Esoterica and Sime/Gen Fandom

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Title:	Esoterica and Sime/Gen Fandom
Creator:	Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Date(s):	May 1989
Medium:	print
Fandom:	Sime~Gen
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Esoterica and Sime/Gen Fandom is an essay by Jacqueline Lichtenberg with many comments by fans.

It was originally a round robin series of letters, and some of the results were printed in Ambrov Zeor #17 in 1989, as well as Companion in Zeor #10 and Householding Chanel Inquirer #2. It appears that while the essay was printed in all three of these zines, the letters chosen for each one are different.

The essay One Personal Journey in Association with Jacqueline: A Reply to "Esoterica and Sime/Gen Fandom" was written and printed in response to Esoterica and Sime/Gen Fandom.

Some Topics Discussed

• esoterica
• Sime/Gen fandom, fans, and fanworks
• the personal beliefs of Jacqueline Lichtenberg and how they are, and are not, reflected in her books
• that some fans are stepping away and disassociating themselves from the fandom due to what is expressed in the House of Zeor series of books, some of these fans cite their pastors and church; at least one fan cites racism, abelism, and homophobia
• "The Same/Gen universe was wholly conceptualized by the time I was 16, but fiction was not written in it until I was about 26."
• feminism
• asking questions
• the relationship between science and Magick

Excerpts from Lichtenberg's Essay

Recently, a number of people have brought to my attention an odd problem among readers of, and contributors to, the Sime/Gen fanzines. People seem to be disturbed about what they infer my personal, everyday-reality philosophy to be. The inferences they have drawn seem to be causing them to dissociate themselves from S/G fandom, and for all I know, from sf fandom in general. This disturbs me because people who would find the association distressing should not have been seduced into it in the first place. Therefore, I am going to try to state my position in such a way that those who would find it incompatible won't get any further than the following two paragraphs.

Since my very earliest coherent memory, I have guided my thinking according to one, simple, cardinal principle: Question everything. I work by it, I play by it, I worship by it, and I love by it. There is nothing I do not question. Absolutely nothing.

...in order to challenge a taboo, one must first identify it. The intrinsic characteristic of a taboo which makes it identifiable to those who have internalized it is that it is unthinkable, it is wrong, it is self-evidently evil.

When that reflex is triggered, my personal question-generating mechanism goes into hyperdrive and the result is a novel, or perhaps a series of novels.

My purpose in life is to induce people (myself included) into questioning unconscious assumptions, to think their way into the blind spots inside their own psyche. Not my psyche; their own psyche.

I do not provide answers to the questions I generate. This leaves some people in exquisite agony, and the result is their own personal artistic endeavor that leads them closer to their own personal contact with the divine: not my contact point to the divine—their own.

I have been the nexus of this sort of energy-vortex all of my life long. I don't see it changing in the near future, or even the far future. However, the subject matter I focus on has changed many times and will continue to change. What answers I have to the questions I generate, the answers I use to select my daily actions and direct my personal life, have changed many times, and will no doubt continue to change.

I do not promulgate these answers, not in my books, not in fandom, not in S/G fandom, not among my personal friends and closest associates, not even among my own family. My "answers" are nothing more than tentative hypotheses which I am testing by betting my life on them. This is a process which brings me, personally, a great deal of satisfaction and contentment, mostly because it is a process. It is ever-changing, ongoing, endless. It is not static.

People who wish their lives to remain in stasis should not associate with me. I induce change everywhere I touch.

This in no way distinguishes me. Most people have this effect on others. What does distinguish me is the range and depth of the subject matter I tackle.

There were several early concepts of the S/G universe, one of them having the Simes take blood from the Gens as well as selyn (i.e. that Simes were vampires; yes, I've been incubating Those of My Blood all those yearsl). I dropped the blood aspect for writing craft reasons; it made explaining what Simes are and what channels are ever so much more difficult. And it added nothing to the drama. That left me free to postulate other things about where the S/G mutation came from and why. That freedom left me room to add in elements which I thought at the time were totally original with me.

One of those elements was reincarnation, which I invented whole cloth out of my own imagination. I didn't even know there was a word for the phenomenon. I built reincarnation into the S/G universe, as a postulate designed to display original thinking. When I discovered I was a bit tardy, I was crushed. (Do you know how crushed a 17 year old can get?) I thereupon made it my business to read through the entire esoteric/ESP/UFO collection in the library and to ransack all the used book stores for works on such subjects.

