{Child-ish and Child-like (2) [continued]}[19th December 1987]

[Redbook4:239][19871219:1055e]{Child-ish and Child-like (2) [continued]}[19th December 1987]

19871219.1055

[continued]

These attractions,* in their underlying and real non-sexual form, (of which I believe sexual attractions to be a corruption, and **physical attractions a material expression), manifested themselves in many of the central characters in my early writings, and in particular in ‘[…]’, the first version of ‘[0]’, written I think in my first year at Cambridge. I suspect that I was writing about*** people of my own psychological age, i.e. about 12-15 when I was 19-20; by {the time of writing of} ‘[0]’ these had become c.12-16+ when I was c.29;**** in ‘[2]’ they have become effectively ageless,# including +C who spans a wide range of possible ages.

In this connection, cf. Apocryphal New Testament (M.R. James), Acts of John, 88-89, where Jesus appears to James and John as a man of different ages as between the two of them at the same time and as between each of them at different times. It is a mystical or gnostic belief that the age of the Agent (for example) perceived depends upon the development of the Observer. (The point of course is not whether it is historically accurate but why it was written.)

*[See last previous entry.]

**[Presumably non-sexual physical attractions, otherwise it would make no sense. <20170417>]

***(i.e. and attracted to) <891005>

****in [the original drafts of] [1] their ages are secret and/or ambiguous.

#(but still young [i.e. approximately university student age])(as they had to be by [sic] the plot). I note also that I am now almost exclusively attracted to ladies in their thirties! (ref. VI.293). <891006>

Not quite exclusively. <930630> [written when the writer had fallen deeply for a woman of 21 years old.]

#*[

‘For when he had chosen Peter and Andrew, which were brethren, he came to me and James my brother, saying: “I have need of you, come to me.” And my brother hearing that, said: “John, what would this child have that is upon the sea-shore and called us?” And I said: “What child?” And he said to me again: “That which beckons to us.” And I answered: “Because of our long watch we have kept at sea, you see not aright, my brother James; but see you not the man that stands there, comely and fair and of a cheerful countenance?” But he said to me: “Him I see not, brother; but let us go forth and we shall see what he would have.”

‘And so when we had brought the ship to land, we saw him also helping along with us to settle the ship: and when we departed from that place, being minded to follow him, again he was seen of me as having a head rather bald, but the beard thick and flowing, but of James as a youth whose beard was newly come.

(MR James, Apocryphal New Testament, Acts of John, 88-89 (Extract))

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