Category Archives: SHERLOCK HOLMES

One of the immortal statements made by the Insuperable Detective, Sherlock Holmes, was this: “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” This statement may be accurate in the conventional sense. However, I have observed that the following is also an accurate statement: All “truth” is relative to all other truth. Indeed, in the history of humanity have we observed that “One man’s truth is another man’s heresy”. Illusions, delusions, truth, reality, opinion, facts, history, fantasy and fiction all share an indivisible common denominator: The point of view of each individual. Therefore, reality may be nothing more than a subjective experience! You may discover a new “reality” in this adventure of a singularly ingenious investigation conducted by Sherlock Sherrinford Holmes, and his brother Mycroft Spencer Holmes.

YOU ARE TOO TIMID IN DRAWING YOUR INFERENCES

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“I have observed that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside”, gentlemen.

“I do not see what you are getting at, Holmes”, said Watson. Mr. Dodgson looked up with equal, but silent, agreement.

“On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however, to reason from what you see. You are too timid in drawing your inferences”, I said, taking a seat in my armchair, and inviting our guest to take a cigar from the box I offered.

“However, before we digress, let me allude to the discussion that Mr. Dodgson and I had when I visited him in is quarters.  He himself mentioned several methods of investigation which he has studied in the alchemical works of Sir Isaac Newton, and in his own mathematical application of portmanteau poetry to the development of mathematical thinking.

“Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing.  It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different”, I said while crossing over to the sideboard.

I picked up the manuscript that Mr. Dodgson had given me when I visited him entitled, Alice’s Golden Hour. While flipping through the pages to find a particular passage, I asked Mr. Dodgson a question about his work.

“Might I inquire as to the origin of one of the fictional characters whom Alice meets in Wonderland — The Cheshire Cat?”

“Frankly, I believe the idea came to me from an old expression I learned as a child”, replied Mr. Dodgson after momentarily pondering the question. “I believe it to be derived from a cheese which was sold in Cheshire, near my home. The cheese was molded in the shape of a cat.  The cheese was cut from the tail end first, so that the last part eaten was the head of the smiling cat”.

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“Very well”, I said. “Let us then observe that you have extracted something from the reality of your childhood, and with a liberal application of your creative imagination have used it to conjure an illusion…an alternative to reality, as it were. Is this not so, Mr. Dodgson?”

“Well, yes, I suppose. However, I fail to see what relevance my fictional tales have to our current situation. Certainly you do not suppose that I am to believe that reality can be conjured from a work of fiction?  The notion is absurd!”, he replied.

“I do not ask you, or anyone, to believe anything whatsoever. Belief is a matter of personal opinion or conviction which cannot be shared by anyone else, accept to the degree that they share a similar opinion.  Some  men believe that the world was created by an omnipotent, invisible being in seven days. People in some aboriginal tribes believe that the world is supported on the back of an enormous elephant which stands upon the shell of a colossal tortoise”, I said, finally arriving at the pages I was looking for in the manuscript.

“As for myself, I believe that what is true for you is true for you, although no other person may agree upon your belief. Regardless, a truth for you, may not be true for others. Is that not a fundamentally sound assumption?”, I asked.

“I suppose you are right Mr. Holmes. It is difficult, if not impossible, to stay apace of your ability to remain logical in the face of a situation which is so absurdly enigmatic. You are proposing that the philosophical paradigm of reality should be considered of equal importance with fiction. How can you ever solve a criminal case, your occupation, if every piece of hard evidence could be a contrivance of imagination on the part of the investigator or of the criminal?”, said Mr. Dodgson.

“Quite the contrary”, I said. “But rather than keeping to my methods alone, let me ask you what meaning you attribute to the following passage in your book”, I said, turning to the page which described in the encounter between Alice and the Cheshire Cat.

“Let me read your own words to you.”

“…she was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off.

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she

thought: still it had VERY long claws and a great many teeth, so she

felt that it ought to be treated with respect.

‘Cheshire Puss,’ she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know

whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider.

‘Come, it’s pleased so far,’ thought Alice, and she went on. ‘Would you

tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’

‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.

‘I don’t much care where–‘ said Alice.

‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.

‘–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,’ Alice added as an explanation.

‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long

enough.’

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question.

‘What sort of people live about here?’

‘In THAT direction,’ the Cat said, waving its right paw round, ‘lives

a Hatter: and in THAT direction,’ waving the other paw, ‘lives a March

Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.’

‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.

‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘we’re all mad here. I’m mad.

You’re mad.’

‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.

‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’

Alice didn’t think that proved it at all; however, she went on ‘And how

do you know that you’re mad?'”

“So, Mr. Dodgson, let me pose the same question to you that young Alice asked of the chimerical cat in your own story: how do you know whether you are mad or not mad? How would you satisfy yourself that I am not mad? How do we know that everyone is mad or not mad?”, I said, rising from my chair to place the manuscript upon the sideboard. “

SHERLOCK HOLMES Personal Memoir Chapter One

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CHAPTER 1: CHARLES OF CHRIST CHURCH

“When I first arrived in the great city, I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air — or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained. There I stayed for some time at a private hotel in the Strand, leading a comfortless, meaningless existence, and spending such money as I had, considerably more freely than I ought.”, I thought to myself.

It was a cold morning of the early spring.  We sat after breakfast upon either side of a cheery fire in the old room at Baker Street. A thick fog rolled down between the lines of dun-colored houses, and the opposing windows loomed like dark, shapeless blurs through the heavy yellow wreaths. Our gas was lit and shone on the white cloth and glimmer of china and metal, for the table had not been cleared yet.

As neither Dr. Watson, or myself, had any other pressing matters before us, and no prospect of employment to enhance either my interest or livelihood, we spent the afternoon perusing the London Times.  I read nothing except the criminal news and the agony column. The latter is always instructive, most particularly in the observation that violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.

Our original acquaintance, when I had been lodged on Montague Street, around the corner from the British Museum, was on Saturday, July 16th.  I had spent the day working in the chemical laboratory at St. Bart’s Hospital. In the morning, I complained to a young medical man named Stamford about not being able to find someone to go halves on some nice rooms I had found in Baker Street.

That very afternoon Stamford brought Dr. Watson into the lab to inquire about sharing the rooms. The next day Watson and I went around together to inspect our potential domicile at 221B Baker Street. We made our arrangements then and there with Mrs. Hudson, the landlady.  Watson began moving in that night, and I the next morning, Monday, July 18th.

Dr. Watson represented himself to me as having served as an Assistant Surgeon of the Army Medical Department, which was attached to the 66th Berkshire Regiment of Foot in Afghanistan. He related to me that he was discharged following an injury received in the line of duty during the infamous British defeat at the Battle of Maiwand, in July of the previous year. Watson related that he was nearly killed in the long and arduous retreat from the battle, but was saved by his orderly, Murray, who threw the doctor on a pack-horse and thus helped to ensure his escape from the field.

Watson is strongly built, of a stature either average or slightly above average, with a thick, strong neck, owing to the fact that he was once an athlete, whom, although a Scot who was educated at the University of Edinburgh, played rugby for Blackheath in south-east London.

I spent nearly half an hour lighting and relighting my pipe while Dr. Watson shuffled through the tabloid pages, grunting occasionally at one trivial report or another.

“I was never a very sociable fellow, Watson, always rather fond of moping about in my rooms”, I complained in a melancholy tone.

Watson grunted impassively from behind the unfolded sheets of the newspaper with little regard for anything other than the distraction provided by a river of typographical trivialities many men frequently employ to dull their empathy.  I will admit that I have most certainly included myself amoung their number on numerous occasions.

Apparently the dampness of my environs had affected my personal blend of Latakia and Cavendish tobaccos, which I have relished as a flavor more pleasing than the finest culinary delicacies of Paris for many years.  Ordinarily, the heat retained by the fine meerschaum bowl of my pipe was sufficient to dry the mixture enough to keep it well lit.  In any case, matches are plentiful and cheap. Suitable pipe tobacco is not.

For some years Watson had taken it upon himself to create adventure stories based upon my criminal investigations, which, upon several occasions, he had accompanied me at my request.  Most frequently, I asked for his assistance when the matter at hand presented a feature of menace which may have required fire arms. For this purpose Dr. Watson seemed inevitably prepared, bearing his service revolver in his pocket, should the occasion for the use of it present itself.  Indeed, I presumed without justification, that his military service qualified him as a proven marksman, though, in point of fact, as an assistance surgeon, he had never fired a gun in defense of his country or himself.

