Our Tragic Universe

by Scarlett Thomas

  I was giggling by the end. 'Go, Vi,' I said.

  'She's pretty cool. I wonder what she'll think of my theory of everything.'

  I smiled. 'Go on, then. Tell me how your universe works.'

  'Well, it might cheer you up to realise we are immortal after all.'

  'It might not.'

  'We'll see. So I know you're into the Periodic Table of Elements, but you're not so into Jung and archetypes. So maybe I'll leave those bits out.'

  'I can take it,' I said. 'I know even more about archetypes now, because of you.'

  'Why because of me?'

  'Because of you I reviewed the wrong book. Because of that I got a new commission that meant I got sent not one, not two, but seven Tarot sets. They're full of archetypes, and all come with books that are in some way about Jung. It's more complicated than that, of course, but it's still your fault.' I'd actually been sent six Tarot sets, but I thought this might disturb him.

  'Ah. Well, my theory may also explain why everything is my fault.'

  'I should hope so if it's a theory of everything.'

  All right. Here goes. OK. Well, last time we talked about it you were right. It is a creepy idea that we have to keep being re-born into the Second World to have adventures until we get one of them right, and then we get sucked into the Omega Point to live on for all eternity in this, this...'

  'Hell? Vacuum of morals?'

  'Yes. Well, sort of, except it's not enough of a vacuum. There are some logical flaws in Newman's argument right from the start, the main one being that if the Omega Point is an infinite moment of pure love and total omniscience, then why would it put us through all this shit? OK, I accept that this is the usual question people ask about God, and in a sense it's proof either of the non-existence of God, or of God's knowledge that we are going to go to heaven after we die and everything will be OK. So I started thinking again about other ideas of the afterlife and reincarnation, and most of them take you into a void, a nothingness: some deeply cosmic and mysterious non-place. But Newman and Tipler's Omega Point keeps you trapped for ever at the entrance to this void: the end of time and the beginning of nothingness. This, I thought, can't be right, like you said.'

  'Did I say that?'

  'I'm sure you did. Or something like it. Another thing that struck me was that Newman said that people were constantly becoming heroic enough to be enlightened and then being transported off to the Road to Perfection. Remember that only pizza-guzzlers would remain? I wondered how this squared with an increasing population, if indeed this is supposed to be the Second World. After all, this is a system where people are leaving or coming back, but not actually being generated. All "possible" humans have already been generated by the Omega Point at the end of time, so after that there are not any more humans left that you could possibly generate. And then it came to me. Remember I was, when I set out, also trying to solve this problem of why some people can do magic and others can't, and also why some people are wise and other people are stupid, which has always bugged me. So I'm just going to tell you this from the beginning of time, and you can see what you think. I don't think there are many logical flaws left.'

  Our pizzas came. 'From the beginning of time?' I said. 'Wow.'

  'Don't mock. You'll see. So you'll know, presumably, that the first element in the universe was hydrogen, which is why it is the first thing on the Periodic Table and has atomic number 1. Everything is made from the void, as the Taoists tell us, but everything is also made from hydrogen. It is the one atom on which all others are based.'

  'Could you not say that everything is based on quarks?'

  'Well, yes. It doesn't matter, because this is a sort of metaphor. It doesn't matter exactly how the chemical world was formed. Well, obviously it does, but all we need to know is that it was formed, from one essential piece, from which all the other essential pieces, or elements, were also formed. These elements in combination form basically everything in the universe. There can seem to be more or fewer "things", but there's always the same amount of matter in the universe. And matter changes its form all the time. The cheese on my pizza was once partly grass, in a sense. What I'm proposing is that this also happened with spirit, and this is how people's souls were formed. There was one great spirit, which was split up into many spirits—but all still essential. These are the archetypes. It's really interesting that so many disciplines recognise archetypes, or elemental spirits. In homoeopathy archetypes are often connected with elements. So the Mother, for example, is linked with Natrum Muriaticum, or sea salt, and her essence is the sea. She is the vast ocean from which we all emerge. The Wise Old Man is sulphur. The Trickster is mercury. And so on. But it's hard to find people who are pure archetypes. Most people have bits of this and bits of that in them. In Hindu philosophy, the universe is seen to be a cosmic dance where everything gets worse and worse until Shiva simultaneously destroys and re-creates it for the dance to begin again. The idea is that people also get worse and worse. How could this be? Well, think back to our example of original human spirits as pure elements. What if they start to combine and form molecules, and these molecules combine and form compounds and so forth? Fundamental spirit, while there in essence, as a memory or a component of being, becomes reduced further and further and you can't then isolate the original spirit very easily. It would end up spread all over the place. The pizza-guzzlers that Newman talks about are these highly diluted spirits: people with only long-lost memories of the pure form they once were. The most fucked-up people are the most diluted spirits.'

  'We are guzzling pizza,' I said.

