Original Intent
(A Science Fiction Parody)
by Nathaniel Bates
Dedicated to Robert Anton Wilson,
who you May Not Have Known
(The following is a humorous science fiction parody of the attempt by thinkers in the present to project their own prejudices on to the past: in particular, the pretenses of judges to understand “original intent.” Intellectual historiographers also receive gentle ribbing. Yet, in the spirit of humor, it is also hopeful.)
The hills were red from the sun setting in the opposite direction, yet Jonathan was heading in that direction anyway. He was loathe to travel in the opposite direction from the sun but the valley beckoned him with escape. He was escaping, in a sense, even though he was technically free. The huge desert opened its arms to him, and he often fantasized that he could simply disappear into the desert and dissolve himself. Jonathan knew that he would have to return, but the freedom of escape beckoned him even if for an evening. His teaching job kept him busy but it also restricted his social sphere to the remote area around the military base. It would be good to get out but Jonathan also knew that the passage of time would be circular. He would be coming back.
Driving through the desert expanse brought Jonathan’s wandering mind back to on old University lecture. He remembered that a Professor was discussing nineteenth century social history with an odd slant on Darwin. “The American and French Revolutions opened the floodgates to allow for the overflow of democratic promise and possibility. Out of the more radical elements of that flood were worker’s movements and socialist parties. This threatened the interests of the ruling class to such an extent that they began what would in a later century come to be known as Black Propaganda. Malthus was one such propagandist for the ruling class in that he promoted a model of scarcity that denies human creativity and capacity for human connection. Malthus then went on to influence scientific materialism as the ruling class developed it through Darwin, another propagandist for scarcity and inequality. The ruling class got the churches and religious reactionaries to then attack Darwin in order to give him credibility among progressives in a covert plan to neutralize their effectiveness (no coincidence that no 1848 worker uprising ever happened on that scale in the western world again). Engels became convinced of Darwin but Marx was wise enough to reserve judgement…” The lecture erupted in a frenzy of debate as Science Majors vociferously objected. The Professor was far from a Creationist. He was a Marxist and he was primarily defended by one Native American studies major who lambasted the Land Bridge theory as somehow disrespectful to his ancestors. Jonathan was in the camp of those who disagreed and thought Darwin was objective science, that there WAS such a thing as objective science, but he knew that the freedom to debate such an idea was precious and that he needed to treasure his education.
This was how Jonathan remembered University before the educational reforms of later years changed things. Those times were raucous, he thought, and free. Debate ensued over everything, as though Tom Paine, Voltaire, Emma Goldman, and Abby Hoffman were walking the streets regularly and talking up a storm. Campus was located in a beautiful forest to fit the mood. Later that day he walked into town and struck up another philosophical discussion with a homeless man. The man was an expert on Set Theory, a mathematician who took too much LSD in the Seventies and began his quest for enlightenment in areas outside of academic mathematics. “You have to dig, man. You have to dig,” the old man repeated himself as was his custom, “Cantor’s Paradox seems to show that there can be no set of everything because that set of everything would contain all of its own permutations. That would be a power set of an infinite set, and it would be greater than the set. But, you have to dig the beauty that lies beyond this, man. Think about it. Any ultimate Infinity would be a Process, not an Object. This is what Robert Anton Wilson was trying to say to us, beyond the conspiracy, beyond the quantum paranoia that got distracting. Any Ultimate Set can become its own Power Set simply by following its own nature and opening itself to Love. By accepting All, it becomes All. Only with our fixed categories do we hold on to finite limitations.” In fairness, the old man was a bit more eloquent but the fog of memory hazed over his exact words. The fog of memory then faded into the reality of his life, one devoid of most of his old friends. The old man was a memory.
