On the Virtues of Strength and Mental Fortitude - —In loving memory of Natasha Blavatsky (1952-2014)

Whereas Chapter VII may encapsulate the Odyssey of Homer (Latin spirit) to building character, courage and strength, Chapter VIII may focus on the Faust of Goethe (going Northwards) to unmasking the phantasmagoria of existence: Walpurgisnatch!
​
Natasha is witty, bookish, sardonic and mordant to the core.

A certified nut of the first order, she believes that psychic energies, bad feelings, bad luck, evil-eyed maleficies, et al., could manifest themselves through louses, bedbugs, fleas, vermin, and other hellish critters, which could alarm us on the reality of the lower brushstrokes of the “will-to-exist” of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.

This may explain her obsession with cleanliness, “the asperging and the censing” that is to say, her profound belief in the cleansing powers of holy water, incenses and amulets.

A devout student of the occult, we may say that she is one of a kind, superstitious, atavistic and even a wacko…but I have to confess that she is one of my favorite characters.

According to Natasha, Walpurgisnatch (Night of Witches in Germany) Halloween (for the Celts) is happening right now in New York, and this may explain why things are going topsy turvy.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Chapter VIII:
​
Phoenix Bird: “Dear wayfarer, it is just incredible how the mood of our mind is affected by the immediate influence of the surrounding elements, but it is even more striking when our mind is framed by a beautiful, spacious sky.

The congenial company of Jennifer Gem has turned our mind into the realms of heavenly things, and so we found the strength to enduring some chilly winds by the East Side of Manhattan.

Nevertheless, as you have probably found out, cheerful moments are so short-lived, fleeting bubbles of joy —ever-bursting at the tips of our fingers, and just when we started to feel so special next to such perfect a human being —like dear Jenny Gem, the seagull-lady of our dreamtime would disappear amidst the evanescent mists and fogs.

Wonders of Mother Nature! All of a sudden, Jenny returned to her former shapeliness of a seagull, but of actual human life-size, angel-like human being, magnificent, great, amazing, Nausicaa-like, as though sprung forth from the Odyssey of Homer.

Lo and behold! Where there was flaxen, brown hair falling profusely upon her shoulders, forthwith, there issued forth hackles and golden feathers of most delicate hues, and from her flanks and torso, there emerged two humongous wings, widespread pinions, most fitting for a bird of divine origin.

Then the sweet beauty-lady stood high-winged, as though conveying her high-aspiring strivings, to rising higher and higher, the promised happiness for free birds of such rare a breed, of such felicitous self-cognizance in the marvels of ‘self-willed telema and consciousness.’

And so my dear reader, just a few yards from us, we enjoyed seeing this Wonder-Woman —now transformed to an angel—so as to further convince the Prince-Philosopher on the marvels of the ‘Will in Nature,’ (Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophy) went on to display her aeronautic skills mid air.

Ever flapping her wings away from us, the flying mermaid rose herself aloft, higher and higher into the abode of gods, and we were left flabbergasted at such incredible an event in the history of intelligent awareness!

Though I am a Christian, I must confess Jennifer Gem’s Pantheism became so contagious, in a positive way of course, that we now fancy to have entered the threshold of a fabulous twilight, replete with airy critters, no less fantastic than the Ancient Greek’s amusing bevy of beautiful gods and goddesses.

My goodness! Time and time again, I had to reprimand myself for admitting Jennifer Gem’s worldview, her penchant for simplicity, her love for life’s journeying earthly experiences, despite all the disappointments, as a source of inspiration for me.

When the sea-gull-lady finally disappeared in the haze of distance, I have to confess my dear reader, my soul felt so overwhelmed —alike with joy and exhilaration— that I was compelled to let out a few tears.

If truth were told, I felt sad and encouraged alike, because I realized how behind Jenny I was in perfection, and how much I have neglected myself to rising up to the realm of heavenly things. I sorely regret not having devoted my youth to the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer.

—But wait a minute! Am I out of my wits?

By Heaven’s sake! I now fancy to hear and see beautiful beings and angels as though surging from another world, a Dreamtime, and even the errant winds seem to lull me back to the old New York’s paradisiac places of my youth…and I love it!

Now I seem to love these errands winds, they seem to bring back the lullabies and adorable elves of a former child.

If it is all the delusional stuff of my mind’s fanciest hankerings, then, let me say that Jennifer Gem’s last winged words will always remain with me:

‘The nipping cold could numb the human heart, but a good soul will endure her hour to find the day delightful,’ so we heard a bodiless voice, indistinctly, ‘sotto voce,’ as though imported to our midst by the errants winds, so soothing, we deemed it to be a harbinger of good luck!

Fortunately, as we approached the East Side, the unfolding aspect of this marvelous journey uncovered very impressive views, and lo and behold! we made out the sturdy ghost of a strong soul: Natasha Blavatsky.

Although she is today but a ghost, her life’s sunset seems to have dusked with the golden fruit ‘seventh,’ of her virtuous life.

Today she is enjoying a blissful sunset of peace and glorious music in the recollection of her early memories ((1960s) as a teenager in New York.

A Russian woman at heart, my dear friend has a heart for music and, as though bestowed with the inner stuff of contentment, she has a natural predisposition for the boons of Mother Nature, art, metaphysics, Christian Science and Occultism.

On many a cloudy day, nonetheless, the aging creature, has been seen walking with two menacing hounds by the Hudson River.

In the prime of her youth, Natasha Blavatsky, was a smashing beautiful blond, a bombshell, well designed for sensual pleasures.

A strawberry ballerina, she had a voluptuous body with well-proportioned limbs, like a Spaniard guitar, ending in a buxom buttock of most remarkable firmness.

Above these curves of indulgent shapeliness, there lay unbending, unyielding, the ideal platonic forms as held together by a stately neck, going up, to the crowning princely stature of a saintly countenance of the noblest type.

Indeed! Natasha Blavatsky, back in the 1990s, as I remember now, was a strikingly beautiful Celtic woman. ​

Flanked with delicately trim eyelashes, her chiseled facial features are decked out with a protuberant upright nose of modest pride.

Unlike the thin-lipped mouth of some Nordics, Madam Blavatsky had moderately fleshy lips with an ironic, edgy smirk almost crimped to a saucy smile, one may say, a ‘roguish prettiness,’ verging on standoffishness, but not out of self-conceited pride, which, sometimes, in spite of any rebuff, could accrue to her own advantages when dating ‘men of status and prestige.’

Such self-confidence, perhaps concealing an incomprensible self-unconscious but subtle flirtation, as yet, unwilling to admit herself as being very pretty, or, as it once was, of knowing her natural arsenal in the battlefield of survival…

During her youth, Ms. Blavatsky did her best to hobnobbing with the upper classes of Downtown Manhattan, but the pressing circumstances, as you will find out, never advanced her much, and one may be tempted to accuse her of being a snob, a self-deluded snooty flyby grasshopper.

From my acquaintances with her, she was one of the humblest souls I have ever met, but she was keenly aware that she did not belong to the rough hoods of Ms. Mercedes Espinal and her pal, Carmen Sanchez’s humble background in the mountainous side of the Dominican Republic.

Her penchant for the upper-crusty hoods was not out of lack of empathy for the poor, for like a struggling immigrant herself, she had to do good use of her natural gifts, to place them side by side, in Downtown Manhattan, where fortune and success could be found, and perhaps secure a marriage, a happier existence.

For when all is said, in New York, beauty is the ticket to the posh and ritzy venues of Manhattan’s opportunities.

But here lies Madam Blavatsky’s natural beauty: she rarely made use of any such unnecessary flaunting of pretentiousness, which she felt to be beneath her dignity, pulchritude, and self-respect, and I would not blame her for avoiding too close a familiarity with the green-eyed monster envy.

That she was known to be unfriendly did not demean her high-mindedness, gutsiness, and good manners when striking a conversation with a neighbor.

But I must admit her long neck, poised head, lithe wrists, and even her well-rounded pretty feet, were often decorated with curious, tawdry necklaces of beads, pendants of virgins, bangles, crucifixes, hanks of pearls and other gaudy gewgaws, only added to the impression of a lost princess, destitute, and perhaps lovelorn?

Such costumes and rakish guises, how much neighbors could tolerate her lack of friendliness, could perhaps excuse her for any standoffish eccentricity.

Green-eyed Monsters Envy: “Natasha, why do you prink yourself like a snow-flake fairytale Cinderella?

