The Book Of Ian Watson, page 13
American psychologist Charles Tart is the pioneer in this field, and in his States of Consciousness he sets the groundwork for the analysis of discrete states of mind which diverge from ordinary baseline consciousness (in which we normally operate and where, perforce, we perform the work of science—pace the dream discovery of the structure of Benzene by Kekule). These are states of mind which are wholly ‘irrational’ and aberrant from the viewpoint of baseline consciousness, yet which possess an internal consistency and coherent logic while one is within them. What Tart hopes to develop is a method for working within these states rather than, as heretofore, from without them objectively. A means may exist since there may be overlaps between some of the mental structures of one ASC (Altered State of Consciousness) and those of another: between, say, certain trance conditions under deep hypnosis, and certain structures within an LSD experience; or between mystical apprehension and, say, ethyl alcohol intoxication. A stepladder of intersecting states can perhaps be erected—and thus a reportability achieved across the psychic boundaries, so that the investigator can bring genuine internal information back to the baseline.
I would suggest (as indeed I do in my novel Miracle Visitors) that here is a potential way to tap into this UFO phenomenon which is partly of objective reality and partly of the psyche. Let us suppose that there exists a hitherto unrecognized ASC which I shall term ‘UFO-consciousness.’ This is an ASC in which UFO experiences—of sightings, landings, contact with ‘aliens’, abduction by them, instruction by them—occurs. It is an ASC that is very far from ordinary baseline consciousness, yet it is one into which we can—as yet inadvertently, yet often collectively—transit. Let us probe its boundary conditions and internal structure by ‘states of consciousness’ techniques, and it may become one into which we can experimentally transit, even though its validity will necessarily remain suspect in baseline terms—just as mystical apprehension does.
UFO-consciousness is an ASC, I believe, which is tied into the roots of our cognition—our ‘construction’ of reality, and thus the roots of the world as we can possibly conceive it. We exist in a participatory universe which is as it is because we are here to observe it, and in it the activity of the experimenter must have an actual physical effect upon the reality under investigation and can never be divorced from it. So that we here enter an area of exploration of the actual intersection of mind and reality which, in the case of UFO events, is upon a macroscopic rather than upon a microscopic scale.
Might there be a reason for UFO events—along with their insistence coupled with their observational impunity? Perhaps higher orders of consciousness—reflecting, as they evolve, a more precise convergence upon an understanding of the universe—evolve because of the ‘suction’ of the psychophysical unidentifiability which is embodied in UFO manifestations? Maybe here is the hint of an evolutionary dynamic towards higher orders of awareness?
If it is true that reality cannot wholly be known to any discrete level of consciousness, then this fact may well be reflected in our own psychic structures which have evolved within this reality—as indeed it is in the fact that consciousness arises from preconscious psychic structures which, by virtue of being unconscious, cannot come within the domain of conscious scrutiny. And yet unconscious structures project themselves upon the outside world constantly, in a dynamic aimed—in Jungian terms—at reintegration. Just as, in mystical or theological terms, the universe represents a separation of a ‘God’ from Himself—a theme which accurately projects our own psychic dilemma.
And yet the UFO phenomenon cannot consist solely of projection, since evidence (of an elusive nature!) is indeed forthcoming. UFO events may then be, not merely a key to the evolution of our own psychic structures, but also to the ‘trans-scientific’ problem (in Chew and Capra) of the actual interplay of mind and reality.
If techniques of ASC research can be developed to embrace the psychophysical zone that I have called ‘UFO-consciousness’, then here—without prejudice to my point about inherent unprovability—is an idea that is potentially testable. If we could set up experimental conditions to transit into, evoke and explore UFO-consciousness, to be flippant for a moment, then one could even win £1,000,000 from Cutty Sark by producing a demonstrably alien artefact—summoning it, as it were, into existence. Only it would not be an alien artefact—it would be something far stranger. This will not be a research area that can be tackled from baseline consciousness—in the way that UFO ‘research’ has been so far. It will have to be undertaken somewhere up the ‘transit ladder’ from baseline consciousness to UFO-consciousness, within the logic structure of the latter state. However, the tools for thinking about this project do exist, and it may bring us one step closer to Capra’s Vision of Nature’, as well as one step closer to our psychic reintegration with the hidden areas in ourselves.
