The Reincarnation of Michelangelo

Please visit the new IISIS web site, www.iisis.net for many new reincarnation cases,

including synopses of many reincarnation cases researched by Ian Stevenson, MD,

of the University of Virginia. Sign up for the IISIS Newletter!

At this point, I would like to present information regarding the reincarnation of Michelangelo. The way this case came to light is of interest. It started with an experience that I had in September 2006 in Florence. My girlfriend Svetka and I went on a Mediterranean cruise and as part of a tour of Florence, our group went to see Michelangelo’s David. As we were waiting outside the museum, we spotted a street vendor wearing a T-shirt with a “Union 76” logo.

Svetka and I couldn’t believe it, as I had worked for this oil company, Union 76, also known as Unocal 76, as a medical director for 11 years. In my book Return of the Revolutionaries, I discuss the importance of the 76 symbol in my life as it relates to a past incarnation I had during the American Revolution, which was launched in 1776. Union 76 is a California-based company with operations in Indonesia. Even in the United States, I hadn’t seen a Union 76 T-shirt since I left the company in 1997. How did this T-shirt wind up in Florence?

Click to Enlarge

This unusual synchronicity made me wonder if Michelangelo were reincarnated in contemporary times. When we returned from our vacation, in a session with Kevin Ryerson, I asked Ahtun Re whether Michelangelo is incarnate. Ahtun Re told me that he is and that Michelangelo was living in Las Vegas. Ahtun Re added that he has been involved in designing movie sets and that he has created pieces for the casinos in Las Vegas. Ahtun Re declined to give me Michelangelo’s name, stating that I should have no problem finding him.

I did an Internet search on artists and designers in Las Vegas and quickly was drawn to a model of an eighty-foot-tall sculpture of two giant boxing gloves striking each other, oriented in the vertical dimension. I thought to myself that this is something that Michelangelo would do, perhaps due to the scale, but there was also another reason, which I still was not conscious of. There was a phone number displayed near the boxing glove image and I called. A man answered and I related that I was trying to locate the artist doing the boxing glove sculpture. The voice replied, “That’s me.” ¨

Click to Enlarge

Paul-Felix Montez was the voice on the other end of the phone line and he stated that he had set up the phone number as a business line that he rarely answered directly. I then explained about the reincarnation research that I was doing, the work that I have done with Kevin Ryerson, and the fact that I was looking for the reincarnation of Michelangelo in Las Vegas.

I continued that I was entertaining the possibility that he might be the one, but if he wasn’t, I asked that he help me find the reincarnated Michelangelo as he must know the artist community there. Paul then chuckled and said, “This is very interesting, as I have been in Las Vegas only a little over a year, yet three different people have called me the Michelangelo of Las Vegas.”

Later on, Paul sent me photos of himself and I found that his facial features, including his unique, broad nose, were consistent with those of Michelangelo. In a subsequent session with Kevin, Ahtun Re confirmed that Paul-Felix Montez is a reincarnation of Michelangelo, though he also said that a split exists.

I asked why Michelangelo would settle in Las Vegas and Ahtun Re told me that in his Italian lifetime, his primary employer was the Roman Catholic Church, which limited the scope of work that Michelangelo could do. Las Vegas represents the opposite pole, where he has complete freedom to create what he wants.

I subsequently recommended that Paul study the life of Michelangelo, which he did. Finding many correlations, Paul soon put up his own web page about the correspondences between Michelangelo and himself, which he states that he found to be “astounding.” Paul has been gracious enough to allow me to use his analysis in this chapter. Let me share some of his observations with you.

Childhood and the Demonstration of Talent

Michelangelo was raised in Florence and later, during the prolonged illness and after the death of his mother, he lived with a stonecutter and his wife and family in the town of Settignano, where his father owned a marble quarry and a small farm. I personally was orphaned when I was one year old, left by my father in the New York foundling home in Manhattan. The few papers recording my adoption there stated that my natural birth mother abandoned both father and child and that my birth father could no longer care for me. I was then adopted at two years of age into a New York Italian family.

Michelangelo started training in a crafts guild at an early age. Michelangelo early on impresses people with his ability to draw. He competes for rejected piece of massive marble and is recognized for his creations in stone. In first grade, I do a drawing of a log cabin and teachers are amazed at my level of fine detail in drawing birds, tree bark, detail upon detail. A book on anatomy was given to me by my grandfather, all written in Italian. I drew from it at age 7 or 8, even though it included nudes. Many studies by Michelangelo and da Vinci were in the book.