Will you ever come to your wits, and realize you belong to the proletariat, the working class people of Washington Heights.”

Phoenix: “Indeed, Natasha Blavatsky’s appearance was that of an anachronistic woman, a human being whose faith in herself was still rooted in her past.

For some detractors, nonetheless, she was but a weird creature out of her hinges. For others, she was a ‘gold-digger,’ a highway delusional woman.

Fortunately, her comportment, though disdainful, ‘aristocratic,’ did not bring her the ear-piercing, sarcastic and ubiquitous catcalls along her path.

After all, New York is filled with loners and queer birds of all sorts.

True! Her penchant for fancy long dresses, and old-fashioned shibboleth would make her stand out as ‘out of place’ with the people of Washington Heights.

Whether we like her or not, Natasha Blavatsky’s long dresses exuded an air of saintliness and, one would say, there was something attractive about her quaint appearances and spirituality.

Obsession with exotic outfits could easily mark one as a ‘weirdo’ but beauty really gives offense to the beholder, no matter how strange and otherworldly, there is always an audience out there for weird things and queer birds.

Of course, Celtic practices, such as Halloween, and even the scary outfits of the Northerner’s pagan spirit, Walpurgisnatch, have, of late, become part of the social fabrics of New York, and so Natasha could easily pass for one of a kind, an exotic rarity in a society ever growing multifarious and tolerant of eccentric people.

She assured me that these decorative things, rood-crosses and pendants glitteringly lettered with strange inscriptions, AZF, FAE, and other hieroglyphic characters, were mere amulets, aimed at warding off evil or bad luck.

Indeed, though she was raised as an Orthodox Christian, I perceived strong leanings towards the pagan practices of her former ancestry: Celtic.

Her complexion was a flawless rosy skin, whose charmingly, overall exquisite effects, from head to toe, were enhanced by the uncanny deep azure of strikingly pellucid Nordic eyes —thus capping this woman's phenotype as a goddess, or fairy tale woman in the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites Brotherhood.

Indeed, such woman's physical appearance could bear witness to a noble ancestry.

Her statuette body, though of a rather slim frame by now, was still in excellent health and shapeliness!

With the passage of time, nevertheless, the hardy soul, notwithstanding her once lavished physical gifts, much disappointed with the lecherous nature of her wooers and exploiters, would eventually prefer dogs for friends than the conviviality of human beings in general.

After all these years, Natasha Blavatsky has learned to be self-reliant, self-aware, self-determined, resolute, clever and strong in the battlefield of life.

Over the years, Madam Blavatsky has built her inner strong-fortress —a mighty citadel against the cold winds of disappointment in the high expectations of life in New York City.

Today, she is a quiet soul, I would say a great human being who never achieved success, or anything worldly in the most mundane sense of the word, but who is, thanks to her mental fortitude and aesthetic sensibilities, a blessed soul!

She is fond of the spiritual music of Robert Schumann, Franz Schubert, Sergei Rachmaninov and F. Chopin!

Like the quieting waters of the Hudson River, ever eddying with soothing streams, her temperament is rather placid but also aloof and cautious to losing a precious swath of her inner private territory.

She told me that her victories ought to be found inside, for here lies the secrets to a ‘vita beata.’
​
I smiled at this rather ascetic sturdy beautiful woman so endured in loneliness, and yet so happy when conveying the sweet golden beams of a sunlight cast in the deep embosomed-depths of the glaucous waters of the Hudson River, whose shimmering sparks and splashing ripples she felt to be so soothing and up-lifting.

The Hudson River she felt to be part of her priceless heritage and spirituality, and had not its splendid waters become sullied and musty due to the toxic chemicals thrown-in by the swills of modern civilization, she would have bathed in it every morning, and every evening, to celebrating her Celtic mysteries and rituals:

‘…I cannot thank enough this lovely river, this piece of my heart, for cleaning my mind and soul of the pervasive pollution of modern society. Were not for those scattered, callous stones of modern civilization, in yonder spot, by the river-banks, I would have built me a cabin to celebrate the gifts of life with the blissful elements of air, water, ether, earth and light.’

Phoenix Bird: “On one occasion, nevertheless, as I remember now, Natasha Blavatsky told me of a serious confrontation with a Jewish landlord who, for years, had been trying to evict her, that is to say, to rob her of the sweet-home of her primordial memories alongside her now deceased mother (an immigrant from Russia).

Upon mentioning the word eviction to my good caring listener, her outrage could have sent tidal waves through the bowels of hell, but she had developed a remarkable capacity to coping with life's trying challenges, losses or pains, without losing her sound judgment, equanimity and forbearance.

When she found out that I enjoy classical music, her beautiful face, today creased with the hieroglyphics of chicken's feet, soon assumed the gentle, smooth affection of an adorable soul, amiable and refined as befitting her noble ancestry.

Upon makingl references to the remarkable, fired writings of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky (though I have read them sparingly), forthwith, her facial expression resumed the virtues of a strong woman, and ever since (year 2006) we are friends forever in the journey of life.

​From time to time, I would come across the Russian woman of yesteryears. Today, albeit much advanced in age (seventy-two-year old dame) she has learned to live peacefully under the sunset of forgiveness, faith and hope, but above all, love and charity.

—She is, indeed, one of my favorite neighbors!!!

In this cruel world, virtue and strength may surprise us in the wood of oblivion, the irony of success and victory.

Madam S. Manson: “Like Natasha Blavatsky, I have met some victorious neighbors in the hood of Washington Heights, true soldiers in the battlefield of life, sustaining themselves with the staff of faith and hope in the hereafter.

The world is for courageous, strong souls...

We may wake up in the morning to be confronted with the question of existence. For those who have a snug shelter and food on their table, their lives may be less vexed and prodded to action —survival may take into other psychological challenges.

Nevertheless, the question of suffering and meaning may have profound metaphysical implications and predicaments —no matter your station in society, life could be tough.

Those well-off and healthy may seem less tormented with material needs.

Nonetheless, power of foresight, judgment and a careful, in-depth approach into the riddles of life may reveal another awful face: the unquestionable reality of suffering, a wide world filled with the woes, sighs and tears of Mother Eve.”

Phoenix Bird: “By the East Side, the river would dwarf itself to a lovely narrow stream of bluefish waters. Alongside splendid esplanades and quaysides, we steered our skiff forwards, and lo and behold! sitting atop a flat huge stone, an overhanging rock, jutting out as a projecting ledge, we made out the ghost of Natasha Blavatsky.

Basking herself under the last felicitous, golden beams of a glorious Sunset of Completeness, the woman’s stare was always fixed in the interpretation of the flowing stream.

Parsifal ordered the Prince to moor the boat by the river-bank, but, oh my goodness, I was scared to death. Apparently, it appeared that the ghost was escorted with three menacing German hounds.

Were they leashed or unleashed? We could not tell.

Upon seeing our approach, they started growling most menacingly at us. All of a sudden, the German creatures stood up, but once again, on hind legs crouched down like guardian-angels to a temple, head-on, to confront the intruders.

Their hackles bristled like thorny porcupines warning us of imminent danger.

The beasts were hellbent ready on attacking us.

At that moment, Parsifal shouted aloud: ‘Woman, by heaven’s sake, we are not thy enemies.

Please, can ye calm down those odious dogs?’

Forthwith, I made the sign of the cross. By so doing, I thought to win her trust, or perhaps my pious demeanor could impress her as being that of a devout Catholic.

Fortunately, the fierce animals, three-headed horrendous Cerberus of Hatred, Prejudice and Discrimination, were curbed at the hypnotic sounds of some jingling bells: a necklace of gems the woman was wearing made of exquisite golden beads, perhaps an amulet, and with wagging tail, the three monsters of our fright forthwith obeyed the sullen lady.

The peevish blond then sternly shouted: ‘Leave him alone, the man dressed in blue is trustworthy.’ She was referring to the Blue Prince.

Oh reader, my heart almost melted and I could not comprehend why most German dogs are wholeheartedly self-avowed misanthropes?”

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

Philosopher: “So, after all, the snake we once made out enclasped around Madam Fate’s omen, is not so ugly a creature?

Dear soul, is there any secret to the good luck of some fortunate people?

Is there any science, philosophy (esoteric knowledge) that could place you ahead of others?”

Natasha Blavatsky: “If you are wise and prudent, you will place health and shelter as topmost priorities to a happy life: vita beata.”

