A Bust-Down Book Review
by Paul Kieniewicz
Experiments with Time
The theatre is not usually the medium for communicating complex scientific or philosophical thought. Yet many eminent playwrights have tried. Bernard Shaw presented his ideas on Creative Evolution in Man and Superman, and in his cycle Back to Methuselah. That such theatre is rarely performed today suggests that either the medium is wrong, or that today’s audiences expect entertainment rather than philosophy.
I’m inclined to think the latter is more the case.
J.B. Priestley, author of several best-selling novels also used the theatre to explore complex ideas such as the nature of time and the human psyche as described by C.G. Jung. Many of his plays were poorly received. Critics didn’t know what to make of them. The public who came expecting entertainment were bored. Except for An Inspector Calls, Priestley’s plays have all but disappeared from theatrical repertoire.
I first encountered his plays in my late teens. Perth Theatre put on Dangerous Corner, whose plot is a time loop along the lines of Philip K. Dick, exploring a sequence of events set in motion by a chance comment. Then we see an alternate reality --- what would happen if the chance comment were not made? I subsequently read other plays dealing with time such as Time and the Conways. The latter was recently revived on Broadway but received mixed reviews. Does the future already exist? Can we change our future? What do our dreams tell us about the future? Is the human psyche limited by space and time?
J.B. Priestley took those questions as subjects for his plays.
Anthony Peake’s book is a guide through Priestley’s works, chiefly his dramatic repertoire, and it is much more extensive than I knew. He presents lucid synopses of the most important plays as well as discussions of the ideas that most influenced Priestley. An early influence was P.D. Ouspensky. Then there was J.W. Dunne’s An Experiment in Time. Dunne had experienced many precognitive dreams, and dreams of places he had never seen, but later came to know. He proposed that time is not a singular flow but exists as a series of alternate realities. Each time series also has an observer. We are conscious of an event, of time. But in an altered state we can also see reality from the vantage point of a different observer. This observer can in fact be said to exist beyond time; for him the past, the future and other time series already exist. This is why we can have precognitive dreams or see real places far away that we have never visited. Priestley explores these ideas in his play, I have been here before, where a series of events is influenced by a person’s precognitive experience. A disaster that might have happened is consequently avoided.
A second important influence was C.G. Jung. Priestley encountered Jung’s writings in the 1930s, about the same time he discovered The Tibetan Book of the Dead. His play, Johnson over Jordan is about a man who has died and wanders through a dreamlike afterlife where he is forced to look at his life and its significance. The play has been recently revived with Patrick Stewart in the main role. In the 1950s, Priestley met Jung and the two men became friends, and often wrote to each other. His later plays were filled with themes from depth psychology --- the collective unconscious, synchronicity, time slips, the nature of death. Predictably the more offbeat and mystical the play, the poorer its public reception.
Peake points out in particular the closing speech of the Inspector, in An Inspector Calls.
We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you when the time will come when, if mem will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught in fire and blood and anguish..
Most audiences hear the Inspector saying that we’re responsible for each other. Let’s make sure we treat each other kindly. However, Priestley probably meant something else. Humanity is a single organism, quite literally so. Our feeling of separateness is an illusion. What we do affects the entire body. Such a realization should put to bed all thought of nationalism or racism.
It is certainly a message for today’s world.
While the book serves as an excellent introduction to the vast corpus of Priestley’s works, the most valuable section is towards the end where the author presents fragments of previously unpublished letters. In 1963 Priestley appeared on a BBC radio programme to discuss his book Man and Time. He invited listeners to write to him with their accounts of precognitive dreams or personal experiences of time slips such as déjà vu. He received thousands of responses. Peake was able to sift through a collection at Cambridge University and he presents a selection. Unfortunately, it is sometimes difficult to assess their individual trustworthiness.
However, they are fascinating in themselves. One theme that dominates is that of the future influencing the past. For example, someone dreams of an accident at a crossroads. Intrigued, they go and visit the place, only to be involved in an accident. Had they never had the dream, they wouldn’t have gone there to be involved in the accident! In another case, a person passes a hospital and is seized by a feeling of foreboding. Years later, his best friend happens to die at that hospital. Did the future already exist, and was it influencing the past?
You don’t need to be familiar with Priestley’s writings to enjoy the provocative material presented in Time and the Rose Garden. Readers who want to explore those ideas further will want to read An Experiment with Time, and Priestley’s writings. Some of his plays are also available on YouTube. The book may also encourage one to pay more attention to one’s dreams, and reveries.
Perhaps the future is already here.
Paul Kieniewicz is a geologist, astronomer and writer. He is the author of Gaia’s Children, co-author with Andrew Glazewski of Harmony of the Universe.