PREAMBLE
APOLOGIA
In defence of the author of GODDESS
The reader may well ask by whose authority or by what compelling circumstances does the writer presume to pass his judgments. Can he cite any cogent persuasions to lend weight to the discussion of his ideas and their acceptance? Two extracts from Back in the marketplace in Section One of his book Faith Fact Fiction will suffice.
First extract, Page 55.
Providence had also found for Ellen and Peter a wonderful block of land near John's Hill, at the end of Ridge Road, Kallista. They designed for themselves a neat and simple two storey home which, when built, would enjoy one of the finest views in the whole of the Dandenong Ranges. It was from the kitchen window upstairs that one morning they would witness something truly extraordinary.
Perched on The Ridge, they had an almost uninterrupted view through three quarters of a circle. Facing the front towards the North and North-East, they looked out over the fertile valley extending out to the Warburton Ranges. Every morning the sun would rise above the modest outline of these mountains and Peter would observe how it moved its position according to the different seasons.
Often in the morning the whole valley would be filled with cloud and from Ridge Road, under the canopy of a blue sky, he could look down on a veritable sea of pure dense whiteness. As the sun rose and climbed higher in the heavens, the huge cloud in the valley would slowly rise and eventually be completely dispersed leaving the countryside open to detailed viewing. To the North lay the township of Monbulk and just before it was the unpretentious and somewhat secluded village of The Patch. To the left, winding through a forest of trees towards them both, ran Fairy Dell Road. A part of the latter with its flanking forest could be 1seen in the foreground at the bottom of the hillside extending up to the Lock’s house on The Ridge.
It was a Saturday morning in the late Spring and in the last term of the school year. Peter had been feeling tired and discouraged at the seeming lack of purpose in what he was doing. Some time earlier he had been given a few weeks of sick leave to restore his spirits.
The valley was filled with cloud. It was after eight o'clock and Peter and Ellen sat eating their breakfast and watched the ever-brightening sun rise up over the hills. Soon its glare prevented human eyes looking directly at it. The cloud began to rise as well and it was not long before the sun's rays were obscured. All that could be seen of it was its sharp outline, like a large, slightly shimmering silver coin. A strange faint golden hue began to pervade everywhere.The atmosphere, the road and the surroundings were seen now in a different kind of light.
It was not long before all the cloud and mist evaporated and left just the large shimmering silver coin suspended in the sky for Peter and Ellen to gaze on in wonder. They asked each other the same questions. What was happening to them? Cars drove up and down the road and their drivers did not appear to observe anything. Later they would casually question their neighbours. Nobody else had noticed anything peculiar about the sun's rising. For over an hour Peter and Ellen observed this phenomenon as the silver coin rose higher but without its usual brightness or harmful glare. Peter thought, Were they seeing something akin to the sun's dance as had been witnessed at Fatima?
Whilst still under the spell of this unnatural behaviour of the sun, they looked around at the rest of the background horizon and foreground surroundings. To their surprise something even more extraordinary was happening on the further side of the hill above Fairy Dell Road. Literally, a patch of forest had become a mass of golden colour. To them both, it was as though a part of the forest was enveloped in a sea of non-consuming golden fire.
For an hour their gaze alternated between these two scenes. Slowly the silver sun brightened and the forest's golden fire went out and they were left with the cold reality of trying to explain the inexplicable. They never told anyone even when friends down in Monbulk said they sometimes had seen strange lights at night high above the Lock's house on the Ridge.
Peter would never ask for any special sign to confirm him in his resolves. In later years on reflection, Peter and Ellen understood that they had seen something special to always remember and cherish. It would be a leaning post in future uncertainty and encourage them in the difficult times ahead. Moses had seen a mere burning bush, Exodus Chapter 3. They had seen a whole forest unconsumed in an ocean of golden fire.
What did it all mean? Peter was beginning to realize what lay in store and what he would have to do to fulfil his predetermined destiny. He dare not tell anyone. It would be the height of imprudence to divulge the secret that was known only to himself. He might be mad, as people sometimes thought, but he was not stupid.
The solar phenomenon of a tame sun had been observed at Fatima. It was, and still is, an occasional occurrence at Medjugorje. To Peter, it seemed to indicate, among other things, that any kind of Second Coming would not have the outer space triumphant glory-trappings of the Gospel Transfiguration or other biblical theophanies in Mosaic literature. A Parousia would be witnessed in the peace and tranquillity of inner spaced time and after the same secret or unobtrusive patterning as the First Coming.
Second extract Page 59.