My review of his written accounts of our adventures did not meet with my satisfaction upon any occasion. After reading a few of them I chose to ignore them more frequently than not, demurring of his insistence upon sensationalizing the science of logic and observation which were the only features of my investigations worthy of note, in my own opinion.

I had been silent all the morning, dipping continuously into the advertisement columns of a succession of papers in search of items of professional interest.  Having reflected upon the subject of his scribbling  as I researched the morning papers, with fruitless result, I emerged in no very sweet temper to lecture him upon his literary shortcomings.

“To the man who loves art for its own sake”, I remarked, tossing aside the advertisement sheet of the Daily Telegraph, “it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived. It is pleasant to me to observe, Watson, that you have so far grasped this truth that in these little records of my cases which you have been good enough to draw up, and, I am bound to say, occasionally to embellish, you have given prominence not so much to the many causes celebres and sensational trials in which I have figured but rather to those incidents which may have been trivial in themselves, but which have given room for those faculties of deduction and of logical synthesis which I have made my special province.”

“And yet,” said Watson smiling, “I cannot quite hold myself absolved from the charge of sensationalism which has been urged against my records.”

I took up a glowing cinder from the fireplace with tongs and lighted with it my long cherry-wood pipe. I smoked this when I was inclined to a cooler and sweeter smoke than that provided by my briar pipes.

“You have erred in attempting to put color and life into each of your statements instead of confining yourself to the task of placing upon record that severe reasoning from cause to effect which is really the only notable feature about the thing”, I said, puffing ringlets of smoke into the air which merged and gently dissipated upon the ceiling.

“It seems to me that I have done you full justice in the matter,” Watson remarked with some coldness.

“It is not a matter of selfishness or conceit” said I, answering, as was my wont, to his thoughts rather than his words. “If I claim full justice for my art, it is because it is an impersonal thing — a thing beyond myself. Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell. You have degraded what should have been a course of lectures into a series of adventure tales.”

“At the same time,” I remarked after a pause, during which I had sat puffing at my pipe and gazing down into the fire, “you can hardly be open to a charge of sensationalism, for out of these cases which you have been so kind as to interest yourself in, a fair proportion do not treat of crime, in its legal sense, at all. The small matter in which I endeavored to help the King of Bohemia, the singular experience of Miss Mary Sutherland, the problem connected with the man with the twisted lip, and the incident of the noble bachelor, were all matters which are outside the pale of the law. But in avoiding the sensational, I fear that you may have bordered on the trivial.”

“The end may have been so,” he answered, “but the methods I hold to have been novel and of interest.”

“Pshaw. My dear fellow, what do the public, the great unobservant public, who could hardly tell a weaver by his tooth or a compositor by his left thumb, care about the finer shades of analysis and deduction?!  But, indeed, if you are trivial I cannot blame you, for the days of the great cases are past”, I said with an earnestly disheartened conviction.

“Man, or at least criminal man, has lost all enterprise and originality. As to my own little practice, it seems to be degenerating into an agency for recovering lost lead pencils and giving advice to young ladies from boarding-schools. I think that I have touched bottom at last.”, I said in a black, disgruntled mood.

For some considerable time we sat wrapped in silence.  I contemplated the flickering embers of the fire, intrigued by the inexplicable, spontaneous conversion of matter into energy for which no reasonable explanation had ever been offered by any of the great minds of science or philosophy.

Watson continued rattling and shuffling through a pile of papers which I had already discarded with overwhelming disinterest.  There was seldom much of any interest to me in the press, unless it reported upon some incident or situation which offered a game of investigation to me.

After some little while, Watson reported to me that he had chanced upon a curious article concerning the mysterious disappearance of a young girl.

“Have you already read it?”, he inquired.

“No, I cannot say that I recall it.  If there is a feature about it that strikes you as being of singular interest, perhaps you will be kind enough to share it with me”, I said.

