoughts and fears, that she had rather become reticent, unwilling to meddle in philosophic incursions, intellectual conversations beyond her humble education.

All the while, the old lady has been holding the beads of a rosary, and the crew, aware of the heavy load of sorrows, did not expect her to speak her mind in matters of faith and philosophy.)

Parsifal-The Squirrel: “It is very plausible that Wagner, in the creations of his Ring-Cycle, has gleaned these facts on human nature from A. Schopenhauer's insights on religious practices, however subliminal, of esoteric teachings embedded in the interpretation of symbols, iconographies, images, ceremonies and myths (On Religion, Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol 2, Chapter XV), as perhaps revealing universal truths, specifically those of artistic expression, as capable to sustaining a ‘collective consciousness’ in the survival of certain people and their sacred institution: the church.

A. Schopenhauer, ostensibly an atheist, was, in earnest, a devout mystic on the heels of Jacob Boheme, had passionately delved into the venerable teachings of Buddhism, Hinduism, the Upanishad, the Vedas, the Vaga Gita, the Mahabharata, however quaint and infantile to the uninitiated, as capable to expressing general truths, i.e., death, resurrection, eternal recurrence, samsara, karma, dharma, Vishnu, Krishna, and so on, as principles and essences whose intrinsic nature ought to be inferred in their universal context (e.g. the Will itself, as eternal, infinite, immeasurable); or, in the conceptualization of both time and space, we may be able to sculpt the truest, motliest pictures of our consciousness in the plastic forms of our religious sentiments (Plato's ideas), whence our higher strivings could even reach the realm of illumination, revelation, ecstasy.

Images and idols, accordingly, are generally condemned by most Semitic and Protestant people as an abomination to Yahveh, but we all know that in their artistic expressions, zeal, devotion, contemplative raptures, there is a deeper "adhesive element of religious fervor and buoyancy," however an artistic one, in the appreciation of artworks to the comprehension of God's nature, His attributes, His beneficence, particularly in the incomprehensible power of Natural Light to lift us up to a higher spirituality.

American-Spanish philosopher George Santayana, on the same train of thoughts, as he was a true Spanish at heart, and thereby striking kindred with these Wagnerian ideas, “the spirit of a people, had also sought to revive the spirit of our ancestry, the Mediterranean culture, and we all know that he died in Rome while renovating his Spanish passport.

Therefore by venting his spleen against the Catholic Church, the postmodern atheist has simply brought an argument against such presumption: that he-she understands Richard Wagner's music better than those (Nazis) so vilified for their hideous crimes against humanity.

But what greater crime is this to deprive a people of their ‘collective consciousness’ in the survival of their institutions, their history, their lands?

The main reason why Wagner and Nietzsche broke apart was due to this interpretation in the collective consciousness of a people: religion.

Richard Wagner, his music, his life, his legacy, may resonate with the atrocities of Nazi Germany. Accusations of antisemitism may still distort the image of the man and his music.

While Wagner's behemoth could haunt us with things beyond the scope and comprehension of most people, we cannot but wonder on the fate of his people after all these years.”

Philosopher Prince: “Well said. As a Latin man, living in USA as a foreigner, I have learned to unravel the hidden forces that could destroy people beyond the classification of race.

Ironically, F. Nietzsche's attacks on Christianity has simply accelerated the disintegration of his European ideals.

White Christians today are becoming a minority, and countless brilliant atheistic, Jewish professors, have only vociferated the dour philosopher's views on the decadent symptoms once binding the European people: Christianity.

Nietzsche has only cracked open the bedrock of our Western values for the infiltration of nihilistic people, and I don’t know what or whom will fill-in the gaps?

On another important observation: a society may not exist, or at least be able to withstand the most pernicious parasitic elements sucking the strength of a people, without the adhesiveness of some form of metaphysical bindings on the collective forces of psyche.

Finally, I have to say that, unlike most Protestant people, who, in their punctilious Bible studies, have been duped into swift riddance of any images or idols as an abomination to God, I have prudently weighed down my personal zeal, my spiritual iconography, after reading George Santayana's insights on the collective power of our most subtle social instincts, "wordless language," and beautiful artworks in the preservation of my own ancestry and trove-treasured legacy.

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​On the Catholic Religion and Their Traditions

Phoenix Bird: “My slow conversion to Catholicism has been a willy-nilly resignation to the serious problems of existence, namely, a slow albeit gradual surrendering to the insurmountable task of escaping the common lot to every one born in this world of affliction: disease, decay, and finally death.

Best we can hope for is a hereafter free from pains and death, but, unlike the pessimistic views of Arthur Schopenhauer, one should not underestimate the value of suffering as a precondition, a furnace for gold, a purifying process for a more glorious state of being.

