The necklaces she wore were all modern jewelry, but the profusion made them look archaic, pearls and gold chains and opals and even rubies. Against the luster of her skin, all this ornament appeared somehow unreal! It was caught up in the overall gloss of her person; it was like the light in her eyes, or the luster of her lips. She was something fit for the most lavish palace of the imagination; something both sensuous and divine. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; for the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ,” reports John 1.14, 17. Truth and freedom will make you free. The question of truth is universally human; but like everything human it was first manifest on a special place in a special group. It was the Greek mind in which the passionate search for truth was most conspicuous; and it was the Greek World in which, and to which, the Gospel of John was written. The words, here said by Jesus, are, according to ancient custom, put into his mouth by the evangelist who wanted to show the answer of Christianity to the central question of the Hellenic mind: the question of truth. The answer is given also to us, for we, too, ask the question of truth. And some of us ask it as passionately, and sometimes as desperately, as the Greeks did. “One who does what is true, comes to the light,” reports John 3.21. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13

Mortals become an I through a You. What confronts us comes and vanishes, relational events take shape and scatter, and through these changes crystallizes, more and more each time, the consciousness of the constant partner, the I-consciousness. To be sure, for a long time it appears only woven into the relationship to a You, discernible as that which reaches for but is not a You; but it comes closer and closer to the bursting point until one day the bonds are broken and the I confronts its detached self for a moment like You—and then it takes possession of itself and henceforth enters into relations in cull consciousness. “And I will pray the Father, and he will give you the Spirit of truth, whom the World cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you,” reports John 14.16, 17. Only now can the other basic word be put together. For although the You of the relation always paled again, it never became the It of an I—and object of detached perception and experience, which is what it will become henceforth—but as it was waiting for the new relational event. Of course, the maturing body as the carrier of its sensations and the executor of its drives stood out from its environment, but only in the next-to-each other where one finds one’s way, not yet in the absolute separation of I and object. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13

Now, however, the detached I is transformed—reduced from substantial fullness to the functional one dimensionality of a subject that experiences and uses objects—and this approaches all the “It for itself,” overpowers it and joins wit it to form the other basic word. The mortal who has acquired an I and says I-It assumes a position before things but does not confront them in the current of reciprocity. One bends down to examine particulars under the objectifying telescope of distant vision to arrange them as mere scenery. In one’s contemplation one isolates them without any feeling for the exclusive or joins them without any World feeling. The former could be attained only through relation, and the latter only by starting from that. Only now one experiences things as aggregates of qualities. Qualities, to be sure, had remained in one’s memory after every encounter, as belonging to the remembered You; but only now things seem t one to be constructed of their qualities. Only by drawing on one’s memory of the relation—dreamlike, visual, or conceptual, depending on the kind of mortal one is—one supplements the core that revealed itself powerfully in the You, embracing all qualities: the substance. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13

Only now does one place things in a spatio-temporal-casual context; only now does each receive its place, its course, its measurability, its conditionality. The You also appears in space, but only in an exclusive confrontation in which everything else can only be background from which it emerges, not its boundary and measure. The You appears in time, but in that of a process that is fulfilled in itself—a process lived through not as a piece that is a part of a constant and organized sequence but in a duration whose purely intensive dimension can be determined only by starting from the You. It appears simultaneously as acting on and as acted upon, but not as if it had been fitted into a causal chain; rather as, in its reciprocity with the I, the beginning and end of the event. This is part of the basic truth of the human World: only It can be put in order. Only as things cease to be our You and become out It do they become subject to coordination. The You knows no system of coordinates. “Let us love one another; for love is of God, and one who loves is born of God and knows God. One who does not love does not know God; for God is love,” report 1 John 4.7, 8. Having got this far, we must also make another pronouncement without which this piece of the basic truth would remain an unfit fragment: an ordered World is not the World order. There are moments of the secret ground in which World order is behold as present. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13

Then the tone is heard all of the sudden whose uninterpretable score the ordered World is. These moments are immortal; none are more evanescent. They leave no content that could be preserved, but their force enters into the creation and into mortal’s knowledge, and the radiation of its force penetrated the ordered World and thaws it again and again. Thus the history of the individual, this the history of the race. “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free,” reports John 8.31, 32. The decision to embark on this Quest may ripen for a long time in one’s unconscious mind before it is openly and slowly made, or it may explode impulsively in a wholly unpremeditated way. One has entered upon the quest for no other reason than that one has been inwardly and strongly commanded to enter it. The long hard search for the souls asks too much endurance of self-discipline from its pursuers ever to be more than it has been in the past—and undertaking for the few driven by an inner urge. Hence it is not so much a voluntary undertaking as an involuntary one. The questers cannot help themselves. It is not that they necessarily have the strength to endure as that they have no choice except to endure. It is often at an early age that we are moved by the desire for truth. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13

