Nathaniel on connection

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

5:45 a.m. John Anthony West is dying. I picked up an email in the middle of the night saying so, and for a few hours now I have been thinking about it, while sort of sleeping, processing. I think John is 10 years older than I am, which would make him going on 82. By 80, some people’s bodies are still going strong, and other people’s are packing it in. No tragedy either way, but not much we could or should do to try to overrule nature. What is nature but our All-D pattern? You don’t have to believe in predestination, or in a “the” future, to know that nature bats last and father knows best. Sometimes the ending of a life involves tragedy in its effect on others, but I don’t believe it is ever tragic for the person involved.

So I thought I’d ask Nathaniel, or the guys, about John’s life and its effect on his fellow humans, millions of whom it affected even if they never heard of him.

So that his life may serve as an example of the interface, you mean?

We could talk about that, if that’s your choice.

John has been living his life primarily for himself; his own life has spilled over to affect others. That’s everybody’s obituary, whether they are widely known or not, benevolent or not, curious, intellectual, inspiring, dedicated, or not. Given that we are all one thing, how else can it be? You can’t help doing both, all the time.

Sure.

You can tell your friends what he did as a writer. Our concern – the concern that kept you in shallowly covered dreams once you heard the word – is John’s connections with others that did not involve the written word. It can serve as an illustration of a wider topic.

Those interested can look him up on Amazon or via a search engine, but the book that made great impact on me was Serpent in the Sky, his explanation of the inner workings of what he called symbolist Egypt.

I met him at a conference in the Fall of 1995. He was a speaker at a conference including Colin Wilson, whom I had met the previous March, Graham Hancock, Robert Bauval and others. Of the speakers, I knew only Colin; I hadn’t even heard of the others. I remember John as a forceful presence; not much else. We met only once more, a few years later at another event. Our friendship, or thread of a friendship, was mostly via email. His influence on me was mostly by way of that remarkable book. After reading it, his forceful presence was always clear in its orientation. I loved his sarcasm about the modern Church of Progress, his contempt for what passes for culture in our generation, most of which is decay. But is this what you want?

It demonstrates his effect on you, anyway. You saw him as allied, in a similar way to how you saw Colin Wilson, though the points in common were different. In both cases, you see someone persevering in his own path for its own sake, attracting others not so much to himself as to himself-pursuing-his-path.

I think I have an idea what you’re getting at, but you haven’t quite said it yet. It isn’t clear enough that I could phrase it for you, for instance.

Remember at the beginning of all this, “the guys,” as you called them, telling you that where you in 3D saw the front of the tapestry, in non-3D we can see the connecting threads? This is an example of connecting threads. A strictly 3D view would show Frank, Colin, John as three men each going his own way, happening to meet and exchange notes that amounted to, “Yes, I see things more or less that way, too. Glad to have your agreement, and thanks for this or that bit of information; I can use it.” That’s the front of the tapestry.

The other side, the side not meant to be displayed (but this is analogy remember, not literal one-for-one correspondence), shows bright blue and red and yellow threads extending from this point over to that point – connections invisible to the front side, and necessarily, deliberately, invisible to it, so that the picture may appear as images rather than as only color. So, in our example, Coin and John and Frank are connected by certain bright threads of concern for the underlying meaning of 3D life, and it is those threads that connect them during and after and before their respective 3D sojourns lived separately.

You don’t say it explicitly, so I will: And obviously such threads may be very many in number [for each person], and may be of several different kinds.

Naturally. You are all individuals. Some of you who share a concern for the underlying meaning of the world may also concern yourselves with gardening, or archeology, or warfare, or plumbing, or library science, or bureaucracy, or fine workmanship of one kind of another, or family, or gambling, or sports. What we mean is simply no two of you combine exactly the same interests in exactly the same proportions. There wouldn’t be anything wrong if you happened to do so, but in practice it doesn’t happen. You are as individual and seemingly similar as snowflakes.

So, when you touch, it is like two faceted jewels touching. You abut in one place, or even in a few places, but not all. Your common interests or passions or predilections are few. They may be intense; they will not extend to your whole being. Other facets will match other individuals, or not at all perhaps.

Which is more important? The jewel considered alone, or the jewel considered by which facets match up with the facets of others? The answer is, yes. It’s a false choice. The two seeming alternatives are properly part of one indivisible whole. You can’t live without centering on your own life; you can’t live without affecting others and being affected by them.

In short, remember that the difference between the front of the tapestry, showing a picture, and the reverse, showing how the seemingly distinct points of color connect, is viewpoint. It is one tapestry, divided into two by the fact that you can’t see two sides at once, but that is a logical and sensory division, not an actual one. In life, there is one tapestry, not a front and a separate reverse.

And, one more thing. You know this but you don’t know it in all contexts. A person doesn’t cease to interact upon death. John Anthony West does not become a statue, of only historical interest, upon his death. Outside of 3D restrictions, a mind continues to function as it always did, as you know. Well, so where is there room to think, “He’s history”? In a sense, yes, but mostly no. Even while you function within the 3D crucible, most of your functioning takes place mentally – that is to say, in All-D beyond 3D restriction. Once the locus of your consciousness moves beyond that restriction, your interactions change but do not cease.

“What you gain on the swings, you lose in the roundabouts.”

Well, yes, but you might reverse the order to provide a more optimistic lesson. For whatever losses, there are corresponding gains.

Can John’s friends help him in the process of dying?

Good wishes are always a good thing, but nobody needs help dying. Or, to put it another way, no matter how easily or not a person’s death appears to be, that person will have what is needed. It is literally not possible for anyone to be without the necessary resources, ever. You are not orphans in the universe, and, as Seth pointed out, it is a safe universe, a benevolent universe created for a purpose. In a real if limited sense, that purpose may be said to be – you. Nobody is an afterthought or an unnecessary irrelevance or a negligible bit player.

Somehow we have used up an hour. Anything else you’d like to say? I feel like we haven’t really talked about John at all.

We haven’t talked about his external communication, but about something far more central to you all. It will be found to be enough.

Okay. Thanks as always.