FAR AWAY

I learnt the universe is infinitely huge; not
confined to the Milky Way Galaxy as I had
read in Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopaedia
when I was small - there are infinite galaxies;
a stupendous discovery that left me high
with excitement

I was enthralled by Vincent Gaddis’ Invisible
Horizons and The Secret Life Of Plants early
in life, later discovering Charles Fort and his
rains of fishes and strange footprints which
just added grist to my mill

Erich von Daniken and Zechariah Sitchin
destroyed all fear of a prosaic life; the small,
Calvinist world of my youth with pain and duty
was reduced to a miniscule part of this
wonderfully exciting inter-subjective
illusion

Reading about Atlantis, Lemuria, Mu and
ancients astronauts gives me infinite delight,
I became an instant a Pyramidiot on discovery
of Graham Hancock, Charles Bauval’s and
Wayne Herchel’s theories – and I keep
reading Charles von Berlitz’s books

I love the mystery of the disappearance of the
Marie Celeste, the lost fighter pilots and ships
in Bermuda’s green mist, enchanted by accounts
of the Philadelphia Experiment and explanations
of crew men in deep freeze

I am amazed by occult mediums introduced by
Arthur Findlay and Arthur Conan Doyle’s support
for attempts to probe consciousness surviving
physical life; and I ponder Peter Wilcock’s
hexagonal distribution of galaxy
structures

I enjoy reading about extraterrestrial contacts,
octaves of colours, sounds and forms, Mayan
prophecies, astrogenetics by Maurice Cotterel
and Lyall Watson explaining Chladni’s figures
making geometric patterns in sand, grounding
Dr Emoto’s ideas on water crystals

I am amazed by quantum physics, quarks and Many
World’s theory, adore the holographic universe, am
thrilled by pyramids being built without identifiable
technology, by OOPARTS and ziggurats and
ancient alien visitors from the stars –

- and I must live in a prosaic world of boredom, no
accomplishment and squashed dreams – thank
heaven, Terry Pratchett saves me from all this by
recording, expanding and embroidering the ideas
and theories I love

Presenting by mouth of his youthful characters,
combining mystery and fun, speculation and free
imagination in one heady mixture that sets my
imagination alight, takes me on spiritual flights,
far, far away from this little life…

Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman,
Corgi Books, 2006