#∴ transform my death into a conduit ∵ [ fantasy. ]

[anna-is-angel]

envisioning sex with god - essay

Images of lying in the bed of the cross, sucking Christ’s blood from his side, necrophillic kissing of Christ’s lifeless lips, and stuffing bodies into the raw cavity of his wound bombard the reader’s imagination in an encounter with the works of Angela of Foligno. The visions of Angela capture this collision between holiness and carnality, presenting the relationship with God as an intimate love affair. Transcribed by her brother Arnaldo, ​Angela of Foligno: Complete Works maps the unprecedented journey of Angela’s ascent that navigates through vacillating states of absence, presence, suffering, ecstasy, eroticism, and asceticism. In a religious milieu dominated by a male clergy, Angela enters the public sphere, among other visionary women, to expand the understanding of piety through the mystical union and identification with Christ. Challenging the limitations of an intellectual mastery of the teachings of the Bible, her conception of religious life centers on an experience characterized by love, suffering, contemplation, and poverty. Employing a series of images and visions that punctuate her spiritual ascent with God, her collection of works lacks the progression of a narrated love story. Instead, her transcriber, at times, clumsily weaves together vignettes of an affair of unparalleled intimacy, extreme suffering, and unattainable truth. These accounts utilize the particularity of the body, the vision, and the image as a gateway to a multidimensional fusion of God and self. Yet, despite these moments of fleeting intimacy, these encounters fail to encompass the incomprehensible experience of complete union with the transcendent God. Within the works of Angela, her encounters with Christ not only submerge her soul in the being of God, but also implicate an uncertainty and distance from an uncreated love that is beyond form. Inscribing these visions, the body, the cross, and language itself with meaning that directly impacts her union with God, the works of Angela of Foligno demonstrate both the interplays between affective and essence mysticism. In this paper, I strive to explore the ways in which this intense visual experience gives way to a multisensory, spiritual ascent and multidimensional union with God that intersects with a transcendental experience untethered by form.

A major component of Angela’s spiritual union with God relies on the affective and physical experiences tied to the particularity of the image and body. The vision itself, a key aspect in her relationship and eventual identification with the Godhead, obscures the lines between visuality and multidimensional experience. As a psychological canvas for the erotic, strange images of Angela’s psyche, the vision further serves as the ​meeting ground for the interactions and unification of her and Christ. A vehicle of not only imagistic projection, but also of bodily and vocal exchange, the vision punctuates Angela’s spiritual ascent. Marking experiences of suffering, unity with Christ, and eroticism, the medium of the vision obscures the boundaries between reality and imagination that mirrors the interplay between the closeness and unattainability of God’s presence. In one of her most memorable encounters, a vision imperceptibly grounds her in the rationalized, physical space of Christ’s tomb. Naturalized by the nonchalance of the transcription, “she found herself in the sepulcher with Christ,”​1 this scene of Angela’s sensual intimacy with the dead body of Christ subsequently naturalizes their love affair. Working her way up from his breast to mouth, she pictures a simultaneously sanctified and erotic foreplay that transcends the boundaries of life and death and human and divine. Accentuated through this vision of unmatched closeness, the relationship between Angela and Christ is one of distinct particularity. Through the specificity of the interaction between the body of Christ and that of Angela’s, the vision opens up the possibilities of engaging in a love affair with God.

It is within this love affair that Angela of Foligno captures the essence of bridal mysticism- a mysticism contingent on the particularity of relationship between the female mystic and Christ. In the blending of this bridal mysticism and passion mysticism, hinging on “imaginative representation” of the crucifixion,2​ the relationship between visuality and the viewing subject takes on a particular resonance. Visible means often inspire Angela’s intense encounters with God- stained-glass windows depicting St. Francis and paintings of the crucifixion litter the collection of her works. In viewing aesthetic depictions of the passion, the image of the cross, in particular, transforms into a core doorway to a relationship with Christ. The ultimate symbol of suffering, the cross and its further signification of shame and excruciating pain defy complete representation. In gazing at paintings of the cross, Angela expresses, “the representation was nothing in comparison with the extraordinary suffering which really took place and had been shown to me and impressed in my heart.”​3 Alone, the flat aesthetic value of the painting cannot stand to even superficially outline the essence of divine love. However, the image serves as an entry point into a multisensory experience between the divine and human. Mere images of the passion elicit such drastic corporeal reactions from Angela that Masazuola, her maid, has to hide their paintings.