According to the report, he summarized, a female child of about ten years was reported missing for several hours by her two siblings and a professor of mathematics, currently at Oxford, while enjoying a Sunday outing along the river Thames.  The girls, when interviewed, stated that their sister, Alice Liddell, had been chasing a white rabbit, and had apparently followed it down a rabbit hole and disappeared beneath an enormous elm tree!  The child remained missing for several hours.

Watson read the section of the report which specified certain details of the case he thought I might find relevant, as follows:

“April 19th. The Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and the Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed in a boat up the River Thames with three young girls: Lorina Charlotte Liddell (aged 13), Alice Pleasance Liddell (aged 10)and Edith Mary Liddell (aged 8). The three girls are the daughters of Henry George Liddell, the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University and Dean of Christ Church as well as headmaster of Westminster School. The journey had started at Godstow, a hamlet on the River Thames northwest of the centre of Oxford.”

“Naturally”, Watson said, paraphrasing the report, “the family of the child, upon news of the incident, were highly distressed.  The professor in question, a Mr. Dodgson, has not been detained by authorities, but several unnamed persons have asserted suspicion of pedophilia against this man!”  Watson paused as he completed reading the remaining portion of the article.

“How very curious”, he remarked, placing the paper next to his chair, and pulling out his own smoking pipe, tobacco and tools. “The siblings of the child insist that all parties involved are entirely innocent.  They assert that their sister is at fault for chasing a strange rabbit.  Indeed, they claimed that the rabbit was wearing a waistcoat, and examining a pocket watch when they last saw it!

Furthermore, the child in question, Alice, when questioned by the press, stated emphatically that much ado was being made of nothing, and that the entire incident was merely a story conjured by Mr. Dodgson as an innocent amusement!  Certainly, the entire matter is nothing more than a sensational hoax, perpetrated by the Times editor as an attraction to gullible persons to read the paper. Typical behavior of the press!  Reprehensible, I should say” , he concluded.

I pondered and smoked over the matter for several moments, mesmerized by droplets of rain streaming down the panes of glass which faced westward from my upstairs rooms at 221 B Baker Street.

“Certainly”, I observed to Watson, “this report demonstrates that the magistrates investigating the case are mentally incompetent.  The family, powerless to press charges in the matter, as there is no evidence of foul play, and no harm having been done, are powerless to prosecute.”

Nevertheless, I seized upon this peculiar report as an opportunity to busy myself with a new investigation. My curiosity pressed me to make an inquiry with the constabulary under whose jurisdiction the matter had been attended.

However, before turning to those moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest difficulties, I reminded myself, the inquirer must begin by mastering more elementary problems.  After all, it is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence.  It biases the judgment.  To that end I posted a telegram that very afternoon to the constabulary at Oxford to whom I was known personally through our cooperation upon several cases in that area.

The following morning I received a reply from which I discovered that Mr. Dodgson was a bachelor Anglican clergyman.  Moreover, and most importantly, a comfortable livelihood was provided him through his talent as a mathematician, which had won him the Christ Church Mathematical Lectureship.

No formal charges had been filed against Mr. Dodgson or Reverend Robinson Duckworth by the girl’s father, the Vice-Chancellor. However, the telegram implied that the inferred scandal of sexual indiscretion fomented by the newspaper report remained a topic of discussion upon the campuses of the university as well as in the community at large, and had alerted the constabulary to maintain an informal interest in the matter.

Contrasted with this supplemental information, the scandalous implications regarding his behavior, as described in the Times report, were becoming more intriguing to me by the moment!  The most singular feature of the case, for me, was not the possibility of indiscretion but rather that no further mention whatever had been made of the rabbit!

Having no further information available to me, and disdaining contact with the press, as was my usual practice, I determined that my most effective method of investigation was to go around to visit professor Dodgson at his offices at Christ Church.

As for the matter of Mr. Dodgson’s integrity, rather than assuming that an impropriety might have occurred, it seemed more likely to me that his ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. As a mathematician he is undoubtedly astute, given his position as a professor. However, an unmarried man of his position should most certainly understand that his culpability for the temporary disappearance of this child placed him at the greatest risk socially!  The penchant for society to persecute such a person, even a clergyman, in the absence of evidence of his innocence, is certainly a matter of gravity, if not sensibility.