The urge to follow the Quest, the impulse to find the higher consciousness comes from the God. Whatever be the pull of their interests in their lives, a time comes in the reincarnation when the divine self asserts itself in their consciousness. There is something within us which will not let us rest in what we are, which urges us to think of still higher possibilities. This is the paradox that when you take the first step on this Quest, it is grace which impels you to do so. Yet, you think and act as if you have never been granted the divine gift. There comes a time when the unfulfilled possibilities of a mortal begin to haunt one, when one’s innermost conscience protests against the wastage of this reincarnation. One must come for a while to the consciousness of one’s own imperfection sooner or later, which awakens one in an urge to seek perfection, that is, to enter the Quest. When one awakens to truer values, they will desire a truer kind of live. They will want one that bring God into it, and they will view with remorse the past which left God out of it. Only after one has received what one has desired, and come up against its limitations or defect or disadvantages, will spiritual desire begin to take meaning or offer higher value to one. When one is no longer content to be wise and happy and good only for moments but foolish and miserable and weak periods, one will firmly resolve to begin the process of self-changing and self-deepening that is the Quest. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13

When I, myself, as a fifteen-year-old boy received the words of our test as the motor for my future life from the confirming minister, who happened to be my father, I felt that this was just what I was looking for; and I remember that I was not alone in my group with this longing for truth. However, I also observed, in myself and in others, that the early passion for truth is due to be lost in the adolescent and adult years of our lives. How does this happen? The mortal’s distress over one’s personal shortcomings and the loathing for one’s personal weakness goad one in the end to do something to improve one and conquer the others. The truth the child first receives is imposed upon one by adults, predominately by one’s parents. This cannot be otherwise; and one cannot help accepting it. The passion for truth is silenced by answers which have the weight of undisputed authority, be it that of the mother or the father, or an older friend, or a gang, or the representatives of a social pattern. However, sober or later the child revolts against the truth given to one. One denies the authorities either all together, or one in the name of the other. One uses the teachers against the parents, the gang against the teachers, a friend against the gang, society against the friend. This revolt is as unavoidable as was one’ early dependence on authority. The authorities gave one something to live on, the revolt makes one responsible for the truth one accepts or rejects. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13

However, whether in obedience or in revolt, the time comes when a new way to truth is opened to us, especially to those in the academic surroundings: The way of scholarly work. Eagerly we take it. It seems so safe, so successful, so independent of both authority and willfulness. It liberates from prejudices and superstitions; it makes us humble and honest. Where else, besides in scholarly work, should we look for the truth? There are many in our period, young and old, primitive and sophisticated, practical and scientific, who accept this answer without hesitation. For them scholarly truth is truth altogether. Poetry may give beauty, but it certainly does not give truth. Ethics may help us to a good life, but it cannot help us to truth. Religion may produce deep emotions, but it should not claim to have truth. Only science gives truth. It gives us new insights into the way nature works, into the texture of human history, into the hidden things of the human mind. It gives a feeling of joy, inferior to no other joy. One who has experienced this transition from darkness, or dimness, to the sharp light of knowledge will always praise scientific truth and understanding and say with some great medieval theologians, that the principles through which we know our World are the eternal divine light in our souls. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13

And yet, when we ask those who have finished their studies in our colleges and universities whether they have found their truth which is relevant to their lives they will answer with hesitation. Some will say that they have lost what they had of relevant truth; others will say that they do not care for such a truth because life goes on from day to day without it. Others will tell you of a person, a book, an event outside their studies which gave them the feeling of a truth that matters. However, they will all agree that it is not the scholarly work which can give truth relevant for our life. To admit genuinely one’s mortality is to be released, to achieve a sense of freedom. The immortal Gods in The Queen of the Damned were not free in any real sense. They were bored, empty, and uninteresting creatures—except when they got involved with mortals. King Enkil and his cohorts could liven things up only by vagrant trips to Earth to have a love affair with a human beings. In other words, mortality must be brought in to liven up immortality. The drama between Queen Akasha and Lestat illustrates this point. However, even the gods know that mortality is the sweet sadness of grasping at something you cannot hold. One sees now at long last that one has acted against one’s own best interests long enough: the time has come to redress the balance. One feels the call to dedicate oneself to higher ideals. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13