Through the entry point of the cross, suffering serves as a major vehicle to the mystic’s identification and union with Christ. Images of the passion, the cross, and freshly flowing blood of Christ’s wound-- “they liked their Christ bleeding”​4-​ - pulsate through the collection. Desperately desiring for the poverty of Jesus, for the experience of the pain of the crucifixion, and for death (specifically a death more excruciating than any former martyr), Angela figures suffering as a passageway into an identification with Christ. In the sixth installment of Arnaldo’s organization of the supplementary steps, Angela experiences a suffering with no other “comparison than that of a man hanged by the neck who . . . remains dangling on the gallows and yet lives.”​5 Through this agonizing “abase[ment],”​6 the body and soul not only undergo a “purging” and purification “for a greater elevation,”​7 but this suffering also aligns the human subject with Christ. A “necessary companion of love,”8 suffering is a key ingredient of the spiritual ascent. A tool of self knowledge and understanding of the experience of Christ, the mimetic quality of Angela’s desire for suffering coalesces with her conception of divine love. The asceticism and welcoming of spiritual and physical discomfort advances the simultaneous rejection of self and the merging of self with the divine. This tenuous relationship characterizes the complexity of Angela’s suffering and ascent, as she oscillates between fleeting moments of God’s saturating love and presence and her extreme guilt and unworthiness. She must grapple with this tension between serving as the “representation of sinful humankind and the figure of the sinless Jesus who sacrificed himself on behalf of humanity.”​9 This tension uniquely centers on the body of the female mystic, whose particularity serves as the crux of this vacillation between causing​ Christ’s suffering and becoming​ Christ.

The body of the female mystic and that of the hyper-humanized God-man serve significant roles through the lens of bridal mysticism. While the cross signifies a mimetic suffering of both beings, it simultaneously signifies their erotic consummation. God presents the cross to Angela as “your bed,”​10 symbolizing an erotic touchstone of bodily interaction, signifying a manifestation and production of love. The theme of lovemaking and the love affair localize the union of the human and the Trinity within the particularized relationship between mystic and Christ. Angela’s body is not only a conduit of expression of her passionate episodes of screams, but it is also directly involved and essential to her spiritual intertwining with God. As described above, her sense of sight often facilitates her encounters with Christ in visions. These visions themselves accentuate the roles of both Angela’s and Christ’s bodies, exemplifying the raw carnality of their corporeal interactions. Relating to the significance of the physicality of the relationship between the Shulamite and lover in the Song of Songs, the love between Angela and Christ involves both the collision of bodies and the spiritual intimacy to which this collision gives way.

In one encounter within a liminal space that obscures the reader’s perception of fantasy and reality, Christ confronts Angela in a form of undeniable corporeality. The vision accents his vulnerable humanity in images of flows of blood pouring out from his body. In an unfathomable act, Angela “saw and drank the blood,”​11 emulating the closeness of an infant drinking from its mother’s breast or the intimacy of oral sex. Mirroring the fluidity of the drops of blood sucked from the wound of Christ into Angela’s throat, these bodily interactions signify a union that not only involves the interactions between bodies but also their merging. A site for the entrance of the mystic into the Trinity, the body plays a major role in the multidimensional “unitive life.”12 The mutual mobility of bodies and souls (in an obscure realm of “reality” meeting “imagination”) relates to a love that confuses the boundaries of normative partitions between human and divine, body and soul. In one experience of ecstasy, Angela’s body and voice are paralyzed in the physical space of the Piazza Santa Maria. However, simultaneously, she “had indeed entered at that moment within the side of Christ.”13 While it is her soul that enters his wound, this focalization point of the bodily wound itself accounts for the necessity of the body within this divine union. These acts of erotic bodily interplay inform mystical transformations of human into God-man. The meshing of bodies mediates the melting of souls in a relationship where love is conflated with continual metamorphosis.