Philosopher: “Well, one would have to admit the unquestionable reality of sufferings and disappointments, and how could we avoid as much as possible the most common errors leading to suffering?”

Natasha Blavatsky: “Suffering is a fact of life, but as you have learned, it is impossible to rise to a higher existence without the furnace of trials and tribulations.

Without such hells, my gosh! one cannot even conceive the upper heavens of joy and peace. True, from an early age, you have to learn to curb your dogs and wanton passions, and this is not an easy undertaking.

It behooves you to be a person of order, diligence and productivity, but also be strong to facing the common lots of disappointments befalling along our path.

As I remember now, year 2011, due to a sprained ankle, for two weeks, unbeatably, unflaggingly, I had to hobble myself around like a miserable lame woman, almost to the point of losing my sweet home.

Some happened to be my loyal friends, but others, much to my surprise, were glad that I would remain a crippled lady for the rest of my life.

But pay heed, we are, more or less, involved in the same struggle. Whether limping or straight on your legs, you will always face resistance, mockery, bantering and challenges.

While struggling to keep my life afloat, I realized that my survival would depend on my mental fortitude, my presence of mind, and my will-power to reaching a blissful sunset.

Thanks goodness! I was able to walk on my feet: payed my bills to my creditors and taskmasters, nay, showed my friends and enemies alike, an example of dogged tenacity in unswerving perseverance, a ‘no-way’ to succumbing to the grim clutches of depression.

I will not give up, even if I die as an execrable rat, I will always carry this sword with me, it is emblematic of the indomitable spirit of my Celtic past.

My self-evaluation comes from my constant revisions to my essayed labors, my constant reflections while casting my thoughts in the pellucid lake for souls of my noble lineage.

We Are Like lambs In the Field of Success.

However hard you may try, life is, nevertheless, a daunting challenge for all of us —no matter your station in life, it is a test in countless trials, disappointment and tribulations.

When we are hale and merry —like silly lambs grazing in the green meadow of money, the glossing flattery of our dear friends and success, we may think the party to last forever, but there are the other sad surprises to our unfenced fortress and comfort.

The butcher of life, King Nihilo. all the while, may be simply supervising our fat weaknesses in too much complacency, negligence and carelessness...

But I don't have tell you, how you should guard your fortress and character, because, we are all engaged in the same serious journey of life.

And when I say that life sometimes could be a serious matter...I do mean to imply the reality of pains, losses, enmities, betrayal, infidelity, opposition, blindness, envy, malice, despair, madness, sickness etc., etc., and so we are all like lambs chewing the cud in the field.

There are also the bad times, when we may hear that a terrible cobra, Lilith, or any other poisonous animal, has strayed from the confinement of its cage-box; and now the dread of our life lurks somewhere without any visible hide about...”

Phoenix Bird: “Dear Natasha, we are very fortunate if day and night we could walk under the blessed heaven of music, art, health, shelter and enough money to coping with the basic essentials of a tolerable existence.

For when all is said, let us be honest, however vigilant or tenacious we may be, it is not within our power to snap our fingers to determining our fate, neither to ward off, nor to stave off, the many sorrows that may fall upon our path.”

Natasha Blavatsky: “Those who like to show off their gifts and talents, let them pay the price at the mercy of their fellow creatures.

Yes, it is human nature, and who would dare talk about the human heart?

The most common envy is that of class, intelligence, beauty, youth and women.

Nevertheless, I am often surprised to see a stunning beautiful woman, the Wonder-Woman, the dazzling bling-possession of a contemptible rascal, and methinks she has so little esteem of herself to choosing such a punk for a lover?

As we get older, most beautiful women seem to look upon younger ones still resplendent with the flowers of beauty and shapeliness. In my case, I have the fountain of the elixir of life within me.”

Philosopher-Prince: “Those believed themselves to be ahead of me in wealth, prestige and class, are not placed, for the very reasons you had just mentioned, in a happier position than me.

I have seen many successful faces but masques of infidelity, hypocrisy and betrayal.

Later on, and I am not kidding, a successful friend, Mr. Micheal Stock, a honorable man I truly admired for all the heavenly gifts of a stunning wife, buxom kids, wealth, and the high tittle of a mighty boss, the CEO, in his quickly thriving company, was actually, on closer inspection, but a lackey of endless bills and the wretched victim of infidelity.

His wife put him the horns with a third-class citizen from Mexico, Don Pedro M., a vile betrayer who did not enjoy the prized ticket of social mobility in New York, but due to his talents with women, won to himself a goodly arse of tangible assets: a beautiful woman, but a chit.

Overnight, Don Pedro became the boss of Mr. Stock’s wife’s arse and assets.

A traitor, a ‘nobody,’ would have lessened the gravity of that mortal dagger to Mr. Stock’s wounded heart. But we were wrong, the psychological damage was twofold: of civic honor (what a man represents) and financial, what a person has in assets and properties.

This is what I would call a ‘Sudden Reversal of Power,’ and this is right now happening in the United States of America: a smooth social mobility suddenly achieved by one of these flunkeys, a remarkable audacious fellow, which relegated to the status of a mere servant, was able, nonetheless, to claim some inalienable rights over his master's wife's buttocks, the sacred territory of power and emancipation.

Here we see, from a psychological point of view of course, a sudden shift of power, and this betrayal won him the high esteem and kudos of his Spanish Conquistadors! These folks have talent for women. Don Juan D’ Los Palos is lodged in the bloodstream of these little fellows from the wild woods of Latin America.

Therefore, the infidelity was all the more painful, nay twofold in irretrievable losses to both parties involved: for we are not merely dealing to what a man may seem to appear in the eyes of others, but also on how moral character, some inalienable rights and other tangible assets may determine the nature of power in Post-America.

Two years later, I saw the said page brazenly sticking out his head from the window of his girlfriend's luxury SUV, and it seems that ‘la vida te da sorpresas amigo.’

Natasha Blavatsky: “Thus we see, many things, seemingly worth desirable, quite often do not accrue interests and good fruits to our lives’ few joyful hours. It is better to live in peace under the sun.

Happy is the blessed soul who wishes the well-being of others: good-will is a rare gift.

It is commonly believed, that envy would cease to exist once we examine our hearts; but we must admit that, aging, suffering, baldness, sickness, the privileges of youth and vigor, health and the power of wealth and beauty etc., have cast a lamentable disparity among the offspring of Adam and Eve!

Now, pretty girls are quite often very miserable, and the most clever one, would do well not to provoke the wrath of the old lady.

That there are too many young ladies jobless due to envy and competition would not surprise me: a small quantity of self-respect and modest pride could cost one the job-position if not the career!

Very gifted people do not come off well from the cauldron of society and politeness: it would be much wiser to procure a tolerable existence, one that is in keeping with the essentials of life, the humility of sharing with others the recognition of the general condition for most human beings: that we are all in the same boat!

If we walk in humility, our talents, wealth, or gifts, would amount to the blessing of others...”

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

The Joy of Living in No-spatial Realms
​
Phoenix Bird: “Dear reader, our conversations then turned to Natasha Blavatsky’s passion and verve for classical literature, metaphysics, philosophy, especially the head-scratching books by German authors: Arthur Schopenhauer, Goethe, Frederick Nietzsche, F. Schiller, Immanuel Kant, to name a few.

And it is indeed a delight when we touched upon the fact that great books and authors, such as the Faust of Goethe, John Milton‘s Paradise Lost, Dante, David Hume, Thoreau, Edward Gibbon, Shakespeare, among others, are now relegated to the shelves of dereliction, and how AI (ChatGPT, Chatbot) could supplant humankind’s creativeness to touching deep upon humankind’s profoundest inquiries concerning the meaning of life.”

Philosopher: “Dear Natasha, it seems you love books as much as you love life’s best heavens in the higher pleasures of the soul, and I wonder whether such old books are still relevant?

What do you think about Dr. Faust of Goethe?”

Natasha Blavatsky: “The Faust of Goethe has to be read like the proverbs of Salomon. Procure to have more than one translation of this difficult play.

One of my favorite translations is by Philip Wayne. His exquisite English and dignified prose style, could make up for the lack of rhymed puns and tropes.”

Philosopher: “Some passages therein, due to the original German version in rhymes, are said to be incomprehensible, dense, turgid, prolix, and hence, some readers would find it but a rather tedious pursuit to frittering our faculties.”

