| Spiritual Fiction posted March 26, 2017 | Chapters: |
...15 16 -17- 18... 
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Father Francis shows symptoms of mental illness
A chapter in the book Chasing of the Wind.
Doctor Pascal Mendez Seeks Answers
by Niyuta
| Background A RC Priest disillusioned by the Church is struggling with his Homosexual orientation without ever indulging in any prohibited acts. He finds his love for Christ spiritual as well as intimate. |
The discussion between two brothers before the supper, did not continue during the meal. Both Dr. Pascu and Francis had entered the dining room with an unusual mood. Apparently, Francis’ speech had triggered an avalanche of conflicting thoughts in Pascu’s mind. Francis on his part was riding on a different oceanic surge. The subdued atmosphere brothers brought with them at the table, affected Rosita’s usual exuberance. Rosita had heard few names which Francis had uttered when she went to call them for the supper. Now, seeing the serious faces, she held back the desire to know what had happened between them in such a short time. She simply served the food in silence and sat down. By habit; Francis blessed the food and did rest of the ritual of thanking the almighty etc.
Sensing the quiet atmosphere, Pascu opened the conversation.
“So, you are off tomorrow. Anything special in your plans for Brother Francis, darling? I thought I heard you two discussing something like that.”
That did the trick and Rosita’s natural, bubbly and sometimes overwhelming enthusiasm returned as if the floodgates opened unexpectedly:
“It is all planned to the smallest detail. After children leave for school at nine, we will be leaving for the Piknik Faria Lima for the ‘Taste of São Paulo’. I want Francis to get a good feel of the real Portuguese-Brazilian culinary culture and then we are heading for the Paulista Avenue and may be, if time permits, visit the Catavento Cultural e Educational.”
“Now that is an all-day affair sweetie. Anyone I know is joining you two and have you prepared Francis for this?” Doctor cautiously asked his wife.
“What’s there to prepare anyone for a half a day outing in the city? I don’t understand’ I am not taking him for a mountain climbing trip you know!” Rosita was defensive. She really did not want to discuss her plans with her husband who was not going to go with them in the first place.
Francis, not paying any attention to the discussion between the two, was absentmindedly working on the food with fork and knife. Rosita’s address to him the second time and brought him in the room from the mental cave he was sitting in far away from them. She repeated the question, “Do you have any suggestion Brother?”
Francis for the first time raised his face and eyebrows towards them and said,
“ Não, cunhada (No Sister-in –Law), I like it.”
“She is not asking you about her cooking brother; she wants to know if you accept her plans for tomorrow’s day out in the city with her.” Doctor clarified the subject they were discussing.
Rosita couldn’t help laughing loudly and spoke to Francis when the fit was over,
“Try and be with us my Brother Francis sometime; you have to leave those Amazonians in your head alone and come to know the real world and people in it.”
Doctor did not like that remark at all and in a sharp tone he rebuked her, “Rosie, leave him alone will you. He needs time to adjust to your world.”
Realizing the gravity of that situation, she forced herself to pipe down and they ate in silence. When the dinner was over, she went about her chores wondering what was wrong with her illustrious brother-in-law.
After the meal, brothers took leave of each other by hugging and Francis was leaving, Pascu in a soft voice said to him,
“Francis, look at me. Do you wish to go with Rosita tomorrow; if not, I will ask her not to bother you again about this. There will be other opportunities for her to take you out when you are ready.”
Francis simply shook his head and began climbing the steps t leading to bedrooms upstairs.
Doctor could not sleep over the disturbing episode of that evening. A sense of urgency had been nagging him ever since he observed his brother’s mental absence from the environments when he went to pick him at the Rail Road Station on the day he arrived. Doctor wondered if a trigger, one that made him to come and go sometimes, and then be a normal individual the other, exists. ‘There has to be physical reason for the mental anomaly.’ He muttered.
“ Does that speech related to his ardent love for the object of his devotion-Christ, indicated a fixation of a neurotic mind?” He questioned himself.
‘Where did I encounter a similar surge of emotions?’ He asked another question and then a flashback took him back to India of twenty years ago. A draft of his Post- Doctoral Thesis, he had subjected to his advisor, Dr. Mohan Parkar. He recalled the interview with the learned advisor as if it was just last week he was in his office at the Grand Medical College in Bombay.
“Exceptional Work Dr. Mendez; par excellence I would say.” The guru had complemented him.