These glimpses of union with Jesus involve the particularity of the image, the suffering of the cross, the body, and even of Jesus within the Trinity. The groundedness of bridal mysticism within the physicality of female experience and the image, however, also blends with a mystical experience that transcends particular form. The conception of essence mysticism, instead of focusing on the localized love affair, centers on the an ascent towards the union, “‘one in spirit’ (sine medio)​ with the divine essence.”14 While both trends of mysticism intersect within Angela’s work, a theme of an uncertain and deep transcendence underlies her journey. As discussed above, fleeting bouts of overwhelming love and presence mark her ascent towards unity with God. However, more suffering follows in periods of absence, evoking her cries, “Love still unknown, why do you leave me?”​15 Though her encounters with God undoubtedly mobilize her towards a loving union with God, a deeper understanding of God’s love remains a mystery- “uncreated love.”​16 Despite her continuously transforming being, she marks her relationship with God with an essential qualifier: “I am in the God-man almost continually.”17 This statement reflects the perpetual distance between her and the complete truth of the Trinity. Even the organization of the works cannot follow a rational sequencing. Both the reader and Arnaldo struggle to follow the oscillations of Angela’s spiritual journey, characterized by fleeting moments of ecstasy and cavernous experiences of absence and abandonment.

Within the uncertainty of this journey emerges the darkness that we once witnessed in the work of Gregory of Nyssa. This uncreated love lies within this darkness that shrouds the sanctity and secrecy of God’s superiority and renders her previous experiences “inferior.”18 Seeing God in this darkness transcends beyond reaction of body and soul, as “neither body or the soul tremble or move as at other times.”​19 This experience within and when she emerges above this darkness resists the limitations of language and human conceivability. The emergence from this darkness propels her into a state of deep union with God. She is now plunged into the great abyss of greater truth- a truth only describable in terms of a barely-elucidating enigma. Within this truth, everything in the universe has a rightful purpose and place, and the “duality of good and evil, heaven and earth, has been overcome.”20 Her soul is recreated in this transcendental state, which is independent of the ties of form, image, and physicality. Through the “truth” of this mystical state, all beings are vested with the essence of the Trinity, and Angela pursues a union with the transcendent God, not simply the particular suffering Christ.

The complete works of Angela of Foligno capture the oscillating and confusing ascent of this female mystic, reflecting the, at times, awkward blending of aspects of both bridal and essence mysticism. Ultimately, this collection of works is pretty shocking. Again, it links vignettes of uncut, carnal passion with strange desires for bloody death to achieve not only a love affair with Christ, but also ​identification with God. Weaving together the essential particularity of the vision with the enigmatic abyss of transcendence, Angela’s work artfully constructs a love union with God that simultaneously mediates a space of eroticism, distance, and love.

Notes

Angela of Foligno: Complete Works,​ trans. Paul Lachance (Paulist Press, 1993), 182.

Angela of Foligno​, 41.

Angela of Foligno​, 162.

Angela of Foligno​, 41.

Angela of Foligno​, 197.

Angela of Foligno​, 202.

Angela of Foligno​, 202.

Angela of Foligno​, 62.

Ellen M. Ross, “Body, Power, and Mimesis” in ​The Grief of God: Images of the Suffering Jesus in Late Medieval England​ (Oxford University Press, 1997), 111.

Angela of Foligno​, 162.

Angela of Foligno​, 128.

Angela of Foligno​, 72.

Angela of Foligno​, 176.

Angela of Foligno​, 40.

Angela of Foligno​, 142.

Angela of Foligno​, 70.

Angela of Foligno​, 205.

Angela of Foligno​, 203.

Angela of Foligno​, 204.

Angela of Foligno​, 74.

[sun-spirit-evolution]

Architypes in Astrology II

So I spent some time writing up the second half of this blog, only to have the entire thing disappear when I went to schedule the post. Hopefully I do not miss much of what I had written, and I apologize if I do because there was some insightful stuff there. That being said, on with the lesson…

Every chart holds 12 houses in astrology, and each house outlines an area of progress in the life of the protagonist (the protagonist in the case of examining your own natal chart being you). The bottom half of the chart (houses 1-6) represent the self and the inner world (or soul). The top half of the chart (houses 7-12) represent the outer world or other (or the collective). Now let us peer into the journey of the natal chart by examining the architypes of the houses.

