Abstract
This paper studies the symbols of Christianity and religion, and shows us how to interpret the symbols and use them in our everyday lives to overcome hardships and difficult times. This paper also explains the use of alternative, creative methods of dealing with personal issues, helping a person to relate to religion and God.

Contents:
Symbol
Internal Experience (Art)
Projected Self and True Self Realities
Leaving Our Sins at The Cross
Finger Painted Feelings
Blindfolded
Body Outline
Sticks
Safe Place
The Act of Forgiveness
The Journey

From the Paper
"Succumbing to social pressures can lead to drug addiction, depression, and social anxiety. By exploring masks of self, we can also see how we have damaged our relationships with other people, with ourselves, and with God. On the other hand, masks serve a definite purpose; we would have a hard time relating with other people in the world without masks. For example, if we feel inadequate on the inside we can develop a mask of self-confidence. By exploring the different masks we have created, we can reach an image of our whole self.
One of the most constructive exercises at the core of spiritual counseling is to explore our masks. By peeling away the false layers of self, we can reach the core of who we really are, and develop true spiritual communion with God. Physically creating the masks that represent our projected self or selves and our true self can help us to distinguish between our inner feelings and the external influences of other people or the media. Finding our true self can be a frightening prospect, which is why the process should be done with the guidance of a counselor."

Tags:faith, honesty, mask, Lord, creation, forgiveness

Abstract
This paper presents a study of Eros in literary fantasy based on seven short stories (Ambrose Bierce's "The Death of Halpin Frayser", Charles Dickens's "The Signalman", Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Vei"l, Patricia Highsmith's "The Snail-Watcher", H. P. Lovecraft's "The Festival", Richard Matheson's "Born of Man and Woman", Edgar. Allan Poe's "The Black Cat") and two short excerpts from Gothic novels (M. G. Lewis's "The Monk" and Ann Radcliffe's "The Mysteries of Udolpho"), but occasional references are made to other works by these authors and also to Henry James, the Bronte sisters and Le Fanu. The paper begins with a brief presentation of the Greek myth of Eros. The second part of the study considers the problem of knowledge in relation to the erotic dimension of literary fantasies. In the third part of the study, the paper turns to the different manifestations of Eros in fantasy and the process of attraction-repulsion, before examining, in the fourth and final part, two erotic motifs which, latently or overtly, introduce an erotic dimension.

From the Paper
"Indeed, when looking into the texts that form the corpus of our study, one recurring particularity is noticeable in all of them - all narrators are very much concerned with seeing and knowing. The reader is confronted with the narrator's or protagonist's persistent questioning and that questioning also becomes the reader's. We could call it the "wh-" of fantasy - Halpin Frayser does not know "whence and whither" he travels; Dickens's narrator wants to know "what" the signalman's trouble is and asks "Who is it?"; the snail-watcher has to know "what" his snails are up to and "how" they breed; Antonia earnestly demands "How came I here?... Where am I?", while Ambrosio needs to know "why" she refuses him and their mutual questioning goes on in two consecutive paragraphs; Radcliffe's Emily asks her attendant a thousand questions. The reader is a witness of countless who-what-when-where-how-s and for the most part, they remain unanswered. It is as if the signalman answered on our behalf - "I don't know." The texts become desperate attempts to pass on the same biblically borrowed message that stands out in Le Fanu's In a Glass Darkly, the message that "we know in part, and we prophesy in part". These intense efforts to see, to find out, to know are easily explained by the fact that we are dealing with fantasy which, partly by definition, is the literature of the unknown. But the work of many authors of fantasy also carries a heavy cultural heritage that feeds on centuries of known written history, on repeatedly told legends and on established myths."

Tags:greek, roman, cupid, deity, youth, bow, blindfolded, statue, mischievous, creature, wings

Abstract
The paper shows that one does not need to know the precise details of Ralph Ellison's life to see that he is expressing ideas and attitudes if not actual events from his own life in his story "Battle Royal," which appears as a section in his novel, "The Invisible Man." The paper also discusses how Ellison shows the reaction of the white world to a black man with an education, such as he himself had. He also shows how the black man is torn between justifiable pride in learning and the reality of what that learning means to the larger society of which he is a part. The paper examines how the action of the Battle Royal sequence, the people present, and different elements referred to in the text have symbolic power to show the nature of black-white relations, the particular role of the black man in society, and many of the traps that have been set for blacks by whites.

From the Paper
"The main character in The Invisible Man is invisible in a metaphorical and symbolic sense, invisible both to himself and to others, and invisible in a way that has resonance for other characters in modern literature and for modern man himself. The hero of this novel is a black man who is invisible in white society because he is black, in black society because he takes on various expected roles accepted by white society, and to himself because he has been subsuming his real character in these roles and has not allowed himself to exist as a real person with his own point of view."

Tags:blonde, dancer, blindfolding, animal, imagery, Tatlock