The Manifesto of Horace Guglielmini

The manifesto of Orazio Guglielmini can easily be deduced from Guglielmini’s “Testament”, thus very briefly: As long as there exists even one politician or one priest on earth, mankind will not find peace.

The  political-existential testament of Guglielmini is sealed in four books:

“The Divine Indifference”

“The Predator State”

“Has Life Meaning?”

“The Wonderland”

The first book presents the work of religion, the second examines the state system, the third seeks to determine whether or not life has meaning and in the fourth and final book, “The Wonderland”, Guglielmini analyzes his native land from its origin up to today, just as a therapist does with his patient.

The  “Testament” is not intended as a teaching nor a science, and makes no such claim. Rather, it is an exhortation as to how to avoid the mental trappings of many societies, which evolved through selfishness and obscurantism throughout thousands of years of history.

An attempt to synthesize, with ideas taken from the “Testament” and others that are deduced from the author’s thoughts, the four above-mentioned books, starting with the first.

“The Divine Indifference”, at a glance:

 What does Guglielmini mean by “Divine Indifference?”. The following passage explains.

“I mean,” Guglielmini says to Rossi, in “The Devine Indefference,” pg. 35, “when I speak of divine indifference, I mean systematic indifference in every sense. I’m not talking of indifference that men have towards others or their work. For example, remaining indifferent after seeing a movie, a show, reading a book, or after having been at a conference. No, not this kind of indifference. I intend to talk about divine indifference. Indifference that is clear, cold, and absolute. The total indifference of God towards everything that happens to us and in the world. A God indifferent to the death of children, in the face of cruelty, before the most heinous of crimes, in the face of injustice and barbarism, and before every kind of absurdity. Faced with all these tragic events and a million others, God is silent, always deaf, blind, indifferent. The saints are the same. They too are deaf, dumb, blind, heartless, soulless, unconscious, without reason, indifferent.

God does not ever lift a finger in any earthly affairs, human or otherwise,  always absent or invisible. God does not do anything about anything. A tsunami has destroyed a country, a tornado destroys a city, a meteor is going to destroy the planet, faced with these calamities, God, the deities and saints, all and forever silent. As a rule: zero help, zero comfort, zero gesture, nothing; total Indifference, at times violently, even ruthless. When we, in our desperation and darkest hours, call upon Him, them, they respond with absolute indifference.”

How does Guglielmini come to see religion as “Christcatechized”? (“Christ” stands for Christianity “catechize” stands for Catholicism, hence, Guglielmini coined the word “Christcatechized”). More or less as such: With the “God is dead” adage by Friedrich Nietzsche, Guglielmini believes the apparatus destroyed an entire two millennia-long history of culture, not just two millennia of “Gods”, saints, and miracles, but also and especially two millennia of lies, intrigue, vulgarity, false indoctrination, of ignorance elevated to that of the law, of pollution, of alienation, and two millennia of outrages and crimes of all sorts, two millennia of wars, blood, slaughter of innocents, of misunderstandings, of terror, medievalism, black death, social misery. Two millennia of merciless inquisition on the soul, of thought, socially, (a wrong look was sufficient to be arrested and taken to the Grand Inquisitor), on  spirit, on feelings both intimate and personal.

Two thousand years of psychological torture and treachery never before seen by man, two millennia of cultural involution, of scientific stagnation, retrogression, of economic weakening. In short, two thousand years of vulgarity, degeneration, and beastly societies. As such Guglielmini sees religion “Christcatechized”.

But then, in spite of everything, does Guglielmini always disagree with everything the Pope says? Not at all. For example, in this passage, which could easily be drawn from his own thoughts, he is in total agreement.

The current Pope, Joseph Alois Ratzinger, says “Have the courage to make choices.” Okay, says Guglielmini, “we make choices, just as the Pope says. Life, after all, is a choice. I also say, in order to cleanse our minds, we need to make choices, and we must find the courage to be real. What does this mean? It means that if we believe, really believe, then we should honour our faith, by praying, going to church, fasting, confessing, etc., in a nutshell, keep the commandments. If you don’t have any faith in any of that, then we should excommunicate ourselves. We must choose, just as the Pope says, and we must do it not tomorrow, not next month, but now, this for the love and respect for all that we believe in, and for all people who love and respect us. We have no choice, we have to decide, be true to ourselves, as we said, it is a matter of cleansing our minds. If we are sincere, then, we would be honest with ourselves and with others.

Living with sincerity is good for the heart and for the mind. Only then do we find the courage that falls before us. We do not live forever, let alone live in the Middle Ages. Today, the stakes have become nonsense. Downright nonsense. We make our choices, informed choices, shrewd, philosophical, but we must also act and do. We will live better, we will feel better, we will give meaning to life and to ourselves. We will therefore be more real, more human, real men.

It is never too late for we ourselves to begin to build our lives, lives with meaning and value. Create an “I”, “I am”, the essence of all philosophy. The choices are not always easy, but we must find the strength to make them. The reason is logical, live well and be honest with ourselves and with others, the benefits are self evident. Then, “have the courage to make the choices”, ie: be Christian to the end, just as advised Pope Ratzinger, but if you do not believe, and if you have no faith, then forget it, be men, and find the courage to breakfree!

Translated from the italian by Franc Sgambelluri, my canadian homonym, friend, relative and much more. “Franc”, however, excuses himself with the readers, for the possible english mistakes, and there are!, and wishes, of course, that there will be more than one reader! He also hopes to do much better in future translations. Anyway, until he doesn’t learn translating my work correclty, if there are complaints, the reader should address them to him who is young, strong, clever, intellectually minded and ready to bear the blows; instead, if there are compliments, they should be addressed to me, since I am aged, fragile, sensible and willing to receive only nice things. Thank you for your understanding! Here is his e-mail: franc1917@yahoo.ca Ciao

See, but in italian L’Indifferenza divina