The Houses

FIRST HOUSE The first house represents self-actualization. In the journey of life, it is here we begin to develop and discover our personalities through action. The sign governing this house is known as the rising sign, and it is the veil through which we express our planets. It is the physical body; one’s approach to life; discovering one’s individual way; and the natural persona that is seen by others.

SECOND HOUSE The second house is where we begin to determine what is valued through tangible things, and the truth of how these effect our sense of self-value. It is resources; values; material security; possessions; the experience of nature and connection to the earth; sensual enjoyment of material things; productivity and expenditure; self-confidence or lack of; and proving one’s self (or proving one’s value).

THIRD HOUSE The third house represents the stage where through our questionings, we are able to gain understanding of the relationships between things, as well as our relationship to these things. It is the rational mind; the exchange of information; all forms of language and communication; learning; shock; the unexpected; improvisation; and reaction.

FOURTH HOUSE The fourth house is where we find our sense of emotional security that comes from our deep inner-self. It is our inner world; the home; one’s personal roots; family and emotional security; the private; the need for domestic tranquility; the experience of community; radical commitment; and traditionally represents the mother.

FIFTH HOUSE The fifth house is our need to creatively express who we are (our ego) to the world. It is all forms of creativity and self-expression; the projection of self onto the stage of life; the sense of identity; energy expenditure and vitality; the need for pleasure; play; love affairs; courtship; traditionaly represents children; and performance. SIXTH HOUSE The sixth house is where we begin to analyse the self in order to heal existing wounds. It is through healing we learn self love, and are able to express the ultimate versions of ourselves. To be our best for others, we must first become the best ourselves. Before we can love others, we must learn to love ourselves. This is the last house transitioning from the self to the other, from the inner to the outer. It is the developement of efficiency and proficiency through engaging the practical; material challenges posed by the world; the refinement of self-expression; duties and skills; mentoring and being mentored; the urge to be competent; helpfulness; everyday work; habbits and hobbies; and self-sufficiency.

SEVENTH HOUSE The seventh house is our first experience with the other and the outer world. It is our first taste of seeing ourselves reflected by another. It is all forms of close relationships; coming to awareness through others; intamicy; commitment; relationships based on equality; negotiation; and compromise.

EIGHTH HOUSE The eighth house is where we experience deep union with others. If thinking in terms of romance, it is the phase of the relationship in which the honeymoon is over and the deep, dark truths of the other, and in extension the self, are revealed. It is through these revelations that we experience the beauty of transformation. It is all forms of union: emotional, sexual, financial; the challenge of merging with another in relationship; transformation; issues of power and control; the expereince of ego-death and dying; social taboos; the occult; the repressed and perinatal unconscious; regenration of the self through experiencing the values of the other; others’ resources, money and possessions; instincts; wounds; everything psychologically charged; sexual bonding; and in the words of Steven Forrest, “the house that makes you make animal noises.” That is to say, noises that are universally understood, such as sighs, screams and moans. *wink*

NINTH HOUSE In the ninth house we journey in the search for answers to our new truths, and in doing so generate philosophies about ourselves, others and the world. If we remain open in our quest, great wisdom is revealed. It is the relationship of the self to the wider world; meaning and world view; gaining a broader perspective on one’s life through travel, study, and living abroad; the exposure to different cultural perspectives; the search for one’s own truth-philosophy; higher education and learning; values; and life as a quest.

TENTH HOUSE The tenth house is the outer world (or collective) and the paradigm that governs it. It is our first experience of integrating ourselves within the paradigm, finding our place in the collective, and leaving our mark. It is worldy acheivement; personal and professional ambition; one’s public role and public life; the social persona; one’s contribution to the collective through a particular vocation or calling; reputation; and traditionally represents the father.

ELEVENTH HOUSE The eleventh house is where we wish to liberate from constraints. This is the stage, that through the connection of mind and heart, we come to understand that unique part of ourselves that is an aspect of creation, and what its purpose is within the collective. It is the working toward this realization with a sense of non-attachment as to how we may be perceived, that new social structures, groups and paradigms are built. It is one’s individual purpose within the larger collective or social group; participation in movements; associations and groups with common aims; the social circle and groups of friends; goals; strategies; development over time; allies; tribal experience; teamwork; and networking.