Natasha Blavatsky: “If you sow in the vineyard of vintage literature, then you will reap the golden fruits of life, a Sunset of Completeness, peace (Shanti) which is indistinguishable from heaven to a gifted mind.

Of course, a lay student pressed by the hurly burly of our hectic days, would find Goethe's writings tedious and boring. To my mind, nothing is more felicitous than a glorious dawning in the rich mind of a great author, the better if resourceful to depicting human scenes above the mere representational or pictorial (the screen).

What I mean to say is our mind’s concept-sphere, is not always mirrored reflections or screenshots of our physical senses, and the deeper the feeling, the more we seem to enjoy ourselves in the realm of our thoughts, and this is the reason why I love Goethe’s Faust.

Now these recondite writings would require intellectual stamina of another kind, since therein, almost everything is written in figurative speech, ‘symbolic,’ and in unlikely scenes to be conveyable in the narrow scope of action or any visual representations, but like the transcendent stuff of music or poesy, they must find cohesiveness, meaning, a baseline, in the profoundest aspects of our life’s unrolling revelations, epiphanies, enlightenment.

Self-cognizance is highly more pleasurable when finding conveyance through the fire of the written word. Don’t forget the pregnant lines in the opening dialogue of Dr. Faust:

In the beginning was the word, the logos (Gospel of John Chapter 1, New Testament).

This is the reason why we should add to our swaddling language the increasing lexicon to the power of communication and comprehension, because humans, at least for those who strive for daily improvement, are gifted to rising up to the blessed realms of the poet.

The Pegasus of the soul’s pinions is the logos, the fire of the living word.

Many attempts have been taken to filming the Faust of Goethe with very few successes, because the actors, however talented and capable, are hopelessly set, by the nature of the play itself, with very little room for action.

This is due to the nature of the extreme far-fetched analogies, tropes as found in the characters' interactions, soliloquies, dialogues, and with constant allusions to something else, a form of speech that is very entangled in slants, allegories and interpretations.

But this is the joy of great literature.

​To every mind there is given a landscape, and so, from the garret, we can enjoy ourselves even to the farthermost corners of the human mind, and like Immanuel Kant, who never travelled beyond his hometown Königsberg, it is said that the philosophic mind explored more unfettered possibilities than well-traveled Dr. Offenbach of Thomas Mann (Death in Venice).

True! For the last one hundred years or so, post-modern readership have developed a penchant for visual representation and the reality-shows. Thus, countless great books —masterpieces requiring the inner navigation of our mind’s concept-sphere— are left unread, and little by little have been relegated to the shelves of oblivion.

Consequently, derivative intelligence, imagery and imagination, a type of literary aesthetics divorced from the immediate visual representations, have shortened the scope of our intellectual expansiveness, elasticity, and leisure —vital recreation in that non-spatial realms of the mind's loftiest eyries and nests— thus confining creative writings and literary pleasures to the narrow fancies of the eyes' Euclidian provinces.”

Philosopher. “Dear lady, in this respect, if we judge the present state of things, and even though I am not German, the Teutonic People of yore, were highly more intelligent than today's generation in the little screen of free actions and dramas, that is to say, if we judge by the way the Northern people built their old spacious gothic churches, and wrote books requiring the highest aspects of non-spatial apprehension and imagination.”

Parsifal: “We are bound to admit, my dear Homo sapiens, that ours is a new generation, mass-produced Lilliputians, a new brood spawning from the high-walled cities of consumerism and consumption, day and night frittering our best mental faculties for the poor monkey shows and waggeries of ‘civilization.’”

Philosopher: (resuming his conversation on the elevating, revitalizing power of the classics)

“In the character Dr. Faust, a remarkable polyhistor, therein lies the greatness of Goethe, which even many nowadays scholars —and some quick hacks of success— may fail to explain why the German author has to be placed next to Dante, Shakespeare and Homer?”

Parsifal: “Obviously, it is not just for power of speech we so much rate them highly, which with due justice, few writers would dare compete with Homer, Milton or Dante in communicative powers, of expression, of speech and form, but it is in this characteristic tendency of both authors, Goethe and Shakespeare, to innerly revel beyond the stiff milieu of human actions into the profoundest realms and obscurities of our psyche!”

Philosopher: “From what we gather, the United States of America seems to be facing insurmountable challenges (moral degeneration and flawed principles in vogue). Our moral teachers: Goethe, Thoreau, Ralph Emerson, Walt Whitman, are now relegated to the cemetery of oblivion.

In my mind, there is no doubt that things are going topsy turvy.

But we could still be assured that there are many wonderful souls unspoiled by the subversive forces of decadence and nihilism.”

Phoenix Bird: “At this point, the symposium of distinguished thinkers touched upon the Walpurgisnatch (night of witches in Germany) and whether such pagan practices are still wrecking havoc with our youth?”

Walpurgisnatch (Night of Witches) is in our midst!

Madam Natasha Blavatsky: “Indeed, it takes a bold heart to walk through this dismal time without being discouraged.

But we cannot just lay back in our comfy cushioned complacencies and expect that everything will be just fine.

Concerning the forces of evil, or, the mysteries of iniquities haunting modern society, I have come across witches not of the ugly sorts, hooting owls, hags or crones, the likes of Carmen Sanchez or Mercedes Espinal, but very beautiful ladies, stunning wenches endowed with platonic forms and ideal beauty!

Of course you will not find them flying on sticks or brooms, nor will you find them in the kitchen ladling or brewing some mysterious nostrums in a cauldron.

These beautiful wenches are now equipped with iPhones (update anima mobiles) and laptops, the cutting-edge technology for witchcrafts!

These witches are not so intelectual but they can outwit both the avid bookish and the prudish professor of morality.

What is even scarier that these ‘wenches of love’ could put on the masque of a devout Christian, and thus even dupe a silly geezer into pumping some gratuities to her hustling coffer.”

Phoenix Bird: “My goodness! The beautiful wench happened to be a whore.”

Philosopher: “Summer of 2009, in the Central Park, New York City, I was about to approach a delightful saucy wench, whereupon, from her mouth, there issued forth a pink mouse staring at me steadily!

At that point, I was struck with unspeakable dread and confusion; and anon would my heart have leaped from my breast, when at her rear, there was a pimp, a raven bird assuring me that she was a ‘good girl.’

With the classic profile of a fine Madonna, the chic was sitting on the park's first row of benches by 59th Street and Columbus Circle; and perhaps she was seeking to make ado for the black swans of a bad economy?

Due to a strained economy, the good lass —a stunning beautiful blond Helen, in great despair, foundering in debts, had perhaps succumbed to the forces of nihilism (King Nihilo) and sexual immoralities (Lilith’ daughters of perdition).”

Natasha Blavatsky: “Like her, there are thousands of beautiful wenches holding a Walpurgis night in the heart of the city! “
​
Phoenix: “My dear reader, when I heard these last words, I held my breadth in disbelief, to see so many pretty faces and bodies hideously marked and embossed with sneaky tattoos of strangest sorts and embroideries!”

Philosopher (continues his amazing story): “Then the mysterious raven bird, preening his plumages as a swindler or grifter, told me that with a snap of his fingers, he could summon a bevy of enchanting witches, so beautiful as William A. Bouguereau’s gorgeous paintings of angels!

Any one of these night-witches could exceed the proper use of their bodies' splaying limbs in celebration of a hellish festal —Walpurgisnacht in New York City: a terrible time when the outward of physical appearance, ‘physiognomy,’ does not guarantee a faithful representation of a person’s inner moral character.

Arthur Schopenhauer’s essay ‘On Physiognomy’ (Parerga and Paralipomena Vol. 2) would not apply to these elusive beings. They may defy conventional wisdom. It seems as though the people of the olden days, alike philosophers and theologians, became silly for their penchant to conflating beauty with holiness.”

Phoenix Bird: “At that, my dear reader, I almost fainted at such warnings: the fear of such holy a Christian woman is but a minx and a hussy —she could give me a nick (lawsuit) in the ass.”

Madam Blavatsky: “You fool! That Christian woman was but a scam, a witch. Run away as fast as you can, lest she cast a hex (maleficus spell) on you.”

Philosopher: “My goodness! When I reached Sixty Six Street and Broadway Avenue by Barnes & Noble, I had to thank my gut-instincts that the two vile creatures, Nihilo and Lilith, had not taken me captive as a brainless moron: spellbound by one of these dazzling beautiful witches, all equipped with knots and hooks.

