I, The Mutant?

There is a human type I call "people living on the edge". They are not like the rest; they are outsiders, outcast, miscasts. They are daydreamers, occupying a clearly different worldview from the rest of the populace. They are the ones often deemed "eccentrics", even "village idiots" by the less understanding people.

When they grow up, they may spend a lot of time in solitude by themselves, in their own fantasy worlds. There may be something verbally or physically clumsy or even androgynous in these people: clearly they are not totally "at home" in their own bodies. They are probably intelligent but end up being bullied by other kids, causing them thus to withdraw deeper in their own fantasy universes. Only because they are "different".

(Classical shamans also usually represent this human type. They can suffer from all sorts of physical and mental afflictions all through their young lives until one day they find their true calling as the seers and healers in society.)

If they are lucky and have the right guidance and help, these people will find their way in this world through arts and sciences, as respected "visionaries" working on those fields. If they are not, they will end up as alcoholics and addicts; to skid row and mental hospitals.

These "edge people" can also be understood as "mutants", since they obviously can be seen representing some sort of a next step in evolution. We just don't understand them because they can see "beyond"; already live in the future while the rest of us only drag behind.

I know some mutants myself. It may be possible that I am even one of them (only that would give some sort of meaning to all pain and solitude; but perhaps then, I'm not).

And as this excerpt by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier indicates, there can be no giving birth to a new era without its inherent labour pains...



"Shall we see a new race of beings who resemble us outwardly, but yet are different? [...] What is certain is that we are witnessing the birth of a myth: that of the Mutant. That this myth should arise in our technical and scientific civilization must have some significance and dynamic value."

[...]

"Are there really beings among us who resemble us externally, but whose behaviour is a removed from us as 'that of whales of butterflies' Common sense answers that, if so, we should be aware of it, and that if such beings were living among us, we should certainly see them."

[...]

"... the mutant is clever enough to conceal himself. He keeps his discoveries for himself. He lives as discreetly as possible, and only tries to remain in contact with other intelligences like his own. A few hours of work each week are enough to ensure the necessities of life; the rest of his life he spends in activities of which we have no conception. [...] There is every reason to believe that they are exactly like us, or rather that we have no means of distinguishing them."

[...]

"Life is never perfectly adapted, but it tends towards perfect adaptation. Why should it relax this tension since the Creation of Man?"

[...]

Do these mutants form an invisible society? No human being lives alone. He can only develop himself within a society. The human society we know has shown only too well its hostility towards an objective intelligence or a free imagination: Giordano Bruno burnt, Einstein exiled, Oppenheimer kept under observation. If there are indeed mutants answering our description, there is every reason to believe that they are working and communicating with one another in a society superimposed on our own, which no doubt extends all over the world."

[...]

"One of the greatest French biologist, Morand, the inventor of the tranquillizers, admits that mutants have made their appearance all through the history of humanity. 'These mutants, among others, were called Mahomet, Confucius, Jesus Christ...' Many more exist, perhaps. It is by no means inconceivable that, in the present evolutionary period, the mutants think its useless to offer themselves as an example, or to preach some new form of religion. There are better things to do at present than to appeal to the individual. Again, they may think that it is both desireable and necessary that our humanity should move towards collectivization. Finally, it may well be that they think it a good thing that we should be suffering now the pains of childbirth, and would even welcome some great catastrophe which might hasten a better understanding of the spiritual tragedy represented in its totality by the phenomenon of Man. So that they may act more efficiently and so as to obtain a clearer view of the current that is perhaps sweeping us all upwards to some form of Ultra-Human to which they have access, it is perhaps necessary for them to remian hidden, and to keep their coexistence with us secret while, despite appearances and thanks, perhaps, to their presence, a new soul is being forged for the new world which we long for with all our heart."

[...]

"The appearance of the mutants would seem to suggest that our human society is from time to time given a foretaste of the future, and visited by beings already possessing a knowledge of things to come. Are not mutants the memory of the future with which the great brain of humanity is perhaps endowed?"

[...]

"There may be individuals with 'other' possibilities. And yet the general trend of societies would seem to be towards a greater degree of collectivization. Is this contradictory? We do not think so. Existence, in our views, does not mean contradiction, but complementing and going beyond."

[...]

"If we had mirrors capable of revealing to us that 'personality' which we value so highly, we could not bear to look at our reflection, so disfigured would it be by all sorts of monstrous excrescences. Only a truly 'awakened' man could look into such a mirror without being in danger of dying from fright, because then the mirror would reflect nothing and be absolutely pure. The true face is one which in the mirror of truth is not reflected. We have not yet acquired, in this sense, a face. And the gods will not speak to us face-to-face until we have one ourselves."

[...]

"The spirit of the Earth and the individual have not yet fully emerged. The pessimist, seeing the great upheavals which are caused by this secret emergence, say that we ought at least to try to 'save Man'. But this Man does not want saving, but changing. Man. as projected in orthodox psychology and current philosophy, has already been left behind, condemned as inadaptable."

- Louis Pauwels & Jacques Bergier: The Morning of the Magicians ("Le Matin des Magiciens", 1960)