...What If?...

By Sara Light-Waller

We are not the first people, in any time period, to feel this way. Authors of the past have described characters whom we might recognize as Starseeds. But it’s not just a feeling of displacement and loss that interests writers. Sometimes it’s in other things. For example, in David Lindsay’s A Voyage to Arcturus, published in 1920, the hero undergoes weird physical changes on another planet as part of his journey. Despite the trippy nature of this tale, I recognized the changes he described as metaphors for the physical changes associated with ascension.

In the short story “Come Home From Earth” (1947), author Edmond Hamilton describes an experiment that dissociates a scientist from his body. While in a disembodied state, the hero  remembers he had come to Earth, along with many others, to learn.

These energetic beings from another world had been drawn to Earth to experience new things, including corporality. They did this by sharing bodies with physical beings. In the ancient past, these cosmic explorers inhabited the bodies of primitive humans. But the emotions experienced through the bodies confused and disoriented the star travelers.

When the first body died, they remained so disoriented that they drifted into another similar body. They forgot about their homeworld. They forgot who they were.

Yet even though they had forgotten, they still felt displaced.

When the scientist in the story is separated from his body during the revolutionary experiment, he remembers who he really is. In that disembodied state, he meets another of his people on his way to Earth. The other being tells him that they had assumed Earth was a marvelous place because no one had ever returned from it.

The scientist decides he must find a way to warn his people and awaken the millions who remained trapped in this dozing symbiosis. If they can remember who they really are, perhaps they can break free of the trap.

The story ends with a call to action:

“You are not Earthmen, as you think... You are Aarlans, members of the greatest and most glorious race in the cosmos, immortal individuals trapped by chance in the bodies of brute beasts here! Try to remember, you who read these words!... Break free from this sordid symbiosis and come home! Come home from Earth! Come home across the cosmos to the undying beauty and wonder and peace of your own native world!”

These are but two examples seen in the popular literature of the first half of the twentieth century.

In these older forms of science fiction, especially during the 1930s and 1940s, the hero is often a stand-in for humanity itself. These were not necessarily stories about deeply individualized characters in the way we write them today. Instead, they were adventures built around recognizable character types, allowing the reader to easily place themselves in the hero’s shoes.

The form was particularly useful for communicating larger concepts. The journey of one character could represent the journey of all of us.

I have studied these earlier story forms not simply because I am a historian, but because I believe they are still an excellent way to communicate ideas that can be difficult to discuss directly. Metaphor, adventure, and imagination can sometimes allow us to explore concepts that ordinary language cannot.

I also write fiction based on thoughts I encounter in the Akashic Record that I believe are relevant to our present moment. Perhaps the clearest example of how these two interests come together is my book Out of the Aethers.

Out of the Aethers is a fix-up novel made up of two stories, “Anchor” and “Traveler.”

In “Anchor,” Lucy Dean experiences panic attacks that presage dreams of a place she can barely remember—and a man whose face she cannot remember at all but whom she loves.

In “Traveler,” we learn who Lucy really is and about her partner. They are from a race called the Time Keepers, whose directive is to protect Earth from Agaereons who seek to destroy it by manipulating timelines. The Mandala effects are their doing.

Phylesse—Lucy Dean’s true name—and Mytah are young Time Keepers. As time agents, one remains in their home dimension in telepathic connection as an anchor, while the other travels to different time zones and timelines. Without an anchor, a traveler can become disoriented during long assignments and eventually forget who they really are.

While Phylesse is her first mission, Mytah is kidnapped by the Agaereons, and the connection between them snaps. Phylesse becomes lost on Earth during the 1960s and 1970s, while Mytah is taken to another world.

To return and save Phylesse, he must regain his higher vibrational status while caught in the middle of a galactic war.

His journey is our journey, really.

Although the story is a vintage-style space opera, Mytah represents all of us who may feel that we do not entirely belong here. Like the beings in Edmond Hamilton’s story, he has become separated from what he knows and from who he truly is. He must become that again.

I explore other concepts in my fiction as well. In Landscape of Darkness, an ancient alien AI infects a future Earth colony with a virulent disease. The hero and his crew must confront this ancient intelligence before they succumb. The book explores future human technology, including “novagems,” living crystalline power sources, and portal travel through the Sun.

Incorruptible examines the potentially dangerous effects of cyber-technology on the human soul and follows the creator of that technology as she attempts to make amends after losing her humanity.

In my award-winning short story “Battle at Neptune,” portal technology is used to help save our solar system from invasion by an alien warlord.

My Lucina Press is part publishing house and part museum. Through its catalog, I publish my own fiction and explore these metaphysical concepts through stories. In the Exhibition Hall, I research and interpret early- to mid-twentieth-century popular literature, with a particular focus on science fiction.

I’ve coined the term pulp archaeology to describe my research into these older forms of storytelling and my effort to contextualize them for modern readers.

I believe we still have much to learn from the wonderful storytellers of the past. They understood that an adventure could be more than just an adventure. A journey across space could also be a journey of the soul. A traveler who had forgotten his home world amongst the stars could represent something within all of us.

Perhaps that is why these old stories still speak to us today.

Perhaps, sometimes, they remind us of something we have forgotten.

And perhaps the question is not simply where we are going but what if we are trying to remember where we came from?

-Sara Light-Waller