TWELFTH HOUSE The twelfth house is the final stage of our journey before we begin again. If the eleventh house is liberation, the twelfth is transendence. It is where we take all of our knowledge and healing, and we finally see the larger picture that was once clouded. It is the point we see through illusion, we see ultimate truths, and through non-attachment we are able to experience unconditional love of not only the self, but the other/collective as well. It is transcendece or dissolution of the ego; mysticism and personal sacrifice; acting as a conduit or vessel of the transpersonal or the collective unconscious; myth; dreams; fantasy; arts and imagination; isolation; withdrawal; the growth of awareness through solitude or privation; spiritual life and behind the sences activities; the hidden; institutions in which the ego is rendered powerless; the end of a cycle and beginning of a new one; returning to the cosmic womb; the dimension of life “beyond” our world; release; psychic experience; and necessary losses.

Now you are equipped with some of the architypes surrounding the houses. If you cross-reference these with my previous post speaking to the architypes of the signs, you will be able to have a greater understanding of how the houses influence your planets, and how the signs influence the houses. You will also notice patterns or similarities between the signs and houses they govern.

To give an idea on how to interpret someone’s planets, let us use the sun in Virgo in the ninth house. Someone with this placement could be seen as a person who garners joy from learning (ninth house) about the self (the sun). If we go one step further, through analysis of the self (sun in Virgo), this person is able to find answers which contribute to their philosophies of themselves and how they relate to the world (ninth house). If we wish to go even further by incorporating partnering signs/houses, this person will come by these answers by first questioning (third house) illusions (Pisces) they hold about themselves. Upon seeing the reality (Virgo) of these illusions, and analysing the wounds caused by them in order to heal them, they are able to create new philosohpies for and of the self, and gain a greater wisdom of themselves and their relation to the collective. If we wished to go even further, we can begin to look at how Sagittarius and Gemini square Virgo and Pisces, which create challenges and can show wounds that need to be addressed in the chart. We can also address the need to communicate these philosophies, and the need to help others on their life’s journey through their learnings. We can also look at how aspects to the sun influence the expression of that planet, and so on and so forth. I will leave it as is for now, as I would like to move on the partnering signs in my next entry, but you can see how complex and in depth astrology can really get. Far more deep than you cry a lot because you are a Cancer, or you will marry rich because your venus is in your tenth house (I wish though).

If you are daring enough to expose yourself to the world, or at least the community that is tumblr (eleventh house in action!), leave a comment below with an interpretation of one of the planets from your natal chart. And just so we are even, the example above is from my own chart.

Until next time, keep learning and growing.

[undergroundsky]

Where do you think Seidou fits into the current Akira + Amon thing? Considering his arc is unresolved with both characters?

If there is anything that has the capacity of revealing the fallacy of their romance, Takizawa’s absence is more than likely it. Whereas many readers take the Amon and Akira relationship as an ostensible parallel to that of Kaneki and Touka, I’ve always seen it as uniquely isolated in various aspects, primarily owing to the gravity of Takizawa’s existence to them.

Amon’s myopic definition of atonement and justice propelled him to seek out Takizawa on Rushima as if to protect himself from his own departure from moral integrity. To succeed in ripping Takizawa from the jaws of complete corruption is to grant himself security in his emptiness, to realize that the light in the world hadn’t faded after all.

With Takizawa now out of sight and Kurona apparently having regained stability, Amon rapidly shifts his attention to Akira instead of chasing after them to speak as he was wont to prior to his arrival at Goat’s hideout. Like Kaneki, he juggles in his hands the lives of the people he believes he should be held responsible for; in an ironic twist, he himself ended up being saved in the lab infiltration mini-arc by the two people he fruitlessly ran around to save for years following his transformation. He can ill afford to relinquish his role as the vigilant martyr, for only in the redemption of his former comrades can he find his own. Of course, that includes Akira.

I think the conversations between Akira and Kaneki as of late are very telling of how she perceives the few she entrusted with as much intimacy as she could allow herself, how this—

—can also be interpreted as a reverberation of her underlying muddled feelings in regard to the contrast between the human “Takizawa Seidou” she was attached to and the ghoul “Owl” he has devolved into. No matter the substance of Takizawa’s thoughts and memories as they may now be, Akira wants to convince herself that such a person can’t be in her future because the investigator as she knew him did not survive the raid mission, the investigator as she knew him was not a homicidal traitor who could desecrate their organization and murder the superior he respected.