Jonathan was a teacher now, a mathematics teacher who graduated University with a history degree. He initially pursued Physics, but he did not complete the major due to a series of “enlightening” spiritual experiences of orbs of light battling dark forces above the heads of his more stringent Professors that some might argue were mental breakdowns but that he saw as deadly serious theater of the profound. Years later Jonathan emerged as more spiritually sensitive, but also with a sense of inferiority to those who finished their Physics degrees. All of his fellow science and mathematics teachers had “STEM” degrees, for what the term was worth. The Obama Administration started a big push to get more “STEM” graduates to fill the needs of industry and the predictable outcome occurred. STEM graduates became so numerous that many were unable to find jobs. Even Physics majors saw a glut, just as they did in the Seventies. The old canard about “liberal arts majors” being unemployable was prodded out in the wake of the Occupy Wall Street protests. It was a way for the power structure to avoid dealing with unemployment and despair. Engineering! Engineering! Engineering, they declared! Only history majors become teachers, they intoned disdainfully, until the day came when science majors had to go into education because the Good Jobs became preciously few. Most of his colleagues had Master’s Degrees and Jonathan was careful to never let them know that his major was history. He was also careful to socialize within himself in the vast desert surrounding the base. His only other friends were Physicists who worked for the military and he enjoyed their company but felt the gulf between them when he mouthed ideologies critical of nuclear energy and military spending.
Jonathan had one friend in a beautiful old Spanish-style city and he intended to stay the night at his house. That friend, Jeremiah, was his one living connection to humanity off-base. A long dusty driveway led to Jeremiah’s house in the beautiful desert south of town. Art colonies and hippie vans made the landscape a veritable array of colors against a blue sky that beckoned escape like the ocean. An obelisk erected on a gravestone spoke of a secret past of knowledge that the locals would never convey to an outsider. Secrets were part of the geography of the location. Its history was a book told in the symbols of rocks, vistas, and memories. Legends of UFO’s were uttered in loud voices but only to trusted friends. Much of the land was government-owned, Reservation, or held by large land owners. What went on there was the subject of mystery and rumor. Jonathan’s imagination was fired up by the stories but he knew he could never verify them.
Jeremiah met him outside of his house and beckoned him in. Night was coming and it was essential to get inside before the wind and cold accompanied the lonely traveler. Dinner was served, a good vegetarian dinner with the conversation that comes between lonely voyagers in a big world. “Jonathan,” Jeremiah began, “Do you ever wonder about the real nature of what we call reality? There are some physicists who say that we do not live in actual reality. We live in a matrix, these boffins say.” “Boffin” was an English term for scientist, a tip of the hat to Jeremiah’s aristocratic ancestors who had all but written him off for his non-conforming ways.
“Jeremy,” Jonathan responded, “This is a notion that emerges from the high abstractions of String Theory and the Multiverse. I am certainly open to these speculations. However, it might be nice for some experimental proof, you know.” Both gentlemen laughed. Each was capable of laughing at his own craziness, precisely that craziness that turned out to be true.
Dinner was over and refreshment wine and dessert was served. It was Jonathan’s favorite part of the meal. The dogs were outside and the house was warm with a ghost fire that while not material kept the feeling of a fireplace alive. The world was a dark and mysterious place with the sun down, but the community of feeling kept the light alive. Jeremiah’s wife had gone to visit her mother, leaving the two of them to plot their way alone. “I believe that this Holographic Universe is very real,” Jeremiah said with a dead pan voice. “It is not only real, but it exists in a larger reality beyond space-time that we see around is if we could but open our eyes.” Jonathan held a residual skepticism about the paranormal so he listened respectfully as his old friend continued. “Vast multidimensional entities exist beyond our space-time continuum. They can alter timelines, even to the point of moving us between timelines.” In the dark of night in the vast desert, possibilities that Jonathan would have ordinarily rejected in his daytime mind were allowed to exist in a kind of quantum superposition with all other realities. Reality was a waveform, one that excluded no possible fixed position.
Both men walked out under the stars and looked up at the vast firmament. For Jeremiah, a mystical Christian of the contemplative school, someone whose spirituality was decidedly non-western and outside of the mainstream of Fundamentalism, it was “the firmament.” Jeremiah began to wax into his religious mode, as though his ego had vacated and a pure channel opened. “I know why you resist Christianity, Jonathan, and it is understandable. Modern Protestantism began as a movement against the hierarchies of church and state in the name of individuals approaching God on their own. Yet, Protestantism attempted to approach God with the human ego intact, the duality between God and human being when really the experience of God is a joining into one, like that Higgs field the Physicists keep talking about. Keeping the human ego intact meant it was inevitable that American Protestantism would align with the secular Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. It was inevitable that the Spirit would recede and the great tragedy of American Christianity would ensue.” He spoke like a true Eastern Orthodox mystic chastising western Christianity.