I might easily have dismissed the matter entirely if it were not for an abiding curiosity on my part to reconcile the singular incongruities in the report. How could a young girl, and not her siblings, disappear down a rabbit hole for several hours, having been observed, reportedly, in pursuit of a rabbit wearing a waistcoat and possessing a pocket watch?  Further, why would the children assert that the incident was merely a story conjured by Mr. Dodgson for their amusement, when the adults in attendance at the scene treated the matter with so much earnestness that the police and press were summoned?

— END OF CHAPTER ONE —

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Read Chapter Two here:  https://lawrencerspencer.com/2011/01/22/sherlock-holmes-my-life-chapter-two/

THE ADVENTURE OF ADVENTURES

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( Painting:  “Cupid Sleeping” by Miridori Louis, 1652 )

“Just a politicians abuse the trust of their constituents to gain personal power and wealth, rather than to serve their electorate,  so does the myopic mind consider that wisdom or wealth might be had from a magic potion!  Indeed, the mythical Fountain of Youth could never be discovered by an explorer in the New World at the cost of murdering countless native inhabitants.  The proverbial ‘eye of the needle’ does not admit the soul of a wealthy or brutal man into Nirvana.

As with many other alchemists before me, I have conducted a continuing series of careful observations upon the effects of a vast variety of chemical combinations.  The purpose of these is to discover and perfect a solution which can be ingested or injected into the human body to enhance the ability to perceive, understand and operate at an elevated level, both physically and spiritually — the latter being of senior importance to the former.

Originally, I was introduced to the notion that chemical alteration of the human system might alter or enhance the ordinary state of awareness or ability, through my study of chemistry, or more correctly, alchemy.  Many a sage has dabbled seriously with attempts to transmute the soul of man to a more profound understanding of life through chemical manipulation.  No less a personage than Sir Isaac Newton himself, as Mr. Dodgson observed during our first visit, spent a considerable number of years in this quest.  What results he may have obtained are not known, although it goes without saying that the scientific accomplishments of the great man are virtually unparalleled in human history!

Is it not probable that his mental acuity, or indeed his phenomenal genius, could have been augmented by his experimentations in alchemy? Reportedly, the man invested a prodigious number of years into this science, yet never shared his findings with anyone.  For what purposes did he study alchemy, and for what reasons did he conceal his findings?

How is it that a single man can innovate and revolutionize so many fundamental understandings of nature and of the spirit within a single lifetime?  Arguably, his intelligence exceeded those of any other living man, before or since.  It is my own observation that the spiritual world permeates all that is material.  It is this spiritual essence from which intelligence, and life itself, is empowered.

There is nothing mystical or fanciful in this subject whatever.  It is a fact of simple observation, which is easily proven to even the dimmest mind.

To wit: when an organism is killed or dies of natural causes, is it not the absence of an unseen force of animation that causes the transition from life to death?  Conversely, when a life form is borne it is the animation of the physical form by the non-physical force that we call life.

Anyone who has witnessed the death of a human body — as I have many times during my career as a criminal investigator — or who has attended the birth of a child or animal, cannot deny the phenomenon of that transition from inanimate object, into a living, breathing, self-motivating life form.

My personal quest for a spiritual elixir consumed many hours over many years. I did not concern myself with the possibility of negative consequences from my experiments.  The reward of success, for me, far outweighed the risk of deleterious effects upon my own person or mental state.  I suspect that Sir Isaac Newton shared my own insatiable passion for this science.

My own methods are always meticulous and thorough.  My observations upon the behavior of various chemical concoctions upon my own state, whether positive or negative, are equally meticulous.  With each self-administered dose I gained a more certain knowledge of the effects upon my own perception, ability, and understandings of life, and the universe.

To say that I had already succeeded in transcending the commonplace life of the “normal” citizens of Earth would be a gross understatement.  However, all states of existence can only be measured relative to similar states.  To this degree I deemed that a few of my experiments proved vastly more successful than others.  It was these upon which I focused my entire scientific attention in order that I might refine and improve upon them.  In my inmost heart I believed I could succeed where others failed.  Now that I found myself overwhelmed by this bizarre set of circumstances I had a new opportunity to test myself.