It would be a scientific enterprise necessarily leading outside of ‘science’. It would be a psychological exploration that would lead beyond the individual mind. It would not be an enterprise that could ‘succeed’ in the sense of nailing down once and for all the will-o’-the-wisp of the UFO. It would, however, open a door into a possible future science of transpsychic reality, one that would integrate and subsume so much that has eluded us, yet constantly nagged at us too, like a toothache. It would be a genuine way, available to us all as we are here and now, of thinking about the unthinkable (what a pity that Kahn captured this phrase for his megadeath scenarios), and operating within the inexplicable—not ‘explaining’ it, but envisioning it and reporting back, as the benighted contactees who are snatched up for a ‘saucer flight’ report back, but this time with our eyes open, aware where we have actually been.
In Broca’s Brain, Carl Sagan speculates as to whether all our theories of the origin of the universe have psychological roots in how we ourselves are born, as human beings. So what cosmology would sapient kangaroos—who crawl almost embryonically from birth canal to pouch—conceive of …?
Horrorscope
“Your partner is pregnant,” observed the Kangaroid officer. She looked extraordinarily pregnant herself. But then, from out of her pouch, poked a smaller replica of her own head. Its little face twitched and sniffed and blinked at the swollen alien human being, searching for the slit across the belly where she must surely keep her infant child. Its eyes focused on her navel—like the little, plugged crater of a volcano under pressure; and it wondered.
Determined to expose her future offspring to all possible cosmic influences, the Lady Carla van der Woort only wore a glitter-dusted silver brassiere and shorts and jewelled sandals. Her belly bulged hugely, resembling one of the domes of the observatory somewhere over the horizon out in the desert, well away from Sweetpouch Shuttleport.
“Do you engage in intercourse during pregnancy until the final moment? Do you thrust your shaft into the chamber of generation, to burst the waters of life? And has it ever been the case that a jealous sire has tried to prevent the emergence of his offspring by holding it in place with his penis?”
Jeff Lunaliho had been warned to expect such questions from aliens who were certainly not ill-informed but who might well feel mischievous, since he and the Lady Carla were not visiting their world as cosmo-seers but as tourists. Carla refrained from looking scandalised.
‘The Lady isn’t my partner,” said Jeff. “I’m merely her hired escort and—”
“Chaperone?”
“And bodyguard, and general factotum and courier. And midwife.”
“Ha!”
The Hawaiian rubbed his nose, to conceal a grin as he thought up a bastard haiku.
“And as for your impertinent questions, let me ask you this:
May the universe not be
An explosive hernia,
Erupting from the intestines of Eternity?”
“Ha! Very good. I appreciate.” The Kangaroid thumped her tail on the floor.
But this particular alien officer was only Immigration & Customs—with the accent seemingly more on customs pertaining to birth, copulation and afterbirth. She had paid scant attention to their matching synth-crocodile luggage or to Jeff’s black surgical bag. No doubt he and the Lady Carla would meet stiffer challenges presently, if she was to succeed in her mega-rich, zany dream.
The Kangaroid dictated whimsically into the desk computer’s microphone:
“Lady in silver bikini, plus eight-and-a-half month foetus contained internally on bio life support system. Accompanied by burly cloned servant, wearing floral shirt and chastity codpiece—”
Jeff grinned openly.
“I’ll have you know that these are lederhosen, made of finest imitation Wallaby hide. And I’m not a clone. I’m a direct lineal descendant of William C. Lunaliho who won the first election as King of Hawaii, but unhappily died of consumption thirteen months later—”
“Due to over-indulgence at his celebration feast,” dictated the Kangaroid. “Purpose of visit?”
“To have my child born at the confluence of theories of the universe,” said Lady Carla, airily. “I am a devotee of astrology, so therefore—”
“Shhhh!”