Without the consolation of religion, of books, of great authors, of Mother Nature, my life would have transpired unreflectively of the high pleasures that are associated with the conceptualization of time and space, that is to say, the blessings of the philosopher, of the prophet, whose chief delight is a metaphysical approach to the self-evident revolting sufferings —-a conflicting music—- as inseparable from human existence.

But I have to count myself as very lucky to have devoted the best toiling years of my youth in the pursuit of philosophy, art and music, which I pursued with no lesser trials and joys than that romantic bard of yore, day and night, had chased a beautiful woman even through the gates of hell.

Like Dante Alighieri, I had even modeled the Beatrice of my delight according to my mystification of womanhood as an integral part in the sublimation of my religious feelings, and such solace has saved me from falling headlong into the pit of atheism.

Whether in history or philosophy, I have found my Beatrice, not a woman of flesh or bone, but in the realm of the spirits, and I have not discarded the platonic idea as being the stuff of self-delusional stubbornness, self-negation, or a protracted self-denial to have been all too long entertaining unreachable chimeras, tall-tales and high-flown fantasies for the most part incapable of preferring a worthier existence.

Not at all. My life has been the most meaningful but when rising to the heights of the ancient seers, the sage, the philosopher, the prophet, the saint.

Christianity appeals to me as a revaluation of Judaism in the freer spirit of the Stoics, but I shall not dwell in such doctrinal differences so punctuated by a Judea-Christian snootiness when appraising the feverish religious feelings of the heathens, for after two millennia of evangelism, sectarianism and schism may hold us as much faulty of the same idolatry, bigotry and fanaticism.

When all is said, the best harvest of peace and well-being could only be attained through these constant self-willing efforts to suppressing the animal-craving in our human nature.

True! At times I found myself bifurcated between a healthy dose of spiritually and asceticism in the delicate pastures of Jacob Boheme’s mysticism (Confessions), and at other times, when I meditated on Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, I felt a raw delight in that “healthy animal instinct” which binds us all with nature.

Back in the 1990s, there were days when my mind thundered with thoughts of greatness and potencies (Gospel of John, 10:34, Jesus reassures us that “we are gods”) which could compel me to seek the wilderness for home, and there, in a sequestered spot, my spirit was imbued with new strength and fearlessness to coming to grips with a monster roaming the wild.

Thanks goodness a grizzly bear (an atheist) did not eat me whole in the United States of America, but at times, I had to escape the guiles and mischief of that crafty snake of yore.

My biggest mistake was to be lured forward to my doom by the sweet crooning of that turtle-dove, whose sharp biting and twinges made my heart ache for years long. By God’s Grace, I escaped safely, and today I can write of my experiences.

Watch out! Civilized society is replete with dangers, and even in the woods, however splendid and beautiful, one has to be mindful of such horrors lurking behind the forbidden groves and baneful bowers of the Garden of Eden. The garden is said to be filled with the denizens of our dread: asp-snakes and wild critters and phantoms which could make our blood run cold.

Like the ancient Teutonic people, one ought to teach our youth to be alike sensitive and sensible in the comprehension of that most subtle of languages and illusive veils of Mother Nature’s most intimately guarded secrets, but also strong, tenacious and disciplined in that training so necessary in the struggle of survival (Beasts, Men and Gods by Ferdinand Ossendowski, Chapter V, A Dangerous Neighbor).

However willing to renew my strength with youthful cheerfulness and the blessings of health, I am keenly aware that my paradise lost and my paradise regained, e.i., mysticism, music, nature, arts, numinous experiences, etc., is to seek the blissful state of having escaped some of the demons of my youth (so well expressed in the Republic of Plato when speaking of old age).

I must here confess a natural predisposition to seeking the solitary footpaths of the mystic, the visionary, the prophet, the sojourner of distant times and places merging with dreamworlds.”

Philosopher-Prince: “I don’t think I have talent for religion, but I must admit that it is a ‘powerful adhesive binder’ to keeping people together and strong in the serious contest of survival.

I grew up a Catholic, then a Protestant, and finally, upon reading the writings of F. Nietzsche, an ambivalent devotee of the Ancient Greeks of Dionysus, still trying to renounce anything to do with the perorations and philosophic indulgences of Voltaire and Nietzsche.

My struggle all along my solitary footpath with Nietzsche has been trying to denounce such pagan free-spiritedness and deities, believed to be demonic, ‘an abomination,’ according to the Christian religion.

Christendom, perhaps a slave morality, as carefully crafted and laid down in the canon of the New Testament (don’t forget the masters of morality, who, in their exegesis and hermeneutics of the Holy Scriptures) have decided what is inspired, spurious or apocryphal therein.