Silence overtook the conversation. With the backdrop of the night’s silence and the symphony of light from the stars, Jeremiah continued, “Real Christianity as the Desert Fathers practiced it was about overcoming the world of the ego within us. Protestant America teaches that it is about the death of Jesus. In fact, Jesus was a Jew like you, Jon, and Jews never focus on death. What Christians need to do is focus less on the death of Jesus and more on imitating him. Death on the Cross is something we follow, just as we follow him in the Resurrection. It is the way out of the prison of self. Imitating Christ is the real way of Christianity, not continuing in self and putting a gleam of religious righteousness over it.”
As Jonathan fell asleep on the comfortable couch he remembered something a left-wing Jewish mystic had said to him back in University. This hippie Rabbi considered himself a socialist and failed to see any contradiction between his quasi-Orthodoxy and his left wing anarcho-socialist tendencies. He stated that if Marx had not abandoned the Torah, if Marx had not accepted philosophical materialism, he would have re-inaugurated the Age of Prophecy. Elijah might even have come back, instead of the tragedy of World War I in which the working classes all embraced nationalism and in which the Bolshevik dictatorship high-jacked the whole “socialism” concept. Jonathan knew then that he was not going to finish Physics as his major; that his mind was not going to focus on Physics with such a tender undisciplined disposition. The reality his mind had opened up to was not going to condition itself to a linear understanding. The Age of Prophecy was there at hand and he never even took Ayahuasca like his Rabbi friend, or LSD like his drop-out mathematician friend. Still, even without those accouterments the Age of Prophecy seemed to dawn around him. His family threatened to institutionalize him but he persevered through what seemed like insanity with the whole Voice of God opening up newer and newer dimensions. He dropped out of school on a medical condition and finished with a History degree at a State college. It was his secret he would never share, with anyone.
Getting the job at the base meant sharing a personal reality with Physicists and Mathematicians but Jonathan merely taught. This did not prevent him from sharing in conversation with the minds the military trusted to harness reality for new weapons. He knew them through religious affiliation as they were the only other Jews on base. The political barriers between himself and his friends there were often tense, laughed off at times, but heatedly debated at other times. What bound all of them was the need to survive as intellectuals in a place that had a strong anti-intellectual bent. Liberal arts and culture were in short supply where flags were flying, jeeps fast driving, and gun shows blazing. It was the wild, wild West and Jonathan had gone there for adventure so why was he complaining? Driving back to Base would mean back to the classroom and he was as glad of it as his students were; however glad that was. Jonathan then slept and dreamed about himself back in college and witnessing a traditional left-wing anarchist debating with an “anarcho-capitalist.” The traditional left anarchist attempted to explain that the anarcho-capitalist was in self-contradiction. “Yes, anarchism favors individual freedom against mob forms of democracy, unlike more majoritarian schools of socialism. But, traditional anarchism is anti-capitalist in that it recognizes that upholding capitalism means upholding the State. In fact, the whole idea of anarchism means ‘against the rulers’. Such a notion of abolishing all rule is collectivist if you think about it. A genuine anarcho-cap would not abolish all rule because that would be imposing ‘no rule’ on humanity in violation of his idea of total choice. A genuine libertarian of the Stirner bent would be content to let others be under the State as long as he is free of it. That is not different from the current oligarchy that is above the law, contradicting genuine anarchy.”
Jonathan forgot the memory as he floated into dream state. He moved away from the Philosophy Department and closer to the Law School on campus. There was a meeting of high level Judges who were speaking to the student body. Those Judges were interpreting the Constitution for students. As Jonathan looked at them, he noticed tentacles coming from out of their bodies that only he could see. Those tentacles were extending out into space but also back in time. They were reaching back to Philadelphia, back to 1787, into the Constitutional Convention. As they spoke, they were influencing the minds of the Framers of the Constitution themselves. The Judges were literally speaking their words into the mouths of the Framers. It gave whole new meaning to the term “Original Intent.” Jonathan realized that this was what the Supreme Court was doing all the time, telepathically influencing the past in a non-locality that transcended what barriers Relativity seemed to put on information. It violated the laws of Physics as understood, but there it was. Judges literally did not need to listen to scientists telling them what they were doing was impossible because they were able to violate known laws of Physics and actually create original intent—literally. When he woke up the next morning, he could not help but burst out laughing. The dream seemed so real.