In the third grade, I was chosen to paint a mural, “Arrival of Christopher Columbus,” for a hallway 4 feet by 6 feet. In junior high school, I excelled in art, and became a special science student for one-on-one science explorations. At 14 years of age, I was chosen to paint a mural 26 feet long by 8 feet high for a school hallway, depicting various scientific achievements in the United States. Later, I was accepted into a specialized commercial art high school in Manhattan, New York.

Lacking money to go to college, I had few choices until a guidance counselor offered me an application to the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture. Considering this is a free school, with an intense barrage of tests, portfolio submissions and reviews, I felt it was all I could do or hope for, and little hope for it was what I had. All I could do was “try.” This college has 10,000 applications a year, and only selects 60 day-school students and 50 night-school students for each area in the school: art, architecture and physics.

The odds were a million to one, but somehow, during the exams, because I felt I had nothing to lose, I remember my mind saying, “Draw everything as you see it, feel it. Let it all go, the way you know inside. It is your own creativity and creations.” After all, we were asked to draw the great old hall we were in, and so many were doing utterly realistic, shaded representations. I saw it as a “sculpture,” dark strong lines, massive forms colliding into each other, around each other, and I drew it that way. And so I entered the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture in New York City.

On Sculpture

Yes, I am a sculptor. Being a sculptor and a master of sculpture for over 30 years, I have done the large horses and statues found in Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, figures for casinos, figures and sets for films such as Men in Black and Bat Man. I was a member of the exclusive 55-members-only sculptors’ ITASE local in the Film and Museum Exhibits architectural union. Today I am creating large-scale monuments for Las Vegas, and even proposing one of my own called The Greatest.

When I asked Paul if he could do a sculpture such as Michelangelo’s David, he responded:

Yes, without a doubt. I have done many big sculptures in classical anatomy – I am very good at it. I have a “great eye” for mass and line in sculpture; my peers have always said that. It’s intuitive, even at distances. To the inch, I have always been able to measure by eye.

I recently exhibited in a major one-man exhibit at the Las Vegas Art Museum, so my work has been validated by the arts community. Even now, I am joining forces with the city, the mayor, major real estate developers and the arts council to make large architectural projects happen.

I appeared on the Discovery Channel Cable TV series Monster House. In the show, working in 104-degree summer heat, I completed the carving of a two-story, concrete- coated statue of the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses. The producers’ statement about this was that “no one has come on the show, worked so exactingly and fast, or ever truly delivered or done any such project so fast and with true integrity.” It was a great compliment to my drive, training and skills.

I have been a special sculptural live-action effects designer on such major films as Batman, Congo, Indian in the Cupboard, Men in Black, Godzilla (the remake), Showgirls, Species and many more. I have also designed sets, theme parks, theme stores, casinos, decorations, etc.

Scope of Michelangelo’s scale: Without a doubt, Michelangelo is renowned for creating some of the world’s most iconographic, largest-scale art works, the most dynamic ever. For the Sistine Chapel, David, la Pieta, etc., he was considered the greatest sculptor of his time. I too make “Big Art.” The reason I use that phrase is the dumbing down of our culture. The word “monumental” seems impossible for anyone to remember and sculpture has a semi-silent “p.” So of necessity, humor, brand identity and fun, I say “Big Art.”

Michelangelo’s David is one of the world’s most iconographic art images. I only recently saw it again, after working on my sculpture, The Gloves, the monument part of my two-part art work called The Greatest, a year before all this. The Gloves stands 80 feet tall in the model, is cast in stainless steel and bronze, and is fully engineered and ready for manufacture and installation once funding comes in.

Michelangelo, who was often arrogant with others and constantly dissatisfied with himself, saw art as originating from inner inspiration and from culture. My view is similar: inner vision, something within, points me into a creative direction, haunts me, and I must create it. But as I create, it all of a sudden takes on another dimension: why is this, what is it, how does it live in, reflect, exist with the cultural world around it? The iconography is a major concern plus the impact that it has on the viewer.

Michelangelo quote: “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark.”

When recently discussing my monumental sculpture and memorial to boxing, someone commented, “It takes in size, iconographic scale and visual identity, and goes one step further – time, and the simple promise of the eternal. It’s big, in any and every sense one can apply to it.”

On Writing and Poetry

Michelangelo was also a poet and writer. The sample below he wrote at age 57:

“I feel as lit by fire a cold countenance
That burns me from afar and keeps itself ice-chill;
A strength I feel two shapely arms to fill
Which without motion moves every balance.”

I have written and had plays produced, sold TV shows, and written and won awards for screenwriting. The beauty of human interaction and motivation in such pared-down forms is awesome. One of my award-winning screenplays, called Bodega, can be found on the New York City Film Commission’s site in the category “Best Un-produced Screenplay About NYC.”

