Eep

Past life regression therapy was a big deal in the seventies and from memory celebs such as Shirley MacLaine (1)(2) went through the process and inevitably discovered their past life was, like them now, also in the top tenth of one per cent of the social strata—Cleopatra, French nobility, the dude in charge of the King's Toilet (3). Past life regression rode the wave of spiritual uplift that occurred in the flower-power era just past. It is likely hokum, as likely an actual body-releases-spirit-to-new-body existing probability as Dawkins would say of fairies existing at the bottom of the garden (4)

So I was watching The Thick of It and Malcolm Tucker made a comment about what sounded like 'James Mapewether hates himself'. Presuming that was I'd heard I sat down and did a search for James Mapewether. I had a link to James Mapes pop up instead.

I am a man not adverse to improving my skillz (and shit) and am into accepting opportunities when possible do I clicked on the wiki for James Mapes to read about it and discovered that Mapes was a 19th century scientist. 

I couldn't but help however notice the photo. It looked sort of like me were I old, had let my remaining hair sprout, and that the fashions of the time demand that I pronate my stomach against snug fitted clothing. 

It was most unsettling. It was a kind of past-life regression moment only where the body I was once in resembled much the body I was in now. Perhaps the spirit gets accustomed to a certain type and even though in the new body I have no memory of the old but once more, for some reason, my spirit chose short and fat?

When I was in high school I played a lot of solo Advanced Dungeon's and Dragons. Oh, don't be sad for me, it was my most favourite thing to do. I had a party set in Greyhawk and I took them on jaunts through randomly generated dungeons and then a couple of the officially released campaigns—the Slavers series and Against the Giants through to Demonweb Pits to name but a few. 

One of my characters was Sir Roderick Blackstar. He was a half-elven cavalier, using the game-mechanics from the first edition enhanced rules-set, Unearthed Arcana (5). As Blackstar progressed in power he obtained followers and eventually I decided he founded a city where he mined super hard metals (6).

Thanks to my love of AD&D it led me, as it led so many other people into fields of endeavour—with countless lawyers, geographers, scientists, writers, writers, writers, actors, writer/performers owing their entry to their field to having played the game and expanding their desire to read books or delve into concepts that they encountered in the game—to explore the wonders of human history, to read about explorers, scientists, peoples, customs, sexy-time secrets; all that guff. And given my dad was also a farmer I read about crop rotation mechanics in the Middle Ages. 

Armed with this knowledge I decided to apply it in game to Blackstar, assigning multiple non-weapon skill proficiencies to agriculture so as to improve his people's yield (7). I even went as far to photocopy pages showing the evolving of open field farming to three-field-system and four-field-systems and attaching them to Blackstar's character sheet. Though in retrospect given the hilly climes of his hidden city that mined super hard metals, terrace farming would have been more applicable.

So why go into a long-winded roleplaying character story, a story which can totally bore the upper lady bits off anyone in ear shot if performed poorly? 

Because James Mape, in addition to being a chemist and inventor, was an agricultural scientist. 

That's another nail in the past-life regression coffin LIFTED from the lid, right there; a vague possible resemblance to what I'd look as a future me now combined with Mape's lifelong cause and passion of agriculture being also a minor fleeting interest I had as a girl-denied child-man who unilaterally declared his AD&D character had laid claim a chunk of hillside—and, what's this? Now he has a mine for super hard metal, ho-ho-ho.

Anyway, that's something to think about. Have a fun dreary weekend!

(1) This is not to rag shit on Ms MacLaine. She is a most-awesome actress of whom I was first associated with when I watched her hilarious comedic turns in Cannonball Run II. I should also point out that past-life regression therapy as a mystic-themed concept is no less whack-a-doodle than anything else out there, from the Abrahamic faiths through to the most ancient of fire-gazers. In the end we all die and we all spend our time trying to deal with that. The idea that you forever float from body to body and obtain wild adventures you'd not had in this life is a tremendously beautiful and lustrous thing. How awesome would that were true.

(2) Shirley MacLaine also most-excellently fell asleep (2a) during a John Howard speech at a dreary function where he was droning on in that horrid 'er um oh oh er um too many Asians' manner he had when pontificating from a podium. The TV news later gleefully ran snippets of her nodding off. I tried to find the moment on YouTube but could not. But of the words I used to hunt for it this was the number one ranking. I think that's just spankingly awesome.

(2a) Still with me? I'm impressed. Not many people get this far. It feels like an Easter Egg, don't it? Any-hoo the reason she was there is because she was the date of Andrew Peacock, Howard's intra-party rival during the '80s (2b). They spent

(2b) I once hugely got in trouble for putting out reports that didn't meet the standards of the Australian Government Standards Manual. I'd just been pottering along for years doing the wrong thing because, sadly, I didn't know any better. So I learned. I combed through it and I embedded its rules and regs consistently and without fail, even in places like this, because I never ever wanted to do it in a dumb manner again. A clean report that is well-written and has all its formatting and punctuation (mostly) correct 'tis a beautiful thing. I feel like an artisan in older times who crafted functional items that were also things that were pleasing to behold. Anyway the correct usage of the contracted decade when expressed in numbers is to have an single quote mark representing the first two digits, the number, then an s. For example, '60s for the nineteen sixties. We were talking about a report just edited and theBoss said the new convention was to shave space where you can and not be overly formal. So you didn't need the single quote mark in the single quote mark+digits+s string any more. The representation '60s would be equally valid as 60s. This was the person who methodically, and rightly, pulled me up on my failings and led my to stick my nose to the stone of the manual and learn all its arcane secrets. Down to how some post-nominals are italicised and having to put a note on a report explaining that to the next one up the chain because it looked wrong to have 'OA, ACG,' even though it was most right. And to now be told to put all that aside and be all lassie-faire from now on seems fucked. And annoying. And I won't do it.

(3) I think that was a real job, too.
(4) It gives me somewhat snooty pleasure, like the person who ruins the story of Disney's head, to say that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of logician cocaine-abusing detective Sherlock Holmes, actually did believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden. Mapes himself was a spiritualist ... and a friend of Arthur Conan Doyle!

(5) If you have a copy give it a whiff. Seriously, smell it. That's the most glorious book smell I have ever smelled. It smelled like actual Unearthed Arcana. It is a memory forever associated with the happier times of childhood, utterly losing yourself in another world so, so, so much better than this one. Also check out 2b where I use a work book like an actual manual of unearthed arcana. Go me! I'm a big fat dynamo!

(6) I know, it seems dreadfully sad and hideously girl-repelling. But, back then, girl-repelling was already mission accomplished. So in many ways I was free to live a nerdy live because I was already dealt out of the romance game. In retrospect it made me what I am so I have to embrace it.

(7) Trying singing 'improve his people's yield' to the tune backing 'Let my Cameron go'. You'll be pleasantly surprised how good it makes you feel.