  'Speak for yourself. I do not guzzle. Anyway, this is why the amount of spirits stays the same, but the population increases. The fundamental Mother archetype, or spirit, is now divided over, say, a million people. How does she come back together? I want to propose that the purpose of living is to get back to your essential spiritual nature, and there are various ways of doing this, although no one does it quite consciously. It's the spiritual version of evolution, or genetics—but it's not quite either.' Josh pulled another document out of his bag. 'If you don't mind, I'm going to read to you from this for a bit in case I leave anything out. It's quite complicated, I think. So every Higher Spirit, or Elemental Soul, exists in its pure state on something like a cosmic Periodic Table. You naturally have things in common with the elements nearest you, as arsenicum does with phosphorus, or palladium with platinum. Indeed, your ultimate cosmic soul mate is always right there next to you on this "table". But the dance of the universe is first about these spirits splitting and breaking and becoming mortal, and then splitting further, and then coming back together. When the table is complete, the final step is for all the spirits to merge in one monumental orgasm of spirit before collapsing into the void once more. The Periodic Table of Elemental Spirits is very different from the real Periodic Table of physical elements, but the latter serves as a useful analogy for the former, as I said. We have to use lots of analogies, because we are seeking to describe here something that cannot be described.'

  'I like the "monumental orgasm of spirit",' I said.

  'So do I. This is why I'm reading this. It sounds better.' He looked down at his sheet of paper again. There was a howling sound in the distance, like the wind. Then there was a bang, like a gunshot or a firework, but Josh didn't even look up. The howling continued for a few seconds and then stopped. 'So each imperfect being that we see around us contains the spiritual debris from various fundamental spirits. We are attracted to people who may help us shed some of this debris, or add new pieces that then purify what we already have. Think of interactions with people as being spiritual reactions or explosions, just like chemical reactions. Tragic interactions are interesting because they lead to the smashing up of these compounds, and the release of energy, just as Nietzsche said. And so it goes, on through time, as some higher spirits are distilled by life, and some made even more complex. Happily-ever-after leads to more bonding, or more bondage, if you see what I mea
n.'

  Josh flicked through his pieces of paper. 'I'm going to skip the next bit because it's quite long. But I'll email you the full version. OK. The universe has two "operating systems" or "natures". One is the physical world as charted by scientists. So there are gravity and quarks and evolution and so on. But, as I have always said, there is also magic, and an unseen world of energy: Qi, the Force, whatever you want to call it. This is, if you like, another manifestation of the physical universe. In the same way that light is sometimes waves and sometimes particles, and mass can be seen as energy, the universe is sometimes physical, or "being"; and sometimes energetic, or "non-being". It is made, as we have seen, of both matter and spirit. Magic is simply when someone uses an unseen, non-physical energy to work on another energy or vibration. It is very subtle. It can have physical effects, but it is not physical in itself. For example, falling in love may have physical effects, like making someone lose weight, produce more hormones, have erections or whatever. But this is not the result of something solid and physical acting on something else that is solid and physical: it is the result of energy, or the non-physical, acting on the spirit, which is also non-physical, which leads to changes in the body, which is physical. In this way, there is no simple deterministic link between energy and matter. Most of the time energy works on other energy, and then it has a subtle effect on the matter around it. This is why there are no such things as spoon-bending and conjuring: they are tricks. But it is also why homoeopathy, flower remedies and Reiki work.

  'The closer to being fully spiritualised you are—do you like that term? I'm not sure about it—the wiser you are, and the more easily you can use things like energy and magic. But also, in a sense, the less likely to use them, because you don't really desire anything that magic could give you. You pointed that out; more or less. I was thinking of making a website where you put in your basic opinions, attributes and so on, and then it calculates whether you're a 10,000th-level Hermit, or a 783rd-level Trickster. But I thought that might take something away from the theory, which is quite serious. What do you think?'

  'God,' I said. 'You've really thought this through.'

  'One thing that's quite neat about it is that it probably negates Newman's theory altogether,' Josh said. 'If "true" heroes are being sent off on the Road to Perfection all the time, and the freaks, fools and tragic heroes get obliterated and come back to hang out, in purer form, with the pizza-guzzlers, then eventually what you'll have left in the Second World is the whole Periodic Table of Spirits, all the ultimate superbeings who refuse to act like pathetic heroes, and they can form the one basic spirit and then overthrow the Omega Point. But it seems unlikely that the fundamental spirits, who when they re-form become guardians of the universe, would let the Omega Point be created in the first place. So there you have it. An afterlife that I hope you'll agree is better than Newman's.'

  'It is better than Newman's,' I said. 'Why are you so down on the hero all of a sudden?'