However, this is the same Akira that clings steadfast to the name of “First-Class Amon” and moves to kiss him for his words of solace when she most needed to hear them. He sympathizes with her pain. In these moments, Amon is as much a ghoul to her as “Sasaki Haise” was before. That she is a product of her environment notwithstanding, Akira not only views Amon as a vessel in which she must invest her desires, but as a sanctuary from the dissonance of the outside world she is due to face as a result of her interaction with Touka and Hinami.

Despite her scene with Amon, she clearly mentions that her hapless reliance on Haise was born of emotional exigency upon her loss of both Amon and Takizawa. Of the two, Akira establishes the former as the lone safe connection that fulfills her selfish nostalgia because he never scorned her, never pushed her away. But that doesn’t erase her sacrificial act of shielding Takizawa and what she said to him, and the events in this chapter would have no doubt played out differently had he stayed.

What if…back then…I had stopped you?

It might very well have been the guilt talking, but there is a reason for that, why her last memory of him was him turning his back to her and leaving her alone, just as he remembered her doing on countless occasions. They wasted so long walking away in turnfrom one another without getting anywhere but closer to lost.

What’s uncanny is their identical approach to withdrawing from Goat, the “I’m done with you, so you’re none of my business anymore” rationale as though they’re channeling this sentiment using Kaneki as a conduit. Tragic, how they somehow invent ways to grow further apart even when they are not sharing a space.

While her question is a heavy one that will probably never be answered, if there is a chance, it’s too soon because it demands genuine self-reflection. In fact, I think your theory on the current moon arc folds nicely into the plot with Amon and Akira — they’re ensnared in their recycled delusions, feeding off each other with no one to wake them. Takizawa’s reintroduction would signify the point of divergence into the conceivabledeath of their fantasy.

The rosary is a relic of Amon’s blissfully ignorant childhood, a chain of penitence originally given to him by Donato. In ridding himself of it, he seems to have forgotten about his old friend, as well as his anger for his foster father; that was him symbolically shifting his burdens onto Takizawa and fettering him to lucid reality in his stead. So Takizawa chose to run from Amon and Akira like an owl deserting its roost because he had made his peace with his identity and purpose, and he could no longer call them “home” insofar as he is to remain what he is. To him, this is the afterlife of his own elaborate construction, liberation from and mockery of his true self to the utmost degree.

Except Takizawa isn’t dead, not really. He’s a wanderer with only his shadow and a prayer for company, and the Oggai are out for the harvest. What with his line from the original series that appeared to foreshadow some sort of involvement with the Clowns (“Shit…I’m definitely on the clown course…”) and his possession of the rosary, I almost expect him to cross paths with Donato, which would inevitably deliver Amon back within grasp. Ideally, his returning the beads to Amon directly would trigger a domino effect of them gaining solemn clarity one at a time.

For Amon, to confront the man who raised and betrayed him is to stop idling and begin to come to terms with the fear and self-contempt that consumed him, to understand that his morals are his own; for all the admiration he has for the people precious to him, their lives, deaths, and salvation are not things he has to shoulder in penance for every child he let die at the orphanage. There is the plausibility that he will succumb to his terror for a while; Amon never figured out how to restrain his berserk state, and if this arc is mirroring the Anteiku raid, it would be satisfying to see a predecessor–successor battle parallel between Juuzou and kakuja-Amon as seen with Shinohara and Yoshimura. He vows to serve as Akira’s guiding light through her darkness, and this is not so much a lie as it is a shade of truth foretelling his role in her epiphany. As the person fueling her illusions, his release is the preeminently necessary step toward hers.

