Blinded By The Light. Sherry Ashworth

can’t get my head round is your belief system. Tell me if I’m right. You believe in the forces of Light and Darkness. That Light is Good and Good is Light and you have to be one with the Light by living as purely as you can. And then when you die you sort of merge with the Light. And you fight the forces of Darkness. Like the Jedi,” I kidded.

      But Fletcher didn’t look amused. “That’s only a very crude description,” he said.

      “There’s much more to it than that,” Nick agreed.

      Fletcher looked me in the eyes. “There are countless religions and superstitions all over the world, but in fundamentals they’re all very similar. There’s this belief in a divinity – God, Allah, Yahweh. And before the so-called discovery of God, people still saw the forces of nature at play, and still had the need to believe in something. What people call God is just their way of naming the incomprehensible.”

      I went along with all of that. “Like Father Christmas,” I added, trying to be a good student. “He’s just a symbol.”

      Fletcher nodded but didn’t really seem to hear me. “We would never deny anyone’s concept of God. But what we know is that there is a force for Good. That this Life is not all there is. And that there is a reason why we’re here.”

      It intrigued me, the way he sounded so definite. He had a certain power, Fletcher. He had a compelling presence. When he talked, you listened. You were only aware of him in the room. His voice was slower than most people’s and his eyes held you.

      “Before Creation, there was just bliss. It existed beyond time and space in a unity of thought and emotion. Then a vast explosion occurred. Matter was formed, and antimatter. Matter is what our world is made of; antimatter is pure evil. It causes bad thoughts and propagates illness. All living things in our world have a yearning to return to the time that was. We can return to that time, but only through self-purification – achieved through self-control – keeping our bodies pure, total honesty, confession and working towards an end to hypocrisy and corruption in the world around us.