Eden: The Novel

By Ken Wisman

EDEN
is two stories: one fictional, one fact.

The fiction: Calif
De'Alsace, a man devoted to the dissemination of life across the galaxy, has
taken a group of one hundred artists and scientists to a sterile world named Eden
for the purpose of bioengineering living works of art. Calif,
an Ankh idealist, has decreed that no weapons be brought and that the group
create a "paradise of peace where beauty...not the law of tooth and
claw...reigns." Unknown to the Eden
group, Calif was forced by a powerful
man to include an artist, Iamoendi, who has secretly been using drugs to
enhance his imaging abilities. Iamoendi, who is descended from Fundamentalist
factions that fought in the Religionist Wars, slowly goes insane. Believing
himself an instrument of god, Iamoendi turns against Project Eden. He obtains
the genome libraries (programmed instructions for bioengineering plants and
animals) for insects and arachnids. Subsequently, he creates an army of huge
insect warriors, and launches a secret attack against Project Eden.

Thirteen survive class=SpellE>Iamoendi's attack. Weaponless, they are forced to create
living weapons in defense. With the battle lines drawn, the war begins. The
survivors create a surprise defense of giganticized ant lions, trapdoor
spiders, and carnivorous plants. They defeat Iamoendi's army, but Iamoendi
escapes. Two more battles ensue in which Iamoendi's attacking monstrosities
become increasingly bizarre and surreal. More and more survivors die with each
battle leading to an ending both poignant and transcendent.

The fact: In the
spirit of Coleridge and Poe who used an opiate to enhance their poetic imagery,
in the spirit of Huxley whose use of peyote awakened his awareness to the
creative use of mind-altering substances, I have set down my own experiences
with altered states as they relate to my creation of EDEN.
My intent is to share my insights into the creative process as well as the
source and derivation of both the philosophy underlying EDEN
and the hallucinatory visions used in the telling of this story. It is a first
person account of how, after being accidentally introduced to a hallucinogen,
my subsequent use and experimentation became the stuff and substance of my
novel EDEN.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 1, 2004
• ISBN: 9781414088891

Ken Wisman

Ken Wisman's credits include the publication of 72 short stories in a variety of genre magazines including Fantasy & Science Fiction, Interzone, and Tomorrow. His work has been included in anthologies such as Shadows, Whispers, and PULPHOUSE. A dozen of his stories have been picked up by TOR; Playboy Press; Jove (Berkley Pub Group); and Little, Brown and Co. Four of his stories have been translated into German, Polish, and Russian. He has had four short story collections printed, three for Dark Regions Press, (Weird Family Tales I, II and III; Fourteen Tales from a Shop Called Imagination available on Amazon) and one for PULPHOUSE Press (Frost on the Window). A fifteen thousand word novelette called EDEN, upon which the present work bases, was his next to last publication.

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2004 Ken Wisman. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/23/2022

ISBN: 978-1-4184-2741-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4140-8889-1 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Dedication

For Joe Salerno, whose friendship, poetry of soul, and gentle council I miss.

I only wish, Joe, that I could have shared this work with you.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Ros Freese—friend, editor, and sounding board—who helped make this work just that much better.

My appreciation to Joe Morey, friend and supporter, who first published EDEN as a chapbook, when it had just gone from seed to sprout.

The creative process, so far as we are able to follow it at all, consists in the unconscious activation of an archetypal image and elaborating and shaping the image into the finished work. By giving it shape, the artist translates it into the language of the present and so makes it possible for us to find our way back to the deepest springs of life.

—Carl Jung

You ask me where I get my ideas. That I cannot tell you with certainty. They come unsummoned, directly, indirectly—I could seize them with my hands—out in the open air, in the woods, while walking, in the silence of the nights, at dawn, excited by moods which are translated by the poet into words, by me into tones that sound and roar and storm about me till I have set them down in notes.

—Ludwig Van Beethoven

In this dream he saw what no man had seen before. It appeared to him as the Eye of God. And this was possessed of a voice, in that it spoke to him:

"I am Nothingness. I can be united to something and only that something remains. I can be taken away in like manner. I am Void, yet, if something is multiplied or divided by Myself, only I shall remain.

In time, learned men will come to say that the Earth, itself, revolves upon Me. I am Emptiness. I will be worshipped as a secret symbol. My name will be whispered and uttered only in select company and darkened rooms.

I am Nothing, it is true, but I am also the steppingstone to the stars and the key to the secrets of the atom. I shall be called an Integer and described as Real. I am Rational. And, most importantly, I am Good."