The main problem with Christianity is the leveling of the noble and virtuous with the average and mediocre, hence, the Christian church, in the last throes of nihilism as observed in their ever-drifting away from the core teachings of the Pauline missives (glossed-over with Platonism), a widespread phenomenon, once decried by the more conservative Catholics (In the Second Vatican) but with the most recent scandals, a new religious crowd is emerging flippantly sneering at the high-flown ideals of the founders of Christianity.

Of course, to every one a spiritual landscape, but this does not justify the din and noise of the new child of Christianity.

The Christian of our times, often seeking the backing of science to justify the ‘Word of God,’ may have struck a pact with Mephistopheles, and now the child of faith has been duped into believing that the climatic latitudes of our times, science, technology and ‘evolution,’ are the highest points ever achieved in the annals of humanity!

Such Christians, deep inside may suspect that their religion is hardly anachronistic, and hence, they are ever always attempting to bringing faith and reason into one footing. But this is a thankless task! Surprisingly, ufologists and new agers, are now winning proselytes all over the world with the chariots of the gods! Cool!

Another hard-to-crack-nut with Christianity, whether denominational or non-denominational, is that while it has sought to bring the Kingdom of God on Earth, the proliferation of sectarianism and schism, coupled with the revolt of the masses, the triumph of the Ghetto-god is now threatening to overthrow the very institutions, treasure-troves, classical literatures, books by the finest authors of antiquity, and the priceless heritage of the Ancient Greeks, are nowadays being trampled and torn to pieces by the ‘new barbarians of our modern times.’ This is the appalling view of Jose Ortega y Gasset in the “Revolt of the Masses.”

Consider for instance ‘Letter to the Philippians’ Chapter 4, verse 8, and see what a chasm between the blissful music of J. S. Bach when compared with the conflicting music (din and noise) of our times. If there was anything noble in the Christian religion, it was often fashioned after the ideas of the Ancient Greeks.
​
Today, such Christians, however totally versed in the ‘Holy Writ,’ cannot be said to have ears and eyes for the sublime heavenly music of the higher spheres of Pythagoras.

A persistent question concerning the historic development of Christianity, a religion of hope, love and ‘misericordia,’ has always been wedded with the political agendas of the Roman Empire, whose ruthless state machine had somehow become enervated or corrupt in the fickle arbitrariness of power and weakness.

Edward Gibbon blames Christianity for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, but I would argue that the appropriation of the ‘religion of mercy,’ once intended as the consolation of the oppressed (I am, of course, in empathy with the widow, the orphan, the destitute and downtrodden) had finally sapped down the sturdy spirit of the Ancient Romans.

Slums and squalid ghettos seem to be the inevitable peripheries of an unjust society, and it is, if we follow on Nietzsche’s train of thought, a tragedy that a religion of pity would eventually weaken the strongest instincts in the serious contest of survival.

Such reflections and meditations could shake us to the core, that even among the finest and loftiest ideas of sin and redemption, through Jesus Christ, the mustard seed of weakness and capitulation, taking roots in the enfeebled minds of the youth and old alike, would finally bring about the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Constantine’s conversion to Christianity was probably another ingenious political propaganda, whose well-known subjects would finally accept the stinging flagellation of existence with resignation and even obedience to the authorities (peruse Letters to the Romans by the Apostle Paul).

Of course, as expected, there will always be some twisting-twitching changes in the reformed Church of God, and now I notice that they are revising some key-scriptures as perhaps incurring conflicts with our christened ideas of love, prowess and enlightenment: sic, ‘we love the sinner but hate the sin.’

But since sin and body and spirit are inseparable from each other, for we are born in sin (Psalm 51) then I have no clue how can we love the sinner without the stains of sin?

The solution is to have him-her washed in the blood of the lamb! Amen!

After all these centuries of Christian evangelization, alleluia! let us measure the greatness and magnificence of the Ancient Greeks of Pericles with the spiritual heights of my contemporary “man of God.”

What a blasphemy to compare the essentially apocalyptic mind of the Christian of the latter days, how botched and destitute of the higher skies in the unsuspected potencies of the soul, how lackadaisical and uninteresting when compared with the sublime, calm welkin of the blessed children of Aurora who built the Glorious Parthenon!

Of course, the greatest harvest of Christianity, either of music or arts, has been but a tentative approximation (a return) to the ethos and zeitgeist of the Ancient Greeks. Of course, with the prowess of science and technology, we are far better-off than the Ancient Greeks, but I am not sure whether our skies are as sublime, beautiful and divine when descried from the cultural lenses of our nihilistic times?

