Through a Glass Darkly

Many religious texts begin with the assumption that humans and God are separated, that humans feel for and stumble toward God in spiritual darkness. In Judeo-Christian theology light is often a metaphor for God. For example, Jesus proclaimed himself to be “the light of the world.”

The description parallels mental illness or at least deep dysfunction where the individual stumbles somewhat blindly through life. Often those observing can identify the individual’s self-limiting false perceptions, but telling the individual brings about no change. The change must come from within when the individual’s perception changes to accept reality. For example, anyone can tell a person engaging in addictive behavior that things will be better if he or she stops, but the addict will continue the destructive behavior most likely until death or "hitting bottom".

In literature, this irony, where the reader knows what is needed for salvation and character will not acknowledge it, creates tension that propels the story along its narrative arc. Because many of us have observed or experienced self-destructive behavior, the story is at once a mystery and familiar.

I have experimented throughout Revelation 11 and its sequels with characters being a part of something they don’t completely understand (the human condition?). Some characters conclude that we are living in the end times and the events occurring before them are unfolding Biblical prophecy. Others see only the events, not the prophetic context. For them, believing in prophecy requires too large a step of faith. Are they wise or foolish? What are the consequences of guessing wrong?

The apostle Paul said, “We see through a glass darkly and then face to face.” In Revelation 11, everyone sees “through the glass darkly” even if they believe they are seeing “face to face.”

The Flameless Burning of Books

My friend Trog Davis recently posted a blog entitled, The New American Oligarchy in which he worries that Amazon winning the right to operate the U.S. Intelligence Community’s cloud computing system may have unintended consequences. Davis raises questions about firewalls between data Amazon the retailer possesses and data Amazon, the spy-world cloud-computing operator, will have.

Amazon’s technological prowess is great. Its system for selling everything from e-books to shoes is a digital age marvel. The Amazon distribution system is superior to virtually all other retailers including Walmart and they have patented various e-commerce processes such as the one-click purchase. Although it sells many items, Amazon is at heart a technology company and that technical expertise clearly attracted the intelligence community.

So what does Amazon know and what will it learn? Currently, e-books make up approximately 30% of all book sales according to Forbes Magazine. Amazon’s Kindle e-books account for about 65% of those sales. Amazon’s effect on brick and mortar bookstores has been dramatic. Only half as many bookstores exist today than did 20 years ago. Amazon is by far the largest seller of used books in the country and because it tracks all those book purchases, it has more data on reading habits than anyone.

Knowing what books we read is only part of the story. Already some e-books can communicate with their creator, i.e. Amazon and other e-book publishers. They will know where you stopped reading, what portions you re-read, underlined, or highlighted. Kindle e-books even tell Amazon when you read. Some e-book publishers have announced plans to share this data with writers who can then write to the data. You like particular items in a fight scene, re-read it a couple times and you will see a similar scene in other books in the genre. Highlight a kinky sex act in your erotica and it will start the next porno craze.

Authors “writing to the data” is not the end of the world. Democracy will survive bad fiction, but not the limiting of ideas. Ray Bradbury’s classicFahrenheit 451 pondered a world where firemen burned books to keep the population quiescent while the rest of the populations watched vacuous program after program on “the wall”. The wall allowed the powers that be to watch citizens as they watched the wall.

Bradbury’s vision is chillingly close to fulfillment. Ubiquitous cell phones track our movements, while we blithely exchange grumpy cat pictures on Facebook. Our tweets detail our interests 140 characters at a time--all fodder for the “intellicloud” Davis speaks of.

So how easy would it be to burn books in such a world? Well, Amazon already has loner programs that delete your Kindle e-book after 30 days. Bothersome books could disappear with a keystroke.

End of Days

The HBO show, The Leftovers, based on Tom Perrotta’s novel, portrays a post-mass disappearance world struggling to understand this rapture-like event’s meaning. In previous decades, we have seen the Antichrist coming of age movies in The Omen series. In the 1970s, Hal Lindsey’s Late, Great Planet Earth and later books cast modern political events against a background of Biblical prophecy. The apocalypse never seems to lose its appeal.

In writing my novel Revelation 11, I’ve come across stories of people believing they were one of the two witnesses mentioned in Revelation 11 or the Antichrist himself. Of course, this is only the Christian side of the equation. Islamic eschatology also foretells Christ’s return, but with a different twist. Jesus returns to “break the cross”, a term used to mean that Jesus proclaims Islam to be the only true religion and Mohammed the prophet of God. For all I know there are adherents to Islam who believe they will play a role in the end times as well.

I cannot doubt the sincerity of people who believe they are destined to play a role in the Second Coming. My novel examines what happens when these people believe their time has come. My skeptic protagonist, Trog Davis, outwardly wants to have no part of it. When another character, Joe Stoner, asks him, “How would you act if you truly believed we were living the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy?” Trog realizes the people he is dealing with have a totally different view of reality.