Akira is a capable strategist who can aid in Kaneki’s quest for equilibrium, but she opts to escape, mind thrown into disarray and unwilling to accept her place in the struggle. Violent hatred was her weapon that she doesn’t have anymore, thus she can’t fight, thus she turns to devote all of her being to its sheer opposite — love—at the quickest opportunity. She has yet to comprehend that people are more than simple manifestations of hate, love, emptiness. When she learns that she doesn’t have to lean on Amon for emotional and existential validation, that her heart has always belonged to her, she will be free to pay the same favor to Takizawa, to breach his barrier and pull him from despair: You don’t need me as a reason to live your life, to be who you are. Hero or not, you’re still you even after everything.

Letting go is a three-way process for them. It is also their conclusion. They fall two paces back for every one in defiance of reuniting with their forsaken selves, their sense of self that is an indispensable part of opening their eyes to absolute awareness. Takizawa is the one among them who is most self-determined, therefore the catalyst to get the reaction going. I thoroughly enjoy this trio in spite of this, because of this, because they need each other in order to be free of each other. Once the veil of fog lifts and forces them into sobriety from the corrosive cycle of deceit and self-deception, they’ll be able to see their vital lies for what they were — lies.

[libraryoferana]

Images (from Wikipedia) 

Emerald Tablet

Apollonius of Tyana

Alexandria Library

Author section

Name: Seth (S.E.) Lindberg

How would you define a Skirmisher? Any soldier roaming ahead of the core army, usually shield-less and including heroic civilians caught behind enemy lines.

What is your usual genre? I focus on alchemy-inspired, dark fantasy. With Perseid Press, I write in the Heroes in Hell series with two characters: the shamed evolutionist Ernst Haeckel (who embellished his beautiful drawings with fictional data) and the smug archaeologist Howard Carter (known for finding/raiding King Tutankhamun’s tomb); their yarn has them exploring the Egyptian Duat afterlife (Pirates in Hell, Lovers in Hell, … and more to come). Check out related Library of Erana posts: Hell Week 2018 – A Day in the Life of Haeckel and Carter and Hell Week 2017 – An Interview with Ernst Haeckel. Separate from Perseid Press, I rely on Sword & Sorcery as a medium to contemplate life-death-art with my Dyscrasia Fiction series (dyscrasia literally means “a bad mixture of liquids”, an alchemical term).

Give us a brief synopsis of your Skirmisher story: The Naked Daemon pits the mystic Apollonius of Tyana (deceased ~100 CE) against zealots who destroy what remains of the Alexandria Library. In life, his principles had been aligned with those of the pacifist gymnosophists (a.k.a. naked philosophers); hundreds of years past his death, Apollonius finds himself reborn as a daemon empowered with Hermes’s Emerald Tablet. He observes the Roman oppression over pagan scholars and is challenged with an urgent need to defend knowledge.

Will Apollonius rationalize war by unleashing the power of alchemy to do harm?

Will he become an angel or demon? How will alchemy transform The Naked Demon?

How did alchemy inform your first Heroika tale? “Legacy of the Great Dragon” (Heroika 1: Dragon Eaters) features the Father of Alchemy Thoth (a.k.a. Hermes) entombing his singular source of magic, the Great Dragon. According to Greek and Egyptian myth, Hermes was able to see into the world of the dead and pass his learnings to the living. One of the earliest known hermetic scripts is the Divine Pymander of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus. Within that, a tale is told of Hermes being confronted with a vision of the otherworldly entity Pymander, who takes the shape of a “Great Dragon” to reveal divine secrets. “Legacy of the Great Dragon” fictionalizes this Hermetic Tradition, presenting the Great Dragon as the sun-eating Apep of Egyptian antiquity. Hermes’s learnings are passed to humanity via an Emerald Tablet. The actual Emerald Tablet (if it was indeed “real”) is arguable the most popular work of Hermeticism since its reveals the secret of transmuting any material’s base elements into something divine or valuable (gold). Many refer to the Tablet as being the philosopher’s stone, or the knowledge embodying it. In fact, the tablet no longer physically exists, but translations of it do. Sir Isaac Newton’s translation of the tablet’s inscription remains very popular, and undeniably cryptic.

Apollonius, it appears, not only recovered the Emerald Tablet, but he was entombed with it.

Are you a plotter or a pantser? 100% Plotter.

What keeps you up at night? Night terrors.

What inspires you? Exploring the seam between reality and fantasy. Nightmares.

