The Case of Mass Manipulation of True Faith and False Religion
A critic paper on Rosario de Guzman Lingat ‘s Ang Balabal ng Diyos ( The Cloak of God)
The Cloak of God is a novel written by Rosario de Guzman Lingat which is translated by Soledad S. Reyes. It is about Felino Paras, a failed stage actor who accidently stumbles upon a gold mine as the founder of a mass religion movement that give him the fame and recognition that he ardently pursued.
Rosario de Guzman Lingat wrote this novel in a time where religious movement was emerging everywhere. It is one of her novels before she stopped writing for personal reasons. This novel has taken a path like Jose Rizal’s novel Noli me Tangere and El Filibusterismo depicting realism and deals especially with the rise of religious groups into tremendous clout and power. The Cloak of God challenges religious churches as the main narrative is about exposing a powerful person deceiving people into true salvation for selfish deeds. This novel poses a question of faith to everybody who reads it.
The protagonist was charismatic yet a manipulative young man. Clever as it seems, he was introduced or was given a break in theatre acting with his opportunist affair with the former actress, Paquita Madrid who manages and owns the theatre. She kicked him out of her house after discovering his infidelity with a waitress he took home. Even without enough money, Felino continues his shenanigans with women. He then gets kicked out (again) of his crummy apartment because of his immorality and decide to let out "Dante Parreno" (his stage name) to con a man for easy money. With his ill-gotten money, he resided in his new apartment owned by a vegetable vendor named Mang Asyas with a beautiful daughter named Luding. Felino used costumes from his last acting gig to make him aloof than his charismatic nature and only go out at night to buy his food as his other persona is being pursued by the authorities. Isolating and hiding himself made his sexual hunger unbearable. As he tried to satiate himself in a nightclub, he caught Mang Asyas inside. Desperate to avoid suspicion on his mysterious persona he them started acting out lines from last play as priest.
With his great acting, people inside the club mistook him as a prophet as they are moved with his speech. Words about him spread all over town thus the start of his growing religious movement.
The Wearer of the Cloak's Psyche
Using the Tripartite Psyche (id, ego, super ego) in Psychoanalytic Criticism, Freud divided the human brain into three parts wherein the id is the unconscious part and the repository of the libido. Felino Paras is a man with an active sex life and when the time came that he needed to hide himself inside the room that he rented and became deprived of female company. His sexual frustrations dominated him and his desires led him in a nightclub. In this scenario, Felino's id overpowered him that he tried to snatch away a hostess from an old man. A person's id is a socially destructive force that when it is unrestrained it would gratify himself without any concern with law, morality and norm. As Felino catches the old man as Mang Asyas, his land lord, and vice versa, his ego was alerted. He quickly changed into the mysterious religious persona that he created in the eyes on the old man as a reaction to the tension that he is in. The ego of the human psyche is the most conscious among the three as it operates according to reality. It balances out the id and super ego; if these two are untamed it would cause chaos and dissatisfaction respectively.
According to Soledad S. Reyes, the narrative is a sustained examination of what drives a man to willingly undertake different roles and ruthlessly drive psychological and economic benefits from these roles... --he acts out his roles in a specifically defined sociohistorical contexts with all their particularities. (x) He started out as a con man to trick a middle aged man into buying a television that never existed and with the success of Felino's improvised speech from his former director's script, he gained more followers that voluntarily donate in generous amounts.
Making him realize that he found a goldmine. In which I think that particular event fed his id and corrupted his ego. He imagined himself inside a play playing out a role as a holy man and everyone other than him is his audience. With this, he successfully built his persona for his dramaturgy.
Felino Paras's big theatre play in this novel would not happen or exist would not happen without the people inside the nightclub that witnessed his speech and because of it, their super ego was moved, they were dumbfounded and became conscious of what they were doing. As super ego is similar to one's conscience for it provides a sense of moral and ethical wrongdoing.
The Cloak of God is a story of a man that had two asynchronous consciousness. As Felino drowns in the luxury of being powerful religious leader, his health falters. From Reyes's criticism, If Felino ceases to live, he would lose an audience for which he assumed a variety of roles and from whom he demanded adulation and respect as the script is being now written not by a human being but by a power he simply could not comprehend. (xvi) In search for a doctor and a donor, he meets Father Arriola who is a Catholic priest that is truly dedicated to serve people in God's love. Desperate in continuing his play, he begged the doctor to perform a dangerous brain transplant as Father Arriola got into an accident and a will that he left finalizes the decision of the doctor to take the risk. After the operation, Felino's consciousness died and the young priest woke up in the religious leader's body. Father Arriola kept it a secret between him and the doctor and led himself inside the depths of Felino Paras's religious movement and discovers unethical practices. With this new character, we can assume that his id was suppressed by his super ego which reflects in his persona using Felino's body. A deja vu for the readers, the nightclub scene was repeated again but with a speech that wasn't scripted and with a real purpose. A new role was born and in this play only the actor knows what happens behind the curtains.
The Void of Humanity Filled by Übermensch
The novel presented a mass manipulation with a promised salvation. The people that are present were like a sheep that lost their connection to God. They were uncaring and immature. Especially the person that stood up against Felino when he was in the nightclub. He expressed such disbelief because of the absurdities he is facing. The people inside seemed like they were empty shells forcing to fill themselves with earthly pleasures. Felino and Father Arriola's speeches triggered these people into a catharsis to long for salvation-- to long for a God. Nietzche explained that instead of despair because of lack of faith, humankind could exercise newly found freedoms that would liberate the human spirit. (150)
That is where Übermensch comes in in. It is a term by Nietzche that literally means "overhuman"-- a superman that is strong and independentt wo, and would create new values. A goal that humanity will set to himself. People will always have a void within as something that can only be filled by a powerful entity and that became their weakness. Felino Paras used their inherent yearning for true faith and salvation for his selfish deeds.
Conclusion
The Cloak of God is a complicated and bold novel. The magnificence of how the search of gratification could lead you to different circumstances. A story within a story, a dramaturgy with many underlying roles that would make you think how can a person pretend that much for self-serving purposes. The narrative encapsulates how a religious sect invites their members and how it operates. These circumstances are unavoidable in real life as this novel reflects the society that we're in. In an existentialist approach, people are born with free will and they have no control in their lives. The irony is, it isolates them with ideas that sets up their lives until they die. Being tricked by or tricking people is inevitable as humans are will never be satisfied.
Works Cited
Reyes, Soledad S. "The Cloak Of God." Lingat, Rosario de Guzman. n.d. x;xvi.
"Psychological Criticism". Theory Into Practice. 3rd ed., 2012.
"Deconstruction". Theory Into Practice. 3rd ed., 2012
Burnham, Douglas. "Existentialism." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Oct. 2016. <http://www.iep.utm.edu/existent/>.