I finished reading my copy tonight!

[natecull]

And again I want to say well done to Paul for finally publishing, and for Mike Williams for the herculean job of editing. The story is all there in its strange and confusing shape, but it just flows so much faster and with a few less red herrings. It now gives the sense of just being a taste of a vaster and more wild story underneath, which is I think what it should be.

And I'm honoured that my name is in the postscript too, among others of us from the forum (and yours too, Jan).

Would it be rude to say that I noticed a few minor copy errors? Things like Chapter 70 being a little adrift in the text without a proper header, and a few cases of quotations not being bolded, missing words, etc? Is it possible to create "patches" to Amazon books, or is the text pretty much locked in stone at this point? If so, it's no big deal (given how many walls the Universe seemed to throw up at the last minute, I don't want to add more) but if there is ever a chance for a reprint I'd be happy to help.

Also, a few of the "Alice in Wonderland" quotations are definitely not from the Lewis Carroll original. I suspect they might be from the 2010 TIm Burton film. I was obsessed with the Alice books as a nerdy kid and have a copy of Martin Gardner's The Annotated Alice, so these minor details jump out at me. I guess I can live with Alice quotes which are not from "our" Alice as adding to the "parallel universe" atmosphere...

I find myself wondering again just what "Morgan" meant by "The Caroline Group", since he does seem to use the term rather like "The Brethren of the Rosy Cross" was used in the 1600s, than as an actually-existing organization.

Regards, Nate

[natecull]

Some Morgan quotes late in the book that jumped out at me on this reading:

The Caroline Group is worldwide in its scope.

The fabric of its membership is made up of folks who speak universal languages, not just the spoken tongue. Math. Music. The Arts. The message of the core group can more easily be discovered in those other forms, and communication comes easier to the humans who seem to have a more creative nature.

This definitely seems to be describing what I would call an "esoteric" worldview, one that is comfortable with the existence of invisible worlds and invisible people. It's a worldview I lean towards (not least because of my late friend, the Reverend Michael Cocks, who re-introduced me to the after-life studies community in the mid-2000s - right around the same time I discovered the Parallel Universe forum).

I guess if I were to follow this line of thinking, I'd suggest that for Morgan, "The Caroline Group" was perhaps not an organization in the usual sense (a Masonic splinter faction, a spy ring, an industrial chamber of commerce etc) but just an affiliation of like-minded individuals. I think I feel a lot more comfortable with the idea of such a Group than one which was an actual organized society armed with science-fiction weapons and a Plan to do things to the world.

And this one:

I don't know how you are going to write about this. We are getting to the core of some very secret stuff. I do not use the word "classified" for reasons I believe you understand now.

I'll leave it at that for when you feel up to it. We have to feel our way through this, Paul. I am sure that we are doing the right thing and that we are in the right place.

Beyond that, this is as big a mystery to me as it is to you. I suggest we just take things slowly and methodically and give the "inspiration" a chance to guide our paths.

The part about "secret" vs "classified" I think I understand, if I'm not assuming too much. That the "Caroline group" as a loose collection of industrialists who believed in Townsend's spookier ideas might have backed technologies they thought were important for the world's future (like potentially the Fusor) but were afraid to release those technologies to the military or governments in case they caused damage to the world like the atomic bomb did. I can almost see that being a thing that could happen. And so they would be "secret" but certainly NOT "classified" because feeding that information into the military system was not an option. For one reason, because the Group were afraid of the very real threat of Communist infiltration of US/UK intelligence, but I'd like to think they were also a little bit afraid of good old American capitalism as well. If they weren't afraid of that, then they should have been.

But why would these things be as big a mystery to even Morgan as they were to Paul? Wasn't Morgan the one telling most of this story? Wasn't he one of the innermost of the inner circle of the need-to-know clique even in the so-secret-it's-not-even-classified world?

Or was Morgan too on the outside looking in - just like everyone else? If so, is there even an "inside" to be looking into, and where would it be? Especially since we're talking about fusion reactors, not ghosts and angels?

Regards, Nate

[Paul Schatzkin]

And away we go...

And again I want to say well done to Paul for finally publishing, and for Mike Williams for the herculean job of editing. The story is all there in its strange and confusing shape, but it just flows so much faster and with a few less red herrings. It now gives the sense of just being a taste of a vaster and more wild story underneath, which is I think what it should be.

I am pleased that it 'passes muster' with you... I'm getting good feedback elsewhere as well.

And I'm honoured that my name is in the postscript too, among others of us from the forum (and yours too, Jan).

I just hope nobody feels offended if they were left out.

Would it be rude to say that I noticed a few minor copy errors?

No, not at all. But I'd appreciate it if you'd gather 'em up in an email. I encourage anybody who finds goofs to let me know. I'll round up as many as I can and modify the file, but Ingram charges me $25 every time I upload a new file so I should get as much as I can in the next upload.

Also, a few of the "Alice in Wonderland" quotations are definitely not from the Lewis Carroll original. I suspect they might be from the 2010 TIm Burton film.

Hmm... I dunno about that. I don't have a copy of the 'original' (who do you think I am, Eldridge Johnson??). I lifted all the quotes from The Definitive Illustrated Editions published in 1992 by Books of Wonder / William Morrow & Co., Inc. New York. I'm quite certain I didn't lift anything from the Tim Burton movie. One ever watched that once, didn't care much for it.

I find myself wondering again just what "Morgan" meant by "The Caroline Group", since he does seem to use the term rather like "The Brethren of the Rosy Cross" was used in the 1600s, than as an actually-existing organization.

Yeah, well, there's a whole lot to wonder about that, for sure.

Thank you, Nate, for making it to the end. That encourages me to think that others will, as well.

--PS