“However, as your well-wisher, I would advise you, not to submit it to the committee for the review. The subject of your research is, ‘Neurosis of Devotional Worships within the World’s Religious Communities.’
Publish it in the international symposium outside India when you have migrated to a Western Country, which I am sure you will someday, as most Indians do. Too sensitive a subject even if is handled on a scientific platform. It will cause volcanic reactions within all religious communities in India and other Muslim countries. They will treat it as an attack on their religious practices, thinking and sentiments.
You have made a valuable contribution to the science of Psychology and Psychiatry and there is no argument on this point. However, think before submission. You are a Roman Catholic and that too a non-practicing one. You have looked at the chemical and neurol activities occurring within the brains of the sampled devotees who have a strong and compulsive attachment to a saint, a deity or the Almighty. They came from all three major religions. The outcome of your study is clinical but the language of presentation to an untrained person will look like, a slandering of the subject of their- albeit sexual- neurotic-devotion. You are endangering your and my life. I predict, a guarantied damage to this institute’s building by the paranoid mob will be an eminent threat.”
Dr. Pascal Mendez had done exactly as his mentor advised him and shelved the report until he was out of the harm’s way. When he finally presented in a forum many years later in the Washington DC, it was received with a great appreciations. As per advice of his mentor, he had replaced the identifying names of the saints and other thorny items with nondescript words. He did maintain the original draft and decided to revisit that research. Perhaps, clue to Francis’ behavior lay buried there in the findings. He decided to look into that when Rosita and Francis would be out bonding with commercial world of Sau Paolo.
When he reached his bedroom, he found Rosie fast a sleep with all her curlers and other preparations for the next day’s excursion with Francis. He stood there for a moment and smiled, ‘She’s going to have her way,’ he thought. Then cut the lights out and went to bed.
By eight in the morning, Doc was already making rounds at the hospital. By noon, he returned home. It was not his Clinic day. He decided to delve into his past research work that contained the original findings. The section in the report where most of the information he was looking for was still in his memory.
The archived paper was well preserved and with the help of the index, he reached the description of the researched materials. He began reading the Executive Summary:
Doctor Pascal stopped reading further and closed his yes. He felt that he might have found a plausibly accurate pathology to analyze Francis’ symptoms. He shut the binder, replaced it to its place in the cabinet and walked back to the living room. The unconscious mind is an enigma indeed. How it influences human behavior, is yet to be fully understood.
He glanced at the clock and realized it was getting close to three PM. “These guys must be returning soon; it’s time for kids to return from the school. I hope they had a great time.”
Sensing the quiet atmosphere, Pascu opened the conversation.
“So, you are off tomorrow. Anything special in your plans for Brother Francis, darling? I thought I heard you two discussing something like that.”
That did the trick and Rosita’s natural, bubbly and sometimes overwhelming enthusiasm returned as if the floodgates opened unexpectedly:
“It is all planned to the smallest detail. After children leave for school at nine, we will be leaving for the Piknik Faria Lima for the ‘Taste of São Paulo’. I want Francis to get a good feel of the real Portuguese-Brazilian culinary culture and then we are heading for the Paulista Avenue and may be, if time permits, visit the Catavento Cultural e Educational.”
“Now that is an all-day affair sweetie. Anyone I know is joining you two and have you prepared Francis for this?” Doctor cautiously asked his wife.
“What’s there to prepare anyone for a half a day outing in the city? I don’t understand’ I am not taking him for a mountain climbing trip you know!” Rosita was defensive. She really did not want to discuss her plans with her husband who was not going to go with them in the first place.
Francis, not paying any attention to the discussion between the two, was absentmindedly working on the food with fork and knife. Rosita’s address to him the second time and brought him in the room from the mental cave he was sitting in far away from them. She repeated the question, “Do you have any suggestion Brother?”
Francis for the first time raised his face and eyebrows towards them and said,
“ Não, cunhada (No Sister-in –Law), I like it.”
“She is not asking you about her cooking brother; she wants to know if you accept her plans for tomorrow’s day out in the city with her.” Doctor clarified the subject they were discussing.
Rosita couldn’t help laughing loudly and spoke to Francis when the fit was over,
“Try and be with us my Brother Francis sometime; you have to leave those Amazonians in your head alone and come to know the real world and people in it.”
Doctor did not like that remark at all and in a sharp tone he rebuked her, “Rosie, leave him alone will you. He needs time to adjust to your world.”
