The Helianx Proposition/cover

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Introduction

“Many aeons ago, as measured by our present way of calculating time,
there dwelt in the vast, dark, velvet curve of Space…
a band of enchanted Space Gypsies.”


Thus began my first hearing of the Helianx tale. These trance-inducing words were spoken in magical, deep, slow British tones in a darkened room before a large glowing fireplace. The voice began without preamble, and the speaker, silhouetted before the embers, his long white hair shadowing his face, seemed no less than Merlin himself.

The circle of listeners in the great salon that night in 1983 included writers, Nobel laureates, film directors, brain scientists, publishers, business leaders, psychologists, actors, research chemists, several teenagers, and a few urban shamans. It was Saturday night of the first “Mad Scientists and Artists Party,” a three-day gathering convened by social visionary Marilyn Ferguson at a friend’s estate south of San Francisco.

The important things in life grow in value through reflection over time. The aural transmission received by the rapt audience that evening has had its own ripple effect. The story matured in the minds of both the listeners and of the teller of the tale, Timothy Wyllie, and now, in its evolved form, it comes to you as this book.

I had first been introduced to Timothy by Marilyn Ferguson at one of Buckminster Fuller’s last lectures in New York. She brought us together saying, “You two are both interested in dragons.” In the space of the ten-minute intermission, we reveled in being able to plunge right in without having to justify or explain ourselves. We both already knew that something was afoot if a “myth” is accompanied by similar descriptive imagery in cultures on all continents throughout known history. If dragons were “imaginary,” why then did everyone seem to ‘imagine’ them as large phylogenic hybrids, part snake, part bird, with claws like lions, manes like horses, and voices like thunder, or some other improbable and colorful mix? The Rainbow Serpent of the Australian Aboriginal, the feathered and dazzling Quetzalcoatl of the Aztecs, the benevolent bringers of wind and rain of the Chinese, or the fierce and feared abductors of maidens and hoarders of treasure of Northern Europe –– dragons were everywhere.

“Dragons are often held to have major spiritual significance in various religions and cultures around the world. In many Asian cultures dragons were, and in some cultures still are, revered as representative of the primal forces of nature, religion and the universe. They are associated with wisdom—often said to be wiser than humans—and longevity. They are commonly said to possess some form of magic or other supernatural power, and are often associated with wells, rain, and rivers. In some cultures, they are also said to be capable of human speech.” -–– From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To pursue such mysteries is to “ride between the worlds,” as the Celtic storytellers are apt to say. The book in your hands is your ticket to that ride. Here are some suggestions as to how to assimilate what you will see and hear.

You might start by reading the story aloud to yourself the first time through. It will taste different that way. Find yourself a quiet spot with good acoustics. (The Queen’s chamber in the Great Pyramid of Gizeh comes to mind.)

In its present form, The Helianx Proposition unifies three stages of expression. The original story can be read in the calligraphic text, later illuminated by the images that emerged over nearly three decades of intuitive work. On your second reading of the text, slow down even more and let the written words resonate with the dream forms and colors.

Wait enough time between those two readings of the story. This will allow your mind to digest and transmute the sounds and the images, and to begin the opening of the many-petalled blossom of understanding.

Eventually, when you feel that you know the tale well and have soaked awhile in its pool, start to add the third and final layer of the text on the facing pages. As with many ancient philosophical manuscripts, an original text is revisited by later scholars, who then write commentaries to assist the student in deriving more from the information. This is something like what Timothy himself experienced while working on the book during the thirty years since he first wrote down the story.

In the facing-page commentaries you will be offered additional details, and be asked to consider new concepts and be invited to explore vast spaces. You may find yourself going carefully, gradually deciphering and integrating new terms and levels of interpretation. Little by little, your mind’s eye will broaden to take in vistas of cosmic dimension, pulses of time so long as to be beyond the awareness of any less long-lived than the Helianx.

This suggested way of reading recapitulates my own journey into the primordial world of the Helianx, that great antecedent to our more recent notions of the dragon in all its forms. The interplay of the three levels of information presented in this book resembles a kind of exponential Bach fugue, with themes moving at different speeds and weaving themselves together in inter-dimensional flows of time.

At some point some of you may begin to recognize yourself in this music. We all have capacities yet untapped. We are able to sense the possibility of the Helianx practice of group telepathy, feel the genetic cargo of the ancient archives of Helianx memory, and connect with the task which Nöé embraced, to pass on the precious dormant seed of that vast encoded experience to the worlds of the future, eventually to be brought home to the waiting community of minds.

The flower that opens then will answer the great question…

“Why?”

Fredric Lehrman Seattle 2009

Author's Description

The Helianx Proposition is a cosmic fable, a creation myth that floated down one late night in 1979 in an unbroken six-hour stretch of writing after contemplating the deeper symbolic meaning of the traditional Christian Garden of Eden scene and wondering, yet again, what on earth the Serpent was doing there. Since the creature's impact on the two humans was apparently so profound, it appeared that perhaps the Serpent, too, had a divine origin and a valuable function to perform. At that point The Helianx Proposition started writing itself.

The next 30 years were spent illustrating and calligraphing the story using graphite on parchment as the medium always intending to do them in color and that when the time was right, computer technology would allow coloring the black and white images.

By 2001, the technology had arrived in affordable form and then the black and white pages were digitally photographed and printed on watercolor paper using a high-end ink jet technology called Giclee printing. After learning Adobe Photoshop with the idea of using software to color the images. it would become clear that even more time might be required to color the pages digitally than to do it by hand--and not half as much fun. Consequently, the addition of color to the printed image was made by applying dry pigments, rephotographing the image, and then cleaning it up and make any minor adjustments using Adobe Photoshop before printing the page.

The Helianx Proposition will be available at some point in the future in three forms, 1) a limited edition of handmade books on materials designed to last many generations; 2) a boxed set in which interested readers might build themselves by purchasing archival prints page by page; and 3) a traditional coffee table edition which may be picked up by a publisher of such books.

Because of the fluid and seamless way in which the Helianx Proposition came through originally it is evident, there may be elements of considerable interest to the contemporary cosmologist, and which will perhaps add some insight into the odd persistence of the presence of dragons, cosmic snakes and rainbow serpents in the stories we have told ourselves over the thousands of years of human history.

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