ALL RISE
The Trial of a Book. Involution; An Odyssey, charged for crimes against its Author
This ‘Trial’ was originally published in 2015 as a blog in several episodes. Partly to discover whether a work that had taken ( and cost) me much of my life had any merit in the eyes of the Jury ( any passing reader) and equally to re-examine the basis for the (mostly) hostility it aroused. The jury that gathered over a few weeks were constant and enthusiastic and sometimes their comments ran to pages. I have omitted those in republishing the trial but they can be found through the links supplied.
We all had a lot of fun. You can sit in for as long or as little as you like. I hope you might comment and share. I will start with the first two Court sessions.
The Trial of Involution-An Odyssey. Opening Day
The Trial of Involution-An Odyssey. Opening the Case for the Prosecution.
Court in Session
Judge. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury. The Court thanks you for your time and for what will, I am afraid, be a trial lasting several weeks. This is not a trivial case but one which will have a bearing on many other cases in which books subject their Authors to unwarranted pressures, if not seeming torture. In this age of abundant plenitude and a surfeit of books of all qualities and values it behoves this Court to bring a test trial to examination. The essence of our examination will focus upon the following principal questions:
Firstly. How can an Author evaluate the claims made upon her by a Book? Or decide whether the Book in question has a value that justifies not only its creation, but the prolonged energy, time and money required to bring it to birth. (There are attendant issues: Who decides? What Author? What Qualifications?)
Secondly: In the surfeit of books, to what extent is public and professional opinion relevant to the Author undertaking the incubation and research necessary. In short: Can the claims of a Book for serious consideration be separated from the Public to which it is addressed. (Again: Who decides? How evaluate? What about timing?)
I put it to you that the reasons Involution-An Odyssey (for future reference we will shorten to ‘Odyssey’) is a fitting test case is because it lies at the extremes, both in the strength of its claims upon the Author’s life, an entire life, and secondly because of its claims to have written a new World view on the Nature of Science. If the latter is borne out ( and it is a matter yet to be decided by the Court) then the former is explained, perhaps nullified. In short it is the intersection between its value and its demands that is in the microscope of this Court’s analysis. The same would be true of any book.
I make this context explicit so that you are assured that what might seem at first glance to be the trial of an unborn child ( and the analogy is apposite) will have relevant guidelines for other Authors and other books, even fictional works. Society, on the whole expects parents of children to be fit, self-sufficient and responsible, and children to be healthy and disciplined. Although the Odyssey claims to be non-fiction, that too is to be debated. It is certainly creative non-fiction and may turn out to be self-aggrandising fantasy. Its wider relevance is therefore apparent. Odyssey is an ideal candidate to act as a lens by which to examine issues relevant to all books.
Let us Proceed. Will the Odyssey in the dock please stand while the Prosecution reads the clauses of the Indictment.
That you have persuaded the Author to write a deluded hypothesis in order to humiliate her, knowing she would bear the responsibility of your heedless suggestions. How do you plead?
Odyssey: Not guilty. I do not believe her or myself deluded. As to humiliation I do not believe that can be laid at my door, though I acknowledge it has happened .
That you acted without deliberation, or discernment in harnessing the Author to a lifelong service and made promises of reward that you have not fulfilled. How do you plead?
Odyssey: I plead guilty to the harnessing, but not to the ‘without deliberation or discernment’ I believe I acted with both. As to the accusation of reward, I made no such promises.
That you failed to evaluate your claims in terms of bad timing, and inappropriate language upon the Author before enlisting her service. How do you plead?
Odyssey: Not guilty. Both timing and language were the responsibility of the Author. I accept that I approved the language and would have changed the timing were it in my gift to do so.
That you initiated your inspiration without any invitation, and in a manner that no Author could refuse. In short you subjugated her without thought to her welfare or that of her family or circumstances. How do you plead?
Odyssey: Not guilty. I have an alibi for the Inspiration. I was not present.
Finally, That at no time since your publication have you made any efforts to modify or adapt to assist your Author to argue your hypotheses, or in fact to assist her in any way. How do you plead?
Odyssey: Guilty in the main, but I would ask the Court to take into consideration my willingness to appear before it, in mitigation.
Judge. The Clark will duly note the mitigation.
The Court will adjourn and at the next appearance the Prosecution will open the case and call witnesses.
All rise….
Day 2 Case for the Prosecution- First Charge
Trial of Involution-An Odyssey
(Continues from previous hearing)
All rise….
