Writing was always something I intended to do eventually.
I WANT TO WRITE HERE ABOUT SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED during and after writing 'A Man Who Seemed Real'. Call it strange, reassuring, disturbing, striking …

I’ll use abbreviations to avoid spoilers, hopefully it will make sense to anyone who has read the book. In the chapter before the Epilogue J discovers the translation of an old document – Y.

Y is inspiring, very beautiful, something unexpected and deeply significant for J. But at this point he is too weary and distracted to work out whether or not Y is true. And I myself as the author didn’t at this time have the energy or inclination to try and find out more about Y, having seen in a brief online search that ‘…scholars consider Y is a forgery.’

Despite this I kept it and J and I were at a point where many people are which is putting these considerations aside for the time being.
Now, in this, the re-written novel I made this event more ‘low key’ in the context of the story and of course the fact of the Epilogue means I am further distanced from any guilt that might be hovering somewhere in my mind about J asking questions on this subject – (it was this particular guilt and fear that made B very ill).

It had been a startling moment in my own life when I first found and read parts of Y, and I had the same experience as J, ‘… it was like coming home and hearing what he always knew. It made him feel he had been right to keep asking so many questions … it was like someone was shaking him by the hand and confirming what he had been doing all these months, endlessly struggling with the meanings of words …’

However, later on I have been very interested indeed by another search online which brought up the exceptional writer, Dolores Cannon on Goodreads. There are two of her books I was amazed to discover (which two will be obvious to anyone who knows what Y is) – many of her books are so utterly extraordinary and controversial I simply didn’t (and don’t) have the head space to even think about reading them yet. However I then read some reviews of these two particular books which relate to Y – and there are several reviews in particular which give a lot of information, one by Linda K. Thomas, and another (on the other book) by Robert which has been hidden because of spoilers but can be accessed.

And some instinct drove me to keep digging.

And I am relieved and delighted to find – Petra Meyer – YouTube – The European School of Theosophy – there a number of videos, and one which obviously relates to Y. It is long and intense, with a rather drawn-out introduction at the beginning, so it requires a concentrated effort to listen to. However I am thrilled to have found it and will return to it soon. And there must be more to discover, Petra refers to many names and places.

In my own life the questions J continually asks have been in my mind from an early age. They say write about your own experience. I have been doing that to start with.

Elizabeth Tebby Germaine October 2024 www.elizabethtebbygermaine.co.uk.