Highly ironic autograph because this book indeed allowed me to ‘evolve’, but probably not as the author had intended.
On the first Saturday of September last year, I attended a lecture given at a literary festival in a small town near home (Morges) which literally changed my Weltanschauung (view of the world). Little was I expecting that a French science fiction writer whom I had become interested in after having stumbled across a bibliography he had posted on the Internet under a pseudonym on a subject I was researching (group think, strategies of manipulation in the media) would allow me to experience an ‘apocalyptic’ moment – to use a metaphor, it was as if the blinkers that had covered my eyes all my life were removed by some benevolent hand.
In a way, it was the culmination of several years of trying to make sense of the events presented in the media since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran and especially of the mental conditioning we are being subjected to here in the ‘West’ with regard to the Islamic world, but it was also for me the realisation that under the veneer of media-manufactured literary respectability and the trendiness of ‘New Age’ topics are to be found elements of a less savoury nature. As such, it was my very first encounter with ponerology masquerading as literature (ponēros means evil in ancient Greek) and it marked the start of my emancipation from this conditioning – looking back, there was definitely a ‘before and after’ 4th-6th September 2015 ‘Books on the quay, Morges’, which is why I abstained from being exposed to more of the same fiendishly malignant brainwashing this year:
‘Another tomorrow is possible.’
Notes
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The origin of the word ‘apocalypse’ is surprising to say the least: it is derived from old French and modern French from Ecclesiastical Latin apocalypsis from Greek apokalupsis, from apokaluptein uncover, from apo- + kaluptein cover – according to the OED, shorter version.
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New Age: 2 A broad movement characterised by alternative approaches to (or rejection of) traditional Western culture and interest in spirituality, mysticism, holism and environmentalism; the culture or philosophy of this movement. [same source]
I have yet to expand the book review I wrote roughly a year ago on this highly disturbing piece of eschatological propaganda I had bought at ‘Books on the quay, Morges’ and read during this literary festival; however, this would entail a second reading of ‘The voice of the earth’, for which I still lack any enthusiasm (to use an understatement)…