As I have been studying the "real world" occult sciences, I have been incorporating questions concerning these sciences into my fiction. I can't emphasize the following statement too strongly:

MY OWN PERSONAL EVERYDAY GUIDING PHILOSOPHY IS NOT PRESENTED IN MY BOOKS IN ANY WAY.

It is not possible to extrapolate backwards from my novels to my personal philosophy.

it is, however, not possible to comprehend my personal philosophy without having virtually memorized my novels. My novels are like the traces in a bubble chamber—given the right mathematical formulas, the physicist can discern what sub-nuclear particle caused the trace. Knowing how that particle behaves in other experiments, the physicist can hold forth for hours on the significance of the existence of such a particle. Without the mathematical formulae or the results of other experiments, the physicist can only make puzzled noises and begin asking questions.

For someone who was born thinking; the way I do, my novels are footsteps in the sand, a trail blazed, a hint that makes the questing a bit easier. For anyone else, the most my novels can do is energize the question-generating mechanism in that reader's head.

My books do not provide answers. In most cases, they don't even suggest answers, and in some cases they don't even pose questions. Often, all the reader can get is a sense of having encountered a whole new blank area of their own psyche which defines a hitherto taboo area, an area virgin to questioning.

Some of those questions are VERY DISTURBING.

"What if the scientific view of reality -- the view which has virtually stopped the famine cycle, extended the life expectancy by decades, reduced the risk of childbearing, decreased infant mortality, whipped every disease to come down the pike except AIDS, and given us word processors to boot—what'if the scientific view of reality is all wrong?"

Or worse yet, "What if everything I was taught in Sunday School is ALL WRONG?"

The real corker: "What if nobody alive, nobody who has ever lived, understands what's really happening in the world?"

I don't believe in reincarnation. I don't believe in astrology. I don't believe in Tarot.

I can work real-world everyday life problems in terms of various sorts of reincarnation systems (and my own personal one which differs from all the commonly accepted ones and from all the ones described in my novels or yet to be described in my novels). Given a real-world problem, I can give you the solution that would come from Tarot or astrology just the same as I used to do the math to balance a chemical equation. But do not assume that because I can work a problem in a particular system that I necessarily would apply the solution that system suggests to my everyday life. I do not "believe in" any of these systems.

Astrology and Tarot are systems of thought which, just like chemistry, can't be criticized by someone who can't "do" them. I have nearly reached a point where I can "do" them. During the next five to seven years, you will see more occult themes brought to high focus in my novels, I think. But those with sharp ayes will also see (probably before I, myself, see) the beginnings of some new discipline I must master before questioning, and the beginnings of some VERY disturbing questions about Science and Magick and the relationship between them.

For the moment, I "view" Science as a branch of Magick, and both as a branch of Art which is a subset of Spiritual Growth, which is the Purpose of Life insofar as a living thing can know it.

The prominence of Feminism in our society has brought some new questions into focus, questions I may explore in several novels. I have lots of questions but no answers, and as far as I yet know, nobody has ever asked some of my most worrisome questions.

According to my current hypotheses (which will probably be out of date before anyone else reads this), 20th century civilization is hurtling at breakneck pace down a blind alley toward a brick wall. My views are very unpopular ones in this area and a lot of S/G fen find them odious in the extreme.

I'll put it in jargon shorthand to which I won't give you the key. See if this makes any sense, but don't rely wholly on your first interpretation of it.

Women should not be taught to practice assertiveness or aggression. The reason that women in our society now must do combat with men under men's rules in order to gain power over, their own lives is that way back before Aristotle's, day.human society lost an archetype. We retained the Warrior Archetype but lost its obverse. Check out the self-help and psych and occult book racks in the chain stores—lots of books about the occult training of a Warrior. In sf/f, we have lots of books about women-in-brass-bras, women who can swing a sword and let out a blood-curdling battle cry. The Warrior Archetype embodies the best of what an Adult Man ought to be. Our society has no corresponding image of the traits of an Adult Woman. Since, in our society, adultness means Warrior, and childness means powerless victim of Warrior, any girl who wants to become a woman has to become a Warrior or perish psychically. If she becomes a Warrior, she perishes psychically because the only definition of Warrior is Adult Man.

