Books and Museum-Santa Maria la Nova in Naples (April 2025) Maria Tedeschi, I'll be there waiting for you, Il seme bianco editrice, Rome 2025, 176 pages. Review by Pasquale Giustiniani
A gripping story, with the characteristics of "noir" but also of "love stories". The Author - Maria Tedeschi - first takes us through, almost all in one breath, the 176 pages of a gripping story, to finally solve the enigma given in the title: «But if you decide to change your mind one day, you will always know where to find me, I will be there waiting for you» (page 176). These are the words, thrown to the other two members of the small WhatsApp group, by Carlo Brighi, who, after having done a thousand jobs, starting from that of a hairdresser tried in his hometown in the province of Naples (see page 75), has now fallen in love with Chantall Cristaldi, whose life «was a mix of art, expressiveness and emotion, but also of loneliness, a burden» (page 36). In turn, Diavolo (this is the real name of a survivor of a difficult birth: see page 121), who in the plot calls himself, and is, “little Devil”, is a “hair psychic”; he accidentally sent an email to Chantall (with a double L at the end, while the real recipient had only one l at the end); in his house he also hosted (see page 121) another of the characters in the plot, Michela, who is described in her tragic existence; during it, unfortunately, she allowed herself to be entangled in something halfway between a religious sect and a drug and sex addiction affair, of which the reader himself will discover the gripping outcome. Diavolo - or perhaps “Mistero” - also tried to get the anti-cult police to intervene in an intricate and even criminal affair, but without leaving any investigable traces (see page 129). Obviously, the rest of the story is left to the reader, who will want to join in the details of these pages. Goat, or the phenomenon of sects In a «pseudo disco in the suburbs, Alzheimer» (page 91), one can meet, or rather let oneself be met, by Goat, «a satyr with a human body, with a morbid sensuality that also manifested itself in violent and abnormal ways» (page 138); he is able to induce a love that would promise the absence of death, a-mors precisely, but that, instead, will do nothing but «cause suffering, perhaps even death» (page 139) for all those who will participate, allowing themselves to be entangled in a tremendous vortex. Here, precisely, is one of the profiles that emerge from Tedeschi's text. It deals with the phenomenon of sects and satanic religious forms or groups dedicated to unbridled sex and drugs, which in the novel are presented as contiguous. From the moment Chantall recalls a Freudian quote – a reminiscence of her philosophy studies – and then finds a bag left by mistake by Michela at home, a satanic invocation appears: “Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini Inferi” (page 5); Tedeschi puts the right accents to help the reader who doesn’t know Latin! This is not a marginal or merely literary aspect, the Cards of Don Battista Cadei - Spiritual Advisor of the GRIS = Group of Socio-religious Research and Information - in fact inventory dozens and dozens of religious and spiritual realities present in Italy: starting from the best known, such as the Church of the Kingdom of God (Foundation of Frédéric Louis Alexander Freytag [1870-1947], who joined the Watch Tower Society - future Jehovah's Witnesses - in 1898, and became responsible for Switzerland; however, after Russell's death [1916] his relations with the Society deteriorated, reaching a break between 1919 and 1920; to arrive at the less known, such as the Ananda Marga Movement: New Religion derived from Hinduism, founded in 1955 in India by Prabhat Raujan Sarkar, known as Shrii Shrii ANANDAMURTI [personification of bliss], or simply Baba (father), born in 1921 and died in 1990). Or also the New World Association and S.A.C.S.A.U (=School of Self-Awareness for the Harmonious Development of Man), then El Are; or also the S.I.M.O. (=Italian School of Holistic Medicine), as well as the Health and Nature Association, with the Founder «S.D.P. Patrizio PAOLETTI [born in Naples in 1960]» who, «from 1976 to 1983 studied and explored the phenomenon of global charismatic renewal, participating in various Italian-speaking groups. From 1978 to 1982 he attended specialization courses in integrated Naturopathy, as part of the project for the dissemination of scientific studies on the principles of healthy eating, and became a promoting member of the P.R.A.F.O.U. [Research Project on Functional Anomalies of the Organism]». Furthermore, it will be recalled that, during the nineteenth LEGISLATURE, the PROPOSAL FOR A LAW for the Establishment of a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the phenomenon of sects was introduced in the CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES with Number 471 (Presented on 26 October 2022). The explanatory report recalled that the most recent data, provided by bodies