Jonathan bid his friend goodbye and headed back to Base. His Brunch with his friends would begin in a few hours and he always wanted to be present. He arrived a bit late but the coffee was warm and the conversation came to—Jonathan smiled—-time travel and the multi-verse. As usual, the conversation was lively and heated. The conversation revolved around the question of how one could travel back in time without changing the past, thereby nullifying the present, but then not being able to travel back in time. This is the infamous Grandfather’s Paradox. The thinking among the mainstream would be that travel back in time would be impossible in order to preserve causality. Others claim that Quantum Physics allows for multiple time lines; and that a trip to the past would simply place the traveler on another timeline after changing the past. However, a deeper philosophical question emerges when one realizes that the laws of Nature would have to orient themselves around the prevention of a LOGICAL paradox and not a mathematical paradox. It is as if time travel occurred, the laws of Nature realized it, and then changed themselves to prevent it. Otherwise one would question how the laws of Nature would “know” to prevent time travel if indeed they are somehow arranged to prevent causal paradoxes and not simply mathematical irregularities like the lack of ability to re-normalize. If so, then the laws of Nature changed to prevent a time travel that existed in some conceivable Universe, those laws then changing to prevent the time travel, thereby preventing the very time travel that would cause them to change. The Grandfather Paradox would not so much be solved as expanded!
“It is all very simple,” a senior theoretical Physicist declared. “We already know the answer, and our Paper is coming very shortly. We have successfully shown that the present is caused by the past, but that the past must be caused by the future. We are in, as mathematician Gödel demonstrated, a time loop. The Universe must have evolved a more advanced form of intelligence than anything we can conceive today which had reached backwards in time. This intelligence, a kind of cosmic computer if you will, was able to reach back in time and cause the Big Bang.” The others at the table looked at him as one would look at someone needing bed rest or a trip to the Sierra’s. “You are suggesting that science can prove God, only that God is an advanced computer in the future?” a die-hard skeptic said sharply. Creationism was bad enough, he thought, but when pseudo-science comes from the ranks of science itself, he had to blanch. Pseudo-science was the worst thing possible for a scientist. Thank goodness Awesome John, the greatest magician ever, was exposing pseudo-science by showing how Magic is really Trickery. Perhaps Awesome John needed to visit his old friend for a good wake-up. “Has Awesome John ever revealed his actual method?” the heretic Physicist wondered, “I mean, if he does not reveal the secret of his trick then we might suppose he does so by magic? By the philosophy of science, one must reveal one’s methods if one claims that one’s results are truly repeatable. Awesome John purports to prove that Televangelists and Psychics operate by normative methods. Yet, he never shows how. I could assume that it is the other way around; that Awesome John is really hooked into the future computer that wants to shield us from knowing its reality before we can assimilate it. Philosophical materialism of the Marx-Freud-Darwin school is shielding us from knowledge, all at the ironic behest of the phenomenon itself. But we have a window in which we just might slip through if we can get this paper published.”
“Evidence, old man?” the skeptic asked wryly. The senior Physicist continued, “Part of our evidence is classified, and we are fighting the Brass a bit. What we are doing is not fully classified and I can reveal some aspects of it. Right now we are actually doing experiments that can influence the past. It may seem to violate causality, but it actually ties together multiple timelines in a way that we think will lead to greater and greater automation and cybernetic intelligence. This means that the seeming change in the past will actually tie into a future that will allow the past we think we remember to cancel itself and then give birth to this computer. The computer will then construct the past that leads to its creation, a perfectly consistent causal loop. If we succeed, we will show that the past can be changed from what we remember it. Our minds will retain the memory of the past we know because that would be NECESSARY to the success of the experiment giving birth to…our creation. No Grandfather Paradox exists because our now non-existent past becomes necessary to the future!”
“What evidence do you have?” the skeptic said in final exasperation.
