Author Talks About His New Book, DEMISE + Bio & Video
- May 10, 2016
- 2 min read
ABOUT MY BOOK (the first novella in a series):
This piece is inspired by my own failed aliya attempt to Israel six years ago, exploring the psychological mechanisms underlying the aspiration and transition on a personal and mythological level. The main character, Jo, is put, through a series of guided dreams, into the lives of the biblical characters who formed the foundation of the promised land mythos. Their experiences are interpreted through the lense of Immanuel Velikovsky’s cataclysmic cosmology. With the help of a mysterious dream guide, he visits formative events in the human relationship with the being that has come to be known as God or Hashem, a being borne of generations witnessing planetary catastrophe akin to the floods of Noah, but recurring during the Tower of Babel, the Exodus from Egypt, and most recently during the reign of King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. During these events, the planetary bodies noticeably changed their appearance, and the normal laws of physical reality were temporarily suspended while an upturned nature wreaked havoc upon the earth.
To Velikovsky, a student of Freud, co-founder of Hebrew University, and colleague/friend of Einstein in Germany, Jerusalem, and Princeton, suppression of this trauma is the root of collective humanity’s self destructive tendencies, from world wars and genocide to nuclear armaments, a repetition compulsion that seeks to recreate planetary destruction but within the realm of human power, transformed into something that humans have control over. The memory of cataclysm is passed down genetically, seen, for example, with animals in a forest fire, having no instruction on how to behave or what a fire is, will react uniformly, mountain lions running alongside deer to escape the blaze, an instinct passed down somehow from the survivors of previous catastrophes to their descendents. This cataclysmic instinct is a vibrant and powerful force within the human psyche that waxes strong now. Talk of the destruction of the planet or the human race is a regular conversation and a pervasive motif in television, music, movies, and literature. The fate of the world appears to rest in humanity’s hands now more than ever according to cultural consensus. This is the motif of promised land, the drive of the human mind to be in control of its own destruction, to dangle itself by a thread of survival as it flexes its muscles over the laws of nature.
BIO:
David is an entrepreneur for Sojourners Tent, where he practices editing, publishing, community organizing, wild herb collecting, and herabalism, where he focuses on giving public voice to under-represented populations and ideas and coaches on techniques and methodology of self healing on a minimal budget to assist low-income populations with rehabilitation from chronic illness. He is father and home schooler of three children, with a focus on learning techniques for alternative neurotypes. He does all the above with his wife, Hilary, a fellow from last year, whose website is part of the network. David’s blog is
titled, They may take my freedom, but they’ll never take my hugs: http://davidflexer.blogspot.com/2016/05/demise-now-available-in-paperback-and.html
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