ALPHABET OF AMELIORATING HOPE

By Brian Aldiss

Angelic voices speak of a Utopia which will soon come about once the secret research in Wisden, Ohio, is completed.

Basically, existence of a ‘circumstance-chain’ in human relationships will be established, proving causality between mental activity and the external physical world.

‘Circumstance-chains’ are operative in all human lives; for instance, the child deprived of love develops into a being who finds difficulty in establishing loving relationships in adulthood.

Directly the research is complete, we shall view the world anew.

Example: terms like ‘loser’ or ‘the guy who has all the luck’ will be seen as labels for those who are bound, favourably or otherwise, by circumstance-chains.

For clarity, this revolutionary new aspect of the human condition will be termed

‘transpsychic reality’; a new sanity will prevail on earth.

Going mad will no longer be necessary.

Horror will vanish, fear will never strike.

Intellect will never more be scorned.

Joy will visit rich and poor alike.

Keeping faith in love and life will be an easier thing.

Love will not be just a theme that people sing.

Madge Winterbourne was the hero in Wisden, Ohio; she had originated the anticatastrophe hypothesis.

No one who met her doubted she was the modern equivalent of a seer or saint.

Or an Einstein of the female sex.

Plans were hatched to release details of transpsychic reality to the whole world on the same day, the first of a new century.

Qualitative tests on volunteers in Wisden suggest that once people understand the pattern of their lives, they can be taught to take command of them.

Reality will then change; those who are malicious will see the root causes of the misery provoking their malice, and be able to expunge it.

Some criminals and power-seekers may prove more difficult to readjust, may indeed form a core of rebellion against the new Utopia.

Transpsychic reality will see them gradually phased out.

Utopia, once on the move, will prove as irresistible as a glacier.

Very soon, a golden age-long dreamed of in the hearts and minds of men and women—will be established, which the animal kingdom will share with humans.

Wonder will grow like the cedar.

Xenophobia will die without voice.

You too will prevail, dear reader.

Zygotes themselves will rejoice.