Worzel's World - What if?

 

When I was a little kid my mother took me to see a magic show. After one trick when the magician had produced a couple of pigeons from thin air, he placed them in a cage, covered the cage with a magic veil and disappeared them again. The cage was moved to one side and he moved on to perform other illusions.

Even as a kid I saw things a little differently from most and whilst others followed the magicians act I still gazed at the empty cage wondering where the pigeons had gone. Suddenly a little pigeon head popped up momentarily from what must have been a false bottom in the cage. To say this was a revelation is to state the obvious. I grabbed my mums arm and excitedly informed her of what had happened to the pigeons. I don’t think anyone else had noticed. She hushed me up embarrassed, as if what I had done was very rude. I expect she thought that the audience were enjoying being tricked and didn’t want their illusions shattered.

I have learnt with the passage of time that my mother was right about many things. these days I do eat my greens, take a jacket with me on overcast days, and go to the toilet before leaving. This was probably another one. The experience taught me to have a sceptical mind and was perhaps the beginnings of cynicism. At times when something looks improbable, impossible or irrational, I find that if I purposely look where others do not the trick is often revealed.

On a childhood Christmas, by a great effort of will, I stayed awake long enough to hear my parents argue in hushed tones which presents should be delivered by Santa and which ones they should take credit for. I was never silly enough to say anything of course. But as that particular well has long been dry I figure it’s now okay to come clean.

It is the way of magic and deception in general to create an overt distraction while a different and unnoticed reality occurs covertly elsewhere. The magician had fooled all of the audience most of the time and most of the audience all of the time. His reward was a one night entertainment fee and a round of applause. It seemed even then to my child’s mind and more so now to my adult one that if a magician can fool an audience that knows he is trying to fool them and who are paying attention. How much easier and more lucrative must it be to perform magic upon apathetic unsuspecting masses outside of theatre walls?

The answer is that that it is much easier and vastly more lucrative. Moreover it happens and is happening all the time. The only drawback is that it is dishonest, unscrupulous and exploitative. This though is not sufficient to stop many practising in daily life what is essentially magic. They gain wealth, status and power simply by using the art of illusion. Often the skills employed are less refined than those of the entertainer with his cape and wand. This has never surprised me.

What has vexed me though is that whenever I have seen the hypothetical pigeon poke its allegorical head up from the figurative false bottom of a metaphorical cage and I expose the magic, most still prefer to believe the illusion. I am often frowned upon and told to stop being rude. How many spot the pigeons head but say nothing? However once one has seen the pigeon raise its head above the false bottom it is impossible to unsee it. That conjurers, con men and charlatans constantly trick the public with their magic there is no doubt. But what if there is an even greater chimera worked by a master deceiver that masks a deeper truth?

What if the world that we see with our eyes, hear with our ears and touch with our skin is not the ultimate reality? What if the world of rocks and animals, plastic and people is only an elaborate projection, a sort of cosmic three dimensional movie imprinted on matter, time and space, a great illusion wrought through the black arts of a master magician, a veiled cage with a false bottom?

What if there is a world beyond where God, angels and devils are a supernatural reality, where such things as faith hope and love really do last forever, unlike flesh and blood.

What if there is a world that we might perhaps call heaven, which is not subject to the limitations of space and time, corruption and decay.

What if there does exist a God who has no beginning or end?

What if that God sees into the depths of the heart of every one and every thing, who knows all and who will one day reveal all?

What if the contents of your own heart were put on show before a perfect God? Would you, like Adam and Eve, want to hide from what is there or would you rejoice in at last having the very essence of yourself seen and understood? Would you be overwhelmed with gratitude or tormented by shame? What if hell was the only place to hide and paradise the only place to rejoice?

What if?

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