Why I wrote "The secret of the elements"

It is about 3 years since I wrote 'The secret of the elements' and a year since it was published with Armida Publications. The question I am regularly asked by fans and friends is why I wrote the book. Apart from the obvious reason, because the book answers that question, I guess people want to know what mind-frame instigated the story, what was the spark of inspiration.

It begins with Mikhail Bakunin “if god exists I am legal opposition.”  And “Satan is the emancipator of man” It begins with Rimbaud’s Satan is light and God is darkness.

And me thinking Satan is complimentary of God and to use one to oppose the other may shock and help to prove a point but cancels the argument out completely.

It begins with me smoking a cigarette outside a student house at the University of Surrey thinking “is it possible for a mortal to trick Satan on a soul sale.” It begins with my optimism for the future of mankind agreeing with Isaac Asimov that one day we will colonize our galaxy and disagreeing that Earth will be a myth for that mankind.

But that is not all.

I grew up in superstition, in stories from the elder women in my mother’s village about ghosts and demons. I grew up with myths and religion. Then I discovered mathematics and nanotechnology. I discovered poetry and philosophy, scientific method and the arts and then it was light.

I read a great deal of books where human life is a tragedy and I tend to agree that yes life is a tragedy. Happiness is rare, optimism is wishful thinking and our death is certain. In orthodox Christianity Judaism is much stronger than Catholicism. Life on earth is a painful path, obedience to the dogma and God’s will, shall bring relief, eternal life and peace and happiness after death. Any deviation from it will lock the “soul” into earth, in purgatory, in hell.

Aristotle claimed that man has two natures of god and animal, of instinct and logic. I found that the religious dogma call for the suppression of instincts through illogical and irrational practices. It is impossible to escape your nature, and by refusing it or abstaining from it religion manages to fabricate an army of hypocrites with no escape from hell. Religionistas terrorize society with images of monsters that rape and kill the innocent. But that is part of human nature. Atheists will terrorize society with religious monsters that rape and kill those who do not believe. It is reasonable then to believe that there is no future for mankind. That mankind is a parasite driving other life forms to extinction and pretty much does the same to less dominant cultures.

This planet is destined to become a desert, a red dessert painted in blood.

What is also part of human nature is teamwork. Humans help each other instinctively, they recognize that in order to survive and adapt to their environment they require the help of others. Intelligence and rational thinking are the evolution tools of humanity.

When I was studying at University of Hull there was a rumor going on about the new Vice Chancellor. According to the libel in his thesis there was a claim that technology was society’s doom. I never read the thesis but many of the technology orientated staff used it to explain university’s decision not to co-fund their scientific projects. I do remember though our literature teacher in high-school telling us that we do not need any more technology, that we can stop producing more technology and freeze progress to live a life concentrated more on the arts. I also remember reading in Richard Feynman the argument he had with an artist that a scientist cannot see the poetic beauty of plant for example. Richard claimed that a scientist can see the building elements of the plant, the mechanisms in its chemistry, its atomic structure and there is beauty there in abundance.

I had enough of arguments between the arts and sciences, about poetic beauty in elements, enough of people arguing about politics, art, science and religion. I found them to be dogmatic. Dogma’s are congregative and promote segregation.

I isolated myself and dreamed of a world in a transition between death and biological or scientific immortality. In a world with no death, humanity evolves somewhat differently. I dreamed of a place where there are no questions unanswered. I dreamed of a world where the only missing element in construction is conquered. A world were time becomes a building block. I dreamed of an academic world where ideas come together to compliment one another, where music is the bridge between science and arts. I dreamed of one phantasmagoric human culture, of one language, of a unique organism. Then I wrote ‘The secret of the elements’. In the book an avant-garde composer Bartholomew Marshal has to negotiate with the devil that was tricked by his grand mother Basilica Marshal. He asked for the ‘Secret of the elements’ in exchange of her soul. Barto’s mind aged one million years in a week. He envisioned many parallel versions of the future of mankind; he managed to see the beginning, the end and the rebirth of the cosmos within the short time frame of one million years (of on week or one nanosecond). In this book Satan and God are competitors and both heads of large corporations fighting so hard for control in a soon to be obsolete market.

In this book I made man both immortal and a god, then god and its cronies seized to exist.

Our human nature, the one I love so very much, comes forward in Basilica Marshal’s life, the epicenter of the book, the little village girl with a refreshing view on life. Basilica is the mother of three kids that met no father and grandmother of a very special boy. The story is told by a bipolar scientist friend of Barto, who fights his own demons daily. I wanted to write a story that respects our need for life and our need of a guardian in control of the unexpected. It is not an atheist manifesto. Maybe it is the opposite, maybe it is a theist manifesto with humanity as the new god. It is all written with a touch of humor in English by a non native speaker. European English, with odd phrases directly translated from a mind thinking in English and Greek.