Antonia White, Terry Pratchett, snakes and a big coincidence

The novelists Antonia White and Stella Benson have more in common than biographical material that has a very depressing and exasperating effect on impressionable readers.

Stella Benson’s love of snakes  has already been covered; I have recently learned that, at least as a child, Antonia  White was a snake lover too. Not only that, but just like Stella Benson she was taken behind the scenes at London Zoo to meet some snakes.

Antonia White was a small girl and Stella Benson an adult when they visited the snakes, which was around 1904/05 for Antonia and in 1917 for Stella. The big coincidence here is that the same person was involved in both invitations to see the snakes up close.

How the visits came about
As previously mentioned, Stella Benson’s privileged visits came about because at the time she was staying with a friend whose husband, Edouard (sometimes anglicised to Edward) Boulenger, was Director of Reptiles at London Zoo.

Some years earlier, Antonia’s father had been great friends with both the eminent Belgian zoologist George Boulenger and his son the above-mentioned Edouard, who at the time was Curator of Reptiles at London Zoo.

Edouard conducted Antonia on tours of the snake cages. She loved holding some of them, which neither of her parents had the courage to do.

Stella Benson felt that she had the soul of a snake. Antonia White sometimes felt less than human. Perhaps they both felt drawn to snakes because they had reptilian-like personalities.

Terry Pratchett, L. M Montgomery and Fairyland

Terry Pratchett’s description of Fairyland in The Wee Free Men has reminded me of a passage I came across recently in one of L. M. Montgomery’s books. She too has something to say about the place.

Their views and descriptions are very different. Terry Pratchett is all negative while L. M. Montgomery is all positive.

Terry Pratchett describes a kind of hell universe that people are relieved to escape from while L. M. Montgomery describes a heavenly paradise that produces an unbearable sense of loss in people who have been banished from it forever.

Terry Pratchett’s Fairyland is an actual world than can be visited by a few select people while L. M. Montgomery’s, although not open to most people, is an inner world.

Terry Pratchett’s Fairyland drains real worlds and has nothing to give while L. M. Montgomery’s world is a wellspring of wonders that can be brought out into our world and shared.

L. M. Montgomery’s description of Fairyland leaves out something important that Terry Pratchett highlights.

Taylor Caldwell’s gods and Terry Pratchett’s elves

Taylor Caldwell and Terry Pratchett wrote very different types of books, but they both touched on the subject of humans as playthings of evil and sadistic supernatural beings.

They describe one aspect of this phenomenon in much the same way, although they use different words and blame different paranormal entities.

From Taylor Caldwell’s Romance of Atlantis:

“...the gods amuse themselves by tormenting us. They fire us with thirst, then give us stagnant water with which to quench that thirst. They endow the sensitive with majestic desires, with yearnings for beauty, with radiant spirits with which they might enjoy glorious things, and then let these unhappy wretches eat out their hearts in unsatisfied longings.“

Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novel Lords and Ladies contains some warnings about elves. I quoted him in an article about energy vampires. Here is a relevant extract:  

“All they can give is gold that melts away in the morning. They make us want what we can't have, and what they give us is worth nothing and what they take is everything and all that is left for us is the cold hillside and emptiness and the laughter of the elves.”

Being tormented by unsatisfied longings, being made to want what they can’t have and being left empty and desolate happens to people in this world too. What the two authors say above will seem spot on to them, a perfect description of what happened to them and how they feel about it.

Taylor Caldwell’s Atlantean gods, who sound more like demons to me, can’t be blamed for this misery in our world, nor can Terry Pratchet’s malevolent Discworld elves.

Is this suffering just a part of life for certain types of people, divine discontent and all that, or are sinister unseen influences at work in our world too?

Cult members: giving more and more in return for less and less

Something I read  in Joyce Collin-Smith's Call No Man Master  about the Maharishi Yogi reminds me of something I read in Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies about the Elf Queen. 

We start with an amusing anecdote from a serious book; the second extract is a serious statement from a very amusing book.  

From Call No Man Master

Joyce Collin-Smith tells us that the Maharishi Yogi started out by initiating people in return for fruit and flowers, but he went on to demand larger and larger sums of money in return for his teachings. Even the basic courses were very costly, and the lessons in special techniques became steadily more and more expensive. Some people deprived both themselves and their families to pay his exorbitant fees.

These special techniques were supposed to teach people to become clairvoyant, to manipulate the forces of nature and to levitate!

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part II: Terry Pratchett’s books

I have found that Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books brighten the atmosphere: they are ideal for driving away black moods and dispersing the dark clouds of depression. 

I particularly like the books that feature his three main witch characters, Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick. The three witches in Macbeth were the inspiration for these ladies. He said that three is a natural number for witches. It is just a coincidence that when I was at school, someone likened me and my two sisters to the three witches in Macbeth!

Not only do these books entertain, amuse and raise one’s spirits, they also contain material that seems to me to be relevant to some topics on this blog. I have already made a connection between the effects that Terry Pratchett’s illusion-creating elves have on humans and the effects that some glamorous energy vampires have on their victims.

Some of what Pratchett says about magic and how it attracts undesirable entities could apply to unconscious or psychological black magic and how it attracts – or is even caused by - forces that sabotage the lives of the practitioners. 

Energy vampires in books: Terry Pratchett and J.K. Rowling

There are many articles about energy vampires (meaning the human kind, not electrical appliances on standby) to be found online. Some have nothing new or original to add to existing knowledge in either the material itself or the presentation and interpretation: they just repeat the basics. 

Some articles are written by people who are trying to sell something: they consist of snippets surrounded by advertisements. 

Many such articles are superficial, positioned at the level of pop psychology; others are all generalisations with nothing coming from personal experiences. Many books on the subject are not much better.

Some of this information may be suitable for people who want an introduction to the subject, or to learn how to deal with a difficult colleague at the office or a negative, self-pitying mother who won’t get off the phone, but some of us want something deeper and more substantial, something that takes metaphysical factors and the very worst examples into account.

In this connection, I have found two examples of fictional energy vampires that resonate very strongly with me. They come from the works of Terry Pratchett and J. K. Rowling.