“Simple. We have a coterie of very conservative Judges provided by the Brass. Right now, they are deeply involved in Original Intent. The whole idea of Original Intent determined by Judges from the present runs up against the paradox of how modern conservative Judges can juxtapose Roman Catholic traditionalism and Evangelical Christianity onto the minds of eighteenth century classical liberals. Well, it is simple. These Judges simply focus their minds and alter the past.” Jonathan was terrified because he remembered his dream of the previous night.
Jonathan disclosed his dream of tentacles extending from Judges back in time and influencing the Founding Fathers of the United States. All eyes were on him intently. Even the skeptical scientists, the majority, were stunned. The one lone metaphysical scientist, a theoretical Physicist named Glenn, paused carefully and moved toward him. “Could it be?” was all he said. Glenn knew that it was possible that the cosmic computer could lead people into the project at its command. Jonathan may have thought that his foray into the desert was an accident, or a happenstance, but more likely it was part of the unfolding of a cosmic time loop. Glenn never understood Jonathan’s background, or why a Middle School Mathematics teacher appeared so strangely interested in the vast world of String Theory, the Holographic Universe theory, and other advanced concepts that seem to attract strange people and dis-attract potential girlfriends. It all fell into place. Let the skeptics be skeptics. Jonathan would be brought into the team!
Jonathan refused to sign any security oaths. This was understandable. The project was really only semi-secret. Much like the Fundamental Fysiks Group of the Sixties, or the Star Ship Project of the Obama era, the work was hidden out in the open. There was not much actual classification attached to it. Jonathan walked on to the base laboratory with the thought that the whole experience might be extremely advanced mind control experiments of the type that were exposed in the late Seventies yet which may well have continued in covert form. As he walked in to the Laboratory, what he saw astonished him. Several conservative Judges on the Supreme Court were present in the room. These were the Judges who most claimed to represent “Original Intent” when reading the Constitution. It was no wonder. They themselves were creating this Original Intent by projecting their thoughts back in time. They were turning rational Protestant/Deist Founders like Jefferson and Franklin into either Catholic traditionalists or Evangelical Dominionists. There were others engaging in similar experiments. Businessmen were projecting the “corporations as persons” doctrine back on to the framing of the Fourteenth Amendment. There were Lesbian University Professors projecting modern feminist theory back onto Sappho, Emily Dickenson, Willa Cather, and Virginia Wolfe. There were Orthodox Rabbi’s attempting to influence the Torah with later interpretations, all to restore Original Intent as it was meant to be, of course. Literary critics were beaming their interpretations back onto authors. One conservative populist tried to do everything to turn Thomas Paine into a conservative, to undo his writing of “Agrarian Justice” and “The Age of Reason.” That same conservative also tried to get all socialist ideas out of the New Testament but gave up when it was clear that the whip Jesus used to drive the money changers out of the Temple would not become a heterosexual-only wedding bouquet of flowers.
Yet, what surprised Jonathan most of all was when he saw Awesome John himself attempting to get the famous scientists of the past to be molded as modern rationalist skeptics. Newton would be cleansed of alchemy and mysticism. Einstein would not reference “the Lord” in whatever sense he meant. Darwin would not make reference to the Deity. Georg Cantor would not reference The Absolute. Quantum Physicists of the twentieth century would simply shut up and calculate. None of them would venture into Eastern Mysticism or the Paranormal. Eddington, Schroedinger, Heisenberg, and de Broglie would have simply accepted the nineteenth century world view and skewed twentieth century Physics to uphold it—all in the name of preserving the spirit of science. Yet, what methods was John using? He was using mental telepathy! Awesome John denounced parapsychology on the one hand by purporting to disprove it with magic tricks before vast audiences, yet he engaged in it on the sly! The hypocrisy appeared to be lost on him. “I was in the closet about my sexuality for much of my life so why not about the fact that I really do believe in the paranormal after all?” Awesome John said in his defense. The quantum joke was not lost on Jonathan. The best way to reveal is to conceal. Truth needs the opposition of an opponent or its triumph comes too cheaply.
