Friday 12 January 2018

Kind Of Neat

In SM Stirling's The Sea Peoples, fragments of a burning tower fall on Prince John who is protected by body armor. When his friends pull the fragments away, John's body is not to be found and we read an account of his journey elsewhere. Has he teleported? No. John's unconscious body, still lying on the ground, has been rendered invisible while his spirit has been drawn elsewhere. That is kind of neat.

Does his spirit being drawn elsewhere mean that the bearer of John's consciousness is an immaterial entity that can leave his body or that his comatose brain dreams? Mind-body dualism, an ancient belief, can be assumed in fiction and is assumed in Stirling's Emberverse series but why did this ancient belief exist? Because we seem to leave our bodies temporarily in sleep and permanently at death.

Sue Blackmore, after having an "OBE," an actual or apparent out-of-the-body experience, researched OBEs and theorized that an OBE is an ASC, altered state of consciousness, in which bodily sensations are disregarded while the environment is vividly imagined as seen from a point outside the body. Thus, nothing leaves the body.

I leave it to blog readers to enumerate OBEs in fiction, particularly in the works of Poul Anderson.

3 comments:

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Kaor, Paul!

I find it very interesting how S.M. Stirling used OBEs for showing us what happened to Prince John and his friends in THE SEA PEOPLES. And how he used Chambers' THE KING IN YELLOW.

I thought of four short stories in which Poul Anderson used OBEs or experiences like that: "The Fatal Fulfillment," "The Long Remembering," "The Visitor," and "Requiem For A Universe." And should we count the "emulations" seen by Christian and Laurinda in GENESIS? Despite the fact Christian and Laurinda no longer HAD bodies!

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
I don't think that emulations are OBEs! Do I know "The Fatal Fulfillment"? We see also see Dahut's body leave her body and go elsewhere. And other Ysan Queens remotely view events. Also Gunnhild.
Paul.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Kaor, Paul!

I was a bit hesitant about what I said regarding GENESIS. But Christian and Laurinda did have "Out of Mind Experiences" (OMEs?). Hmmm, you are not sure you ever read "The Fatal Fulfillment"? It was first pub. by the MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION in March 1970 and reprinted in THE BEST OF POUL ANDERSON (1976). Perhaps it was included in one of NESFA Press' recent reprints of Anderson's stories?

Darn, I overlooked the examples you cited from THE KING OF YS and MOTHER OF KINGS!

Sean