Notes & Purgatory-like set up in book

        You wonder on politics and religion in HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither.

         For polite company’s sake, I was always taught to avoid both. No one seems to win in any of the arguments. Perhaps some concede from time to time, but belief and opinion are on the down side of reason. Passions prevail too easily. Such mighty winds can blow. Pride and arrogance staff themselves high for open sailing into such high wave-slapping waters. I don’t see such divisions in the book, other than the cultural divisions, most of which are geographical so far. I don’t want to open it up into a Dante-line interpretation, but what gives in these books on two such great matters of politics and religion? 

         When it comes to book six (the twentieth century & the second rebellion of the Dead) I cannot imagine all the factions and how they will treated, if at all. Fortunately, the twenty-first century won’t be included. It would be madness to allow each individual to be in herorhis little pocket of political and/or religious friends, particularly if their passions lead them to the ends of the political and/or religious spectrum. Alas, Dante’s Inferno remains in mind. I am too old and too tired to dwell on all these aspects.

         I have a simple solution for this plausible problem, as far as the books are concerned anyway. > Mid-afternoon. You are at the Little Miami River Park and just had a Subway picnic under a pleasant California sky. A walk in the park coming up. Colder tomorrow, back to more typical Ohio weather from your perspective.

         As for the passions of politics and religions, this is the Merlyn books’ solution. The individual must decide what is more important, the human community or no. If no, sheorhe has to think about it first, time-out, so to speak. Some would call it Purgatory and that is close – it consists of one (as an individual) waiting ‘Outside but in the Front Yard,’ so to speak. Tolerance is survival for the Dead. This Rebellion is not about such things as politics or religion among the Living, it is about the Dead going home, about the human community as a whole, both the Living and the Dead.

A balance must be struck, duty and responsibility to the group, the species as a whole, are mandatory so that both the Dead and the Living can grow from it. No small group thinking among the Dead. One works for the community as a whole. Service. What do people think humanity is for but service to others? The Dead know better on this score.

In the Merlyn books the Marsupials have the idea, although you scoff and think that it is a pie-in-the-sky scheme no Earthling would ever accept (even in fiction). That may be true, but the Marsupials do (because to survive well, with dignity as individuals and as a species they have no choice) let the chips fall where they may. Individuals were created by the group first, by having a partner, i.e. parents or a parent who grows to survive and procreate because of a social group. It is the way things are in the real world and it is the way things are among the Dead.

Only for the Dead survival is for further growth not physical survival, unless the individual decides to give it up think about it (alone) for a few thousand years or so. Time-out is what it is. Adults who act selfishly and immature create the mess in their mind and they as individuals have to learn to outgrow it. That’s how it is and will be in these books for consistency’s sake if nothing else. – Amorella.

I think it is a little heavy-handed, Amorella, but these are your books in that sense, so I’ll go along. I have to give up some things myself in order for you to write. I do understand the 'individual alone' business in that you are born alone as an individual and you die alone as an individual. Makes reasonable sense that you are a lone individual when dead.

You see, nothing new under the sun. Consistency is one of the keys for getting things done. Focus is another. This is how you have come to write. This is how people survive life. No exceptions, boy, but you already know that. Later, dude. Post when you arrive home. – Amorella.

         Stopped at Kroger’s near King’s Island on the way home. I assume we will still walk but who knows, maybe I will mow the grass instead. I am glad this is just fiction. I don’t think I would like the idea of being in ‘time-out’ for a couple of thousand years due to arrogance or just plain stubbornness. And, if the stubbornness is because of some sort of ‘human’ principle of ‘free will’ that would be even worse. 


         I can’t help but think of Milton’s Satan here and “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” –> Amazing. It works. Amorella is making the concept work. My mind must be in two different time zones. I don’t pick up on things until after Amorella hits me over the head. At least in the books it is a form of Purgatory rather than Hell where the stubborn may decide to wait (of their own free will). More humane. I like that. I like the front yard concept too rather than waiting in the back. Amorella always thinks things out better than I do. 

          Careful with using the word 'always' boy. Your daughter listened to your lectures. She'll be on you in a minute when she reads this. - Amorella. 

          Later, after a light supper you and Carol watched copy of Part Two of last night’s 1993 episode of Inspector Morris on Dayton PBS and also last night’s The Mentalist. Almost twenty-two hundred hours and you have been searching ‘Hades and Purgatory’ mostly in Wikipedia.

         I have found little, but I like Dore's illustration from Dante above. I did not know the Catholics now accept Purgatory as a state of mind and not a place. The Romans thought Hades met Purgatory, at least some of them. I am sure this is going to come up when the Dead begin rejoining a single world of the Dead. “Where are the others?” is a question that has already been asked somewhere in the first three books but who knows where. It has also been implied that some, who do arrive in Elysium (or one of its counterparts) aren’t comfortable so they return inside their ‘abode’ for who knows how long. Until they are comfortable in the environment I suppose. Some find it difficult to forgive themselves out of anger or one or more of those ancient seven deadly sins. 

         Perhaps that will come up in this pending scene nine with Kassandra worried that Thales will disappear and return to the Purgatory-like setting until he can get his mind back together. I don’t want to imply that mental illness puts one in Purgatory though in these fictions – purgatory is a place to resolve one’s personal problems first – dealing with one’s own sins  or supposed sins first. A place for quiet reflection not torment at least in the ideal. An uncommon wakeful sleep with hope of eventual self-understanding and then self-forgiveness. Although Thales thinks Zeus or the Supervisor is spying on him or using him and he doesn’t want to be used or tricked by the gods but how does a human defend herorhimself against this, especially if it is true as Thales imagines it to be? One cannot win and is doomed to do the god’s will no matter what sheorhe decides what to do. Anyway, that is it for tonight.

         These are your considerations, old man, not mine. This is your attempt to adapt to my thinking in terms of character and plot. You feel more comfortable doing this but it is somewhat like watching the weather forecasters for next week’s weather, mostly for mental comfort and personal control. Perhaps we will work on this scene nine and your anticipations will be cleared by tomorrow’s present. – Amorella.