One aim of the High Country Community Magazine now sadly defunct) was to record our past, and our present for the informing of the future. Set against geological time the whole of Human history is little more than a blink of the eye of Eternity. But the Soul is as old as time itself and “Intimations of Immortality” are a backdrop to all our lives. The artists painting on the walls of caves by the light of tallow flares were us, and we go back far,far before them. This may seem a fanciful concept, but if you believe with Plato that the soul is immortalised through reincarnation, and that knowledge is the soul’s recollection of previous incarnations, then the tremendous leap in scientific knowledge and technology that has taken place in the past few centuries becomes explainable. Our interest in the past is more than mere curiosity;it is a manifestation of what Jung called the Collective Unconscious. We have this urge to keep in touch with what we were, are and always will be “a remembering soul with access to divine knowledge through ‘intuitive thought.’” But apart from all that what an inspiring turnout we had for our first AGM.
Anne and Rob Brooks entertained us with slides, Ghosts and tales of ghosts always enthrall, and it struck me that when we watch old films, or look at photographs of dead people we are actually seeing ghosts. In that sense we are all ghosts of the future; but hopefully not of the scary variety!
Now we can all look forward to enjoying the programme of events mapped out by the committee. I am looking forward very much to visiting Hatfield Broad Oak.
Ken Feakes