On Time

It is often quoted by Michelangelo that what he hated most in people was a time-waster. I find that this is true. Time is the only thing that can be lost and never regained.

On Sexuality

Michelangelo has been declared a homosexual by some. Though no specific evidence of this lifestyle is present, in his work David there is an undeniable homo-erotic sensuality and power. Letters have also been found, attesting to his possible intimacies with young male models as lovers in his later years. Michelangelo was also a poet, and many of his poems contain references to adoration of the male form. This kind of sexual relationship was and still is common between older men and young men in Europe, as a rite of passage into sexual awareness and sexuality.

Fundamental to Michelangelo’s art is his love of male beauty, which attracted him both aesthetically and emotionally. In part, this was an expression of the Renaissance idealization of masculinity. But in Michelangelo’s art, there is clearly a sensual response to this aesthetic. Such feelings caused him great anguish, and he expressed the struggle between Platonic ideals and carnal desire in his sculpture, drawing and poetry too, for among his other accomplishments, Michelangelo was also a great Italian lyric poet of the 16th century.

The sculptor’s expressions of love have been characterized as both Neo-Platonic and openly homo-erotic; recent scholarship seeks an interpretation which respects both readings, yet is wary of drawing absolute conclusions. One example of the conundrum is the story of sixteen-year-old Cecchino dei Bracci, whose death, only a year after their meeting in 1543, inspired the writing of 48 funeral epigrams, which, by some accounts, allude to a relationship that was not only romantic but physical as well.

In contrast, in Michelangelo’s later years, spanning some twenty years before his death, his writings all turn to one woman, and hers to him. Late in life, he nurtured a great love for the poet and noble widow Vittoria Colonna, whom he met in Rome in 1536 or 1538 and who was in her late forties at the time. They wrote sonnets for each other and were in regular contact until she died, though many scholars note the intellectualized or spiritual quality of this passion.

It is impossible to know for certain whether Michelangelo had physical relationships. This would then make him a bisexual, rather than a true homosexual, but different camps claim different things. In my opinion, it is much clearer and simpler. The depth of human passions, desires and needs, when unleashed in creativity as powerful as his, knows no bounds to their expression and fulfillment.

I would have to say about my own sexuality that I am bi-heterosexual. All of my long- term relationships have been with women, but I have explored the sexuality, even gender reality, of being with men. It is sexual openness that clearly for me led me to see the depth of emotional bonding with women, and the level of commitment that could ensue because of the honesty to reveal this depth of my soul, and thus they become deep soul-bonded relationships. For in this area, it is as if I am sharing the most vulnerable part of my being. It is a harder road to bare such honesty, but with much greater rewards. I feel it is destructive to believe that one’s sexuality should be a secret from those one loves. How is that possible, to live a lie and never to rise to the real challenge of courageous relating?

But to live one’s life in fear and deny that which is part of the search for meaning and truth is to deny spirituality its greatest importance: that we are all divine contributors to each other’s existence. If we open up and deeply listen to each other, what an abundance of wisdom we possess. My struggles extend to a very narcissistic stepmother, a woman unable to bear children, surrounded by sisters who all had twins. What a strange turn of events, and how sad for her, but often this narcissism would be expressed, whenever I did something which displeased her, like an ailment: “I could have adopted two children, a boy and a girl, but at the time we only had one room and we adopted you. I saw them, though, before you, and a girl would have been my friend.”

It took me many years to unravel the pain of this statement, the fear and abusive nature of it, but also unravel and come to see and love the depth of my stepmother’s desire to be a woman, to give her love and how she missed out on realizing the depth of love I offered her as a “son,” even though adopted, and that natural childbirth does not define a parent, love does.

So with this gender, emotional pain, deep desire to belong, be safe, be that girl for my family, and my father’s rejection of my artistry as a homosexual pursuit but a conflict for him with my gifts, I could only begin a journey in New York City, Greenwich Village, in the gay community, which enjoyed my art and sculpture, listened, and applauded my work and young body.

On Eroticism in Art

Censorship always followed Michelangelo, once described as inventor delle porcherie (“inventor of obscenities”). The infamous “fig-leaf campaign” of the Counter-Reformation, aiming to cover all representation of human genitals in paintings and sculpture, started with Michelangelo’s works. To give two examples, the bronze (actually, marble) statue of Cristo della Minerva (church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome) was covered by a pan, as it remains today, and the statue of the naked child Jesus in Madonna of Bruges (The Church of Our Lady in Bruges, Belgium) remained covered for several decades.