I am not sure. True! Since the fireworks of the Rennaissance to the lower nadir-point of our decadent times (the end of the nineteenth century), that is, if we believe to have any parameter (prototypes) to scale and gauge the highs and lows of millennia, our Western Civilization has only looked back to the past, however nostalgically, to seek some idealized times, a dreamtime when men and gods walked together, shared their fate...and even reveled in the countless challenges of existence.

Nevertheless, how profound are the subtle layers of religion and mythology when trawling the subconscious swamps of peoples and cultures, how misleading the appearances, how deceptive the constant mummeries and falsehoods of religion passing for the glories of the gods!

After two thousand years, the inhabitants of the Caribbean islands, the Hispaniola (shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic) Cuba and Puerto Rico, today believed to have been converted to the Christian religion, are still under the sway of their ancestors, and from such unconscious religious threads, the skein of their destinies is said to be inextricably bound-up with their past!

Amazing! The psychological tapestry of the child of our inquiry tends to extrapolate his-her past into the future!

Santeria and Voodoo, despite the great efforts of the Christian missionaries to converting the collective psyche of the heathenish Caribbeans, the latter have only incorporated those elements, teachings and doctrines suitable and congenial to their peculiar psychological make-up as a people of the soil! Petrichor (the peculiar scents and “mística” of lands and peoples) could well explain the cosy manger and rapport of religious feelings!

Primitive or modern, we are in the same boat! The crisis of our times, may point to a crisis of our little place in a universe ever growing monstrous, more dismal and meaningless without the blessed deities of yore.

Who is Dionysus? Was he a real entity?

When studying such deities, should I consider the epochal niveau of our times, our much technologically-advanced society, i. e., our understanding of medicine and psychology, when assessing the amazing teachings of the ancient gods?

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An Inquiry On La Llorona, the Veiled Lady, Ghostly Apparitions Among Different Cultures and Peoples

Phoenix Bird: “On the heels of Carl Jung's insights into the collective psyche of people, I am here sending a succinct analysis of the legend of La Llorona (the Wailing Lady), as perhaps the sublimation of the female aspect, the Holy Maid, the Mother, as a manifestation of our innermost yearnings and outcries to the meaning of existence: suffering, redemption, guilt, and the mystification of forces, as yet, unexplored in the embryonic development of the Mediterranean people.

Saints and angels are said to appear in the likeness of the beholder, but when I attempt to explain the mysterious apparitions of monsters in the United States, i.e., Sasquatch, Chupacabra, the Skin-walker, et al., and those weirdest ones roaming the mind of certain people, the paranormal encounters are often set in the thickest of fogs and shadows.

More than just representational ideas of our inner fears, premonitions, dread, longings, etc., they may have some form of existence in the phenomena of sentience and consciousness.

That these mental effigies, whether existing subjectively or objectively, could materialize by their own accord, is one of the greatest conundrums in all the phenomena of Mother Nature. The mysterious apparitions of Virgin Mary, for instance, could be explained as the mystification of the nursing mother among the Latino people.

Al pie de los pensamientos del psicoanalista Carlos Jung, aquí envío un sucinto análisis sobre la Llorona. The present article has been written both in Spanish and English

For those with a penchant for ghost-stories, after all these years of philosophical summersaults and sacred indulgences, we are still fumbling and groping for answers in the altar of our personal convictions.

Should I believe in the Purgatory?

Or, should I accept the version of the Protestant when confronting the unknown?

Yes, growing bored of modern society, nothing like ‘the thrill of dread in our heart.’ I invite thee to venture your steps through solitary places, abandoned houses, the wilderness, the cemetery of one thousand souls relegated to oblivion, and once there, ask yourself what is the meaning of life?

When I hear the sighs and whimpering of a forlorn lady strolling late in the night, a bride-to-be swaddled in a white gown, I seem to hear the disheartening outcry of Mother Nature to the question of existence.

Such haunting echoes could pierce my heart with inexplicable feelings of sadness and dread.

Do you know some-one obsessed with bride-to-be gowns or white dresses?

The likelihood is that such person, though unaware of the causes, may have ‘bride-brain symptoms.’ Some people believe that such obsessions, as lingering kinetic energies, could still survive in the hereafter.

Later on, these psychic energies, as though incased in the mind of the person (usually a woman), could somehow appear in the Spirit Realm.

I learned about the ‘bride-brain-symptoms’ through a friend who is a staunch believer of ghostly apparitions as mere lingering psychic energies. In Latin America, we call such bride-to-be ghost ‘la Llorona.’”

Fondest regards,
Eddie Beato