Realizing the gravity of that situation, she forced herself to pipe down and they ate in silence. When the dinner was over, she went about her chores wondering what was wrong with her illustrious brother-in-law.
After the meal, brothers took leave of each other by hugging and Francis was leaving, Pascu in a soft voice said to him,
“Francis, look at me. Do you wish to go with Rosita tomorrow; if not, I will ask her not to bother you again about this. There will be other opportunities for her to take you out when you are ready.”
Francis simply shook his head and began climbing the steps t leading to bedrooms upstairs.
Doctor could not sleep over the disturbing episode of that evening. A sense of urgency had been nagging him ever since he observed his brother’s mental absence from the environments when he went to pick him at the Rail Road Station on the day he arrived. Doctor wondered if a trigger, one that made him to come and go sometimes, and then be a normal individual the other, exists. ‘There has to be physical reason for the mental anomaly.’ He muttered.
“ Does that speech related to his ardent love for the object of his devotion-Christ, indicated a fixation of a neurotic mind?” He questioned himself.
‘Where did I encounter a similar surge of emotions?’ He asked another question and then a flashback took him back to India of twenty years ago. A draft of his Post- Doctoral Thesis, he had subjected to his advisor, Dr. Mohan Parkar. He recalled the interview with the learned advisor as if it was just last week he was in his office at the Grand Medical College in Bombay.
“Exceptional Work Dr. Mendez; par excellence I would say.” The guru had complemented him.
“However, as your well-wisher, I would advise you, not to submit it to the committee for the review. The subject of your research is, ‘Neurosis of Devotional Worships within the World’s Religious Communities.’
Publish it in the international symposium outside India when you have migrated to a Western Country, which I am sure you will someday, as most Indians do. Too sensitive a subject even if is handled on a scientific platform. It will cause volcanic reactions within all religious communities in India and other Muslim countries. They will treat it as an attack on their religious practices, thinking and sentiments.
You have made a valuable contribution to the science of Psychology and Psychiatry and there is no argument on this point. However, think before submission. You are a Roman Catholic and that too a non-practicing one. You have looked at the chemical and neurol activities occurring within the brains of the sampled devotees who have a strong and compulsive attachment to a saint, a deity or the Almighty. They came from all three major religions. The outcome of your study is clinical but the language of presentation to an untrained person will look like, a slandering of the subject of their- albeit sexual- neurotic-devotion. You are endangering your and my life. I predict, a guarantied damage to this institute’s building by the paranoid mob will be an eminent threat.”
Dr. Pascal Mendez had done exactly as his mentor advised him and shelved the report until he was out of the harm’s way. When he finally presented in a forum many years later in the Washington DC, it was received with a great appreciations. As per advice of his mentor, he had replaced the identifying names of the saints and other thorny items with nondescript words. He did maintain the original draft and decided to revisit that research. Perhaps, clue to Francis’ behavior lay buried there in the findings. He decided to look into that when Rosita and Francis would be out bonding with commercial world of Sau Paolo.
When he reached his bedroom, he found Rosie fast a sleep with all her curlers and other preparations for the next day’s excursion with Francis. He stood there for a moment and smiled, ‘She’s going to have her way,’ he thought. Then cut the lights out and went to bed.
By eight in the morning, Doc was already making rounds at the hospital. By noon, he returned home. It was not his Clinic day. He decided to delve into his past research work that contained the original findings. The section in the report where most of the information he was looking for was still in his memory.
The archived paper was well preserved and with the help of the index, he reached the description of the researched materials. He began reading the Executive Summary:
"The historical account of the popular Hindu deity Krishna’s adolescent years is presented in a mythological format. Someone not familiar with the Indian culture, traditions and other social norms, would consider it a work of fiction. Like all romantic fiction works, it contains all elements of human attributes and activities. Our primary focus of this research is on the unique phenomena of human bonding caused by the extreme emotional responses originating in the descriptions of adolescent romance. It has been established that, in the human psyche, the secretion of hormones- Progesterone (P4) that is an endogenous steroid happens at the adolescent age. Progesterone and its neurosteroid active metabolite alloperegnanolone appear to be importantly involved in the sexual arousals in the females. The Testosterone plays similar role in the males .
The impact of a successful indoctrination on the collective ethos then is preserved by the traditions, propaganda and often becomes an anchor to which an individual’s faith is secured. Such relationships then espouse strong emotional responses when challenged by the rationality or force. Over the centuries, such faith then gets into the belief systems that have effect on the believer’s brain functions. The bonding between the character- in this case, a deity, and the devotee, then becomes similar to that between a male and female, parent and child and between the unrelated individuals, like friends, leaders, movie stars and so on.