As a general rule I discovered that the effect of any chemical upon the human body serves only one, singular purpose:  to drive out or release the spirit from the body.  The spirit, the soul, the invisible animating essence of all life forms, is the true source of intelligence, awareness, ability and volition.  Indeed, life is not possible in the absence of it!

When driven or released from the constraints of a frail, tiny biological organism, such as the human body, I have observed that I, as a spiritual essence, can travel, perceive, understand and transcend the state of relative misery I experience when confined inside a body.

I frequently float about the room for hours, observing the microcosmic  minutia of every object within the room.  Likewise, I have, occasionally, traversed across half of the planet!  Lingering upon the towering peaks of storm blown mountains, floating across the burning desert sands — perceiving the intense heat without injury or discomfort — or quietly absorbing the moistness of moss upon the bark of magnificent redwood trees in the rugged Northwest.

This, I am certain, has been the prize sought by so many masters of mathematics, alchemy, philosophy and mysticism who have trod upon this lonely path.  The transmutation of base metals into precious metals has never been the goal of an accomplished alchemist!  What is mere gold compared to this?  What Earthly price can be placed upon the value of the soul?  What is a lifetime or two or twelve thousand spent in human pain, grief, disappointment and death, when compared to the possibility of a transcendent state of ability and awareness?

Indeed, so far as my experiments have revealed to me, there is no greater prize than realizing the full potential of subjective experience as a living spirit.  Unfortunately, the chemical syringe has been my only gateway through the portal of time, space and perception which lies between painful reality of the body, and the joy of freedom from it.  My personal adventure — the adventure of adventures,  the investigation of the highest order – has been to discover a safe and permanent transition between the reality of the flesh and the immortality of the soul.”

— Excerpt from Chapter 11 – Alchemical Solutions – from the book SHERLOCK HOLMES: MY LIFE, by Lawrence R. Spencer.

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MY PERSONAL READING LIST

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Decline and Fall of Rome

Here is a list books I read (I usually listen to the audiobook version) during the last two years (in no particular order).  There may have been others, but these are most worthy of mention.  I have read many of these books more than once, as I consider them to be seminal works of English literature, or fundamental to an understanding of Life, Universes and Other Stuff.

I have discovered that not all “spiritual” books are necessarily spiritual.  Likewise, I find that some books in the science fiction and history genre reveal a profound

Age of Reasonunderstanding of the nature andbehavior of humans.  For example, there is no doubt in my mind that foibles and follies described in The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon reveal in painfully absurd detail the reality that the humans who populate modern Western civilization of Europe and the United States are the very same beings who built and destroyed the civilizations of Rome and it’s immediate predecessor, Greece.  And, we are the very same spiritual beings who build and destroy every civilization, life after life, again and again, in the Eternal Now.

The more things change, the more humans remain the same.  If you have read the book Alien Interview, you will understand the cyclical nature of human insanity and the wicked wizards and witches
behind the “curtain of lies” that perpetuate our stupidity,  brutal depravity and the inability to confront the evil beings who perpetuate our pain.  Factually,  the serpentine parasites who enslave the “untouchables of Earth” are terrified that innocent and honest inquiries of children and small dogs will expose and depose them from their brutal thrones of power, control and possession of the physical universe, without which they would perish in the  frigid, eternal dark from which they were spawned!  Likewise, The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine and the books of E.E. Doc Smith and Robert Heinlein reveal profound understandings of philosophy and spirituality that are forbidden, and  unknown, in religious texts on Earth. Reading the autobiographies of Yogananda, and Gandhi, and Nikola Tesla and Mark Twain exposed me to “Spiritual Skyscrapers” who tower with magnificent wisdom and courage above the barren landscape of human inhumanity.

612vWYLI0PL._SL175_Such beings, who demonstrate the most powerful empathy for their fellow beings, are magnified in contrast to a race of spiritual monstrosities (the “Edorians” of The Lensman Series, for example) as elucidated with demonic eloquence by Hitler in Mein Kampf.  Although the “bad guys” are just as powerful and “intelligent” as any “good guy” they are utterly and irreversibly antipathetic to every spiritual entity in every universe, including themselves!  I suspect that the game of “good guys” versus “bad guys” is simply an eternal, intergalactic struggle for survival between two equally opposed races of spiritual beings who originated in different times and places, but who now coexist in the space / time continuum of the physical universe.

