The Trial Of The Man Who Said He Was God Read Free Page B

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    The business of this court is to go by the evidence that is clearly presented within its four walls. Correction: three walls. All I ask of you members of the Jury is to look at what’s being displayed at this moment, what’s clearly on show - not what’s imagined, believed, thought up, cooked up, faked up, but actually seen. Namely, three walls - at most. Another glance at my picture may help you to see the given shape of the shapes around you.

    Diagram No. 1
    Look! Ahead of you is the now-empty witness-box, with its telescreen for long-distance witnesses, and you see that it has for background an approximately rectangular wall. On your right, His Honour the Judge sitting there on his bench, and below him the Clerk to the Court, have a wedge-shaped wall background; and the thick end of the wedge - your end - is fuzzy. It fades out, On your left, the dock - with me in it - has a second wedge-shaped wall for background, fading out as before. Now can you honestly tell me that, on present evidence, these two wedges join up to make a fourth wall? Or that you have any background at all? Come on! Have you ever, even in the Underground during the rush hour, found yourself hemmed in all round? Aren’t you always, for yourself, wide open at the rear, unconfined, at large, deeper than deep, immense? In this direction the risk, if there were any, would surely be agoraphobia and not claustrophobia.
    COUNSEL: I must protest, Your Honour! Is this a Trial for blasphemy? Or a seminar on perspective? Or - heaven help us! - a game for four-year-olds? The Accused is wasting the court’s time.
    JUDGE: I think he may be coming to the point.
    MYSELF: I’m right there, Your Honour.
    If you and the Jury will please turn to Diagram No. 2 in the booklet, it may help to bring out my meaning.

    Diagram No. 2
    When overlooked and avoided, this Missing Wall or Rear Gap or Absence reads as useless and boring, the shadow of a shadow, a dead loss. Or worse: as more terrifying than any ghost or devil. When taken in and taken on, however, it becomes the Presence that is my treasure. This despised No-thing at my back turns out to be far more real than any of the things in front of me. This neglected Place is a truer one than any on the map for, in contrast to them, it’s infinitely wide and deep, uniformly itself through and through, all on show at once, always accessible, unchanging and - ah! - my Native Land. The Big Country. the Country of Everlasting Clearness. This is what I see it is, not what I imagine it is. Above all, it’s vividly aware of itself as all this, and free from every limitation. Described negatively, it’s my way out of the tightest spot, my escape route from the most secure of prisons. Described positively, it’s my way in to the absolute Liberty that I am. It didn’t forsake me when the Officer thought he had me cooped up in his cell. It doesn’t forsake me now in this sombre courtroom, of which it is the fourth side - the bright side which is God’s side.
    Yes! Every room - every place I am ever supposed to be ‘in’ - has its God’s side. Which is my side. My let-out from the world, and my let-in to its Source. Here’s the silver lining to the darkest cloud that ever gathered.
    For thousands of years the wise have been siding with God and taking this way Home; and recommending, with all the eloquence at their command, this royal road from human bondage back to divine freedom. Now, at last, instead of being told about it by experts, we are being shown it. We are invited to see our own way through to God’s own country. The Clear Country we’re coming from and returning to.
    COUNSEL, slicing the air with his brief: Did you hear what he said, members of the Jury? Graciously, Mr John a-Nokes takes God’s side! Not, as you might think, out of need or reverence, but because of Who he thinks he is, because it’s naturally his side. This, you’ll agree, is blasphemy without qualms, the laid-back