“Down in the depths of every human being, there’s an ancestral, visceral knowledge about the predators’ existence.” Carlos Castaneda
I was often asked how I came up with the idea of writing a book about cannibals who worship the Tree of Evil. In fact, the book found me and imposed itself on me, not vice versa. My role was that of an executor, compelled to pen incredible scenes for years until the novel came to life.
I first “saw” the story in my mind in my early twenties, when I was a carefree archaeology student, never imagining I would one day become an author whose books would sell worldwide. One evening, while sitting in a bar, sipping tea with brandy, and chatting with my future wife, I suddenly lost track of time and space, struck by an image of cannibals dancing around a burning pyre.
I paid little attention to this episode then, but several years later, the Spirit swooped down on me like a natural disaster, and my training began. Back then, the entire plot of the story formed in my head. My mind conjured vivid scenes, leaving me with an irresistible urge to capture them in writing. Not that I was thrilled to do it.
First, the timing was terrible, as this was the most challenging period of my immigrant life—I slept barely four hours per day, juggling a night-shift job with studying French and writing my PhD in Archaeology. Hence, writing novels on top of that was a bit too much for me.
Second, I had never aspired to be a writer, and this new experience took me completely by surprise. Although I had excelled in literature as a high school student, writing fiction was uncharted territory, so Stephen King’s book On Writing became my second Bible.
Ten years and an exotic trip to Panama later, The Savage was complete. And namely, in the beautiful Old Panama City, where a large part of my narrative unfolds, the universal meaning of the story I had written dawned on me.
Inspired by the Spirit, this book bears witness to the triumph of light over darkness and the eternal struggle between good and evil. It follows the spiritual growth of Kamolea, a boy from a cannibal tribe who rejects his people’s practices and embarks on a quest for wisdom and truth. His journey leads him to extraordinary adventures, and the lessons he learns transform him into a wise and courageous leader. Some of the principal themes considered in the book are slavery, colonization, piracy, the fight against evil, and the veneration of deceitful deities. However, beyond the entertaining adventure layer, created to help readers swallow the bitter pill, there is a philosophical concept that makes the story so unique that one of my reviewers has stated, “I haven’t read another book like this before.”
Although my choice of title sometimes raises an eyebrow, I decided against changing it, as the name “Savage” highlights the stark contrast between the brutality of “civilized” men and the protagonist’s inner transformation, who originated from a less developed society. It also sought to emphasize that anyone taking part in acts of violence like killing, rape, and war falls under this “savage” category. Furthermore, the grim cannibal island mirrors the dismal state of humanity, demonstrating that moral values remain essentially unchanged even as society evolves. Therefore, the narrative’s core message is that personal peace and salvation can be achieved only through spiritual growth, regardless of social context. No matter whether tribal, monarchical, or democratic, all systems are built on faulty foundations whose pillars are greed, lust for power, debauchery, and the worship of material wealth.
Shocked by this statement? Don’t be. Despite your perception of living in a perfect society, many people in modern Western countries are aware of their ancestors’ sins that cast a shadow over their achievements.
Let’s consider, for instance, some former and contemporary empires and superpowers, such as Spain, France, Germany, Great Britain, and the USA, a former colony of Great Britain. For the past 500 years, these self-proclaimed “civilized” nations have dominated the globe, branding the indigenous populations of their conquered territories as “savages.” And yet the savagery they committed and the destruction they brought are unspeakable.
Have these countries made the world a better place to live? Undeniably, they made great technological advancements that significantly improved our quality of life. On the flip side, this progress was accompanied by the incredible suffering of millions of indigenous and enslaved people who died in the Age of Discovery. The brutality of this period even forced Pope Francis to apologize for the “serious sins against the native people” during the colonization of the Americas.
Germany, the initiator of the two World Wars, in which about 100 million perished, is another example of human lunacy.