Alien Interview coverPersonally, I have grown weary of mortal games.  I write books that suggest alternatives to the physical universe logic of dichotomies:  life /death, good /bad, black / white, life / death, up /down, in / out, etc.,.  I prefer the “illogic” of immortal spirits, infinite possibilities  and unlimited imagination!  Life, and Universes, and Other

Stuff are created from and sustained by the “no-thing” of Eternal Spiritual Beings.  However, I have read that the spiritually ignorant physicists of western universities are finally beginning to “grok” that Quantum Mechanics has been known and understood by the Vedic sages and gurus of India for more than 10,000 years.  Light, energy, matter, forms and spaces are contrivances of our own imaginations.

In spite of all the books I’ve read, I have, as yet, not discovered the solution to escaping the “Wheel of Life”, or the Cycle of Birth and Death.  I hope that the books I am planning to read during the next year will provide me with some real answers, as I’m not getting any younger.  Religious lies and rhetoric notwithstanding, not a single author of a book I’ve read has died and returned to tell us how to “escape from Earth”.  If you have read a book that verifiably solves this problem, please let me know.  I will add it to my list of “must read” books.

— Lawrence R. Spencer. October, 2013.

___________________________________

The History of The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire (Unabridged), by Edward Gibbon

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein

The Cat Who Walked Through Walls, by Robert Heinlein

Strangers in A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein

Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures, by Virginia Morell

The Art of Happiness, by Howard C.Cutler, with the Dalai Lama

Mein Kampf, by Aldolph Hitler

Vermeer: Portraits of A Lifetime, by Lawrence R. Spencer

The Skylark of Space: Skylark Series #1, by E.E. Doc Smith

Skylark Two, by E.E. Doc Smith

Skylark of Valeron (#3), by E.E. Doc Smith

Skylark DuQuesne: Skylark Series #4,  by E.E. Doc Smith

The Lensman Series, (6 books) by E.E. Doc Smith

Triplanetary

First Lensman

Galactic Patrol

Gray Lensman

Second Stage Lensman

Children of The Lens

The Spacehounds of IPC, by E.E. Doc Smith

The Oz Factors, by Lawrence R. Spencer

Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Valis, by Philip K. Dick

Alien Interview, Edited by Lawrence R. Spencer

The Dying Earth, by Jack Vance

An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, by Mohandas (Mahatma) K. Gandhi

1,001 Things to Do While You’re Dead: A Dead Persons Guide to Living, by Lawrence R. Spencer

The Bhagavad Gita, by Phoenix Books , Barbara Stoler-Miller (translator)

The Big Bleep: Mystery of A Different Universe, by Lawrence R. Spencer

Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla: Biography of a Genius, by Marc J. Seifer

Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda

Our Occulted History: Do the Global Elite Conceal Ancient Aliens?, by Jim Marrs

My Inventions, by Nikola Tesla

Flatland, by Edwin A. Abbott

Sherlock Holmes: My Life, by Lawrence R. Spencer

Ubik, by Phillip K. Dick

Vermeer: Portraits of A Lifetime, by Lawrence R. Spencer

The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break: A Novel, by Steven Sherrill

Winter of the World: The Century Trilogy, Book 2, by Ken Follett (partial)

Coming of Conan The Cimmerian, by Robert E. Howard

A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1, by George R. Martin

The Dispossessed: A Novel, by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: The millennium Trilogy, Book 1, by Steig Larsson

The Vortex Blaster, by E.E. “Doc” Smith

The Republic, by Plato

Fall of Giants: The Century Trilogy, Book 1, by Ken Follett

The Confession: A Novel, by John Grisham

Sherlock Holmes: My Life, by Lawrence R. Spencer

Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman

Enders Game, by Orson Scott Card

Autobiography of Mark Twin (Unabridged), by Mark Twain

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

Tao Te Ching: A New English Version, by Loa Tzu, translated by Stephen Mitchell

The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers, by Will Durant

You See But You Do Not Observe, by Robert J. Sawyer

The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine

The Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1 and 2, by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Valley of Fear, by Arthur Conan Doyle

His Last Bow, by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Under the Dome, by Stephen King

The Rape of The Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing, by Joost A. M. Meerloo, M.D.