If enough women become Warriors of the Male School, we're going to smash ourselves to smithereens on that brick wall. (And New York State is currently wondering why one infant a day is dying from child-abuse and neglect in New York—a doubling from last year, a veritable epidemic and they're so puzzled!) So we're missing the Adult Woman archetype. By Symmetry, one of the pervasive principles of Science, we can also see that we're missing the Archetype of Magick, having overdeveloped the archetypes of Science. We're limping along on one leg, and now we've decided to weld our legs together rather than try for a real healing.

Excerpts from Some of the Published Responses

[Linda W]:

My mother taught me to be open-minded and question things. Without this wonderful person's support and love, I wouldn't be the person I am today. You've only added to my growth as a human being and any changes you tend to bring in my life are welcome. (Like I said, these things are learning experiences—valuable lessons to be learned!) It has never been a problem for me to look into a suggested topic and read whatever I could. It just isn't important to me whether I "believe" it or not. (Occult, et cetera) It, too, is knowledge. What is important to me is keeping a sense of balance—no matter how fine—in my life. Values in my life are always changing. They do in everyone's life, only some people don't recognize it.

[Kier N]:

I had been wondering about that since I heard about someone dropping S/G because her pastor didn't approve. It is an unfortunate fact that questioning is viewed so negatively today. My classmates have fits every time my hand goes up because I use a wide vocabulary and they (American teens) don't understand more English than a kindergartener. They also dislike my questioning the teacher on arguable points. Debating seems to be a lost skill. Blind stubbornness has replaced it.

Way back when I started reading SF (25 years ago) (Heinlein & Asimov & Bradbury) I didn't agree with the answers these gentlemen came up with, but their questions were interesting and led me to question other things in my turn. My first words have always been "Why?" and "But, why?"

In general, I have found that many women find Heinlein objectionable for his "chauvinistic views." Ummm. He certainly writes definite paradigms on what he considers to be where and what a woman is and a man is and their respective positions in society. But it is important not to confuse the writer with the writing.

[snipped]

When Feminism started in America, it unfortunately focused on the slogan "Women are just as good as men!" Well, so are apples just as good as eggs!

We live in a male-dominated society. (Calling it a patriarchy, says one of my favorite sociologists, is a misnomer—there aren't enough men heading their families these days.) We women have shown that we can beat men at their own game. But we can only do it by putting aside that which makes us women. Child-bearing and breast-feeding. (Men could, can and do do a lot of the rest on occasion.) If our society is to be turned aside from hitting that brick wall that JL talks about we will have to create our own new archetypes. This means that the Warrior archetype has to be changed or replaced. We cannot create a modern woman archetype without a modern man archetype instead of the warrior ideal. A womanly archetype that does womanly things. A new current of thought is Womanism.

[snipped]

I am sorry that SF & F and particularly S/G are losing some of the fen. But from some of the stuff I have read recently, I think many confused young people today are looking for a belief system that will help their limping steps to find a world-view that will make them strong. If they do that, sooner or later their favorite author will betray them because the ones who stay the course in being published are the ones who regard every taboo as "fair game." I found a hint in Heinlein that Doc Smith was going to write a seventh Lensman novel but that it couldn't be published. Since the last scene between Mentor and one of the four girls was her despair at not being able to marry (no men up to her stature but her brother)—well, chew on it a while. I think that those who stick the course in SF & F are the ones slowly creating the new images that shall strengthen humankind. (And I never want to hear "mankind" again!

[Torun A]:

First of all, I had no idea that anyone would dissociate themselves from S/G fandom, or sf fandom in general because of concerns with an author's personal thoughts, philosophy, or any other aspect of their lives so I find the issue surprising to start with. I find the article interesting in that Jacqueline has shared a great deal about herself in it, which is an extremely open and trusting gesture. Not too many people feel good and clear enough about themselves to take that kind of risk. I think that her curiosity and questioning approach in life is what makes her books so interesting— they're probing, asking many questions in a variety of different ways that stimulate the reader into thinking about themselves and the world around them. This approach may be difficult for some readers who don't pay too much attention to their environment but simply go through life doing customary things in customary ways since that is how they were told to do them.

[snipped]

I find it comforting that one of my favorite authors doesn't believe in reincarnation, astrology or Tarot but that she can work these systems and "do" them.