A Five Star General, Laurence Wallach, was present who then sat down with Jonathan and smiled. “Do you remember when your apartment was entered a little while ago?” Jonathan took his words very calmly. He always figured that his innocent foray into researching aliens on the internet would simply slip under the radar. But, the General informed him, one of the signs of the surveillance state in the post 9/11 world was going to be a humorless view of ordinary curiosity. If he wanted to be a Team Player, then he had to jump on board and be good or the Cosmic Computer would take a “good byte” out of him. That would be 8 little bits becoming a byte. Uncle Sam demanded team players. The General himself was projecting his interpretation of military history onto Clausewitz. It seems that the old Prussian theorist was too soft on civilian targets and that the true intent of military history was to let loose a little on a few villages in order to save them. The power to enter Jonathan’s apartment may have been unconstitutional according to the past Jonathan remembered, but in the new timeline to be constructed it was the way it was going to have been legally done from the beginning, so soldier up! “If you don’t love this timeline, you can leave it!” What it meant to leave a timeline Jonathan had no clue. He was not sure he wanted to know and it was good that the others present did not seem overly fearful of this General.
Jonathan met capitalist libertarians who wanted to project market anti-statism back onto the early philosophers of left anarchism. He came across STEM graduates who wanted to undo the influence philosophy and the liberal arts had on the development of logic and computers. What took the cake was the Chinese nationalist who wanted to blot Tibet out of existence. A Palestinian tried to turn King David into an Arab. He failed but figured that the Psalms had enough Middle Eastern lyrical music to them in their original form that it more or less meant success. One local member of the PTA was trying to make George Washington give a statement opposing sex education in schools. She was rather cute, Jonathan had to admit. He never really enjoyed having to teach sex-ed anyway, figuring parents should not be so prude or so lazy. She winked at him and he had to admit he was somewhat aroused.
An engineer tried to read theoretical physics out of the development of modern engineering. An atheist fantasy reader tried to turn C.S. Lewis’ Christian conversion into a gag played on his friends. An art historian tried to obliterate Dadaism. Finally, at long last, a Philip K. Dick fan was trying to make sure that PKD barred anyone from ever writing about that person’s own experiences in the same science fiction form as the master himself did. All of these efforts were going to alter the timeline in order to make the timeline more authentic than one would find from the actually existing past. Jonathan wondered what his role would be. “Your job is to use your obviously tuned-in mind to turn twentieth century science fiction writers Philip K. Dick and Robert Anton Wilson from opponents of Reagan into his staunchest supporters. Their influence turned our way will completely defeat the Yankee Eastern Establishment’s opposition to the Cowboy oligarchy’s Latin America policy and get on board with it. Only at this point can we alter the timeline to completely obliterate opposition to US policy in Latin America. From there on, we can unify the America’s after unifying America’s own ruling class. By gum!”
Jonathan would have time to think about it. Nothing would be coerced since the new timeline was inevitable anyway. Nothing Jonathan could do would ever defeat it. Even alerting Congress and the media would only earn him the epithet of being a “traitor” who would have to flee to Russia. Speeches would be made on Congress as to how the program was necessary and he was a traitor. The media would get behind altering history as the only means for saving us from terrorism. Those who disagree would be lumped in with mass shooters and unemployed losers. But, really, Jonathan would never be punished or heavily ostracized because the Pentagon had enough lobbyists to defeat any political pressure to cancel such projects. The only punishment Jonathan would experience for disobedience would be that he would not be able to remember the old timeline and would not be able to pass on his crazy memory of another timeline to his descendents. Only those involved with the project could remember the old one. He spent the week teaching Middle School Mathematics to young people who scarcely suspected that their entire space-time continuum they hoped to inherit when grown would be lost. It was clear the freedom and democracy would be gone without even being remembered. Jonathan hoped that he would inspire them to remember something by reminding them that learning was not the same thing as the Prussian model of education. This idea excited his students who often chided him for testing them in traditional methods instead of making Math project-based. His students had a desire for learning, a desire that was often thwarted by conventional methods of education. The history of free inquiry unencumbered by the meddling of future ideologues was worth preserving and Jonathan knew he had to fight back. He knew that he would have to communicate something to Jeremiah. The entire Universe was in his hands and his friends needed to know.