Ever since, I have been very cautious when judging physical appearance as a ‘letter of recommendation’ to a person's internal moral constitution.

Later on, a good friend told me that it is not uncommon to find one of these stunning beauties chiseled and tattled-up in the arse and tits with the most grotesque figurines imaginable: snakes, scorpions, louses, fleas, dragons, ravens, hyenas, goats, gorgons, Medusa, horns and other hideous things awakening the lower forces of humanity, striking instincts with the other beasts...”

Lost Souls In Big Cities

Natasha Blavatsky: “The existence of Hades, as conceived by the poetic genius of Dante and Homer, is perhaps a little antiquated when compared with the new Hell-Matrix of French philosopher Jean Baudrillard: a city-hell, not so much an invention of benighted days in the woods of superstition; for, even in big cities like New York, Tokyo, Paris, Beijing, Moscow, we would walk and flit hither and thither, like lambs or lost sheep among the awful wolves of premonition, terrorism and other forebodings.

But as Goethe assures us in his Faust Part II, in modern society and civilization, there are as many different types of hells, devils, high societies, and countless smooth pathways of perdition for a final doom.

During the diurnal hours, that is, if you believe this world-masquerade of your daily experiences —the countless deceptive shades (masques) dancing in the phantasmagoria of your life— if you believe all this make-believe show, oh boy, you are simply deluding yourself: a simpleton.

Once you go to sleep, the interpretations of all these fleeting shades may have to be accessed as being part and parcel of the Spirit Realm.

Our lives, for most of us, is always the rutted path of uncertainty in the precarious issues of life and death.

It is not simply that we are vulnerable to the undeniable reality of suffering, but in the serious struggle of life, we better safeguard our properties, lest we end up overcome by the creepy entities of this world.

Devils may not exist, but suffering and unretrievable losses are irrefutable facts of life.

I have to say, that out there in the world, there could be found, all over the globe, many different kinds of people, and the enlightened path is only for the few.

Therefore, the good soul (always) would look for the sweet blessings of heaven, not from without, but from within the human heart.”

Philosopher Prince: “Some past experiences, verging on the paranormal phenomena, may still defy my understanding. I cannot say that I have been always victorious when confronting the other side of this reality.

When confronted with the fear of death or illnesses, one seems to become recipient to psychosomatic subjectivity and superstition.

Only a bold mind, Achilles-like, a courageous soul would confront and unmask these wicked entities in the netherworld of this pseudo-reality.

Such soul must be brave, because such devils, if they are indeed real, in many ways, guises, masks and modus operandi, may resemble some human beings.

The world is, nevertheless, a phantasmagoria, full-fraught with fleeting shades and elusive entities.

True, not even Immanuel Kant could finally clarify whether our mind is but a portal to unexplained phenomena, and even Arthur Schopenhauer, a renown atheist, a critical thinker of religious belief systems, did in fact consider the subject of ‘Ghostly Apparitions and Spirit Seeing,’ worthy of a serious investigation (Essay on Spirit Seeing and Everything Connected Therewith, Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. 1).

No one would deny, however sound and level-headed, that our mind could account for some morbid subjectivism, and if you can control people’s lives by their fears and superstition, then it is easier to found churches among ignorant people.”

Natasha Blavatsky: “It is believed that most Christians today are losing the fight against Satan and Medusa.

The Church of God, whether Protestant or Catholic, is losing members, but the broad Cemetery of Satan is winning souls like never before.”

Philosopher : “Why?”

Natasha Blavatsky: “The wiles of Satan are the more effective below the threshold of our consciousness; hence, it is believed that the devils would ensnare you in ‘the subliminal realm of your unawareness,’ your feeble-mindedness; and title by little you would surrender your precious spiritual moral strength, your stamina to greeting the sweet Morning-Star.

In the Spirit Realm, some people are said to be seen suffering, weeping to their wit's end, their head pierced by one thousand snakes, entangling coils fixed like thorns on their forehead.

During the diurnal hours, I sigh, the poor creature, unaware of any spiritual oppression, may complain of migraine and head-aches.

Medusa: Her Subliminal Snares - the Subconscious and the Internet:

Their methods and stratagems are too well-described by Dante, Goethe and Homer, but more accurately elucidated in the frightening writings of the apostles in the New Testament (Peter Chapter 5:08).

St. Paul assures us that some creepy creatures, denizens from hell,’ could even guise themselves as Ministers of Light (2 Corinthians 11: 14).”

Philosopher: “Are such old books still relevant, or should they be upgraded and updated?”

Natasha Blavatsky: “If you have carefully perused the New Testament, specifically the writings of St. Paul the Apostle, one could find the poetic streams of Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey pouring forth their celestial heavenly waters through sundry analogies, incomparable beautiful passages and references to angels, demons and divinity.

It is obvious that St. Paul, like the Apostle St. Luke and the other Apostles had all nourished their poetic impetus in the voluminous rivers of Homer's epic sagas.

Take for instance this passage, as found in Hebrew Chapter 13 (New Testament) has been quoted verbatim from the Odyssey:

‘Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.

Yea, and the gods, in the likeness of strangers from far countries, put on all manner of shapes, and wander through the cities, beholding the violence and the righteousness of men (Odyssey of Homer Book XVII, Line 274, as translated by S. H. Butcher and Andrew Lang, copyright, 1950, by Random House, Inc.)”

Philosopher: “You are indeed rich if you can understand the ineffable language of so vast a river like the Odyssey.”

Natasha Blavatsky. “Herein, however tentatively, I have compared the moral lessons of the New Testament with those of the Iliad & the Odyssey of Homer.

If you are fond of things supernatural, then let us dive deep into the depths of psyche with Homer, the apostle St. Paul, and how the rising phenomenon of the Internet, with its ‘pervasive subliminal powers,’ would require the necessary moral training, a Tenacious Soldier, in a most difficult fight against frightening monsters the likes of Medusa (Gorgon), Asmodeus, Satan, Cyclops, and other shady entities scooting out of the screen of this pseudo reality: what is real or unreal in the deceptive world of the Internet?

The Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer continues to captivate our heart, and contrary to the views that such books are no longer relevant, the rising phenomenon of the Internet, a world fraught with demonic forces, has made us all keenly aware that the frightening monsters of Homer, with their subliminal powers to controlling our minds, our lives, could exert much power to overcoming and finally destroying the untrained soldier in the serious battlefield of life.”

Philosopher: “Indeed, in this battlefield of life and death, and we are all here included, whole armies have been overcome with the dread of the unknown.

And it only takes a few effective mental tricks to enslave whole groups of stupid people captive.”

Natasha Blavatsky: “Well, no matter how strong you are. At time, the unknown, alas, would make you reflect, time and time again, how successful have you been in making headways through the many riddles and enigmas of existence?”

Philosopher: “Have your foe's ill-feelings reached your citadel?”

Natasha Blavatsky. “Since I was a lass, from time to time, I have had the good custom habit to sprinkling myself with Holy Water, which is believed to ward-off the forces of evil.

Where is the asperging and the censing, where the candle’s sweet flame to keep your mind aglow against the morbid feelings of bad luck?

—Keep your room clean my friend, because bedbugs and vermin are irrefutable facts of life. Envy and ill-feelings could find their medium and manifestations in the form of such hellish things and beings.

In All This Junk and Rotting Life
Nits and Nitwittery are Rife
(Faust Part II, Act II)

It is advisable to discard worn-out shoes, old clothing tattered with holes and rotten rags, because bad luck (psychic energy) seems to haunt those lagging behind in cleanliness and hygiene: physically and morally.

If you have fallen under the spell of a witch, you should throw away any accursed object, i.e., especially bed, couches, sofas, curtains and sheets should be thrown away immediately, since there, while we were under the spell of some bad luck or invisible influence, and with constant friction and tribulations, we tend to unleash the lower energies of our human nature.

Thus, quite often, we draw unto ourselves, the most morbid feelings of illness, malaise, inexplicable dejection, and quite strangely, exuding from our aura and bodies, or I should say, exhuming from the graveyard of our past experiences with other human beings, many things and thoughts may eventually become a hindrance to our well-being and quick recovery.

And perhaps, by so doing, you and I would be able to ward off any evil influence or haunting spirit...

That bad mental energy may find its medium and manifestation in living entities was a wide-spread belief, not only among the Northern people, but also in Latin America and among the Asiatic people.