I have exhibited my art works worldwide, and am in many museum collections. I have also created erotic art that is in erotic art museums worldwide.

On Physical Resemblance

One test is visual likeness. Here the intensity of the eyes, the same color, cheek bone structure, and most clearly the wide nose, all show the same physical traits.

On Spirituality and Creativity

Michelangelo’s spirituality: It is often cited in biographies that he was very spiritual, and ethically so. In his lifetime, he was also often called Il Divino (“the Divine One”), an appropriate sobriquet given his intense spirituality. Michelangelo defended his privacy above all. When an employee of his friend Niccolo Quaratesi offered his son as apprentice suggesting that he would be good even in bed, Michelangelo refused indignantly, suggesting that Quaratesi fire the man. Moral integrity.

But the greatest thing I experience everyday is the work that I love and, most importantly, burning, raging creative visions of new art works, new possibilities, new meanings to explore in art. I have art representatives in both NYC and LA. I have gained the support of real estate developers in Las Vegas for my large-scale sculptures and public works. They see the project and are excited by it and what it offers for the new 21st century city of Las Vegas, no longer the small town.

Each day I wake up excited and work ten, twelve hours on art and art-related business, or designing for various theme designs, set design projects. Then in the evenings, I watch the evening sky, the stars, the world of nature. A quiet walk, and I work out with weights so I can be as physical with my work as possible, tingling throughout my body as a receptor of all and everyone around me.

The grandeur of the visible and invisible universes entwined about us – what a daily awareness and vast show to see and be part of, to act and create from! It is all such a meditation on existence and its glorious abundance, and then there is love and sex, laughter, friends and simple joys. We all have it all, if only we weren't so blinded and could stop and see, listen, feel with the wisdom of the ages, the fearless freedom of Dante’s great statement, “Wear death on your shoulder, be not afraid of it, for time is your greatest enemy, for there is so little of it.”

Very close friends have often stated that I am very spiritual. To have such faith in my visions seems to demand so much more than myself. A past life perhaps? One of my favorite spiritual questions to ask is: “What is your vision of your life when you are seventy-five years old? Is it filled with inspiration?” With a true friend of mine, I asked that question ten years ago in Los Angeles. He said he didn’t know.

I answered, “I see myself building large-scale sculptures in the desert: big, and with many people, all of us joyously inspired.” Today, Las Vegas Big Art and The Greatest are exactly that. I emailed this friend when I had finished the models and said, “Look at this, the vision we talked about,” and he said, “Now we have to make it to 75,” and we will.

I have also found those who suffer, carry great baggage or have deep troubles cannot contemplate this question regarding vision, even for one second. It is as if they have given up hope, wallowing in the self-pity of the past and even their own present, which they see as doomed. May you envision in your life to inspire, for only that vision is true.

I hope you can see, as I have, how so many things are similar between us, between Michelangelo and me. In reincarnation there is value, substance, spiritual confirmation of who and what we are doing, seeking and envisioning in our daily lives.

The similarities can be coincidence, but now that I am looking at them, I wonder, for so many symbolic gestures took place – incidents in my life, in school, choices that I made but never made, as a destiny was being played out, and many burning, intense, passionate desires being created endlessly. Could all this be my doing? It never felt that way, as if I were the sole director of my life. Inspirations, visions to live, goals and desires melding into what I now look back on, and even see as my future, seem to be entwined into this other life, this past life, of another sculptor called Michelangelo.

Click to Enlarge

In conclusion, recall that the first piece of art that I saw created by Paul-Felix Montez was his sculpture, The Gloves, which, in fulfillment, will be an 80-foot-tall sculpture consisting of two boxing gloves, one striking the another. At that time, I had the thought that Michelangelo might do a work such as this, consciously thinking of the size of project, remembering that David was nicknamed, “the Giant.”

It wasn’t until after Paul wrote his article on the correspondences between Michelangelo and himself that I realized another significant parallel. Paul compared a scene from the Sistine Chapel, where the finger of God touches the finger of Adam, with his sculpture. I then realized that when I viewed The Gloves, I was unconsciously reminded, in its 21st century Las Vegas version, of God’s finger giving life to Adam.

I am not an art historian, but I have read a little about Michelangelo. In my perception, it seems that in the paragraphs featured above, we hear the voice of the sculptor from Florence who lived 500 years ago.

In closing, Paul and his vision of a Las Vegas memorial to prize fighters has earned him a place in a new book entitled, Boxing: A Cultural History, by Kasia Boddy. Given this acknowledgement, we may indeed soon see The Gloves rise high into the Nevada sky.