HEALING OF SUFFERING

Harangue

In the glossary forming one section of the book Siloism originally published in 1972 or 3 we find the following definition of the word:

A form of allocution used by Silo. His principal harangues were: H of the Sea, The Healing of Suffering, The Forbidden H, the Second Forbidden H. and the Third Forbidden H. The harangues were given in Chile and Argentina during 1969.


In any case the Spanish term “arenga” can mean a discourse, a pep talk, or something close to the English word harangue with its meanings of a long, scolding, and/or pompous address. In the early English translations of Silo’s talks the word was simply translated as harangue maybe walking into the problem that linguists refer to as “false friends”. Wikipedia describes them this way: False friends are pairs of words or phrases in two languages or dialects (or letters in two alphabets)[1] that look or sound similar, but differ significantly in meaning. An example is the English embarrassed and the Spanish embarazada, which does not in fact mean ’embarrassed’ but rather ‘pregnant’.


Not realizing any of that, and even today having no idea whether it would have been better to translate arenga as discourse, or something similar, personally I always thought that calling your most important, and seminal talks by this normally derogatory term was both charming and clever.

Healing of Suffering

This is the seminal and arguably most important of Silo’s harangues. Refused permission by the totalitarian government of the time to speak publicly he was finally told that if he returned to his hermitage in the Andes he would be given permits to speak to the rocks and snow. And so he delivered the talk that has come to be known as The Healing of Suffering in the inhospitable environs of the small settlement of Punta de Vacas.

The text of the talk (published in Silo Speaks which can be found in volume one of Silo’s Collected Works. Audio and text can be found at Silo.net. Interesting audio interpretations of this talk and other of Silo’s talks, by The Good Science (Mark Lesseraux and Jeremiah Hosea), can be found here.

The Plaza of Steles at Parque Punta de Vacas where the Healing of Suffering can be found inscribed on copper plates in various languages.