How I Handled the Research for The Unholy by Paul DeBlassie III

How I handled the research for The Unholy

By Paul DeBlassie III

Actually it was more like The Unholy researched me, the story lingering in my mind and not settling until I was committed to the year’s long process of writing it. It went on and on in my mind, countless nights of seeing the scenes in dreams and nightmares that eventually became the narrative of The Unholy. So, then, it was very much like the muse researched me, saw into my level of insight, personal and professional experience, diligence, and willingness and then decided to give me the story. Of course, I followed up by jettisoning the story into the mythopoeic realm of Aztlan. This is a spiritual land of the mestizo, mixed blood, southwest. I wanted to take it out of the place of New Mexico and sensed the inspiration of the muse behind this. It was not a story that would permit itself to be trivialized by some thinking of it as a dramatized version of a single story in the literal place of New Mexico. The Unholy is a centuries old story told in such narratives as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and explored further in twentieth century venues such as School of the Sacred Beast by Yumi Takigawa in 1974 and the upcoming HBO documentary “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God.” Overall, research into the mysteries of Aztlan held sway in this book as it became a voyage for me, something I grew up with but had never formally delved into. The Unholy gave me an opportunity to move into the mystic potential of the land, the people, stories lived, and lives forever changed. It has been a place of great suffering and tremendous transformation. Aztlan, the setting of my novels, remains an ongoing study in sense of place, inner meaning, horror, and archetypal energy.

About the Author:

PAUL DeBLASSIE III, PhD, is a psychologist and writer living in his native New Mexico. A member of the Depth Psychology Alliance, the Transpersonal Psychology Association, and the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, he has for over thirty years treated survivors of the dark side of religion.

His latest book is the psychological/paranormal thriller, The Unholy.

Visit his website at www.pauldeblassieiii.com or his blog at www.pauldeblassieiii.blogspot.com.

About the Book:

A young curandera, a medicine woman, intent on uncovering the secrets of her past is forced into a life-and-death battle against an evil Archbishop. Set in the mystic land of Aztlan, "The Unholy" is a novel of destiny as healer and slayer. Native lore of dreams and visions, shape changing, and natural magic work to spin a neo-gothic web in which sadness and mystery lure the unsuspecting into a twilight realm of discovery and decision.