Evidence of development of self-defacing, acutely violent and antisocial personality has been recorded in the history of humanity. Among the Hindu faith, for example, there exists a historical sounding account of a woman who became completely enamored with the description of Krishna’s various romantic activities with the young women. The described narrations in the Scriptures called Purana, affected her mind in a way that the apparently literal, and unreal romantic episodes became the real, and living with her family and husband, fictitious. For her, being intimately bonded with Krishna, was the real life. As the centuries past and her story became a folklore, she, in the eyes of Krishna devotees became one with him. She to this day is an honored saint.
The Faith in Shia religion is also anchored on the existence of a central figure; Ali. Men and women undergo masochistic rituals to show the bonding with the Imam. Christian faiths of different denominations have developed similar bonding with Mother of Christ and the Savior himself. The allegiance of Nuns and Priest to their divine entities in all faiths has roots in the same subconscious actions that has its causal relationships with the human physiology.
The experiments carried out on the animal species after birth of its offspring, included testing of hormone levels of Oxytocin and Vasopressin -both peptide hormones indicated that these compounds play a major role in the process of bonding. Same hormones are also present in the human species and play active role in the formation of bonding relationship among the various entities that are interacting with each other. The evidence of a strong bond between the God, a deity or a revered person, is caused by the same chemical interactions in the mammals, including human brains. Alternatively, the lack of sufficient volume of these hormones leads to inability to bond with another entity, be it a real or imaginary.
The details of all experiments and the outcome tabulations are provided in the Appendixes of this report.”
The impact of a successful indoctrination on the collective ethos then is preserved by the traditions, propaganda and often becomes an anchor to which an individual’s faith is secured. Such relationships then espouse strong emotional responses when challenged by the rationality or force. Over the centuries, such faith then gets into the belief systems that have effect on the believer’s brain functions. The bonding between the character- in this case, a deity, and the devotee, then becomes similar to that between a male and female, parent and child and between the unrelated individuals, like friends, leaders, movie stars and so on.
Evidence of development of self-defacing, acutely violent and antisocial personality has been recorded in the history of humanity. Among the Hindu faith, for example, there exists a historical sounding account of a woman who became completely enamored with the description of Krishna’s various romantic activities with the young women. The described narrations in the Scriptures called Purana, affected her mind in a way that the apparently literal, and unreal romantic episodes became the real, and living with her family and husband, fictitious. For her, being intimately bonded with Krishna, was the real life. As the centuries past and her story became a folklore, she, in the eyes of Krishna devotees became one with him. She to this day is an honored saint.
The Faith in Shia religion is also anchored on the existence of a central figure; Ali. Men and women undergo masochistic rituals to show the bonding with the Imam. Christian faiths of different denominations have developed similar bonding with Mother of Christ and the Savior himself. The allegiance of Nuns and Priest to their divine entities in all faiths has roots in the same subconscious actions that has its causal relationships with the human physiology.
The experiments carried out on the animal species after birth of its offspring, included testing of hormone levels of Oxytocin and Vasopressin -both peptide hormones indicated that these compounds play a major role in the process of bonding. Same hormones are also present in the human species and play active role in the formation of bonding relationship among the various entities that are interacting with each other. The evidence of a strong bond between the God, a deity or a revered person, is caused by the same chemical interactions in the mammals, including human brains. Alternatively, the lack of sufficient volume of these hormones leads to inability to bond with another entity, be it a real or imaginary.
The details of all experiments and the outcome tabulations are provided in the Appendixes of this report.”
Doctor Pascal stopped reading further and closed his yes. He felt that he might have found a plausibly accurate pathology to analyze Francis’ symptoms. He shut the binder, replaced it to its place in the cabinet and walked back to the living room. The unconscious mind is an enigma indeed. How it influences human behavior, is yet to be fully understood.
He glanced at the clock and realized it was getting close to three PM. “These guys must be returning soon; it’s time for kids to return from the school. I hope they had a great time.”
This novel is based on the unscientific analysis of human unconscious and its part in building our faith, beliefs, traditions etc., all of which makes us do things we do and the way we look at life around us. It is not supporting any creed, philosophy or doctrine nor it is intended to slander, insult or demonize any one or any religion.
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