A Pair of Weirdities

When I go to the library (once, twice a week), I must confess half the time I have no pre-conceived idea of what I’m going to pick up.  I go to browse, and it’s a great way, I’ve found, to relax and shed off the concerns of the world for a while.

What do I browse for?

Unless I’m fixated on a certain topic du jour (like the Civil War, or mathematics, or ancient civilizations, etc), I usually try to find something that will blow a fuse or two in my brain.  Something eye-opening, world-shattering, goosebump-inducing, head-smacking weird.  A different way of looking at the world, or part of it.  A new set of glasses, so to speak.

Which is why I spend such a large amount of time in the philosophy, alternative religion, and history’s mysteries sections that I pretty much know each and every spine on the shelves by its color and font.  Read half of ’em, and skimmed through the other half.  But I still look, and will keep on doing so.

Yesterday I was rewarded.  Took the little ones with me to the library more for them, as I am in the thick of two hefty tomes myself and was not actively seeking new reading material.  But that is when the magic happens.

I found two very, very interesting books, books that qualify for the qualities aforementioned in paragraph three of this post:

Emanuel Swedenborg: Visionary Savant in the Age of Reason.  Don’t know much about this 18^th-century European mystic, save that he had some visions of heaven and the afterlife that, while maybe not enthusiastically endorsed by the Church, at least are not outright condemned by her.  At least, so I think, though I claim ignorance.  A bit more research is involved here on my part.  But, man, I’d love to read what this man saw, see how it fits in with my world- and after-world-view.  Read thirty pages yesterday and it held my interest.  (536 pages)

The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick.  Don’t know too much about this, either.  Went through a heavy PKD phase in the second half of 2005 (read a couple of novels, an anthology of his short stories, and a biography of the man), came away with a glimpse of his tortured, crazy, drug-exacerbated genius.  While not a True Believer in the wackiness PKD believed, I always approach him with an open mind.  From what I understand about this book is that it is the work of a team of editors sorting through and making sense of a few thousand pages of stream-of-consciousness Dickian “exegesis” on reality, philosophy, and out-and-out weirdness the man began jotting down after commencing with – perhaps – Swedenborgian visions. (944 pages)

Should be a great pair of weird readings. 

And I will report further on any weirdnesses witnessed within them.