—The Book of Zero

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Author’s Notes

Book I: Innocence

Chapter 1

Journey to Eden

Chapter 2

Harmony on Eden

Chapter 3

The Glassy Strand

Author’s Notes

Book II: Experience

Chapter 4

Songs of Heaven and Hell

Chapter 5

The Heliocat and the Crystal Rain

Chapter 6

The Coral Fountain and the Poisonous Egg

Chapter 7

Flowermount, Delicatons, Crystal Dancers

Chapter 8

Attack

Chapter 9

Survival

Author’s Notes

Book III: Higher Innocence

Chapter 10

The First Battle

Chapter 11

The Second Battle

Chapter 12

The Third Battle

Chapter 13

Death and Transfiguration

Author’s Notes

The following speculative tracts contain a factual account and description of my hallucinogenic experiences from the years 1998, 1999, and 2000. Briefly, in that three-year time period, I went in search of Deity and wound up instead with a personal belief system—and a novel as a by-product.

My reasons for writing of my personal experiences are threefold:

1. I hope to inspire the responsible use of hallucinogens by creative artists and writers, especially those whose visionary powers may be fading with age. During each of my hallucinogenic experiences, I was flooded by images and ideas—some unique and beautiful and profound. And the most exciting thing was that this was happening when I was 51, an age when the creative powers are normally on the wane.

2. I hope to inspire serious and responsible exploration (clinical experiments, scientific study) of unconscious states as they relate to creativity.

3. I wish to contribute to the understanding of the creative process. In the speculative tracts that follow, I describe the images and ideas that filled me. By writing of them here and in conjunction with the fictional work, EDEN, I hope to provide an insight into how visions are weaved into a creative work and how fictional characters come to embody ideas.

The Impetus-to-Life: A Speculative Tract on God and Existence

Seven years ago, I had an extraordinary experience. It would not be an exaggeration on my part to say that it led to the most profound events of my life.

This is what happened...

In March of 1998, I was accidentally exposed to a powerful chemical substance that opened the door to my unconscious and brought me into the full potential of my imagination. Subsequently, I took the substance forty times over a period of two years with a variety of encounters with unconscious states. Some of these journeys were delusional. Some journeys were mystical, states described by Blake and Christ and Carl Jung. Still others took me to places that lie beyond my abilities to describe, as though I entered other dimensions, alien terrains that contained objects unknowable in this world, this reality we’ve created through tacit consensus.

Throughout my adult life, I have written fantasy and science fiction stories that originated within the imagination; with this chemical substance, I lived my imagination. And when each journey ended, my unconscious receded like an ebbing tide that scatters little gifts—coins or shells or driftwood on the sand. Washed up in my consciousness I would find a story idea, an original thought, an outlandish image. These treasures I gathered up and put into notebooks. Still other journeys left me with philosophical fragments, which I continue to assemble. It’s on the planes of philosophy and spirituality that I write here.

Soon after I began my experiments, I discovered a website devoted to the chemical substance and its use. Rather than being a secret, its effects were well known. The website reported that most who tried it never took it again since the substance lacks the recreational effects that, say, marijuana or opiates have. Moreover, the effects could as easily be disturbing as enjoyable. I could attest to this. Some of my journeys brought raw terror, bizarre images, pure nonsense—no pleasant highs or feelings of euphoria. For example, I experienced my death no less than a half dozen times. Worse, consensus reality sometimes lost its solidity—a disturbing occurrence if you wish for a tangible safe haven after a long night-sea journey. Be that as it may, a few serious users—people who viewed themselves, as I did, as explorers—had written up their experiences. Some spoke of mystic events and encounters with god and godlike entities. This awakened a desire in me to have a similar encounter, to find Deity within.

What happened to me is only one man’s experience. Each person journeying inward might bring back something different. That is how I offer it here: as just one man’s truth. And maybe that is what has been set for us all, to find and define our personal beliefs, as individuals, to discover what unique truth lies within.

In preparing myself for my spiritual search I made some conscious choices. I always listened to Classical music during each voyage and found that the pieces chosen affected my mood and by that the nature, tone, and makeup of the experience. By choosing religious music (Medieval chants, masses by Monteverdi, Handel choral works), I created a spiritual mood. But mostly I made a conscious entreaty to my inner self that the doors opened would be spiritual ones, like trying to program one’s dreams by creating images in the mind before sleep.