My point is that the Western democracies, which pretend to be the best social system ever, have been responsible for all the misery around the world for centuries, hiding their complacent, psychopathic faces of serial killers behind a high standard of living and empty words such as “democracy,” “equality,” “freedom,” “fraternity,” “inclusiveness,” and “progress.” They turned entire continents into pigsties, sowing discord and violence, imposing embargos, and killing people by war and starvation. Even today, in 2024, 25,000 people worldwide die of hunger every single day. What does this tremendous technological progress serve, then? To make nuclear arms and destroy ourselves and the entire planet?
But then, we must ask ourselves, where does this violent, predatory behavior come from? Because wars are only the tip of the iceberg, the final result of the violence and self-destruction that are deeply rooted in man’s mind. Thus murders, thefts, and rapes were, are, and always will be a part of the society. According to the statistics, somebody gets killed worldwide every minute. Suicides? Even worse, every 40 seconds. Rapes and thefts? Perhaps every second. So, why can’t anybody stop this horrific brutality? And most importantly, why does humanity never learn from its mistakes and continue to follow this self-destructive path?
You have no answers, have you? It is what it is: man is violent by nature, and there is nothing to do about it. The dogs bark, but the caravan goes on.
Still, there must be an explanation for this awful human behavior, and to find it, we need to break the problem into its tiniest parts, as Marc Aurelius suggested in his Meditations. But I am not sure that anybody is keen to uncover the truth, for we subconsciously already know it, but it is so terrifying that we’d rather ignore it. Therefore, instead of putting our finger in the wound and facing our destiny with bravery and determination, we prefer to play blind, deaf, and dumb, hiding behind our self-pity and self-complacency. It’s easier this way, isn’t it? And the simple explanation that everyone would give you is:
“We all have a dark side, but what can we do? It is what it is…”
A sage once said that the dark side in humans is called stupidity. Years ago, I was outraged and strongly disagreed with this statement, but now, as I know the truth, I’m astonished at how accurate it is. Only it took me twenty years to fully realize what it is all about. And this is the key problem of our existence. In order to REALIZE something so crucial, you need to accumulate enough ENERGY, as this is the only way to raise your AWARENESS and eventually understand what is going on inside your mind. But it’s not by chance that we are such terrible wasters of our energy. If you think about it, the core of every sin is an action that makes us dissipate our energy until it is completely depleted. Look into wild nature—every living creature uses its energy to survive harsh environmental conditions and reproduce, right? What do humans do? Drinking, overeating, fucking around, hating each other, spending hours gossiping, watching soap operas and social media, over-consuming… The list goes on and on, and it is miles long. The million-dollar question here is why we behave so differently from all other living creatures.
If you have the answer, you will be called a wise man. However, most likely, you are not interested in such bullshit, and you will snarl at me,
“Get lost! It’s my life, and I’ll do whatever I want with it!”
Fair enough. There is a slight problem, though—without enough energy, our awareness drops so low that it inevitably leads to our present state of mind—lazy and dumb, letting ourselves be led by the nose our entire life.
The bottom line is, my friends, that it all boils down to this:
Just as Saint George is killing the dragon, we must get rid of the disgusting thing called in the Scriptures the devil and Satan that dwells inside us. Of course, Satan is only a general term for explaining the harsh reality that humans are trapped in. The truth is that we have demons inside us, real creatures far stronger and more intelligent than we are. They have broken our will and made us their slaves, deceiving and manipulating us our entire lives. They made us blind, stupid, lazy, petty, spiteful, stubborn, and self-indulgent egomaniacs, and their manipulations have led to all the world’s lechery, violence, war, and atrocities. I know it’s hard to believe it, but I can assure you that demons are as real as the oxygen you breathe or the water you drink to sustain your life. And I am sure that deep inside, everybody already knows it, but the lack of energy makes it impossible to realize it. As Carlos Castaneda stated, “Down in the depths of every human being, there’s an ancestral, visceral knowledge about the predators’ existence.” (Carlos Castaneda, The Active Side of Infinity. HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 1998, p. 222).