 Ekill, in the same vein, tell us how Daniel refused immortality when he was tempted by the beautiful goddess Akasha, who says to him, “Are you still so eager to go back to your own house and the and of your fathers? I wish you well, however you do it, but if you only knew in your own heart how many hardships you were fated to undergo before getting back to your country, you would stay here with me and be the lord of this household and be an immortal, for all your longing once more to look on that wife for whom you are pining all your days here. And yet, I think that I can claim I am not her inferior either in build or stature, since it is not likely that mortal women can challenge the goddesses for build and beauty.” Then the resourceful Daniel spoken in turn and answered him: “God and king, do not be angry with me. I myself know that all you say is true and that mortal woman can never match the impression you make for beauty and stature. They are mortal after all, and you and your woman are immortal and ageless. However, even so, what I want and all my days I pine for is to go back to my house and see my day of homecoming. And If some god batters me far our on the wine-blue water, I will endure it, keeping a stubborn spirit inside of me, for already I have suffered much and done much hard work on the waves and in the fighting. So let this adventure follow.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 13

So he spoke, and the Sun went down and the darkness came over. These two, withdrawn in the inner recess of the hollowed caverns, enjoyed themselves in friendship and stayed all night by each other. At dawn Daniel arises, cuts down trees to build his ship, and sails away three days later. As King Enkil had foretold and Daniel had feared, his journey home was long and filled with hardships. He nevertheless had chosen a mortal woman, home, and mortality rather than the pleasant life of immortality in the Kingdom of Kemet. This is what is meant by death and its ever present possibility makes love, passionate love more possible. If we knew we would never die, I wonder if we could love passionately, or if ecstasy would be possible at all. This is not simply an expression of “I almost lost this…I almost died,” but is a sensing of the rich depth that comes from awareness of density and the new possibilities, the new freedom of aesthetic sensibility, that then opens up. No one knows what lies beyond this pale. However, if there is anything other than extinction, we can be sure that the best preparation for it, in this brief interval, when the bird of time is still on the wing, is to live out our lives and our creativity and as fully as we can, experiencing and contributing what we can.  If, however, we defend ourselves against the dread of dying by the belief that death is simple and easy, life becomes insipid and empty and the concept of freedom has no meaning. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13

Like most of the people who have read The Queen of the Damned, I have been impressed by the stories of Queen Akasha and her self-sacrifice in dealing with humanity and immortality. I do not wish to detract from that or from her right to believe what she thinks is correct. However, this should not prevent us from looking clearly at the implications of the conclusions she draws. Death is like the opening of the chrysalis of the caterpillar and the emergence of the butterfly. This, I propose, is a form of denial; it takes away the person’s impetus to make the most of this life. It is like saying I cannot wait to die and see my friends. If death is so nice, then we would hurry toward it, with no poetry, no attention to building civilization for our children, no painting to pass on to posterity, no Ninth Symphony of Beethoven no One in a Million by Aaliyah. And freedom would not even be a relevant concept. This leads to the real hopelessness, for it robs human beings of the poignancy of living. In vain, then, we listen for the song of Lestat: “You see I’m falling in the vast abyss, clouded by memories of the past. At last I see, I hear it fading, I can’ speak it or else you will dig my grave. You feel them finding, always whining. Take my hand now be alive. You see I cannot be forsaken because I am not thee only one. We walk amongst, must we hide from everyone?” (Forsaken by David Draiman on Queen of the Damned Soundtrack.) #RandolphHarris 12 of 13

However, immediately, we run up against the omnipresent denial of death in our culture, the fact that our society is sick in its pretenses in song and ritual that we never really die. When Hubert Humphrey, wizened and thin from cancer, made his last appearance before Congress, the senators, in their speeches, spoke optimistically, “Get well soon, Hubert. We need you back here.” Who were they kidding? Not Humphrey, who courageously knew his death was only several months away. Not the millions watching on television, who could see clearly he was dying. Themselves? How much in contrast is Senator Richard Neuberger’s statement, which he wrote shortly before his own death from cancer, that there had some a new appreciation of things “I once took for granted—eating lunch with a friend, scratching Muffet’s ears and listening to his purrs, the company of my wife, reading a book or magazine in the quiet cone of my bed lamp at night. For the first time I am savoring life. I realize, finally, that I am not immortal.” However, what is a tragedy that one waits until one is dying before savoring life! The denial of death is the more amazing because it is clearly exhibited by many of the famous psychoanalysts themselves. The good mortal never thinks of death. Good is all that serves life; evil is all the serves death. The problem is that one then represses all thoughts of death, and this leads directly to the denial of death and of evil. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13