In such frequent instances, the Will-to-Exist of Schopenhauer, would alarm us that the mysterious operations of mother nature are at work —twenty four hours; and they may manifest themselves not only in humans, but also in other living organism, reptiles, mammals, and even in insects, larvae, germs, nits and eggs, galore, would be left behind to spring about from any corner or hole.

Feebly enough, so as to pass on almost unnoticed, such mysterious powers would manifest themselves even in plants.

Thus, from time to time, we would witness, much to our surprise, the sudden withering away of the most beautiful flowers, petals and virtues —as if some pernicious influence or spirit—all the while, has been at work behind most people's lives...

Accordingly, to be assaulted by an unpredictable army of bedbugs, lice, mites, fleas, or, a sudden swarm of vermin and rats creeping from any hole into our living space at midnight, may warn us of potential adversaries lurking invisible: imminent dangers and many trials in our brief existence to keep us awake all nightlong.

Likewise, cats and dogs, as being our nearest witnesses and most faithful friends, and without any doubt, closest to our daily intimate experiences, are indeed highly susceptible to the presence of a false friend or rascal, simply, by the most subtle signs, traces or streaks of shades left here and there, thus providing some inklings as to how well we have done with our beloved Homo Homini Lupus (Man Is Wolf To His Fellow Man).

Nay, a gentle chilly breeze rippling across the curtain, or, a sudden gust of air breaking through the main entrance door —leaving this latter ajar, and yet, furnishing us but with little evidence of its source of origination, may warn us of a passing ghost or spirit in the twilight of our existence...”

Philosopher: “We may reach old age, grown-up fools, still learning how to protect our valuables from the schemes and hooks of scoundrels and rascals, such devils in human form.

Now there is always a linchpin behind the masquerades of deception. Countless devils have fallen out of fashion, but their insidious powers are still wreaking havoc.

In Faust Part Two, Goethe makes reference to Asmodeus, one of the chief devils in hell, but few Christians still remember the ancient demons of Babylon. Andramalech, was once renown, and next to Mammon, Beelzebub, Belial, he was among the most prominent chieftains of darkness in the consortium of Satan.

Overtime, such devils have been relegated to the realm of superstition and myths, but Asmodeus, at least for some Jews and Catholics, is still believed to be behind the misfortunes of people (Faust, Part II, Act Three, Lines 6960).

With AI in vogue, I wonder whether these demons could ply their schemes to greater effectiveness and efficiency, because the older we get, the more complicated the newest methods and arsenals of the enemy’s technological resources.”

Madam Natasha Blavatsky: “Of course, the spiritual forces of Asmodeus, and his ilk, like the most meticulous cyber-sleuths, doxxing into your personals (as aided by AI) in the decipherment of your internal monograph, could file an in-depth, detailed report of your flaws and weaknesses, and their shooting arrows could hit you with devastating, laser-like precision.”

​* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Cracking the Phantasmagoria Between the Subjective and Objective (find references down the scroll).
​
Phoenix Bird: “The Philosopher-Prince tries to convince Natasha Blavatsky that she is already dead, a ghost, ‘lingering energies’ in the hereafter, but the latter, undeniably, unbeatably, goes on to prove that she is still alive, self-cognizant: death has not killed her from remembering herself as such.

Upon touching what is real or mere mental, the crew then got engaged in very profound disquisitions concerning the mysteries of time and space, matter and energies, on whether they are all but ghosts, self-deluded capsules of self-awareness roaming aimlessly the will-network of a blind universe.

My dear reader, due to the complexity of the issue at hand, time and time again, I was bound to clip short some long-winded turgid conversations between Madam Blavatsky and the Prince, but by so doing, I may have shorn-off the daintiest marrows for a philosophic mind, whose motto is ‘the deepest the better.’

Though these are very convoluted issues, it is incumbent upon you, that is, if you love life as an inner experience of the highest significance, to inquire whether you are but a ghost, a no-where wayfarer, bound to die like an execrable rat?

If you check the linear trajectory of your life’s long decades, you will be quite disappointed at the seeming disparities of your efforts, and even if you have achieved the mundane success of Marcus Aurelius, wealth, power and prestige, the truth is, you are not better off than a ghost journeying around the Isle of Manhattan.

Like a swift bird, time presses on inexorably, days, nights and years simply become indistinguishable from each other, and the hour of your departure shall arrive with little bearing to your most cherished souvenirs and keepsakes.

Soon the present becomes past, and the future seems to draw near, and so we seek to salvage whatever precious relic of the former self, but the drifting river of time is unstoppable.

Perhaps at some point, you will have to come to grips with the facts that life is a very short journey.

Therefore, make sure to unravel whether there is more than meet the eyes?”

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

Philosopher “No one knows for sure whether time is a mental construct, or whether it has any objetive reality.

In the same train of thoughts, interpreting any objective phenomena as independent from the inner fulcrum of the human mind, could lead us into a cul de sac of insurmountable conundrums, it is as though constructing a behemoth elephant’s actual morphology by the size of its tail.”

Natasha Blavatsky: “Such materialistic one-sidedness has led scientists to relegating Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophy (the will-to-exist) as irrelevant, outdated, nonsensical twaddle, delusional idealism anymore than the insoluble mysteries of psychic phenomena, as having no bearing with ‘the laws of physics.’

Theirs is the opinion that such laws are immutable and therefore, reliable, in all times and places, to investigating all the phenomena of the visible world.

My argument is that the womb of Mother Nature is pregnant with puzzles, and perhaps there are periodic violations to the blinkered framework of our epistemology.

​Why they happen is as yet a mystery, but it is very tempting to believe that not even the ‘Law of Gravity’ is a constant force relative to humankind’s measurements and models.

We are still groping and fumbling in the legendary cave of Plato’s origin of forms and ideas.

Immanuel Kant's reaction to David Hume's skepticism on any innate ideas, was to prove that the idea of Time and Space ‘a priori,’ could be conceived independently of the testimonies of our physical experiences.

David Hume's obscure inquiries on Causation, what connexion there is between cause and effect continues to challenge many philosophers even today (for the last 250 years).

David Hume, despite his razor-sharp reasoning power and beautiful poetic lines on deduction, induction and inferences based on custom and habit —as not bearing any relationship between cause and effect— could awake us all from the slumber of our senses.

Nevertheless, he does not clearly draw the line between the subjective and the objective and what relationship there is to be found, as the missing link, between the different phenomena of Mother Nature: and this, among many other puzzles with the unpredictability of any outcome in the random-dice of our limited inferences, could lead the reader through the most perilous labyrinthine passages.

The ‘hidden knot’ to unsnarling the world is missing. Perhaps it is the Will-to-Exist of Schopenhauer.

Philosopher. “Can we recognize ourselves above the upper level of thoughts?

Are we knowing states of self-awareness?
Can self-awareness escape the ensuing decomposition of these tapering filaments, the death of our nervous system, the massive complexity of the brain?

From the outset, these are the most fundamental questions to the meaning of life, whose brevity seems to accelerate as we get older.

Why should I ask such silly questions when it is obvious that there is no evidence of life after death, but it is all in our mind.

Dear lady, what faith sustains you to live as though waiting for a recompense?”

Natasha Blavatsky: “This is a millennial question, indeed, very difficult to be answered, but in direct relation to the knowing-self as it escapes the annihilation of the corporeal body –a destruction, verily, the most appalling and grotesque picture ever to behold; for, even our senses revolt in premonition of such putrefying disintegration.

But even then, it is only the self-aware entity that could prove or corroborate to herself whether the soul or thinking-thing is an independent phenomenon, existing, somehow, prior or posterior to our current physical bodies.

Up to-day, we have not been able to answer this question but on the ground of religious faith and the authority of sundry inspired texts, canonical scriptures and conviction thereof, (peruse 1 Corinthians 15: 24-58) this entire chapter is the kernel of the Christian faith.

It is to be observed that, the most brilliant men and writers, from Homer to Dante, Shakespeare (check Hamlet and the Prince of Denmark and Milton's Paradise Lost), did believe in ghostly-apparitions and life after death.

Even when great some minds profess to be unswerving atheists or agnostic the likes of heady Schopenhauer, Voltaire, Kant, Einstein, among other renown philosophers, Francis Bacon, even Hegel and Issac Newton were known to have dabbled with metaphysics.

The latter’s lifelong quest was to find reconciliation between science and religion.