  'Well, I've realised that I'm never going to be one.' Josh looked at the wall and then back at me. 'I think that's a good thing, though. I like all that stuff Vi says about globalisation and power and the stories told by Western governments that means that they are the heroes fighting terrorism or whatever. She's also right that the very concept of "hero" is a paradox, especially in Christian democracies. The hero is the person who has the right to kill to get what they want. Who gives that right? It has to be God, otherwise anyone could give themselves that right—and they do, of course, but other people disagree. It can't be a cultural right because culture isn't permanent. But what sort of God would decide that people can be divided into those who can kill, and those who must be killed? Surely a God would love us all equally. So the hero can't exist. But what do you think of the whole theory? Are you convinced?'

  'Honestly?'

  'Yes.'

  'I think you should fictionalise it. Spend some time at Orb Books, and then suggest it as a series to Claudia. I think it would be excellent.' I saw his face falling. 'Look, Josh, I'm a novelist. I think fiction is a great place for these ideas. I'm not doing them down by saying that they'd work well as fiction. And I'm not even doing them down by saying that Orb Books should be the publisher. I'm guessing you want a big audience for all the work you've done. One of the paradoxes of writing is that when you write non-fiction everyone tries to prove that it's wrong, and when you publish fiction, everyone tries to see the truth in it.' I bit my lip. 'Of all the theories of the universe I've come across, it's probably the best one. Honestly. But I can't accept theories of the universe. I think it's too big to theorise.'

  'But isn't the point of being alive to try to answer the big questions?'

  I shook my head. 'For me it's about trying to work out what the questions are.'

  We finished our pizzas. Josh wanted to have ice-cream, and there was still wine left to drink. 'Hey,' I said. 'You could run something weird that happened to me through your theory if you like, and see what you come up with.'

  'But you don't believe it.'

  'Ignore me. I don't believe anything. But you might like this.'

  'Go on.'

  'OK, well, you know that Rosa Cooper—the famous actress who died, the one who was going out with Drew—was a childhood friend of mine?'

  'No. Was she? That's weird that she ended up with Drew.'

  'Yeah. After she died, I had this vivid dream. It was very realistic. Well, sort of. The content seemed realistic at the time. We were on a kind of astral plane, and she basically told me that she wasn't dead. She showed me how she'd faked her suicide.' I filled in the rest of the details for Josh, including Rosa's revelation about her relationship with Caleb.

  'Uh-huh.' Josh looked interested now.

  'So while I was in London I saw that one of the newspapers had the following headline: Rosa Cooper Still Alive? I couldn't believe it. There'd been a sighting in Hertfordshire of someone who looked just like Rosa. Hertfordshire was where she told me she'd gone. By the time the Evening Standard came out, dental records had shown that it was definitely Rosa who had died. But there was a moment when I thought my dream had been real. Everyone half-believes in telepathy and stuff. Even me. I'm not sure about a grand theory to explain it, but...'

  'Keep reading the papers,' Josh said. 'I bet you anything she'll turn up alive, just as you dreamed it. I've already worked out that you're a 40th-level High Priestess. Or possibly a 38th-level Hermit. I'm not entirely sure. But you should certainly have some telepathic powers, healing skills and access to some pretty powerful magic.'

  'Gosh. The numbers go...?'

  'Down to one, which is the archetype.'

  'What are you?'

  'I'm not sure. I know I'm a Trickster of some sort. I don't have any real powers of my own, but I can discern powers around me. I don't know what that means. I think I'm between levels fifty to a hundred. Probably an even number. It's pretty good. But you're better. You're psychic, and, like I said, I bet you anything that what you dreamed will turn out to be true.'

  'But I don't really want it to be true,' I said. 'I mean, it's not that I want her to be dead. I just don't want to be in any way psychic. I half-want to vaguely believe that some of this stuff is possible, but I don't want "special powers".'

  'Most people do.'

  'Most people want to be millionaires, and then when they are they're miserable because they haven't got anything left to do except go shopping.'

  'Jung said that everyone secretly believes in magic and the supernatural. He says that in public people say they don't believe, but privately, everyone does.'

  'Maybe that's right.' I shrugged as if I didn't have an opinion.

  By the time we paid the bill it was gone five to seven. We hurried out of Rumour and up to Birdwood House. I wondered what I could say to Vi. Would just 'Sorry' be enough? Perhaps we'd already said sorry to one another in our newspaper articles. There were about fifty chairs set out in the long, thin room, and about a third of them were filled.
But I couldn't see Vi anywhere.

  'I thought you said Vi was coming?' I said to Josh.

  'She said she was. She and Frank are staying in the organic vegetarian B&B at the top of Cistern Street specifically so they could come to this tonight and hang out in Totnes a bit. They arrived yesterday. You know, of course, that she's officially in Devon to open that Labyrinth tomorrow? They're planning to go to Dartmouth on a River Link ferry. I think me and Dad are going to go on one too, maybe a bit later. Vi said she wanted to go earlier to "try out" the Labyrinth.'

  'Yes, I knew about the Labyrinth. I wonder where they are, then.'