The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, by Frances Stonor Saunders

The Magus of Strovolos: The Extraordinary World of a Spiritual Healer, by Kyriacos C. Markides,

1984, by George Orwell

Animal Farm, by George Orwell

The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov

The Rise of The Fourth Reich, by Jim Marrs

The Face, by Dean Koontz  (and, about a dozen of his other books in years past! )

Meditation on Living, Dying and Loss, by Graham Coleman with the Dalai Lama

Tick Tock, by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge

Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson

Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson

Dracula, by Bram Stoker

A LETTER FROM MR. HOLMES TO H.P. LOVECRAFT

Republished by Blog Post Promoter


“It is my observation that immortality is a state of spiritual existence that is native to all beings, regardless of whether or not that being currently inhabits a body.  A body is a only a temporary vehicle through which spirits may tour the physical universe and enjoy the sensations and adventures provided therein.  Factually, the spirit enters into a body, animates the body, and departs from the body when it becomes injured, diseased or spent.

Most beings will forget about that body when it is gone, and will also forget the identity and activities of that body – out of sight, out of mind.  However, I have discovered that many persons do not lose awareness of themselves between the lives of bodies they have inhabited.  Through mental discipline one may overcome the common affliction of Western men to deny and forget the spiritual essence of themselves.

This forgetfulness is a disease of the soul created and maintained by stupid brutes who are compelled to dominate and control their fellow beings.  They have long since lost themselves, and seek only to ensure that their disability is inflicted upon everyone.  Their greatest fear is that another being may inflict pain upon them, just as they desire to inflict pain upon others.

Immortality is not sustained by a desire for revenge against the real or imagined wrongs which have been, or may be, caused by others.  Immortality is realized through loving oneself and loving others as you love yourself.  The possession of a body is not a factor in love or immortality.

I have learned that certain Eastern sages, and their devote disciples, have learned methods of mental and spiritual discipline that enable them to identify themselves spiritually, and maintain a constant awareness of that identity from the lifetime of one body to the next and to the next, ad infinitum.  Ultimately, one may choose to inhabit a body, or not, at will.

Existence as a disembodied spiritual being is sometimes observed and acknowledged by people.  They are called ghosts, or angels, or demons, or saints or poltergeists, or gods – depending upon the disposition and behavior of these spirits toward men.

Therefore, the necessity of maintaining the health or longevity of a physical body is not only an aberration of the concept of immortality,  it is entirely unnecessary!  Moreover, this chemical trick obviates the existence of the immortal spiritual entity.  Personal spiritual immortality is self-evident.

However, the inability or unwillingness of Western priests – in a sanctuary or in a laboratory – to observe, explore and employ the potential ability of the individual spirit is nothing less than a denial of Creation itself.  The animating intelligence of the universe, whether it is manifested as the life force of an amoeba or the as the raging storms of Zeus, is the primal force of all creation, volition and existence.

Let us not waste any further time or energy in the study of religion or alchemy.  These are only small attempts to control manifestations of the immortal spirit.  Individually we are each a spirit.  Collectively, we coexist in several universes, both physical and ethereal.  Universally, we share a common source.  In every aspect and manifestation the spirit has always been and forever shall be.  Eternity is not subject to time, past, present or future: it is no time.  Likewise, the spirit is a no thing, which creates and animates all things.

Thank you very much for your confidences in consulting with me upon the subject of the letter from “Count Antoine”.  I am pleased to be at your service, if indeed you discover anything of value in this reply to you.

If you have an occasion to visit England I would be delighted to entertain you as a guest at my modest lodgings near Eastbourne.  The country in this region is quite pleasant, except in winter, and there are several lovely beaches upon which one may enjoy the nearby ocean.

To the end, and in new beginnings, I shall remain yours faithfully,

Sherlock Sherrinford Holmes, Sussex Downs, England

Excerpt of a letter from Sherlock Holmes to H.P. Lovecraft, from the book SHERLOCK HOLMES: MY LIFE, by Lawrence R. Spencer

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