Secretly, these men tremble and quiver at the awful thought of death, the darting eyes of such greater- than- Zeus a God reining and hushing the tidal waves of the immense oceans, and somehow ruling the celestial bodies in heaven (perhaps a god beyond Good and Evil and Nietzsche's ethics).

Some thinkers did even consider the possibility of kinetic psychic energies escaping the descomposición of the corporeal body Schopenhauer on Spirit Apparitions, Parerga And Paralipomena Volume I, page 287).

Now these ghosts are said to be rambling aimlessly the Nest of Time. Hapless wayfarers, they are said to be trapped in the prison-cell of unresolved passions, viz., mental energies lingering in the physics of Albert Einstein's manifold universe.”

Phoenix Bird: “Certainly, the greatest poets did believe in the existence of the soul as an independent phenomenon of the physical body, but in my case, I know myself to be a soul, and have no need of further proof of my existence.

Blame me a delusional grasshopper, but how can you prove, or otherwise deny, that I will cease to exist in another realm?

Such self-cognizance does not stem either from faith or from any physical evidence, but from my own awareness, here and now, I am totally convinced that the Will’-O’-the-Wisp is within me, and like a spirit, I shall see my self stripped-off of this current mortal vessel.”

Philosopher: “Some Christian-friends would say that, such manifestations or spirit-seeing, from a biblical perspective, are demons or fallen angels, roaming the earth since the dawn of creation.

However careful when meddling with such metaphysics, I am very well acquainted with such explanations, for in my early twenties I took part in some Christian meetings, where paranormal experiences and ghostly apparitions were much in vogue, —even cherished among earlier generations of believers.

In 1994, I flipped through the pages of Rebeca Brown' s Bestseller: ‘He Came To Set The Captives Free,’ which, incidentally, is fraught with demonic metamorphosis, questionable humbug therein, and other monstrous stories crammed with remarkable ingenuity and high-flown academic dictions.

Perhaps they are excellent writings to ensnare or dupe the simpleton, but they are not stuff to lead by the nose the serious thinker; for, in the last resort, many fellow-souls are still weeping and gnashing their teeth in the murky slums of every important city's infernos (Washington Height has some slum-landlords).

Ms. Brown could not have passed a test-revision with David Hume's razor-sharp intellectual integrity (An Inquiry Concerning the Origin of Our Ideas by David Hume, On Miracles), to unraveling such bizarre stories as mere hoax, the sham-product of unscrupulous writers and quick hack of success, whom eager for fame, success and wealth, may seek to bask on a sunshine of eminence at the expense of people's ignorance, fear and superstition.

Today many phony pastors and spooky writers have become millionaires based on people's superstitions!

Of course, with all this said, there are certain unexplained phenomena in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant and A. Schopenhauer's insights into ghostly apparitions (Parerga and Paralipomena Vol. I.)

I am not saying that certain stealthy shades may not defy our minds apprehended, and that some aloof-spirits may withstand the most rigorous scientific methods to interpreting how all this illusory, fleeting reality could find cohesiveness and a base-ground with my daily experiences when unraveling what is fact or fiction.

This is the phantasmagoria of life, it is the screen-world of sudden flashes, transient shades, fugitive shapes, strange odors —some are rancid, feeble streaks by the wall. jarring sounds, strange noise, chill-tingling touches and so on.

And sometimes, in the penumbra of living, we are at a loss as to how to put all these episode-puzzles together: subject, object, time and space in a linear coherently cohesive whole?

This deceptive world may not be the mere play-thing of my impressions, perceptions, sensations and eddying fabrications.

Some receding shades —could be beyond the upper layers of impression-thought trysts and the laws therein related— may have some substance of truth when Mother Nature is abandoned to her Walpurgis Nights and the play-game of one thousand mysteries!

At a certain time, and at the occurrence and participation of the most striking array of converging factors, another mode of object-subject relationship may unhinge the Kantian bar of rationality (Critique of Pure Reason), to re-embracing the wizardry of Goethe's Faust and ghostly madness, thus allowing us to enter the portal-gate of another manifold universe —paralleled universe, a multiverse in the physics of A. Einstein.

We may, however prudent with any vent of paranoia or schizophrenic tendencies, go on to assert this plausible possibility: that perhaps even the laws of the universe may be subject to flaws, flux, ghosts and errors.

In certain penumbras or wild moments, there is an odd fraction to every operation of the mind, and there are strange incongruities to any logical assessment to the overall arrangement of fixed laws in this twilight of diabolical forces (Milton's Striking Chord of Chaos).

In this visible universe, there are periodic violation and trespasses to our frame-work of knowledge and epistemology.

Conversely, we may suspect that, there may be errors haunting the minds of those said ghost-witnesses and experiences, but these do not diminish the veracity of some ghostly apparitions.

Weaving the thread of logic and sequence in this wild universe, could be one of the most engaging, challenging, breathtaking, enthralling and yet disappointing undertakings, for any serious pursuit or investigation is hopelessly interrupted by humankind’s intrinsic tendencies for the absurd and crazy (the knowing I-am, as the only witness to his foggy world, is by nature constantly erring and self-deceived by ghosts, cunning politicians and the music of very dissonant sounds).”

Parsifal: (who has been silence, joined-in with these sardonic, mordant remarks)

“…However droll creatures, Homo sapiens (especially the British people and post-American pragmatism) —at least for the last two hundred years— have taken as the noblest of tasks to explaining a logical sequence or cause-affect relationship into what is real or merely mental; consequently, our madhouses, hospitals and wards are packed with mentally-ill friends.

And in the physic and psychology of ‘felt’ or ‘the perceived reality,’ there are, so it seems, certain physical-mental laws in mutual reciprocity (object-subject co-dependency), internal mechanism that serve as the fulcrum for grasping, however futile, a coherent haunting-story in the realm of my sense-perceptions or elusive matrix.

But herein, unfortunately, lies the Samson's weakness for every sound investigation into the unseen world, because every moment may prove an intricate cobweb of unchained events, ever-unfolding and affecting my sense-judgment dimly subjective and giddy.”

Philosopher (with his typical skeptical frame of mind)

“For the most part, we are inclined to being subjective, showy, tricky and faulty in most narrative-stories, and our daily experiences and drudgery are, quite often, garbled and tinted with the most amusing exaggerations —sometimes scandalous nonsense— yet uttered with an air of intellectual and scientific credibility...

Nevertheless, in the cob-web of many sundry circumstances affecting our dizzy senses, and amidst the unleashing forces of foggy mist, gravity, weather conditions, magnetism, the lap of night's shadows and so on, we may expect, albeit occasionally, a reversal or slight alteration of certain laws thereof.

Strictly speaking, certain livid shades may only exist but in direct relation to the knowing-being (more so, when possessed by the sense of dread or awe), and at that time-space connection —like a happy accident in the hands of Fate's whimsical surprises— the X-rapport is established with the unknown universe or entity (íes) a.k.a., X in question.

Reminding the sceptic minds out there, that this mysterious universe reverberates with the grave music of insoluble mysteries...

An Owl: "Who are the ghosts suspended in the midnight of history?”

Natasha Blavatsky: “Every day, hundreds of people commit suicide, some may leave good-bye notes on the Internet!

Where do they go?

The question of reality or fantasy may not be answered in the realm of observable phenomena.

Are we going linear in the pathway of time and space?”

Philosopher. “Albert Einstein would answer in the affirmative. Immanuel Kant would say no! Schopenhauer would say yes and not.”

Parsifal “My distinguished comrades, once again, stop thy platitudes: we are all suspended in the demesne of King Nihilo's all destructive fist (Milton's Satan): kinetic energy, matters in constant transmutation, and in these constant changes and fluxes, the possibility of new-born children, biological experiments or hideous spawns (demons, failures and abortis of natura in masses —over eight billion if we believe Dante's afflatus) in constant fruition, passions, hatred, misunderstandings, guilt, pain and finally annihilation: and then, we all may hover this Twilight-Zone...somehow, trapped in the Nest of Time (Hades or Tartarus, the Infernos of the Christians and Muslims).”

Philosopher: “Indeed! Perhaps energy does not die out, neither matter becomes non-existent.

Natasha Blavatsky: “How about the net of feelings and passions that define and track down your self-awareness, the unique imprint of your soul's essential fabric and identity: the ‘I am’ in the threshold of time and space?

Do these passions vanish once we die to our corporeal bodies, that’s to say, when we finally cease to exist breathing, physically annihilated?

