Opening paragraphs of original 2001 "Cheating THe Ferryman"

For one of those Gnostics
the visible universe was an illusion
or (more precisely) a sophism.
Mirrors and fatherhood are abominable
because they multiply and disseminate the universe.

Jorge Luis Borges
(from: Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”).

In 1988 I purchased a book entitled “Labyrinths” written by the Argentinean poet and philosopher Jorge Luis Borges. I had come across one or two of his stories in anthologies of fantastic literature and his style and content so intrigued me that I wished to read more. I quickly discovered that although I enjoyed the strange worlds that he created I simply did not fully understand what he was about. At least once a year I took the book from my bookshelves and took a different story as a starting point. However in the way that certain books can, I found myself admiring the style rather than the content. In this way the book was to remain not fully read and not even vaguely understood, a silent testament to the success of ignorance over pretension.

Twelve years later I began research into the book you now have in your hands. Many dinner parties and frustrating pub discussions had lead me to believe that the only way that my curious cosmological theories could be understood would be if I wrote them down. For years I had watched as inquisitors, initially fascinated, became more and more puzzled by my esoteric ramblings. In a curious vindication of the overall theory I had come by my beliefs through introspection rather than research. Like Schliemann and Troy I knew that my intuitions were correct but I could back them up with no empirical evidence. However as I began my quest I discovered that every book I picked up at random from my personal library gave me the support I needed. I discovered that my ideas had not spontaneously occurred but had come together in a very deeply subliminal way. My ‘facts’ had been quietly marshalling themselves within my subconscious so that when I came to look for support my book collection became my personal Hill of Hissarlik. All the books that I had, as far as I could understand at the time, bought and read at random, showed a pattern. Gems of supportive information fell from the pages with no search needed from myself. “Cheating The Ferryman” was not being researched; it was being excavated. It lay just below the surface of my conscious mind waiting to be uncovered.