Author Description

Take Care of the Night Description Anxiety -- how it afflicts humanity and how humanity copes -- is the topic of this book, which was written by Renzo Sereno, my father, more than 50 years ago. The title, Take Care of the Night: A Study of Religion, Dream and Magic, is his. It comes from an old Antiguan proverb: "Take care of the night or the night takes care of you." The remainder of the title, Anxiety -- An Examination by a Classically-Trained Scholar of the Mid-Twentieth Century, is mine, a 2015 contribution in this, the 50th anniversary of his death. This book uses superb scholarship to explore the premise that anxiety drives all human endeavor, citing works by thinkers from Aristotle through luminaries of the 20th century. It examines anxiety through three phenomena: First is religion, from the word's Latin roots to its global practices. Dreams, the second, includes the practice of psychotherapy and the conflict between science and social science. The last, Magic, touching on all manner of non-rational beliefs, is largely an anthropological account of his studying Obeah and Voodoo in the West Indies, including serving as a witch doctor's apprentice. This is not a self-help book -- it is a philosophical discussion that defines and outlines the ways humankind deals with anxiety. Renzo Sereno was a gifted scholar: Professor at the School for Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University, author of The Rulers (Leiden, The Netherlands: J. J. Bill 1962). Notable among numerous scholarly articles he authored/co-authored is "Some Observations on the Santa Claus Custom," Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Processes, 24, No. 4 (1951), in which he was the first to denounce Santa Claus. This book was not published 50 years ago because although the manuscript was completed, it was an illegible mess. I got it at the beginning of this millennium. It took 10 years for me to struggle through it. But I read something profound, worthy of publication. My own car