♦Welcome to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop!♦
Topic #316
What is the strangest bit of information you’ve run across while
doing research for a story? Or maybe the strangest word?
Welcome back to another Open Book Blog Hop! The authors included in this ongoing series wish to thank you for your reads. Even more so, we appreciate that you share our writings with friends. If you’re new to the series, welcome aboard. The authors engage and impress weekly. Prepare to become a regular reader.
Research has taken me to some very strange places. That said, I don’t like to mock anyone’s beliefs, so please understand that I am not doing that. I will discuss my reaction to the information which I stumbled into and has the potential to prove true someday! We just never know until we absolutely know.
Let’s talk about the research I had to do to work up Trailokya to reach a more authentic (is that the right word) depth on the spiritual and mythological aspects. I delved into some serious places that I was not quite yet ready to explore. For one, I read an entire book on opening up your psychic abilities. That didn’t work on my psychic abilities, but I felt like the author was on a different plane from me. I just could not make the leap to a lot of the things they declared absolute.
Certainly I could be wrong, but my own experiences don’t bear out what was stated. And, I have experienced some very strange things. I mean, come on, I wrote an entire series from the dreams I’ve been having since I was a small child. Those dreams contained vivid imagery of details only spoken of as myth. The feeling was quite real. Interaction felt as real as waking life. I should be able to cross that threshold, therefore, and make that leap and the subsequent journey.
I’ve been wrong plenty in my life. Psychic phenomena is something I’m very interested in. This said, I feel like there are many people out there who pretend to have those abilities and monetize it to take advantage of those in need of things that such abilities can provide. My doubts always take precedence, much like Scully in X-Files. Much respect to those who actually have it. I’m sure you are out there, just as mad as I am about the fakes.
Next on the list was my foray into Alien lore. Talk about strange. Have you ever looked up any of that stuff on the internet? It’s a deep rabbit hole that will put to shame any snake oil salesman con-artist psychic show. The internet delivers on strange!
As you know, Trailokya doesn’t just delve into the mythological. It imagines the mythological as ultraterrestrial and extraterrestrial aliens (all as transdimensional beings), that have informed human beliefs for centuries. That required researching the ideas going around a community that alleges first hand knowledge of alien races from the universe in which our solar system exists. Did you know that there are whole histories out there? There are.
The names I used for a few of the alien races that populate the books come directly from my research into this information. It was important to me to make use of the information that has been built, because there is a strong belief in the material here. I thought it deserved a nod.
Who am I to say that this stuff is fake? Stranger things have been true. I mean, scientists didn’t discover the element of oxygen until the late 18th century. You know, the element vital for life. That’s not all that long ago in the great scope of human existence. Furthermore, there is the fact that this discovery is European, and likely could postdate the actual discovery, but the European discovery takes precedence because of colonialism. There is so much lost to history and humanity because of colonialism.
Many beliefs that we profess to not take seriously any longer were beliefs held by cultures that the Christian Church fought to eradicate. They slandered these challengers until they dominated them into hiding. The witch burnings being a glaring example.
Mythologies came to be to make sense of the world in which ancient peoples existed. Cryptozoology highlights a lot of the culturally held entities across the globe. Although the Churches and governments attempted to homogenize people, these things persist. No one has been able to prove their existence, but groups hold on strong to their cultural mythologies and stories, and that is compelling!
Hopefully, I haven’t stepped on toes as I tried to weave the mythologies of multiple cultures into a realistic tapestry of alien worlds–marking them as real, not just made up. After all, I’ve been having some pretty intense and detailed dreams about it all for a very long time. Writing the series both helped me to conceptualize things better but also share an amazing world with readers. I hope that they will enjoy the representation quite overdue!