When Jonathan arrived at Jeremiah’s house, he was astonished to see Gerald, his old mathematician friend from University days. Gerald smiled. Perhaps the Cosmic Computer had other plans than the ones laid out by the military-industrial complex. It appeared as though it had communicated to Gerald that his old friend was in trouble long after the two had lost touch. It was one thing being coerced into another timeline. But, influencing the minds of PKD and Robert Anton Wilson from their pristine quirkiness was downright ungentlemanly, not to mention disrespectful of one’s science fiction elders. Gerald and Jeremiah had already introduced each other, in seeming defiance of all probability that Jonathan and Gerald would ever see each other, and each was well aware of the problem having apparently been informed by a Cosmic Computer more benevolent than Jonathan had suspected. What none of the three could figure out was how the entire plan fit together. What did the Cosmic Computer actually want if it was going to play them against the desires of General Wallach for a new order of history? It wanted them to fight back, but how? It was three non-conformists against the big backdrop of profiteers and politically correct do-gooders who set aside differences and agreed to make time conform to their will. If the Computer would actually take their side, the three renegades might have a chance!
“Jonathan,” Jeremiah started in after a long silence, “there is something about you that you need to know. It is the real reason that they broke into your apartment. It is the real reason you were brought here to the desert. And, it is the reality behind why you were put in this role by what they call the Cosmic Computer but which is really not a computer at all but a Reality far beyond that whole conception. You are a multidimensional being. They fear that in you. You have the power within your own consciousness to alter timelines, a power that they think they have but do not have yet. My deepest knowing tells me that you are the real center of all this. These other jokers will not be able to alter time but you can. The whole set up was to get you on board. You are key here, even from before you arrived. You simply do not know the power you have. Not yet.” Gerald chimed in, “Your mind can access infinity. It is a rare thing among mortals but it is possible. Don’t let ego get in the way. Dig?” Gerald was old and yet still mostly healthy. He rode a motorcycle and lived in a trailer with his Old Lady. Beside the occasional Acid Trip he was mostly a solid citizen. His voice was the voice of age and experience. Jonathan listened.
Gerald paused for a long time and started again, “Gentlemen, listen. There is a big mystery about the Discordians. Were they legitimate fighters for freedom, or were they shills for the conspiracy to kill Kennedy? Science fiction fans say the first, while Jim Garrison accused Kerry Thornley of being a JFK conspirator. One gets the sense from Robert Anton Wilson’s fiction that Wilson himself did not fully grasp the paradox of how it might SEEM like the Discordians were involved with a conspiracy in a plan so foul. But, dig this. What if the Discordians were placed in the timeline just where they were so that the movement toward fascism in the United States would be booby trapped from within? In other words, the bad guys killed Kennedy but the good force in the Universe made sure that freedom agents were coincidentally in the right place to thwart the most fascist of outcomes. They would not even be aware of their presence there until activated to fight for good. The same might be for you, good friend. You might be placed here by a force you yourself do not understand; but perhaps you are meant for good here.” The rest of the evening was spent with dinner. It was a bit too late for wine and bagels so they simply had wine. Jonathan knew what he had to do.
Jonathan agreed to be a part of the project. General Wallach eyed him suspiciously, knowing that he had some kind of mischief on his hands. However, the general sense was that the new history was destined to triumph and no historical revisionist was going to stand in the way. Historical revisionism would not be tolerated. Only Original Intent, by gum! Jonathan said to General Wallach, “I know that the Obama Administration just wanted STEM graduates, and companies simply valued engineering over a well rounded liberal education. However, I am living proof that a history major can teach mathematics to some of the most gifted students in America. I am the one you are calling on, not the STEM majors or the economics majors. The military, the political establishment, and the business world may put value only in what can be produced. But, in the end, you have called upon me to…set history right, as you declare. Well, I am here to set history right by honoring history. The present must not alter the past. The present must honor the past. However, I agree with you in that the present must be willing to re-evaluate the past, to honor the past, to treat the past as a living reality. That is why I am here. I, the history major, will save history!”
