Illusionary Enemy

Since childhood, Abel Cohen has been plagued by vivid nightmares. Over time, Abel withdraws further and further, preferring to escape into a realm of fantasy rather than confront the painful realities of his life.

When Abel’s mother commits suicide she leaves her sons a mysterious trunk. Inside, Abel and his brother Michael discover baby pictures of a brother they never knew they had. A phone call to their estranged father reveals the truth: at the age of three, Abel, gripped by a jealous rage, suffocated his baby brother to death.

Gripped by the need to make sense of this painful knowledge, Abel throws himself into life as a Christian warrior. But the idyllic dream ultimately crumbles.

Next, Abel seeks out Miriam Lester, a Christian psychiatrist, with the hope that she can save him from his downward spiral of bitterness and disillusionment. While Abel draws Miriam into verbal games and theosophical debate, she tries earnestly to pierce through his defenses to the troubled, vulnerable young man within. But Abel has sought help too late...

Devastated by the loss of the illusions that kept his fragile identity intact, Abel now believes that the spiritual experiences of people like himself and Miriam are nothing more than the result of a psychotropic molecule produced in the human brain. The deep problems of humanity cannot be resolved through a search for scientific truth and love, as he once thought; like a forest that must endure a controlled burn, so humanity must be purged.