Afterword – in which Josh mentions in passing Other

I’ve set up this website to provide information to all beetle lovers and pilots of the quantum stream. If you have any questions about the mathematics of 0=1, Faery or g-nome portal, feel free to contact my secretary Emily Stickleback. As you’ve probably surmised, my hologram at Boodle & Badwise Nobs has exceeded all expectations and I’m in no hurry to end my training, which has now entered its second semester. Beetlejuice would not be a very comfortable place for a human to hang out, but g-nome portal enables us to shift frequency to the degree that a fiery red star becomes a tranquil oasis paradise. Already, I’ve been pleased to welcome a handful of our bbgs, and look forward to seeing a lot more of you in the near future. Great things are in store for planet Earth, largely thanks to Georgiy Bogdanov, but also thanks to Other.

“Er... wait a second Josh, what the heck’s Other?”

Oh, didn’t I mention it?

“Er, no. Is it something important by any chance?”

Yeah, kind of.

“Well?”

I don’t really know how to begin... it’s quite a big subject – not the kind of thing I want to start talking about in the final pages of this story blog.

“Well, you can’t just mention something and not explain it – that’s unreasonable.”

I suppose so... Er... Other’s kind of like the shadow.

“The dark side?”

Oh – that’s the problem with words – the dark side sounds so scary and evil.

“And Other isn’t?”

Well, actually it can be scary and evil – if that’s how we perceive it.

“But it isn’t, you’re saying.”

Correct. It’s just whatever I’m not.

“And that’s all there is to it?”

Well, yes. When I take human form, or whatever form I currently take, there’s a lot of me that can’t quite squeeze in, or if it can squeeze it, it doesn’t exactly feel welcome.

“Why’s that?”

Because every form has to have its “what not” in order to take on form. In other words, form is defined primarily in terms of what it is not – otherwise it would remain formless.

“Not sure I follow...”

Look – it’s like a sculptor. He has to cut away a whole lot of wood or stone to reveal the form of the sculpture. All that wood or stone is discarded – and you’re the same. A load of you is discarded and remains as Other. It serves a vital function, however, for it shadows you all your life trying to reconnect, and you, naturally, resist it, feeling it to be a threat.

Bear in mind that Other knows you inside out – and can read all your thoughts and feelings. You can’t outsmart it. You can fear it, or you can learn to accept it’s a part of you. Those who do the latter become magicians. They are able to harness the power of Other, rather than fearing and shunning it.

“Ok – but what’s that got to do with most people on the planet? We’re not all going to become magicians, are we?”

No, but there’s a new agreement in place.

“There is?”

Yes, we’ve already graduated from the Modern Era, though few seem to have realised this, and now we’re entering the Quantum Age.

“And?”

Well, in the Quantum Age we learn how to come back into our Isness without losing or destroying our precious form. Coming back to Isness, entering the quantum stream we rediscover Other – we are able to learn from One another. To forge a new future based on shared experience.

“So this is what you meant by the allness?”

In part, yes, but the Allness is everything and anything. Look, the main thing about Other is that it’s been the cause of most of our nightmares and deepest darkest fears, because we knew it was stalking us though we couldn’t see it. Naturally we became paranoid individually and collectively, and we wanted a saviour, a Messiah or a God to protect us from “what is” and, in particular, the aspect of what is that can be referred to as “what not”.

“And now we don’t?”

Correct. Now we’re entering an entirely new phase where this fear driven polarisation is shifting magically, magnificently, mystically into something else – something that I’m hard pushed to define or explain – but which broadly speaking is covered by the term Faery.

“Which means the new Reality is going to incorporate aspects that we’ve previously considered unreal?”

Precisely – you’re getting good at explaining things better than I can – would you like my job Sangri?

“Er... no, not yet. You’re doing fine Josh.”

So, yes, the new reality is going to have to expand enormously as we become aware of what was previously formless. Becoming better acquainted with Other’s going to help us to better understand the multiple levels of life all around us. Instead of having to change the world, as some people imagine, we’re going to find our perception of the world shifting to the extent that we’re no longer living where we were. This heavy dualism between town and country, for example, and likewise between earth and cosmos is going to soften and disappear. There never really was the kind of separation we’ve been perceiving. It was more just a reflection of our fear and form driven separation with Other. As we learn to dance and play more and more harmoniously with Other, and discover that there is no great evil capable of stealing or swallowing our souls, we can heal the wounds and divisions that have riven our I's inner-plains as much as society as a whole. Society only ever reflected our inner division.

This image gives some idea of the largely self-evident relationship between the two:

Postscript

This, dear readers – is where I end – with a footnote to my many friends in the scientific community who have been both excited and appalled by the implications of 0=1, and who have struggled so diligently to move the goalposts of scientific materialism to the mystical moment of Creation itself.  It cannot be done – not without funny logic and a large dose of cuckoo la la. Not by I-mind/what matters, for Creation is more than minding what matters, and sooner or later logic has to give way to bio-logic which is/I am – One. If you don’t believe me, I suggest you spend some time with Master Wu – he’ll definitely help you see things differently.

How, then, I hear you ask, did Creation come about?

And I’m tempted to leave the answer to Dorothy – she has little time for our foolish questions and usually makes do with three dots to point us in the right direction, but as a reward for your patience, and for making it to the end of this story-blog, I’ll give you an answer of sorts... or repeat the answer the Beatles were kind enough to relay to us forty seven years ago: “All you need is love”.

A cliché? Unscientific? Unquantifiable? Yes, I expect all of these apply and more, yet, when you return to the quantum stream and find yourself dissolved in the isness of Be – as I recently have – what emerges from that truly incomparable experience is a love so deep that it births an other  – in my case Nerys. She had not existed, but Love, like the Big bang in reverse, suddenly, unexpectedly, condenses into singularity – a conscious being. And thus Story, the great eagle that it is, flaps its wings and the entire physical universe makes way, yielding to prime directive – amor vincit omnia, love conquers all.

Story is complete. I give you a new universe. Enjoy it. Play with it as only children might and discover one by one its many wonderful secrets. For a while it may look the same as the old, but I assure you, as the Quantum age unfolds you will see without a shadow of a doubt, that the new One has a completely different structure. As I dance in the forest of delight with my fairest other Nerys, the entire universe is finely, perfectly attuned to the vibration of love, and so you will find that matter, and what matters, are of less and less significance, and that, I believe is exactly what we planned all those years ago when we started our journey into the dark heart of nought, knowing that matter could only take us as far as the brink of annihilation – which is where we have tarried long enough to see what Is. If I were your broker I’d be yelling for you to short matter and go long love, for the tide has already turned and the shifting current is going to be violent for those who try to oppose it.

In the meantime – I wish you all happy beetling and 0=1, may the magic of Faery help reconnect you with your brightest, lightest dreams and ride the love bug back home to I-Be dot₃