Character Section

1) Name: Apollonius of Tyana

2) Tell us a bit about yourself. Many claim you to be a miracle worker, rivalling your contemporary Jesus: “No need to compare one man, or woman, to any other. Misunderstood powers, used for good or ill, flow through we hierophants. In this respect, I am merely a conduit. A magos.”

3) Do you believe in a god, or gods? “Of course. I minister people on their behalf.”

4) How do you come to be on this adventure? “In my primary life, I spent decades searching, and reassembling, the Emerald Tablet of Hermes. Atop the sacred slab, in the Serapeum of Alexandria, I passed away. Then I rose, not as a ghost, but as a tangible body.”

5) You pause. Why? “Romans were ransacking the last vestige of the Alexandria Library. Their distaste for humanity revived me. Our conflict did not end peacefully.”

6) You look at your hands. How do you view yourself? “As a bloody daemon, for certain.”

7) Angel or devil? “In my life, I was angelic. Judgement awaits for what came next.”

8) How do others see you? “Most see me with their eyes. A living, naked philosopher. Like other, wise gymnosophists. My disciple Damos sees me through his heart. He is overly loyal. Indeed, he was buried and reanimated with me.”

9) Where are your possessions? “I possess nothing. Therefore, I have the possessions of all other men.”

10) Do you have a moral code? “Spread hope and enlightenment. Slay no living thing. Eat no flesh. Be free from envy, malice, and hatred. Be powerful without inspiring fear.”

11) If you could wish for anything, what would it be? “To abide by my own moral code without fail. The sacred powers, prima materia of Hermes’ Emerald Tablet, can be corrupted, however.”

12) Do you think you make a difference in your world? “Once I did. But then time passed. Now to protect some people, I am tempted to hurt others. Gods work in mysterious ways, through flesh.”

13) What do you fear? “By defending what is righteous, I introduced a new evil to the world.”

14) Which is what?  “Alchemical warfare.”

15) What do you REALLY think of your author? “S.E.? He should be less terrified of me when I visit. When I stand beside his bed, enflamed in chartreuse astral-fire, looming over his sleeping form, I mean only to convey messages. He need not swat my effigy away. He needs to chill. Not all ghosts come to haunt.”

16) What do you want to tell him? “The secrets of alchemy are wordless, conveyed best through dreams. Tonight, when light fades, and dreams wash over your vision. Peer beside your bed. See me, and I will answer you. Pray you do not see another.”

  AUTHOR BIO

S.E. Lindberg resides near Cincinnati, Ohio working as a microscopist, employing scientific and artistic skills to understand the manufacturing of products analogous to medieval paints. Over two decades of practicing chemistry, combined with a passion for the Sword & Sorcery genre, spurs him to write graphic adventure fictionalizing the alchemical humors (primarily under the banner “Dyscrasia Fiction”).  With Perseid Press, he writes weird tales infused with history and alchemy (Heroika: Dragon Eaters, Heroika II: Skirmishers, Pirates in Hell, Lovers in Hell). S.E. Lindberg is a Managing Editor at BlackGate.com, reviewer of authors on the topic: Beauty in Weird Fiction, and co-moderates a Goodreads group focused on Sword & Sorcery.

S E Lindberg Author-site / Amazon Author Page / S E Lindberg on Goodreads / Dyscrasia Fiction on YouTube / Twitter Handle@SethLindberg

Heroika: Skirmishers

Conflict is a constant. When force on force is inevitable only the intrepid need come forth. Summon the Skirmishers to their eternal purpose, to face a foe who must be opposed at all cost. Gird yourself and join the brotherhood of ‘do or die.’ HEROIKA: SKIRMISHERS is an anthology of desperate struggles in far flung time-scapes, the age-old smell of battle and death. SKIRMISHERS –Tales for the bold among you!

https://www.amazon.com/Heroika-Skirmishers-Janet-Morris-ebook/dp/B085N7XZLZ/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Heroika-Skirmishers-Janet-Morris-ebook/dp/B085N7XZLZ/

#Heroika: Skirmishers – Witness the Birth of Alchemical Warfare! Read “The Naked Daemon” by S.E. Lindberg Images (from Wikipedia)  Emerald Tablet Apollonius of Tyana Alexandria Library Author section Name: Seth (S.E.) Lindberg…