“Really, Lunaliho—you whose name encompasses the Moon, encouraging me to employ you on my journey from the sublunary into the supralunary sphere!—”
“Not in Hawaiian it doesn’t. ‘Luna’ means a plantation foreman.”
“Why did you never tell me that before?”
“You never asked, my Lady.”
“It doesn’t matter. The Moon you are to me, with your round cheese face. Now really, Luna, having successfully come all this way—”
“Just don’t blow it, on the wrong side of Immigration.”
“Have you two quite finished quarrelling, like frustrates during a year-long menstruation? Yes? Good. I’m not stupid, you know, and as it happens I can help you, in return for a certain you-know-what.”
The Kangaroid typed enquiries and scanned its screen. Suddenly she shadow-boxed the air in satisfaction, while Jeff hastily interposed his bulk between the flashing furry fists and the Lady Carla’s belly.
“You came here to have your baby born in a significant locus, my Lady.” (Now that the official was soliciting a bribe, she was slightly more polite.) “Now of course this is all nonsense to me—I mean, your primary fantasy about the positions of the stars and planets at birth. I apologize for my obtuseness in not appreciating the rationale for it. And you indeed must share some of my scepticism, since here you are light years distant from your home worlds, and all the constellations are entirely different. But you have had a bright idea.”
“Kind of you to say so,” said Carla icily.
“This world is Thraith, home of the Interspecies Institute of Comparable Biocosmology.”
“Comparative,” Jeff corrected her. “And we did look at our tickets.”
“No: Comparable. Some cosmologies are comparable, whilst others are incomparable. Ours is particularly incomparable—beyond compare! Let me tell you about it. The embryo kangaroid is born prematurely. Heroically it toils, hand over fist, through the cold blinding light from birth canal to pouch—which is the second womb of warmth and darkness. Therefore the cosmos that we can best conceive of is one which begins with a whimper, certainly not with a Bang, when we ooze out with hardly any trouble at all into Radiation which is diffused everywhere equally in space. If we fail to enpouch ourselves in matter, we die of the radiation. But if we reach the Second Darkness, then how sweetly the universe springs into being subsequently! Translated into the math of higher physics this is represented by a cosmological equation of the form—”
Lady Carla fidgeted.
“I’ll simplify. Look at it this way: it’s just like the explosion of a nuclear weapon. The fission bomb goes off first, pop—but that’s just child’s play. But then the implosion of the fission reaction acts to ignite the fusion bomb—and the real business gets under way. Though this isn’t a very gentle example, unless you happen to be a race of thermonuclear weapons, who breed by … but never mind.” The Kangaroid’s hands cupped the air. “Little bang, out; then a quick collapse back in again; then whoosh, the real universe gets under way.”
“That’s all very interesting,” said Jeff, diplomatically. “But you’ll realize that it’s hard for the Lady having to stand around like this, after the shuttle trip down, and all. She’s been on two-thirds gravity on the way out. She’s within two weeks of giving birth.”
“My apologies. So where were we? Ah yes: here you are on Thraith—where zodiacal signs and ruling planets shall not preside over your epochal birth-giving, determining the fortune and character of your child; but rather instead, whole cosmologies, whole universes as envisioned in mystical drug-recall of the uterine and natal state, by teams of alien cosmos-seers and meta-physicists out at the observatories in the Desert of Gesh. Out there, where one observes not so much the galaxies themselves, as the foetal gestation of thought concerning Cosmos! You intend, in a word, not to choose the right stars for your child—but rather the best universe! A universe model for him or her, so that he or she becomes in turn the fornicatress Queen of Fornax, the Sculptor of Sculptor, the Strongman of Hercules—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” interrupted Lady Carla. “It’s just that—”
“Nay, these are mere clusters. But we are speaking of Cosmos itself! How about the Statesman of the Steady State …?”
“It’s just that, well, terrestrial astrological influences strike me as a shade démodé, for a child of mine. Here on Thraith is a focus of all the deepest thoughts about the birth of the whole universe itself. Here is where cosmo-seers decide what influences preside over the nativity of the Cosmos, determining the course of everything.”