I experimented like this for weeks, and each night-sea journey washed me ashore on some interesting islands. The ocean to which my unconscious brought me was definitely of a spiritual nature. On one island, I experienced Agape and found myself returning there in subsequent journeys. Agape is the Greek word for love. But this is love in a special sense—not just sexual love or romantic love or parental love or the love of friendship but love of humanity—love of all who live in the world, love of the world and all the people in it.

This island called Agape was not what I was seeking, though the message of its presence came from a being mystically inspired 2000 years ago. I believe this to be Christ, the Mystic’s, message: within us all lies this island called Agape, and even if we never journey there it still lies inside. Perhaps when we have evolved far enough, it will be a place that we all come to; but mostly it lies hidden as a hope for all humanity.

Another island my journeys took me to has been described by many mystics. I believe it to lie on the same plane as Agape on a twin island that rises just a little beyond. Here I experienced the connectedness to all things. Whereas on the island of Agape you feel an outflowing of love for humanity, on Connectedness you feel yourself merged with all Life, all living things in this world. This, like Agape, is a powerful experience but not an experience or direct knowledge of god. So I continued on in my voyages still hoping for an encounter with Deity.

One night I lay on my chaise lounge on my deck, where I loved to go when I was journeying. It was early morning, a bit past midnight; Classical music played on my CD player. I was looking up at the stars in the west when my truth came to me in a sad rush. I had a vivid experience of all the space amidst the stars and saw/felt/knew this void as empty. No god existed for me, no deity smiling benevolently down to light the darkness, none to keep the stars lit and the planets spinning. My inner truth was that there was no deity. I cried that night while staring into the space between stars, wept to fill the emptiness that filled me.

And yet I didn’t give up my quest. I still had a driving curiosity engendered by a dilemma made deeper by the emptiness seen flowing amidst the stars. Though I had found no supreme being in charge of the machine, I was still left with the puzzle of me, my life, and the lives of the people, plants, and animals around me. I still felt compelled to solve, for myself, the conundrum of life—from what or where did our existence originate? So I continued on my journeys, seeking the same path, hoping to come to some metaphysical conclusion that would negate the emptiness I had endured. Each time I journeyed, my experiences became more aesthetic—beautiful designs and patterns emerged from the dark wall of oak branches and leaves lying beyond my deck. Strange and fascinating landscapes intrigued me with their otherness. It was as though my imagination compensated for the void to which my spiritual journeying had brought me. But, in the matter of epiphany, each time I journeyed, I came up empty.

A summer passed. Then, in the autumn, I had an experience that nearly shattered me. I arrived on a plane in a space where planes and space do not exist. No words can accurately describe that realm; its existence lies only in its experience—for how can you describe, much less comprehend, a non-realm of nonexistence where even the dark empty river of stars has disappeared. My mind nearly fragmented coming out of this non-state; to go there and return to reality can’t fail to leave you changed. I had nothing, not even the sadness that my first encounter with a godless universe had left me

.

And yet, out of the Nothing, came a minuscule something. When the voidless void receded, it left a tiny grain of golden sand. It lay there unexamined in the frail shell of my consciousness, and like an irritant in an oyster, it grew. After a year, this is the tiny pearl it became: No personal god exists for me. No bearded Father to pray to, kneel to, or worship. Yet I believe an ineffable force exists, an invisible force that manifests in a flower, a cat, and a human being. It is this force that arranges molecules into forms and breathes a moving energy into them—the desire to eat, grow, and reproduce.

My little pearl—this belief in a stimulus to life, an impelling force to existence—I call an impetus-to-create, an impetus-to-life.

Brian Greene, in his brilliant book The Elegant Universe: superstrings, hidden dimensions, and the quest for the ultimate theory, describes four fundamental forces in nature: gravity, electromagnetism, weak force, and strong force. He also describes how the universe emerged from a state of infinite compression, how all that is came from a point tinier than an atom. It is my belief that more than the four forces were baked in that compression, one other being an impetus-to-life.

Don’t mistake my theory for deity, which supposes a being aware of itself, able to intercede, capable of pulling levers and pushing buttons and throwing switches. I do not believe this impetus to be a conscious thing. I feel it to be like gravity, not to be seen or touched or heard, but to be known by its result. Drop an object and it falls to the floor, the result of gravitational pull. Now go out this night and witness the stars, and contemplate the eyes and brain that see them. We are the result and evidence of the impetus that created all that walks, crawls, and flies.