Homer, St. Paul and Dante would say: —of course not!

This universe is incredibly complex, a network of circles, a web of dreams, dimensions, matter and kinetic energy in eternal love-making and fruition and repulsion; all intertwining in ways reciprocal, repulsive and repelling, joyful and dolorous, peaceful and hostile.

Indeed, in the content and context of matter time and space, we are all placed somewhere (an internal experience of self-awareness, peace or agony)... according to our own substance, the question of goodness, utility and the reality of good or evil.

To deny this fact of life, would be as crazy as to deny the striking difference between a downy turtle-dove and a cold scaly snake slithering...

The subject of the demonic, however subjective, is one, that strictly speaking, defies both, our sensible mind and the question of a meaningful life objectively lived.

It is only afterwards substantially clear, and hence, evil and painful, when we see the genie (jinni) of destruction rolling up in big columns of smoke and debris.

At that moment, we gasp and wonder on the intrinsic purpose of life and meaning.”

Philosopher “By the way, which god could have allowed something so contrary to the higher principles of Mother Nature?

What of the aftermaths for those souls lost in the World Trade Center's 9-11-Tragedy?

Were they lost under the she-mist of debris and crumbles?

This is the philosophy of reality, a mysterious world of endless knobs, wolds and mounts of nihilism, the reality for each and every one of us.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Soul and Memory

Who would survive the day after tomorrow...?

Natasha Blavatsky: “At this point let us take the ticket-permission to carefully meddle and touch upon some pastel shading possibilities: whatever spark or wisp of the soul's internal filaments may remain in the hereafter, it (consciousness) would have been very lucky to have escaped the mossy grave of death (minding the reader to read the last pages of the Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe, very beautiful and moving!).

Could the soul be aptly capable to indwelling a new body into a new existence?

Is the person-identity equal to the corporeal body in another substance made one-whole indivisible?

And with this breath or sigh... is she inseparable to the form itself?

I have spoken to many wonderful people from different convictions and ethics, and they all would like to go to heaven, a place of bliss and light immortal.

It seems that many are called but few get the ticket for such Miltonic Flight.

Is it free?

Personally, in my placid reflections and meditations on these far-fetched ideas, deep in my soul I know this dove-hope: that a new generation of children would see an unparalleled time of peace, a golden time, a new world splendid; nay, more glorious, clean and beautiful than the anything we have ever read, seen or heard in all the chronicles of humanity...”

Philosopher: “Since I was very young man, I have had as my priceless arsenal: the secret knowledge of magnetism, Mother Nature, ‘will’ and how the ‘mind’ in itself is the lost key, the Holy Grail, the philosopher’s stone of our inquiries to unraveling the many cloudy riddles of existence.

Some extraordinary men and women lived their lives as if helped and favored by angels!”

Phoenix Bird: (finally elicits some winged words: “Faith is power! It is simply the act and conviction of believing in certain possibilities (Hebrew Chapter 11).

I wish you could all just accept the Holy Writ as the answers to your inquiries.”

Natasha Blavatsky. “My opinion will not find any conflicts with your cherished religious conviction, because, even if you are a devoted Christian, a Humanist or a staunch atheist, at certain times of your life, you will find yourself desperately searching and fumbling for the lost key (knowledge) in an impregnable haze of doubts, premonitions, desperation and futurity.

Now, to claim a thorough control of your life circumstances, health and beloved possessions would be tantamount to ignorance, stupidity, silliness —arrogance.

Mind you, despite our great progress to understanding and unsnarling the underlying knot (God, Providence, Will) or invisible thread that inter-weave together our unfolding life circumstances, we are all children under the power of fate, providence, the skein of destiny.

True, a person's character, fingerprints, intelligence, talent and personality, in the last analysis, may play a great deal in understanding the ‘twist and plot’ of his-her life, but we must also consider so many other factors and external influences: there is always a third party person, thing or spirit (laugh out loud) in the unfolding circumstances and event of your life.

Accordingly, the wise person would seek the right places, milieu, company. A beautiful human being, would remain true and good even when left in oblivion...

Let me know if a human being is truly noble, healthy and lofty by showing me the ideal sequestered places, selective affinities and angelic friends of his/her choice.

In the Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe, the sensitive man, at the very end of the story commits suicide, but he dies, nonetheless, a noble human being. You may not agree with Goethe...”

Philosopher: “Let me remind you, that Ignorance, Fanaticism and Superstition, have accounted for some of the worst chapters in the History of Homo sapiens, and in many ways, these three great impostors have retarded, time and time again, the enlightenment of humanity to controlling the blind forces of mother nature.

And yet, in spite of such progress, most of us, are still prey to many violent impulses, delusion and errors; and at times, while looking for the lost keys in the confinement of our narrow existence, we all seem to be the plaything of endless pranks by some invisible hiding-about impish spirits; and it is not uncommon to find, here and there, even among the most successful city-people, occasional outburst of morbid feelings and premonitions stemming from the unfathomable side of our human nature.

Therefore, it is worth asserting here —that notwithstanding the great progress of civilized Post-Petroleum Homo sapiens to controlling the outcome of their sciences, technology and religions—-with all our countless churches and bulky volumes written on the subject of good and evil, we are still but children fumbling and groping for answers in the dark bottomless depth of the human hearts...

The difficult task is to bridge the gap (objectivity and subjectivity) between the boundlessness of the vast cosmos and the inner micro-cosmos of our little mind-world.

That they need each other for a firmer hold on this deceptive screen of reality has been Mr. Kant's great achievement --and Schopenhauer boasts of having inter-woven the two ghosts, object and subject,in the Will-To- Exist, --a Christian person would say:

“I am, the Will to Christ!”

Parsifal: “The truth is that, Time and Space could be conceived independently of our physical senses' testimonies, or at least, one path (the pavement's slab of tangibility) would be unintelligible, unless within the very Portal-Gate of our mind's internal apparatus the outside could be translated through the filter of our senses; one then could, likewise, reciprocate the length, wide and longitude of the said Matrix of Euclid.

Therefore, the inner-sense of time, hence, the vastness of the sidereal space is within our mind (a priori) —they are but mere tool-fulcrum for grasping this reality!

Amazing! One could not conceive the farthest distant star, unless that very distance finds its co-responsive gauge-scale in the very depth-core of our mysterious mind-mirror: the Soul!

In this manner, when the poor peasant lass unspoiled, Shanti, gazing up to the sky’s blinking vesper, the soul may gasp in perplexity, and then, would go on to sigh her tune:

The truth is that I am more fortunate than those ghosts who merely live like shadows, and by telling of my brief existence and recollections, it seems as if I could live it twice abundantly!”

Natasha Blavatsky: “I sigh, many pains are the lot for every soul, but more are the many counsels, advices and proverbs that could guide our lives safely through the labyrinths of this mysterious existence...

Meanwhile, I have been reading other great authors, to imbue my mind with their plodding thought-latitudes, pearly phrases embellished with literary juggernauts and frisky somersaults…”

Philosopher. “Is the law of recurrence a mere interval in the mysterious cycle of boundless Eternity?”

Phoenix Bird: “Perhaps everything will end, exactly as we have been told by the great prophets of yore, a big disaster...(peruse 2 Thessalonians Chapter 2, and 2 Peter Chapter 2).

I wish not for more suffering or wars, but I hope that there will be a hereafter for your soul and my soul, a soul capable of seeing the twinkling glints of the starry heaven.

​In the mirror of dewy eyes, the indisputable proof that divinity was closer when the twin-couple (Adam and Even) wept their tears of love...”

References:

A Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Ideas, Parerga and Paralipomena vol. I and II),
Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels)
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason).
Ferdinand Ossendowski (Beasts, Men and Gods, page 240)
Albert Einstein (On Gravity)
Jack London (People of the Abyss)
Jose Y Ortega Gasset (The Revolt of the Masses, the Barbarism of Specialization)
F. Nietzsche (The Will To Power)
Dante Alighieri (The Divine Comedy, Inferno XXI)
John Milton (Paradise Lost, Book VII, page 243)
New Testament, (Corinthians Chapter 15)
Plato (Eternal Forms and Ideas)
Johann Wolfang Goethe (The Sorrows of Young Werther, pages from 102 to 118)
Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann (Wednesday, March 2, 1831 On The Demonic, page 392, 394, Tuesday, March 8, 1833)
Book of Revelation (Chapter 8:08).

Currently Adding Lines (November 22)