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The Author's Foreword to the extended English edition of "The Ringbearer's Diary" ~
~ ~ A few words before you start So I finally made it: a map – the map. If you think you are holding a book in your hands, you are wrong. This is a map, a map of the human mind. For a number of years I have suspected that stories concerning old maps are really not about treasure islands with hidden fortunes, but about our wish to find the fortune. However, this time it is different. This is, as I said, the map. And I can assure you there is something to find, if you dare go all the way. For one thing: MONEY. And I do not mean pocket change, oh no – if you can find your way using this map you will find boundless wealth. There is a rainbow in there, too, and at the end of it, just as you have been told for centuries, there is a jar filled with pure gold.Promises such as this have tempted many a person to enter the fairytale kingdom of the mind. But there is something tricky about this route through the mind: you will have to listen. Imagine great heroes with countless, rippling muscles, shining with oil, armed with swords, guns – or maybe a sharpened typewriter – entering this realm, just to be told that you have to listen. Put down your gun and listen very very carefully. It is quite difficult to turn your ears in the right direction. In fact, strange voices in this landscape will try to make you turn your head in the wrong direction, and if you do, you will miserably fail. But I am fond of my reader, and this is not a book for the chosen few. This is a book for anyone who wants to go all the way, who wants to seek – and find. Nevertheless, one cannot give secrets away just like that: if you have not followed the trail you will not be able to even recognize the secret when you find it. So – in order to make this map work as it should, I have placed a lot of pitfalls in it. If you are not careful – you will simply fall out of the book. Let me give you a couple of examples: First of all, some truly effective pitfalls are hidden already in the introduction. I thought: we have to be sure that those who enter the real book (the second part: THE RING AND THE PYRAMID) are quite certain they are serious about maps of the mind. So if they are not – whoops – they will fall out through the bottom of the book after only a few pages. And you have to follow the path through the entire first part of the book (WOLFGANG) in order to understand the second part. Well – here are the examples I promised you: 1)
One well-known music reviewer said to me: “If you were once Wagner, how
come you haven’t told us anything we do not already know?” This
person’s problem, you see, was this: he thought it was possible to read only
the chapter about the Wagner-“RING”. And so he missed the point (it is
possible that this may happen to a few Tolkien-fans, too) that this is not
a book about the Wagner Ring or Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings
– this is about what possibly lies behind the Wagner and Tolkien
Ring-works. But you have to read the entire book to understand
that. Only if you do so will you be able to see that Wagner and Tolkien
both knew about the secret of The Cursed Ring and what it means. And they
also knew that the exposure of the Ring would mean a return to the real
human mind – which for centuries has been covered up by it. I trust that the present reader is my friend, and I can assure you: I did not invent the chakra-system. I can merely see it and describe it, and to be quite honest with you – I find it thrilling and wonderful that it is finally possible to get some answers. Evidently, this guy believed himself to be an expert in the human mind to such an extent that he must have been convinced that he already knew the secrets of the mind. So, why bother to read the book at all? This saves time for those readers who already know the human mind inside out – they need not walk any further. 3) One publisher returned the book (refusing to publish it, of course) saying that it was “incoherent” (really meaning, it is a mess). This fellow missed the whole point completely, the point I tried to explain at the beginning of this introduction: you have to listen. And now I can tell you the secret of this book – tell you how to read it: you have to listen to the flow of thought. (Somehow this seems obvious when you are aware of the fact that you are actually researching the human consciousness). The said publisher apparently entertained the idea that “real books have a chronological order, you cannot jump back and forth in time in this way”. Well, he fell out of the book. Maybe he did not know the first rule concerning unknown territories: you have to stick to the path – as in the case of Mirkwood in Tolkien’s The Hobbit. You have to follow where the path leads you, instead of saying: “I think the road ought to continue straight on, instead there is a curve to the right. I for my part will continue straight on.” So he was caught by the spiders, and he did not find the gold at the end of the rainbow. Therefore, just be silent inside – and listen... Peter Kjærulff June 2001
The
Ringbearer’s Diary
can be ordered at Altre Menti Edizioni. The price of the book is € 30.10 plus postage.
Please contact altrementi(at)altrementi.com for further details. |
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