and associations active on the subject, show a worrying vertiginous increase in sects and their followers in Italy: there are approximately 500 "spiritual communities" that count, among their followers, a number ranging from one to two million Italians (figure dating back to 2022); but the spread of the phenomenon is now more rapid, also following the demolition of borders and the increased use of the web and new technologies. This leads to easier recruitment of the most sensitive subjects, namely young people and minors, and at the same time produces an atomization of groups that further complicates their recognition and the related surveillance activity. Gérald Bronner, an authoritative specialist in cognitive sociology, professor at the University of Paris Diderot and former co-director of the Center for Sociological Studies at the Sorbonne, in his appreciated 2013 essay «La Démocratie des crédules» (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2013; Italian translation by Silvia Morante, Aricciam Aracne, 2016), underlined the risks of the emergence «of new types of sectarian beliefs», even more difficult to trace since they are no longer structured around a localized group or a guru. These new, elusive movements, difficult to identify but capable of producing individuals willing to take action, would constitute, according to the authoritative French scholar, a new challenge for democracy itself. It is clear that the lack of data and specific and detailed information on this topic constitutes a strong limitation both for the implementation of dedicated policies and for the mere knowledge of the phenomenon, also for the benefit of the generality of citizens. The consequences of the action of these sects are disastrous, as these organizations tend, with their activity, to marginalize people who often find themselves in particularly fragile situations, from a psychological, social and economic point of view. As emerges from journalistic investigations, reports by associations and various judicial investigations, these organizations, taking advantage of the fragility of people, adopt psychological manipulation techniques to perpetrate intolerable abuses. In particular, the sects tend to distance the followers from their families and their social circle, to the point of forcing them to avoid any form of communication as it is considered harmful to the spiritual purposes of the sect, so much so that in many cases the followers, after years of permanence within the sects, are almost unknown to the institutions. In addition, scams and economic abuses are regularly committed, which often materialize in the devolution of all economic or financial assets and often also of other types of material assets in favor of the sect and its leaders. Not infrequently, these forms of economic abuse are accompanied by real forms of sexual abuse, which also involve minors. In my series "Biblioteca di senari", I published the essay by Nicola Di Bianco, Relaunching the "new evangelization" (la Valle del tempo, Naples, 2024). The re-emergence of the need for a new evangelization poses the central question of Di Bianco's book: what faith should we propose to the globalized, technologized, singularized person, to overcome the impasse of the transition in progress? Di Bianco declares himself convinced that we need to start again from the centrality of Jesus Christ (moreover, in harmony with other authors of the series "Biblioteca di Scenari"). But all this requires dealing, in a calm and scientifically founded way, with what Di Bianco defines as the current "challenge" of the neo-Manichaean, neo-Cathar, neo-Pelagian, apocalyptic and neo-millennial sects: inspired by alleged private revelations and directed by self-styled seers, these instances today pervade the same Christian people who in the meantime, in the West, are registering a sociological decline in traditional practice. Thus, the Author examines seven biblical-theological fundamentalisms, particularly widespread among the laity, but not only: baptism for the dead (1 Corinthians 15, 29); the veil of women (1 Corinthians 11, 1-34); the Tobitan marriage (Tobit 8, 4b-9); the purification of the puerpera; the flood, the punishment of the pre-flood patriarchs and the Noachide alliance (Genesis 6-9); the admission to the Eucharist of children before the age of discretion; the reception of the Eucharist only in the mouth and/or kneeling and the refusal to receive it in the hands. Of these we note the stigma tendentially “heretical”, the risks of sectarian drift, the liturgical-sacramental abuses, not without the drifts of a juridical, canonical and administrative-managerial type, often in disagreement with the episcopal authority in the particular Churches.
Maria Tedeschi’s novel evokes this relevant question in a literary way in the unhealthy relationship between Michela and Goat, the being with the tattoos hidden behind the ear: «Who is ‘Goat’? Free yourself, Michela, of this burden!» (page 87). Sometim...