title: PARSIFAL: The Will and Redemption: Exploring Richard Wagner's Final Treatise
author: John L Mastrogiovanni D.Min.
description: Dr. John Mastrogiovanni was first introduced to Wagners Ring at the age of five by his father. By the age of nine, he was opening Wagners piano scores and outlining all the leitmotifs with their numerous variations. In 1995, Dr. John joined the Wagner Society of Southern California and in 2010, he become the chairman. He lectures on Wagner in different venues, including societies, clubs, and colleges. Dr. John is also an ordained minister and has been in full-time ministry for over 30 years, traveling educating pastors and leaders throughout the United States, Great Britain and Europe.
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  > > ‘A deathly cry! I rushed in:
  
  > > Klingsor, laughing, was vanishing from there,
  
  > > having stolen the holy Spear.’
  
  > > > Richard Wagner: Parsifal
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘For myself, I have the most intimate familiarity with Wagner’s mental
  processes. At every stage in my life I come back to him. Only a new nobility
  can introduce the new civilization for us. If we strip “Parsifal” of every
  poetic element, we learn from it that selection and renewal are possible only
  amid the continuous tension of a lasting struggle. A world-wide process of
  segregation is going on before our eyes. Those who see in struggle the meaning
  of life, gradually mount the steps of a new nobility. Those who are in search
  of peace and order through dependence, sink, whatever their origin, to the
  inert masses. The masses, however, are doomed to decay and self-destruction.
  In our world-revolutionary turning-point the masses are the sum total of the
  sinking civilization and its dying representatives. We