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The Alchemist, v.1, issue 3, Summer 1940
Page 12
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Page 12 ----THE ALCHEMIST----- bottom of it all. Briefly, the book is a complete history of OUR cosmos. OUR cosmos because the Star Maker is a peculiar sort of chap, a rather inexperienced craftsman, as a matter of fact and the universe and us are merely one of his fair-to-middlin' experiments. Stapledon makes this clear while at the same time opening another vista of rich thought by giving us glimpses of future universes to come, of such complexity and purpose as to be entirely beyond the pale of our comprehension. He continues his description of various races and their psychologies and Cosmical relationships. Man he has left our altogether, dismissing him with a bare note. The author finally comes up against the stumbling block which has baffled him and baffled us all, the PURPOSE of life. The Star-Maker is all very well and rather hot stuff, but Stapledon never manages to give him much more or a reason for existance than the childish, wholesale manufacture of universes, of so[?]mi. And here I detect a note of insincerity, of god-seeking for a rather common ordinary type of god. Realizing the futility of his search, Stapledon merely depicts a different sort of god, a god with greater powers than any heretofore conceived but still a god, still the guiding intelligence which demands worship and placation, sacrifice and still greater sacrifice---the down to earth Yahweh after all. The basic conception of the book is the idea that only by the amalgamation of all the mind stuff in the universe into one, single Cosmical Mind----a whole new type of CONSCIOUSNESS, can the purpose of it all be discovered. Having done this, the author and the Cosmical Mind set out to seek the Star-Maker but are struck down by the slight glimpse they get, by a terrifying awfullness and overwhelming power, blinding the best mind the universe can afford---a shallow evasion of a problem to which no contemporary mind can find a solution. From a brave, hopeful beginning, the author sets us
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Page 12 ----THE ALCHEMIST----- bottom of it all. Briefly, the book is a complete history of OUR cosmos. OUR cosmos because the Star Maker is a peculiar sort of chap, a rather inexperienced craftsman, as a matter of fact and the universe and us are merely one of his fair-to-middlin' experiments. Stapledon makes this clear while at the same time opening another vista of rich thought by giving us glimpses of future universes to come, of such complexity and purpose as to be entirely beyond the pale of our comprehension. He continues his description of various races and their psychologies and Cosmical relationships. Man he has left our altogether, dismissing him with a bare note. The author finally comes up against the stumbling block which has baffled him and baffled us all, the PURPOSE of life. The Star-Maker is all very well and rather hot stuff, but Stapledon never manages to give him much more or a reason for existance than the childish, wholesale manufacture of universes, of so[?]mi. And here I detect a note of insincerity, of god-seeking for a rather common ordinary type of god. Realizing the futility of his search, Stapledon merely depicts a different sort of god, a god with greater powers than any heretofore conceived but still a god, still the guiding intelligence which demands worship and placation, sacrifice and still greater sacrifice---the down to earth Yahweh after all. The basic conception of the book is the idea that only by the amalgamation of all the mind stuff in the universe into one, single Cosmical Mind----a whole new type of CONSCIOUSNESS, can the purpose of it all be discovered. Having done this, the author and the Cosmical Mind set out to seek the Star-Maker but are struck down by the slight glimpse they get, by a terrifying awfullness and overwhelming power, blinding the best mind the universe can afford---a shallow evasion of a problem to which no contemporary mind can find a solution. From a brave, hopeful beginning, the author sets us
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