Let’s go back to The Savage, where the demons, which are an essential part of acquiring wisdom, are presented all the way through the narrative. And just as the Gospel states: “And they will all be taught by God” (John 6:45), God has compelled Kamolea to learn so that he would understand the truth and give his people hope and a new beginning. He was destined to bring them a message of peace and love and to change their mentality, thus transforming their life forever, just as Jesus came from Heaven two thousand years ago to teach us how we should live and behave to have eternal life, peace, and prosperity. But who wants to hear and respect such messages? Look what we have done to the Messenger—we crucified Him and annihilated almost all of His disciples. Then, for 300 years, His followers were burned, thrown into the lion’s den, crucified, tortured, and mass murdered. Yet, despite all these atrocities, Jesus’s teaching survived and ultimately won, making Christianity the most prominent religion, with around 2.6 billion followers. This victory is a miracle, and the only plausible explanation is that so many wonders happened over time that it was impossible to ignore Jesus’s words, which spread like wildfire over the centuries.
And yet, who respects His words? Even after Christianity took over, did the wars and violence stop? Not at all! It got even worse with the technological progress—millions and millions of dead because of people’s idiocy.
Unfortunately, it is not getting any better nowadays. We are living in trying times, on the brink of World War 3, and the absolute horror is still to come. Look at these zombies on the street, hunched over their cell phones with plastered stupid smiles on their faces. Toddlers who stare at screens for hours as their parents enjoy the peace they have bought by allowing it, without realizing the damage they cause to their own children. What generation is coming? There are no values, and nobody believes in anything anymore—the churches are empty, one in two marriages fail, the criminals with arrest warrants are presidents, and millions perish in wars and starve to death worldwide. Cruel world.
But it was not intended to be like that. For if the billions who label themselves Christians truly respected the words of God, the world would be perfect, with no wars, no borders, no killing, and no starving—only one society where people love each other and believe in the God of Good, Truth, and Justice. Or as it is written in the Bible, “I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be my people.” (Hebrews, 8:10).
But this is a utopia. The demons have broken us long ago, turning us into greedy, complacent, and routinary egomaniacs who dance to their tune. We all want to be left alone, have fun, follow our whims, and waste our energy rather than discipline ourselves and change our habits. But guess what—every society built on greediness, overconsumption, over-satisfaction, depravity, and self-indulgence directly confronts God’s will. Such a society kills the human spirit and leads to callous selfishness and spiritual blindness. Many great civilizations have collapsed, going down this path, and ours will be no exception, as the Universe 25 experiment has already proved.
Regrettably, despite all the signs and warnings that God is sending to us, we are unstoppable in our blindness and stupidity—the wars and atrocities continue, and we cheerfully are heading for our self-annihilation. But let me ask you this: what will the computer technician do when the computer’s hard disk is full of viruses, and the software keeps freezing and crashing? Will he leave it like that, or will he wipe the hard disk, format it, and reinstall a clean copy of the operating system? So, even if you don’t believe in Jesus’s words about the Day of Judgement, and you are a staunch atheist with no faith in anything, use your common sense to realize that the One who created the program has the power to wipe it out, if it does not go the way it was intended to go.
This warning was the last one Kamolea conveyed to his people—we must all change or die. We all live on a cannibal, atrocious island, figuratively eating each other and inflicting misery on ourselves. Still, just like Kamolea, only very few can see through the veil of human stupidity and lead their people to a New Beginning, creating a better world for the generation to come. A world founded on peace, love, and prosperity, worshipping one God and respecting His covenant. Some call such people great leaders, others prophets, but in the end, they all have within them the light that will outline the road to the salvation of the human soul.
I hope you will enjoy the story, as so many readers have already, judging by their praises. And if this book can entertain you and also make you think about the trap we humans are caught in, then I’ve succeeded in my mission.
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