The Word Cloud

Last year (2011) we took a trip to America for the first time, hiring a Ford Mustang and driving through California, Arizona and Nevada. It was glorious discovering new places, new environments, new ways of doing things, but we didn’t leave all the discovery till we arrived. We brought a couple of guidebooks beforehand, googled a few places on the Net, pored over some maps and studied details in the brochure.

All this is quite natural.

How about the Bigger Trip at the end of earthly life? Where are the guidebooks? Which web pages should I google? Where are the maps and tourist brochures? Once again it is natural to want some information. Where should I try?

From time to time I hope to post articles on 'Matters of Life and Death', and shall be evaluating various sources of information:

·       Science: how much, if anything, can it tell us about non-material reality?
·       Religion: how much can the familiar Christian variety tell us?
·       Poetry and music: can these reveal any ‘Truths of the Imagination’ for us?
·       Inner Resonance: how much weight can I place on something that ‘rings true’?

And there is one more source I shall consult, Spiritualism. For a writer, it is a brilliant resource. Spiritualism had a considerable vogue before and after the First World War, but nowadays it is deeply unfashionable. As a result, there is a cornucopia of wonderful but neglected materials for me to plunder

At my bedside I have volumes with such evocative titles as Life Beyond the Veil, Gone West and The Living Dead Man. They all date from the time around the First World War and have a sense of the drama and intensity involved in the time. But wait a moment, you might say, aren’t they too spooky for the bedside? Not at all. They make splendid bedtime reading, often cheering, frequently astonishing, always fascinating. I have dog-eared many a must-revisit page, made vertical lines in the margins of read-again extracts, and added double – or even treble – lines for especially mind-boggling material.

But how much can I trust such things, I hear you ask. Well, there are basically four answers to this:

·       Firstly, I can check the materials for consistency. How do they match up against each other – and also against more recent material coming from Near Death Experiences and Hypnotic Regression? Do they support or contradict each other?
·       Secondly, I can ask how far the stories match up with common sense. That is, do the humans behave as humans (albeit in different circumstances)?
·       Thirdly, I can employ the Inner Resonance guide (as mentioned above) – do the stories and descriptions ring true?
·       Fourthly, as a novelist I can ask whether they would make darn good tales.

That last one is a good criterion for me. I am engaged on writing an updatedDivine Comedy trilogy in which the scope and vision of Dante are compounded with the buddy-style interplay of, say, Butch and Sundance. A mismatched pair of cousins are sent to quarrel their way through Earth, Hell and even Heaven (which is not where you’d expect to see a lot of quarrelling, but they’ll find a way).

Recently I have been busy with Book Two, A Short, Selective Journey Through Hell, and have happily drawn on Life Beyond the Veil, Gone Westand The Living Dead Man, as well as plenty of other resources.

Well yes, you might say. Rattling good tale, you might say. But is it all true? Do you really believe all that stuff?

Well, my friends, believe is a funny word. It implies loyalty to one set of propositions and not to another. This can be very limiting, and, if you are a scientist, it can be disastrous. There you go building your career on – what? – certainties about dinosaur bones, about continental drift or perhaps even the speed of light, and then along comes evidence to prove your whole life is one big mistake.

No, belief is a very limiting word. Let’s go with something rather more open. It has been suggested that science fiction writers do a lot better in the Next World than saintly believers, and this seems credible to me because science fiction writers are in the business of imagining the unimaginable. They’re not held down by the diving boots of belief.

So let’s say I value Life Beyond the Veil, Gone West, The Living Dead Man and suchlike for their Wow factor. They may or may not hold vast amounts of truth, but I can try to check them for consistency, common sense and resonance. And, having done so, I’m inclined to say yup, they make the better story.

(This post has been simultaneously published on my blog  http://dimensionsbeyond.typepad.com/ 
complete with a lovely pic of Death Valley - seen from 'Dante's View' - which I would have included here, only I couldn't get the picture uploader to cooperate, alas. Do feel free to call in on said blog and sample the numerous delights therein...)

It's such a simple word, stand, and yet its meanings can be many.

To stand up from sitting.

To hold ground.

To defend belief.

Stand up. Stand firm. They're displayed as such honorable and noteworthy actions. Yet, though we stand for belief, for faith, for truth, for honesty, for peace, the opposition against us is great.

It seems that everywhere one turns when standing, someone tries hard to push them back down. To conform them to the 'reality' of the world. The debate becomes a contest, to see who can stand stronger and find out where truth lies and lies are the truth.

Does this make the stubborn right and the meek wrong?

Do the ones who back down end up being at fault?

Or is it those who show the wisdom to back away from a conflict to prepare for the next, who understand the truth that no one sees? The meanings that few grasp?

Stand firm.

Stand wise.

Stand for truth above the lies.

Stand for the searching of the knowledge of the truth, rather than the destruction of the truth someone might have known.

For it is the pursuit of truth that drives us on. The desire to know and to discover all that there is to offer. Do no destroy the dream, but rather build the foundations of a curious mind, constantly delving into the questions or truth and lie.

Stand tall for the searchers, for the wonderers, and the dreamers, for what knowledge do we truly possess? Speculations and dreams.

So spur one another toward the pursuit, rather than choosing a side, for it is in these dreams that some truth may reside.


Of the dream,
The musing of Mythwriter

Huzzah! My skill for titles has come back, (in my opinion anyway).
I have a fascinating story to tell you all, about something that happened to me earlier on today.

Well.

There I was. 

I volunteer with the Cinnamon Trust every week, walking dogs for those who can't walk them that often themselves and this particular week I was off gallavanting with Queenie a little jack russel along the woods, when me and my mum walked up to a Catholic Church.

We had both driven past it many times before and knew it was there, but we had never had the chance to walk up to it.

Anyway, I am probably the most religious out of my family. I believe in a God (my own God) and that there is life after death, but I don't quite buy into the Catholic ideas of hellfire, damnation and being given forgiveness by talking in a booth.

So we sat on a bench beside the Church and started talking about how crap things were. People had died, problems had been caused both inside and out of the family, and we were both pretty hacked off. My mother has a very good perception of life, and despite being kicked in the face when she's down, she always hopes for better.

So we are talking about God and she suddenly says something along the lines of: "please just show us what to do. Help us." Thinking nothing of it after that we both trundled back to return the woofta and headed to the library I am temporarily transferred to at work, to get me a new library card because I had lost my other one, but I digress.

After that we went to the village to get some vegetables for soup, when there's a notice on the window of the pharmacy for a job. I cannot tell you the number of times my mother has told me she would love to work there. So we grab an application and then went home.
The first miracle.

Halfway through helping her with making soup, I get a phonecall on my mobile.

It was a woman telling me I had been shortlisted for an Apprenticeship program, which in my gap year would be incredible.

So there I am bouncing up and down, when I realise: two miracles in one day. After three years of shit, it's made a stronger believer out of me. Or perhaps I only believe in God because it's wishful thinking, either way I owe Him one.