The lump in his groin had been deemed of little consequence when he had first consulted his doctor about it. By now in January, 1985 it had become the size of an egg and his doctor was alarmed. It was planned he should go to the local hospital at Fern Tree Gully on Sunday February 17th and have it removed.
He was only two nights in the William Angliss Hospital and on the Tuesday he was back teaching at Emmaus. He had an appointment with the surgeon, Mr Clem Smith, on the following Friday evening to get a final report. He drove with Ellen to the surgery and she waited in the car. Some time later he came back to her, a much different Peter than when he had left. The Biopsy stated, Lymph Node, Groin, Malignant Lymphoma, Lymphoblastic. He had cancer and arrangements would he made for his treatment at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute in the heart of the city of Melbourne. His brain had gone numb for a few minutes with shock. They drove home and he and Ellen calmly faced up to reality. They were determined to fight it together. For Peter, it was just one more challenge to be overcome. He knew he had a destiny.
They were both well informed about the alternative treatments of cancer. The first thing they decided to do was to go on a special strict vegetarian diet. He had to visit the Cancer Institute in the following week. The first doctor there with whom he had dealings told him he had about twelve months to live and during that time he would be in and out of hospital for treatment. In his own mind, Peter was determined he would never have any of the conventional treatments, chemical or radiological. Arrangements were made for him to enter the Hospital in the last week of March for preliminary tests prior to commencing their regular treatment after Easter.
Meanwhile his teaching at Emmaus was already well under way. The overwhelming kindness, affection and respect of management, staff and students had soon restored Peter's confidence and enthusiasm. Now it seemed that one of the main purposes of his going there had been achieved. There would be no more for him to do except to leave behind a good impression and to take with him what he would always believe was an extraordinary prophetic message. His new life there had hardly begun before it was going to end. He would have to tender his resignation. It would be most unfair to his students if he was going to be in and out of hospital all the year. Just when his future promised to be once more so happy, secure and bright, it was all going to be thrown into uncertainty. At the Investiture Mass on Friday March 15th, he was startled and mystified by the cover of the brochure of the service.
In the broadest of handwriting there was just a much abbreviated biblical reference, Peter, when you were young you walked where you liked but when you grow old another will carry you Jn. 21/18. It was completely out of the context of the occasion. Peter made several discreet enquiries about its choice but they were not very revealing. It seems that the wife of one of the senior teachers had suggested it.
On Sunday evening, March 17th he went with Ellen to visit his very dear friend, Father Wallace Cornell, at Auxilium College, Lysterfield. He had been Salesian Provincial when Peter had sought exclaustration from the Order and they had always kept in touch. He was grieved to hear now of this latest development. Peter went to the novices' Lady Chapel and sat down in front of the statue of Mother and Child.
He began to feel a vague strange fever growing up inside him. They went home and then the extraordinary began to happen.
In a special diary, he would record the events of those times. For that night he would write - Came over funny at home. Sat over heater.Deep sleep.Went to bed early.Urinated every hour. Some discomfort at start each time.
The same pattern of fever, sweating, urinating and excreting continued for four days. He continued working but felt awful. By the Friday it was all over. Initially he had thought his end was coming sooner than expected, but now he was convinced he was miraculously cured.
The detoxification was complete and he felt a new man in mind and body. Next week he was due to enter the Hospital for observation prior to treatment. He was supremely confident now that he would never have to receive any kind of cancer therapy. The team of specialist doctors there began and completed their tests.
They had the official report from the Pathology Department at William Angliss Hospital. After three days of scratching and shaking their expert heads, they asked him to let them operate again near where the original tumour had been removed. It was done with only a local anaesthetic and the normally exuberant Peter was not amused.
After five days of observation, they told him to go home. They would decide what to do after they had a special sounding of his irregularly beating heart at St. Vincent's Hospital. After Easter when all the testing was over, he reported back to a much perplexed Oncology Department at the Peter MacCallum Institute for their verdict. His case was extraordinary for them.
They had decided there was no need at present for any treatment, but they would like him to come in every three months for a physical examination and a blood test. Peter always had the impression that some of the specialists harboured serious doubts about the original biopsy. He himself knew only too well there had been something the size of a hen’s egg removed from his left groin, but they could never reconcile his condition as they found him, with what he should be if the records at William Angliss Hospital were correct.
For Peter, two facts stood out. Firstly, that he was cured completely but prudence dictated playing everything in low key for the time being. He never sweated any more at night and he felt younger than ever in mind and body. Secondly, he now had time to devote himself to his studies and to writing. The jig-saw parts of his ovoid cosmic world view were falling into place.
