I come across so much weird stuff in seemingly dull and skeptical books written by some super-respectable scholar. Perhaps because Halloween is coming that I am haunted by this particular story as told by psychiatrist Karl Menninger:
A mental patient's nightmare :
" I wandered the streets. I was lonely, I was cold. Weird music filled the air. It grew louder and louder. There was no other sound. Only weird terrible music. I began to run as I thought I was being chased. Too terrified to look back, I run on into the darkness. A light was shining very brightly , far away. I must go to it. When I reached the light I saw myself. I was lying on the ground. My skin was very white. I WAS DEAD . " ( my emphasis )
I can barely read the notes I took in the depressing isolation of Rhode Island College library that solitary afternoon. I recalled reading Dr. Menninger's " The Human Mind " when I was just a curious teenager. To be sure, there was just enough mental illness in my own family to arouse my interest in the dark night of the soul. I recall my grandmother's brother- after a business failure and about to have a leg amputated - drowning himself, with a rosary around his neck, in the late fall, cold waters of Narragansett Pier beach. Years later an alcoholic uncle would commit suicide, then his strange daughter too, soon after her demented 90 year old mother's death . " No flowers. No flowers ", the drowned man - an Italian immigrant- requested in a death note.
" The Vital Balance " ? That must be the title of Dr. Menninger's book . Before he died he wrote another book titled : " Whatever Happened to Sin " . Sometimes when I read the news I think a Catholic exorcist might have a saner grasp of EVIL than any democratic socialist . " Evil here was a PALPABLE thing ", I read in some remembered short horror story.
But that mental patient's nightmare reminded me of an H.P. Lovecraft weird tale : " The Music of Erich Zann ". How could music be TERRIBLE ? And " THE LIGHT shining brightly far away " , is that not the common experience of near death survivors ? " I must go to it ". Yes, follow that infernal light to the very pit of hell . Or stare into your own well lit grave. And then await-for eternity ? - the Resurrection of the Damned .
A mental patient's nightmare :
" I wandered the streets. I was lonely, I was cold. Weird music filled the air. It grew louder and louder. There was no other sound. Only weird terrible music. I began to run as I thought I was being chased. Too terrified to look back, I run on into the darkness. A light was shining very brightly , far away. I must go to it. When I reached the light I saw myself. I was lying on the ground. My skin was very white. I WAS DEAD . " ( my emphasis )
I can barely read the notes I took in the depressing isolation of Rhode Island College library that solitary afternoon. I recalled reading Dr. Menninger's " The Human Mind " when I was just a curious teenager. To be sure, there was just enough mental illness in my own family to arouse my interest in the dark night of the soul. I recall my grandmother's brother- after a business failure and about to have a leg amputated - drowning himself, with a rosary around his neck, in the late fall, cold waters of Narragansett Pier beach. Years later an alcoholic uncle would commit suicide, then his strange daughter too, soon after her demented 90 year old mother's death . " No flowers. No flowers ", the drowned man - an Italian immigrant- requested in a death note.
" The Vital Balance " ? That must be the title of Dr. Menninger's book . Before he died he wrote another book titled : " Whatever Happened to Sin " . Sometimes when I read the news I think a Catholic exorcist might have a saner grasp of EVIL than any democratic socialist . " Evil here was a PALPABLE thing ", I read in some remembered short horror story.
But that mental patient's nightmare reminded me of an H.P. Lovecraft weird tale : " The Music of Erich Zann ". How could music be TERRIBLE ? And " THE LIGHT shining brightly far away " , is that not the common experience of near death survivors ? " I must go to it ". Yes, follow that infernal light to the very pit of hell . Or stare into your own well lit grave. And then await-for eternity ? - the Resurrection of the Damned .
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| How could the music be so terrible? |
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Ron