So why is the apocalypse so fascinating? First, we know it is possible in some form. We have evidence of mass extinctions throughout the planet’s history and can conceive that humans can go the way of the dodo bird. The baby boom generation grew up knowing that nuclear weapons could easily lay waste to the planet. ‘Doomsday weapons’ was the quaint moniker for them before ‘weapons of mass destruction’ became the fashionable term. Now we face threats of environmental pollution and global warming. Jesus himself claimed divine intervention would be necessary to prevent humans from killing themselves— "Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.” (Matthew 24:22)

Finally, the apocalypse fascinates because it is the ultimate conspiracy theory. Someone, supernatural or human, knows what is going to happen, and the rest of us are along for the ride. We will need a hero to get to the truth. However, unlikely a hero he may be, Trog Davis may just be the guy for the job.

Building a Character

In my last post, I discussed the use of psychedelic drugs in the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. A fascinating video featuring the late Dr. Richard Rockefeller, provides a great background on PTSD, how it affects those who have it and those around them, and how therapists treat the condition.

A key theme in the sequel to Revelation 11, tentatively entitled, Continuing Revelation, is the main character's reaction to the stress-inducing events described in Revelation 11. Dr. Rockefeller's description of PTSD gave me a roadmap for continuing to build the character of Ben "Trog" Davis.

Dr. Rockefeller noted that while many of us experience, post-traumatic stress, it only becomes a disorder when the brain fails to move the traumatic memory out of the amygdala, which largely processes current ongoing events, into the parts of the brain that store memories. He explained that PTSD sufferers continue to experience the trauma as an ongoing event. They literally see and experience the trauma again seeing the people and objects present at the original event as if it were occurring at that moment.

While virtually everyone experiences post-traumatic stress, not everyone develops PTSD. Dr. Rockefeller explained that those who had suppressed memories from childhood stress are more likely to develop PTSD as an adult. So soldiers who survive the same IED attack in battle may have very different reactions to the event based on their prior experiences.

To treat PTSD, therapists must get back to that underlying trauma and allow the individual to process it into memory. LSD, ecstasy, and other medications that break down the walls harboring these suppressed memories allow the PTSD sufferer to explore their painful past in a safe environment.

Of course, to a novelist safe is boring. Trog will not be safe. The drugs the therapists give him may reveal more truth than he can handle. The intervention he needs may come from agents of God, Satan, or humans. Trog will have to judge whether what he sees is real or not. He may suffer from supernaturally induced PTSD.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

I read obituaries. Specifically, I read the New York Times obituaries. These obituaries of famous people either remind me of long forgotten events or introduce me, posthumously, to fascinating people with whom I had been unfamiliar. Dr. Richard Rockefeller, sadly, fell into the latter category.

The famous name grabbed my attention, but his life’s story proved far more interesting than I would have guessed. Dr. Rockefeller was David Rockefeller’s son making him the great-grandson of the family scion John D. Rockefeller. Last week, Dr. Rockefeller took off in his single-engine Piper Meridian in dense fog and crashed into trees not far beyond the Westchester County, New York Airport runway.

In his 65 years, Dr. Rockefeller advised and oversaw many of his family’s philanthropic efforts and was one of the guiding forces behind Doctors Without Borders. Almost as a footnote, the obituary mentioned he spent his later years working on treatments for those suffering from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD.

A day later I was researching the sequel to Revelation 11. I plan to put Ben “Trog” Davis, the protagonist, through some serious trauma, as if a running gun battle, false imprisonment, and two concussions in Revelation 11 weren’t enough. In particular, I was researching the use of ‘psychedelic’ drugs to treat PTSD.

In the 1950s, Bill Wilson, founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, claimed that LSD could provide the “ego reduction [that] makes the influx of God’s grace possible”. British psychotherapist, Ronald Sandison coined the term psycholitic therapy, which is the use of low to medium doses of psychedelic drugs, repeatedly at intervals of 1–2 weeks. Psycholitic, Sandison claimed, meant “soul dissolving”. For a novel where the protagonist must determine whether or not his troubles result from human conflict or spiritual warfare, these references were invaluable.

The final piece of the puzzle occurred when I went on the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies website and found a video featuring Dr. Richard Rockefeller discussing the use of MDMA or “ecstasy” for treating PTSD. “Trog” doesn’t know it yet, but he is about to have his consciousness expanded. If any of you are friends with Ben on Facebook , don’t let him know what the future holds. He is blissfully unaware of what God and Satan have in store for him.

Haunted by Kennedy

I was five years-old when President Kennedy was assassinated. Even at that young age, I knew something fundamental had changed. The memories remain very real.

Experts tell us that memories are not really archived in our brains, but rather rebuilt each time we reach for them. We overlay them with other detail enhancing some details, deleting others and ultimately placing the memories in context. So memories from childhood have been reconstructed countless times. I can only wonder how different my current recollections are from their originals.

