15/04/2021
Jesus and Warp Drive, an Introduction
It’s hard to put this into words without sounding insane. In a nutshell, the lesson of ancient mythology and Star Trek are one and the same. According to these, the technological problem of space travel and the moral problem of getting into Heaven are one.
Granted, this awareness is completely lost by the Next Gen movie FIRST CONTACT, where the inventor of the warp drive is just some noxious dope far more interested in getting drunk and laid than getting to Heaven in any sense. I can explain why that is, but some other time. For the moment, I just want to spell out the basic mythological meaning of warp drive.
You could glimpse it in Jesus’ statement that none get to the Father but through him, if you understand that in referring to himself Jesus is talking about the Golden Rule. We might rephrase by saying that as Heaven is unified, no one not able to transcend self-interest, without losing the Self, is able to get in, by definition. As Rumi put it, in translation and paraphrase, there’s no room in here for me and you.
It helps, I think, to consider Heaven’s Gate, the Eye of the Needle, the Narrow Way, in terms of the 42nd chapter of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which depicts the soul’s final trial on its way to the Western Lands. (The Western Lands are Heaven, the realm beyond time and death. Eternity.) This final trial is the weighing of the individual’s heart, where the heart testifies truthfully of the way said individual treated others. The standard of judgment is the Golden Rule.
You might say: no one gets into Heaven who cannot stand in another’s shoes, and this ability to be in two places at once - like the Kwisatz Haderach in DUNE - is the meaning of the “warp” in warp drive. In DUNE, this ‘warp’ is described as “folding space”. Here, “places” are perspectives. To do unto others requires an ability to stand in the other’s shoes.
We might call this ambition to survive judgment as the root on conscience, of which there are three forms:
False conscience is exemplified by Claudius in Hamlet, whose words fly up while his thoughts remain below. He makes a show of equanimity, but it is to deceive others and so maintain his position of authority on Earth.
Spurious conscience aims at doing unto others, but without understanding either other or self. Here lies the Good Intentions that pave the way to Hell.
True Conscience alone is capable of passing the test of the Golden Rule, of warping space.
I want to repeat in conclusion that the Next Gen FIRST CONTACT completely betrays this mythology, in making Zefram Cochrane into a character who just happens to invent warp drive because he likes going fast.