[As the author sits and types this in 2012, he is aware of his foretold impaired walking and dysfunctional right foot. He cannot walk or stand as before nor drive a car, but he is stillmobile, carriedon a 4-wheeled electric ‘ASS’.]
Copy DEPARTMENT OF PATHOLOGY
WILLIAM ANGLISS HOSPITAL Courier Run WAHOP
Printed at 1522 HRS 25/02/1985Int. Print no 121745 (FTGCRM)
LOCK/PETERUR W46554 Ward 1 West
32 HEATHERSET RD, DOCTOR Mr. Clem Smith
SASSAFRAS DOB 10/08/1923 3 Victoria-Street
3787 SEX M FERNTREE GULLY 3156
Copy To
------
ACCESSION No. : H793/85 DATE OF OPERATION: 18 FEB 1985
SPECIMEN : Lymph Node
CLINICAL NOTES :Groin lymph node present more than 3 months
Macro : The specimen consists of an oval lymph node 5.0 x
4.0 x 2.8 cm which has been previously incised
and in addition a portion separated for imprint and
phenotype studies. The node is encapsulated and
on section the tissue appears fleshy pale pink and
haemogenous.
MB/rma
Blocks & Stains : A1, B1, MGP on each, C1, D1
Micro : Sections show an unusual appearance to this
lymphnode which is replaced by sheets of
cells which are separated by collagen bundles.
These collagen bundles may be related to previous
scarring in the nodes. The cells themselves are
poorly differentiated lymphoblastic calls with
numerous mitosis present. The cytoplasm is
minimal in amount.
JHM/GS
DIAGNOSIS : LYMPH NODE, GROIN, BIOPSY,
MALIGNANT LYMPHOMA,
LYMPHOBLASTIC.
SNOP Codes :0BM9633
Reported by :Dr. J. H. Maynard
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ExistentialSelf↔Other Relativity
[The double-headed arrow ↔ indicates a reciprocal relation]
A cosmic theme is proposed in the question “Which came first, the hen or the egg?” The answer is profoundly simple. The egg-laying hen always exists as an egg-laying hen.
Human beings are conscious of many kinds of relations. Aware both of their own self and of otherselves as well and experiencing distinction together with union, they study and question relationships in order to better understand the way one thing in its self exists with respect to an other. The search for more meaningful answers to the most important and basic questions that humans ask is wisdom and the lovers of Wisdom (Sophia), as their name implies, merit being called philosophers.
Two terms are needed for the existence of a relation. In the relation of parenthood, a woman cannot be saidto be a mother unless she has borne a child. Between the mother and child there is said to exist the existential relation of motherhood. In an existential relation you cannot have one term without its other
We know what life is by living, by experiencing it in our own living selves. We are conscious of our own selflife. When personal consciousness first perceives and reflects on its own selflife, it learns to express such actual awareness verbally as “I am”. “I” is the pronoun name of the alpha self. Grammatically, it is the first person, the person speaking. We are also aware of distinction’s notself as other selves.
Mind’s conscious pregnant selflife-womb acknowledges its existential otherself when it adds “You are”. “You” is the pronoun name of the omega otherself, the second person, the person or persons spoken to. The I-self begets its notself-otherself, its you-self and initiates dialogue with it.
For a Century the best mathematical minds in Academia have sought to remove the trivial but frustrating Paradoxes teasing the foundations and the formal structuring of a
simple Theory of Sets in modern Mathematical Logic. Experts concluded it could not be done, due to the inadequacy of language to cope with the seeming contradictions of self-reference and not self-reference situations.
The introduction of the simple logic of Existential Self-Other Relativity into the troubled foundations of Mathema-tical Logic not only disposes of the paradoxes in Cantorian Set Theory, but initiates a new approach with respect to consistency in Mathematics and raises fresh horizons for Philosophy, Theology, Cosmology, Ecology, Sociology and Economics in human cultural evolution.
A satisfactory understanding of unity and infinity is as equally important to the philosopher and theologian as to the astrophysicist and the molecular biologist. All seek an ever more meaningful explanation of the phenomena of the macrocosm and the microcosm and their relation to an hypothesized immanent selflife principle, Aseity, in whose Unified Field of Existential Self-Other Relativity all spaced time being and becoming subsists.
The themes in this book are developed with reference to the Self of the Cosmos as a pregnant maternal selfexistent selflife essence having life andexistence from herself, from her very own self, ase, and hence called a-sé-i-ty. We are her spoken“you”, her enwombed otherselves.Confined in her ovoidal spaced time, welive, move and have our being.