One such memory of an event occurring just weeks after the assassination served as the basis for a chapter in my upcoming novel, Revelation 11. On a cold December day I played outside on our swing set. Looking up, I saw what looked like a black figure standing on a cloud looking down at me. What began as curiosity, turned to fear as I watched this strange apparition for several minutes. Ultimately, I ran inside, but never told my parents or my brother about the event until years later. To this day, I don't know why.

The event's fictional version appears below to give you a foretaste of the novel. It will be published in time for Easter 2014.

December 1963

Epiphany

“Who is the president now, mommy?” Ben Davis asked.

“President Johnson.” She replied.

He had asked the same question each day for two weeks as if changing presidents could now be a daily occurrence. The five-year-old had come in from playing for lunch two Fridays before to see his mother crying in front of the television. He remembered looking at the screen and seeing a large room filled with people moving back and forth in confusion. The announcer had said the room was the luncheon that President Kennedy was going to address, but he had been assassinated.

“What does assassinated mean, mommy?”

“It’s when someone important is killed.”

A large, black man crossed the screen in a white server’s coat. The tears streamed down his face. Ben had never seen a grown man cry like that.

Over the next days, images of death flooded the TV screen-the President’s body in state, the funeral cortege, the burial at Arlington.

In the gray days that followed, angst fed the nation’s subconscious. Even children like Ben knew something was different as a pall fell over the nation with the first days of winter. He heard stories that psychics had predicted the assassination, that a family received a message on Ouija board reading, “Thank you for praying for me while I was in purgatory.”

“What’s purgatory, mommy?”

“It’s something Catholics believe in. You don’t need to worry about it.”

“Was President Kennedy a Catholic?”

“Yes, he was.”

“So he has to worry about purgatory, right?”

Even at this age, he could tell when his mother was uncomfortable with a question. “That’s hard to say. Why don’t you go out and play on the swings until dinner?”

Ben bundled up against the cold, gray day. Dark, low clouds floated by against the lighter gray matte above them. He swung on the swings, watched the sky begin to succumb to the winter evening’s gloom. A small dark spot near one of the low, gray clouds caught his eye for a moment, then disappeared behind in the swirling vapor.

He continued to swing and look around the neighborhood to see if any of his friends were out playing. But this was the Cumberland Valley's appointed dinner hour and they were all crowded into the identical postwar crackerbox rancher eat-in kitchens.

His mother always saw the local custom of eating dinner precisely at five o’clock as peculiar. As a point of pride, and to accommodate his father, Jeff Sr.’s habit of having a few drinks before coming home, Ben’s family ate at 6—6:30, whenever, but never at five. Most likely, it would get dark before dinner and his mother would call him in.

He could just barely make out the sun’s position over the western mountains through the gray. He stood up to push off and swing as high as possible, pointing his toes and throwing his head back to look at the sky above him. The dark spot hovered above him in the clouds. Planting his feet to stop the swing, he stared up. More clearly defined now, the spot had a distinctive shape; a head, shoulders, and body apparently standing on the cloud. Long flowing hair crowned the robed figure. The fading light glinted off the suggestion of an eyebrow. Its face appeared to be looking down directly at him. To Ben, the figure looked like the silhouette of Jesus, the face subsumed in shadow.

The dark Christ moved as the cloud moved. What Ben imagined to be the face continued to gaze at him. He looked around his neighborhood. No one was out. All the dutiful diners safely huddled in their homes.
The more Ben identified the form’s distinct features, the more curiosity gave way to fear. He wanted to tell someone, anyone …or at least not be alone. But the five o’clock suburban dinner communion trumped all, even a heavenly figure standing on a cloud. Ben took one last look across the haunted landscape, saw no one, and ran inside to the light and warmth of home.

The End is Near

Wow! Has it really been since March that I posted something? Well, time flies when you're busy.

Revelation 11, my first novel, is complete and is off to the editor. I would describe it as Deliverance meets the The Da Vinci Code. I've tried to capture the concept of a man who views himself as civilized being thrust into a primitive world and forced to make difficult choices. Deliverance is essentially a retelling of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The main character in Revelation 11 is Trog Davis, a hard-living Harrisburg reporter, who is assigned to cover a gruesome murder in isolated Shade Gap, Pennsylvania. So rather than the navigating Cahulawassee or Congo rivers, Davis traverses the Pennsylvania mountains via the PA turnpike's tunnels, each moving him farther from civilization.

Davis soon discovers that the dead minister was a childhood friend of his who had told him years before that he was one of the two witnesses identified in Chapter 11 of the Book of Revelation. Before he even arrives in Shade Gap, he learns that the minister's megachurch also believes he is one of the witnesses and will rise from the dead in three and a half-days.

Trog tries to sift through Biblical prophecy and present day murder clues to find the truth. But the truth can be elusive, especially when Trog looks inward.