Judge (to Jurors)
To make your deliberations easier we will take the Charges one at a time. The prosecution will present its evidence and witnesses, and the Defense will be given the opportunity for cross examination. After each Charge has been dealt with you will be given time for deliberation. We hope that you (the public Jurors) will make notes on questions and inconsistencies. The verdict on all charges will be the last duty asked of you, and terminate this trial. I would remind you it is the responsibility of the prosecution to make its case. The innocence of Odyssey is presumed until proved otherwise. The Prosecution will now present evidence for the first Charge/
(To refresh your memories, Odyssey is held to ‘have persuaded the Author to write a deluded hypothesis in order to humiliate her, knowing she would bear the responsibility of Odyssey’s heedless suggestions.’)
PROSECUTION. Thank you m’lud. Since the charge relates to the intrinsic value of the Odyssey, we will commence by examining its skeletal origins as The Theory of Involution originally written in 1970 because this proposed much of the essential thesis from a scientific standpoint. Its merits in its current form as Odyssey will be examined separately.
I call the first witness. Professor Sir Alister Hardy.
PROS Professor Hardy You were Professor of Zoology at Oxford for many years. You had the opportunity to see this work at an early stage in its, shall we say, evolution in 1970? How did the Author contact you?
Prof. H. We met a conference on Nature Man and God. I met the author briefly and on hearing about her manuscript offered to evaluate it.
PROS Very generous of you. Since the Author was entirely unknown, I am surprised you had the time.
Prof. H. Well, I was by then semi -retired.
PROS And what were your conclusions?
Prof. H Frankly it was, how can I put this politely? Baloney from start to finish.
PROS It had no value whatever?
Prof. H. Well, I remember she put forward an interesting hypothesis about incremental interiorisation- dreadful word- she suggested that evolution had been due to the laying down of memory, which accounted for the seeming progress of evolution, and its convergence to Man. It was dangerously suggestive of Lamarckian process but others had said similar things so that alone did not rule it out.
PROS. Please clarify the perils of Lamarckianism for the Court.
Prof. H. In its simplest form Lamarckian inheritance suggests that an organism’s experience can be conveyed to its offspring. Soviet Russia implemented this belief in their catastrophic apportioning of roles permitted different sections of the population, steel workers would improve in strength, farmers in stamina etc. We know of no way in which that improvement happens organically. What Involution was proposing was exactly that, the changing of the genetic blueprint, so as to afford advantage entirely due to the life experience of the parent. It is gibberish.
PROS. And dangerous, you said, why dangerous?
Prof. H. Dangerous to the Author. It would never be taken seriously, certainly not then anyway.
PROS Yet you admitted it was ‘interesting’: What was wrong with the scientific ‘A Theory of Involution’ paper outlining it?
Prof H. It purported to be a scientific study. But there was no proof and could be no proof. So, it was not scientific. I am a scientist. I look for evidence.
PROS How did you convey this to the Author? Presumably it checked any intentions she had to publish?
Prof. H. I told her to go away and undertake research that would either substantiate her hypothesis or refute it. She was very young, there was plenty of time ahead of her.
PROS Was it her youth that influenced your opinion? Or the valuelessness of the work?
Prof. H. A little of both. You cannot go about with wild suppositions, unless you can support them with evidence, especially not so young. It is simply not done, or wise.
PROS Had she been an older and experienced researcher, rather than a 29-year-old inexperienced layman, you would have looked more kindly on the Theory of Involution?
Prof. H. I might have taken it more seriously had it come from a colleague, whose erudition I respected, but I doubt even then I would have entertained the hypothesis without compelling evidence.
PROS To clarify Professor. How material was this hypothesis of incremental memory surviving individual death to the paper as a whole? If that was eliminated what remained?
Prof. H. Virtually nothing. It was the spine of the work. Not only did she claim it accounted for the acceleration of evolution and its convergence to Man, but her belief was that science was simply the recovery of this encoded memory! Ludicrous!
PROS. I do see it would undermine science, or hole it below the waterline. It would rather suggest that science was being puppeteered by something ‘beyond’ .Is that why you referred to it as dangerous?
Prof. H. No. Science is well able to defend itself from such absurdity.
PROS. Finally, Professor for the clarity of the Court. The work had no merit whatever, beyond an interesting, wild and unproven hypothesis?
Prof. H. That is indeed my opinion.