In science, the test of a theory is in what it predicts and discovering whether those predictions hold true. A universal impetus-to-life predicts that life will not be restricted to this planet, that life will be found on any world capable of creating and sustaining existence. I believe life forms that our minds can’t yet conceive will be found to thrive, born out of the energies and molecules of alien worlds by a simple impetus, whose essence is to create life. Perhaps when we have proof of this impetus, we will seek to know it with our science, and someday we shall slip down the veil of creation and stand spellbound—in awe and wonder of this impetus-to-create, this impetus-to-life.

Book I:

Innocence

"I stand now in my little stone fortress on the valley ridge overlooking the plain. I scan the horizon, waiting for our final fate to come. And I think…I wonder how such bold goals and brilliant plans could have led instead to this: beauty to ugliness, life to death, creation to ruin.

I began—we all did—with such ideals and innocence…

CHAPTER 1

JOURNEY TO EDEN

Alepha, as soon as she came aboard the starship Spiritus, rushed to her private quarters and secured the door. Now alone, she released her emotions—the joy, excitement, fear, and trepidation. Wiping the tears away, she chided herself and—on impulse—tapped the opal, the recording-device hanging from a chain at her breast.

Personal log entry.

Day one, embarkation.

I cannot believe it is actually happening. A hundred people—scientists, technicians, artists—boarding the Spiritus, about to begin one of the most exciting and controversial projects ever undertaken by humanity. And I am a key part—I, a woman, born to poor parents on an obscure world; I, an artist, only lately come to recognition.

On this, our embarkation day, I solemnly promise to keep my log often, to enter all my impressions that my personal thoughts be added to the history of Project Eden, this dream for the ages.

In the evening, Alepha left her room, wended through the starship’s corridors and came to the common where nearly the entire ship’s complement had gathered for the evening meal. Thrust suddenly into the commotion—chatting diners, robotic servers dashing back and forth—Alepha paused. A nearby diner glanced at her, lowered his head, and whispered to his companions. Another diner discreetly pointed at Alepha, prompting others to peer in her direction.

Alepha, embarrassed, thought of fleeing back to the privacy of her room. Then a man emerged from the chaos and approached her.

Alepha, he said. You look lost.

It was Aeterialis—Etty, as he preferred to be called. She had met him several times in briefings and meetings before the starship embarked; he would be heading up the technical and scientific team in Alepha’s dome on Eden.

Why are they staring? Alepha whispered.

Etty grinned. Get used to it. You’re one of the elite seven. Come, join me at my table.

Alepha had liked Etty from the first—gregarious and outgoing, he had the ability to immediately put a person at ease. And so she allowed herself to be led toward the center of the common and a table where two others sat—the man, Gammeo; the woman, Thera—both famous artists.

Etty introduced Alepha to Gammeo, and she found it nearly impossible to meet Gammeo’s gaze, much less return his greeting. She remained bereft of speech throughout the meal, while Etty and Thera joked, gossiped, and made easy banter. At one point, while the two men discussed technical issues, Thera leaned toward Alepha, winked, and nodded toward Gammeo.

"Don’t be so intimidated. He may be the handsomest, most brilliant and creative in all the Network-of-Worlds, but he is still just a man."

Thera pronounced man with such comic emphasis that Alepha burst out laughing.

Are you—? Alepha asked.

Interested? Thera said. Not him. Him. She looked at Etty, tilted her head, and made such a mooning face that Alepha found herself laughing again.

While dessert was being served, Calif De’Alsace, ship’s captain, creator and leader of Project Eden, rose at his table set on a dais at the head of the room. The assemblage grew hushed. Activating the recorder at her breast, Alepha turned in her chair to face De’Alsace.

I have no words for how I feel, De’Alsace began. I have no words. Yes, yes. Even I, Calif De’Alsace, can sometimes be at a loss for words.

The room rocked with laughter.

I want to say that I stand this night in humbleness before you, De’Alsace continued. "Humble to the universe that surrounds us. Humble to nature. Humble to our project. It is not my dream that we are about to bring into reality, but nature’s dream through us, through humanity. I am but nature’s architect, the one who drew up the plan—"

Thunderous applause erupted from the tables.

"My colleagues, I am but a tool, a tool only, an implement scratched across a sheet of paper, moved to create an outline. But you here assembled tonight before me—you with your scientific knowledge and your art—are truly nature’s children. You are the artisans. You are the ones to—quite literally—bring flesh to the skeleton, add dimension to the outline. Oh, my children, know that if I could I would trade all that I own, planets and stars, to be one of you. A bot. A bio. An artist. But we must accept who and what we are. Scientists, you bring your knowledge, studies, and