“General, I will create a new history if I can. It is we history majors who go into teaching. It is we who inspire the new generations of young people. Even science and mathematics education is filled by our presence because we believe in education. And, it is I who will inspire a new past.” The General was shocked and some soldiers were moving closer. Jonathan looked to the PTA parent who was still focusing on sex education in schools. She was a decent woman, Jonathan could tell with his intuitive connection to deeper reality that he finally admitted to himself that he possessed. She had an earnest love for kids and he could tell she was beginning to have doubts about the whole project. “You and I will work together. We will focus our mind together.” The soldiers backed off. There would be no blood on the floor, especially since it was just mopped of subversive dirt the hour before. Jonathan melded his mind with the woman who would be joining him in changing the past. He mentally saw in her that in spite of her conservatism she was actually a very sexual person. She was single after her recent divorce and found him handsome. She was Jewish, not Christian, of a slightly Orthodox bent that dovetailed with conservative Christian views on sex and society. What brought her to the middle of the desert was beyond him but she would be the one person he could network with who had a good heart if a bit repressed.
Sarah, he beamed into her mind, you must understand that this whole project is a manipulation. No one in power actually cares about sex education. What they care about is profit and control. Your social issues have been used by the One Percent in pursuit of profit. They could care less about God. Yet, here we are and we do have to make a change here. We have to create a new past because the old one gave birth to a world that is willing to change history itself for domination and profit. You are I have to make a difference. We are now in what science fiction writer PKD called Orthogonal Time. In this time, we are in the Eternal Now. We are now in the time beyond time and we have this brief visit to Eternity to change our world. Focus with me on George Washington. She focused on him. She saw his image and she also found him handsome. Sarah, he said, don’t focus on sex it will mess this up. She agreed and rebuked herself for having yielded to sexual temptation. Sarah, you must focus on education but not on sex. My students want a learning environment in which it is actually about learning. They want a system of education in which it is the person who matters, not the Machine. We are going to change the past, yes, in a way that will negate the very present that brought us to this apocalyptic precipice of having our very history altered for totalitarian purposes. We are going to focus on Washington, and we are going to input into the fabric of space-time a statement critical of an excessive focus on standardized testing. Jefferson, our earliest exponent of public education for the sake of the democratic citizen, will agree. Together they will create a school system that challenges students to think. Such an education system will then motivate students to build a better world, a beautiful world, one that will make this desert bloom. Can you do this with me?
Sarah assented and they both focused on Washington to get him to pen a statement on education for liberty. “It is ever the purpose of this revolution that we fought for civil liberty. With civil liberty comes the liberty of the mind. It is the prerogative of a teacher to be a republican teacher, not a monarch or despot. Every child must be inspired by the genius within them.” The quote from Washington was read into his Farewell Address from the future. It was simple enough, but revolutionary. Gone was the Prussian system. Gone was No Child Left Behind. Gone also were regimented curricula. Experiment and creativity reigned in the schools. Education created a level playing field, a more equal society. War and militarism receded as critical thinking expanded. The entire room they were in disappeared as General Wallach was never promoted past Private in the alternative reality. The military base was a science laboratory for children to explore their world. Nations had beaten their swords into plowshares. Only Jonathan, Sarah and Glenn remained. Glenn had been on board with the project until the essentially fascist nature of the endeavor turned him off. Ever the gentleman scientist, he was not one to countenance abuse. The entire time line was altered and no one retained the memory of the past other than the three of them. The world was free.
Jonathan and Sarah fell in love rather quickly after saving the world. Sarah still opposed sex education in schools and she feared that her 7 year old would be exposed to anarchist orgies in this new time line. She also feared that Jonathan would be a radical and seditious influence. Her first fear was proven false as the new system was very gentle and guarded the integrity of children. As for her second fear, she knew she could handle him. They were married and visited Jeremiah’s house with Jeremiah’s wife, Gerald and Gerald’s wife. Gerald and Jeremiah remembered the other timeline but the two of them desired to forget it. Not much was worth remembering. Their wives remembered some of it. The rest of the world never knew it existed. Jonathan looked straight at them and said, “There is no Cosmic Computer, is there? You guys knew that beyond space time there is Love. Love makes all things good even if the timeline does not. Come on, now. You knew this was the Real World that was going to manifest against our previous illusion all along.” Jeremiah and Gerald both smiled. Together the six of them walked out in to the desert air with stars above them. Jonathan enjoyed relaxing because his weeks were filled with helping to run the laboratory that children needed for their science education. The next day he would rush up for his brunch with his Physicist friends, Physicists deeply involved in Zero Point research to get humanity to the stars. Boy would he have an exciting conversation for them!