PROS No further questions.
Prof Hardy. (Court Artist)
Barrister for the Defense.
Professor Hardy I have the opinion letter you wrote to the Author. It runs to three pages of close script. For a busy man engaged, even part time, in his own work, would that be the usual reaction to something of no value whatever?
Prof H. Well, I like to be thorough. I had given the work close attention.
DEF Let me quote a few phrases: ‘It may be a work of genius as many people consider de Chardin’s Phenomenon of Man, or the ‘book of the century’. I do not share that view. I consider de Chardin a great saint…his book is in no way a scientific book. I feel the same about yours. Not exactly valueless if compared to de Chardin, is it Professor?
To continue ‘I dislike your statement that evolution proceeds through the oscillation between fission and fusion. Dislike as a scientist? Does not all cellular interaction include both fission and fusion? ‘
‘I find your remarks far too glib and quite unacceptable… What might be good Journalism in a Sunday paper is quite out of place…I strongly object to ‘random mutation snaking through the watchful eye of natural selection’. This is biological gibberish…I cannot like your arguments about consciousness and I particularly dislike your diagrammatic representation of it…’Again ‘dislike’ without saying why. ‘I must say this is not at all ‘my cup of tea.’
You ended by saying ‘You ask my advice about publication. I am bound to say “Don’t. I would advise you to wait at least ten years and master some more biology before you attempt to go into print…you may yet produce something worthwhile….”
That is a small sample of three pages. I cannot conceive of a greater diatribe designed to annihilate a young author. It is not what I, or I imagine others, expect of the lucid, detached views of a scientist. Something got your goat, for an Oxford man to use such intemperate language!
Turning to another, and possibly related matter Professor.
You had already published a book called The Living Stream, and another called The Divine Flame in which you postulated something akin to a ‘group mind’ in a species, ‘a psychic blueprint between the members of a species’. Could you prove the existence of a group mind Professor?
Prof H. Well, it was one among a number of aspects I supposed could explain certain things. I laid no great weight upon it.
DEF You mistake my reasons for highlighting it. You were prepared to entertain the existence of some form of communication you could not prove, and for which you had no evidence. How does that differ from the Theory of Involution, proposing much the same?
Prof H. I had years of deep contemplation from which such conjectures arose. I recognised that science did not yet have all the answers, least of all to the religious or spiritual.
DEF In much the same way as The Theory of Involution did. You also had just (in 1969) created an Institute for the Study of Religious Experience’ had you not? Is religious experience provable Professor?
Prof H. One alone is not, a great many looked at may be. That was my intention, to collect and examine the many instances, a scientific approach, if I may say so.
DEF So as a scientist, you were taking quite a risk embarking on a sphere of interest outside the usual realms of science?
Prof H. Yes, put like that I was, which is why I waited until my retirement to fully engage with it.
DEF Ah I see, the ‘get tenure before you talk of consciousness’. That is well known in the United States. In 1979 you went on to publish a further book, The Spiritual Nature of Man in which I quote there is ‘No dualistic split between soul and body, between matter and mind, between life and non-life…all phenomena are natural…our newer style of evolution is Lamarckian’ This comes very close to The Theory of Involution does it not, which proposes that the progressive interiorisation creates a field of consciousness in which both mind and matter communicate and survive throughout the biosphere?
I put it to you Professor that the ten years you suggested the Author should wait before seeking to go to print, was the ten years you required to publish your own account of much the same thing? It was also a very great advantage to you that your work was awarded the Templeton Prize, a million dollars was not to be risked by encouraging an unknown young author, in a position to publish first.
Prof H I could not know I would be awarded the prize. That was years later. You are not suggesting….?
DEF What I am speculating upon, (since speculation is apparently allowed with sufficient evidence Professor), is that you had just embarked upon a new field, almost entirely your own- you are called God’s Biologist are you not? - and needed that newly created collection (by others) to provide the evidence for a thesis which The Theory of Involution had already usurped. You were outraged that an unknown young woman had made the imaginative leap you imagined was yours, and yours alone. Unlike Darwin, faced with Wallace doing much same for his Origin of Species, you were not gracious. Your letter to the Author, and indeed your testimony before this court, was mean spirited, and determined to discourage any further publication of a work before you had collared the glory…
Prof H Outrageous suggestion. I protest most emphatically…
DEF No further questions.
All rise.
The original comments can be found on the website here or, following on, here