This is probably the most bizarre idea I've ever had. It's so bizarre that I hesitate even to mention it.
But what the hell.
I've commented in the past about some amateur experiments carried out by Mark Macy and others, involving ITC ("instrumental transcommunication"). According to Macy, researchers were able to exchange electronic communiques with the dead - specifically, with a band of afterlife personalities inhabiting a strange world divided by a vast, endless river, where conflicts of various kinds were played out along the river's banks. One of the chief communicators was Sir Richard Burton, the 19th century explorer (not the actor).
All this is strangely similar to the plot of Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld books. Riverworld was a sci-fi series that was very popular in the 1970s. Its characters were resurrected dead people from various eras, engaged in strife along the banks of an endless river. The hero of the first Riverworld book was Sir Richard Burton.
Because of these obvious parallels, I concluded that the ITC experiments were bogus - probably some kind of role-playing game that's gotten out of hand. I still think this is, by far, the most likely explanation.
But something Art wrote in a comments thread got me thinking.
After I cross over I'm going to dress in a Star Trek Uniform and pretend I'm a Federation starship captain and fly around the Universe in a Starship. I think it would be tremendously fun. I'm not joking.
Now, what if a few die-hard Riverworld fans - fanatics, actually - crossed over into a world of pure consciousness, where they could create their ideal fantasy environment? Might they decide to recreate Riverworld in all its splendor, and even to play the parts of Richard Burton and other heroes and villains? And being (I would think) rather low-level spirits, would they be inclined to communicate with the ITC people and pass on this fantasy as if it were real? Or could they be so far gone in their game that they have forgotten they made it up in the first place?
In this case, the ITC messages would still be an example of role-playing ... but it would be role-playing on The Other Side.
Do I believe this is what's happening?
No.
Can I absolutely rule it out?
I guess not.
And that's just ... too bizarre.
http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/mich ... zarre.html
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