“Ah, but it all depends on the means of birth.”
“My child,” said Carla grandly, “will be born in all possible ways. He alone, or she alone, will grasp the whole. He, or she, will write the equation which spells reality. And when she, or he, casts horoscopes these will be the utter truth, a true foretelling.”
“Hmm,” said the Kangaroid. “You’ll need a laissez-passez to the Observatories at Gesh. Idle curiosity or informed curiosity are alike amply satisfied by the guided tours, departing twice daily. But you, in a sense, wish to work there. Or at least,” and the Kangaroid produced a noise midway between a sneeze and a whinny, which must have been a Kangaroid laugh, “or at least to labour there.”
“I can pay a generous donation to the Institute,” said Carla indignantly. “I was told this would be simple.”
“Oh, the Institute is funded by whole worlds.”
“I own worlds. Small ones, true.”
“But you do need a rapid entrée, to one of the high cosmo-seers, if only to cut corners. As it happens, I know that a certain alien cosmo-seer is developing a research programme at this very moment—which involves presenting the foetuses of various species with the birth-experience of other quite alien species …”
“I had heard something about that. My agents, my informants … But the creature’s name kept on escaping them.”
“It’s a touchy subject. Highly sensitive. You see, everyone’s cosmogony is so basic and personal. It’s like, well, sex. I happen to know the cosmo-seer’s name and call-number.” The Kangaroid said no more.
“Luna,” said Carla gently.
Jeff reached into the pocket of his floral shirt.
“Slip it into my pouch,” suggested the Kangaroid, idly examining the ceiling. “A gift to my child, as we say. That way, no one sees. It is taboo to see. The pouch is the sacred place of refuge.”
A soft, wet nose nuzzled Jeff’s fingers.
He tickled the infant Kangaroid; and it bit him sharply.
“I’m glad we paid the extra bribe,” said Jeff. “It’s always worth it to find out what kind of character you’re going to have to deal with. No doubt you’ve heard of a pig in a poke.”
“Would that be some Hawaiian banquet, such as where your noble ancestor over-indulged himself?”
“No, that’s kalua pig: whole pig steamed in an underground oven.” Jeff licked his lips. “You skin it, scrub it and shave it, then you rub it inside and outside with soy sauce and rock salt. Next you stuff it with red hot stones. Then you lower it down on chicken wire into a pit lined with banana leaves …”
The crimson desert sped by them, like an inflamed griddle plate; though actually it was rather cool out there—the eye was simply tricked, achingly, by the livid colour. Though the monorail car whispered almost silently, nevertheless the desert seemed to be putt-putt-putting, like a heart-beat amplified by a doctor’s ear-trumpet. Jeff leaned closer to Lady Carla, alert for a moment, then relaxed. Inside her, the baby was cooking away nicely, ready to emerge sweet, fresh and succulent; though, unlike kalua pig, alive.
The sky was a perfect eggshell. A faint, tiny, irregular moon flew by from West to East: the egg-tooth of a chick tapping to crack its shell. The chick was invisible; only the tooth orbited overhead.
“Anyway,” he said, “what a pig in a poke is, is a pig in a bag: you can’t see what it looks like. Five legs, two heads, whatever. But Haupt-Seer the Unpronouncable is none of these. He is a colony of organisms that arise, God help me, by what is claimed to be spontaneous generation! Of course, being a man of Polynesian stock myself, I sympathize. Till the white missionary man hit our shores, we all quite happily believed that babies conceived themselves spontaneously. Sex had nothing to do with it. Sex was just fun. So we had lots of it. Captain Cook was quite amazed at how unreservedly a wahine opened her legs, if you’ll pardon the expression. Alas, the facts are otherwise.”
Lady Carla patted herself.
“I know.”
“Mind you, we’re all still in the womb in Hawaii. Those islands are one big womb. The Pacific Ocean is the amniotic fluid. No wonder there are no Hawaiian geniuses. We’re expelled from Eden, straight back into Eden. In fact, we’re so relaxed there’s a law says you can lie down in the middle of the road, and the traffic has to wait till you get up again.”