I totally agree that Feminism has brought questions into focus, but I emphatically do not agree that humans shouldn't be taught assertiveness, regardless of sex. We are all responsible for our actions and part of that responsibility means defining ourselves and asserting our right to be ourselves. Assertiveness simply means to not let someone else trespass on our personhood and will stop aggressors in their tracks without in turn trying to change them or trespass on their personhood. I believe that every human being should be able to do so, and that means to be assertive. Aggression I don't care for, either in men or women, so I think men shouldn't be taught aggressiveness either. I think that an assertive person has power over their own lives without having to do combat at a!!—it's a martial arts way of looking at things. But Jacqueline's right, we have no good role models for women as people, but then we don't have too many good role models for men, either. Perhaps we should focus more an just being good, kind, loving human beings and not worry about having a role to follow.

I hope Jacqueline doesn't dare let those around her not-think about Taboo Zones for a long time. One of those zones could be "Who made the human race Charles-in-charge? Are we, should we be, and what are we going to do about it?"

Nola Frame-Gray:

I am one of those people who have dissociated themselves from S/G fandom. I have not parted ways with sf fandom. While I cannot speak for others who have left S/G, here are my reasons for leaving. It is for these reasons that I had nothing to do with S/G for a solid year, except for dear Kerry Lindemann-Schaefer, who has hung on to me as a pen friend.

Let's say that I was a mulatto (half-black, half-white). Let's also say that a certain SF author were to announce that there are no such thing as Negroid adult rubber band aliens in her universe. The reason for this, according to this author, is that any rubber band aliens who also happen to be black, croak within three months of becoming adults.

Second case in point: Let's say that in this author's same series of books there was a second class of aliens known as paper, it was paper's lot in life to help the rubber band aliens by stretching their potential. Next, this same author states that there can be no creased paper because being creased interferes with the work of stretching the rubber band aliens' potential. As a reader, I might come away from these books, by a certain author, that this writer likes neither Blacks nor imperfection (the disabled?). Particularly if she does not portray these two minorities in a positive way in any other of her series.

The point is that this author has made such similar statements, not by her characters (hence such sentiments could be blamed on them) but by the author, in the author's own name, in her own words, in a semi-public forum known as "fanzines."

The message that I get from JL loud and dear is: All fans welcome! However, if you are not a heterosexual and you are disabled, please take your business elsewhere.

Yes, I can appreciate that not all of an author's "future histories" have biases, points of view which match my own. However, I do not wish to be in the position of seeming to support this author's racist views by continuing to buy and rave about this author's S/G books. The author has the right to dream up any stories she so wishes, I, as consumer, have the right to "vote with my wallet" and not buy her works.

[Dani Z]:

No, the problem with science is not the shakiness of its foundations or its failure to deliver. It's that pesky brick wall. Consider a car zooming along a highway to nowhere-in-particular at 130 mph, in the middle of the night. It surely doesn't need a better motor. And while eventual disaster seems certain, we'd like a better solution than removing the motor. As with our science-driven society, what we need is some guidance behind the wheel!

Ancient Wisdom? Consider Tarot and Astrology, Both purport to provide guidance. I don't think I have to apologize for having them filed, with many related disciplines, under "Tentatively Trash". Certainly I could firm up the classification or discard it by spending a decade or two studying them personally, but why should I take the valuable time when there are so many more promising things to study? Surely not because they make such large claims.

Until better evidence comes along I satisfy myself with what I consider to be reasonable meta-evidence: a) I don't see people reaping significant benefits from these forms of guidance. Benefits.beyond those which one can get from any professional guide, b) In particular, at a time in history when such methods had high levels of acceptance, they weren't successful enough to retain them, c) There are enough people investigating these systems that I'm sure I'll hear if any compelling support for them is found—and I'm still waiting.

[snipped]

Would I leave S/G fandom because I thought JL believed in things I label "Tentatively Trash"? Not directly tor that reason, no, but it would make me uncomfortable. Why? Because, ironically, a large proportion of the people I have known who do hold such beliefs (I'm not swearing that the fault hasn't been mine) have been True Believers. (Not that Science attracts the calm and the rational; Science has the advantage of not being on the defensive.) If (it hasn't happened) JL's continuing attention to the esoteric were to attract many True Believers to the pages of the S/G fanzines, I would probably drop out rather than share cultural space with people who considered me an attitude problem.