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 GiustinianiA 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 ...
