The last thing I remember is this wide-ranging conversation Robin and I were having, about traumatic regression, the aura that precedes grand-mal seizures, evolutionary psychology and the metabolism of seratonin, the action of lysergic acid diethylamide-25 in the synaptic cleft, what these things say about childhood perception and consciousness generally, typologies, such as the Jung-inspired Myers-Briggs scheme, that distinguish innate (?) leanings toward the intellectual or emotional or... And there was more. Much more. But now it's all a blank.

That conversation is the last thing either of us can recall -- though there is a faint trace of something Colin Wilson says in his book on The Occult. He describes Madame Blavatsky as "a nervous chain-smoker who often soothed her nerves by smoking maijuana..."

Now look, I don't smoke "marihuana," and even if I did, I wouldn't spell it like that. Neither of us take recreational drugs or drink anything stronger than Gatorade. It's just that the quote struck us as being unusually funny, and we'd also been talking about Madame B. and how she popularized a certain runic sign that -- thanks to her pot-smoking fascination with the occult -- has become almost as widely recognized today as the Have A Nice Day Happy Face...

...a secret new faith spread across Europe: theosophy, as it was called by its prophet-priestess Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Theosophy was an occult cocktail made of Gnostic, Egyptian, and Hinduistic ingredients and topped off by a good shot of the Aryan myth. The followers of H. P. Blavatsky recognized each other by an ancient Eastern symbol of fertility -- the swastika.

from: Hitler and the Occult: The Magical Thinking of Adolf Hitler by Raymond L. Sickinger
source: Journal of Popular Culture, 22 September 2000
via: HighBeam Research
Copyright © 2000 Popular Press

I can supply the specific Colin Wilson reference -- p. 431 -- only because that's the page the book was open to when we "came to" about an hour ago. Imagine my chagrin at realizing it was after 2pm on Monday, and that none of the many things I'd planned to post here had been posted. Or even written!

Or had they?

Give me a few minutes to check the hard drive and collect myself after this most bizarre experience! I'm worried. I'm sure you've all heard of the strange cattle mutilations in this part of the country (Colorado has had plenty), so I need to go in the bathroom now and check whether I'm... well, OK.

There was a bright light and a funny sound and then... and then it's all a blur. Robin says she thinks she remembers these big-eyed grey people asking her if she thought "size really mattered." Then she starts crying and moaning: "Oh no, not that!" Over and over. It's a little creepy to say the least. So again, please give me a few minutes to get it together here. And hey I'm really sorry about there not being any posts for a while, but after something like that, I figure you'll understand.