THE ABERREE

APRIL, 1962

Volume II, Number 10

Recusant Voice of "The Infinites" for
Earth, Mars, Venus, Saturn, and Zydokumzruskehen

MISSED FORECASTS JEERED -- ARE OTHERS MORE RELIABLE?

It will come as news to few
persons that the world did not
end during the planetary conjunction, the Pacific coast did
not exchange places with Lemuria, nor did the Great Lakes
send a cascading torrent of
water down the Mississippi, to
wash The ABERREE and its environs into the Gulf of Mexico.

Most of us accepted this in
stride; it hadn't been expected except by the few emotionally unstable who are willing
to give ear to rabble rousers,
and we went about our business
as usual, hardly conscious of
what was going on up there in
that mysterious blueness that
bears so many labels. A half
dozen planets or so, millions
of miles apart, were lined up
in such ragged formation that
any Army Drill Sergeant would
have rejected it as "no formation at all", had this "phenomenon" been reduced to men
and a drill field.

"Ha! Ha!" chortled the newspapers. "Those crazy mystics!"

Since we were not one of
the "crazy mystics" who expected sudden disaster, this
hurrahing might pass unnoticed
as the perambulating of a diseased mind, happy to find relief from its daily diet of
"the Russian menace". Except
for one thing. Another page of
the same newspaper was devoted
almost exclusively to church
announcements. Here, you could
learn what Rev. Zilch and Rev.
Smith and Right Rev. Somebody
Else were going to talk about,
come tomorrow. And you didn't
have to read their sermon topics -- altho you could, if you
had nothing better to do -- to
learn that church-goers would
get another dose of what's going to happen to sinful man ;
where Heaven's located, and
the pearly-gate reward waiting
for those who believe; and of
a Satan, with equal rights to
an all-powerful God who is All ,
whose primary aim (Satan's) is
to find fuel for his everburning furnace.

It may label us as a bit
heathenish, but we can't see
where it's any worse to forecast doom for LIVING MAN because some planets decide on a
rick-rack passing, than for
another segment of damnationpeddlers to pretend they know
what dire things are in store
after the spirit and body are
separated. At least, we know
the planetary conjunction didn't destroy the earth, and we
defy anyone -- preacher, editorial writer, or believer -- to
prove that anything any pulpit
sour-face predicts, ever has,
or ever will, become a fact.
All we have is a varied level
of speculation, some of which
makes even less sense than the
arguments as to "why " a planetary conjunction might be so
disastrous.

This laughter at the errors
of those who call themselves
seers is a bit like the man
who stood on a promontory, so
busy enjoying the startled
surprise of those who fell off
the edge that he failed to
notice he was backing off the
opposite cliff.

If it weren't ridiculous for
us to set ourselves up as knowing what we're talking about,
we might at this point go into
a learned discussion about
prophesying. But we won't --
not because the subject isn't
of interest, but because there
is a lot about it we don't
know. Seers have been wrong
for centuries -- and only in the
few cases when one or two of
them emerge triumphantly from
behind their symbols and double-talk, is validation given to
the probability of vaticination. Unless one knows about
time and space -- and man's relation to same (and how many
so-called prophets do?) -- he is
wasting time trying to make a
certainty out of an uncertainty
-- his time, and that of those
who get emotionally involved.

Actually, what we are today
is the result of what we, and
those around us, did yesterday
and in ages past. We alone are
responsible for our destiny --
and were it not so (if everything is sufficiently foreordained that some psychics can
know it in advance), we might
as well abandon the belief that
we have any choice or will. We
become mere puppets -- and like
a phonograph, play the groove
that has been cut for us to
play.

But prophecy we will have
with us always. Politicians
prophesy a balanced budget --
and then add many billions to
the public debt. Graduates cum
laude -- the "bright spots" in
class forecasts -- often wind up
working for the class "dumbbell". And the "ideal couple",
during a wedding celebration,
helps feed the divorce courts.

Oddly, most of the prophecies that get attention are
those which look on life thru
dark glasses. If you tell the
world it's doomed, or a storm
is coming, you have its ear.
It'll even forgive you if it's
still around to forgive -- and
will again believe you when you
predict more doom -- if you make
it bad enough. Right now, both
the U. S. and Russia seem to be
enjoying some of this type.

And so we go -- from one doom
to the next -- until we meet the
Final Forecast. Which we'll
probably find no darker nor
accurate than those of February, 1962.