The impulse for this series began some time ago. I was writing a book on the child Jesus and at the same time thinking deeply about efforts that center around the phrase triadic philosophy. I was seeing that Charles Sanders Peirce, the great American philosopher, was not the only anchor of my thinking. There were two other philosophers also.

There was Friedrich Nietzsche. I had encountered him over several decades, and even visited Sils-Maria, the remote Alpine village where he passed many formative periods in his wandering life. Then there was someone of whom I knew nothing at all – the great Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Blank

I had no idea why I was drawn to Wittgenstein. I really knew only his name. What had he to do with Peirce, the originator of both pragmatism and its successor philosophy, the barely known pragmaticism? Beyond that, what had Wittgenstein to do with Nietzsche?

Exactly what the connection was seemed a mystery. But I have come to see a solution.They were all three seeking what Jacques Derrida called the unprecedented.

I was wrapping up my series on Jesus with some captivating texts about the posthumous life of my imagined protagonist. I was imagining Jesus in heaven in the fourth century. He was in the process of instructing St. Augustine regarding a major disagreement he had with the sainted churchman.

Normality

I had for some years assumed it was normal to converse with the one Jesus called Abba. Jesus suggested it, after all, when he gave the Lord’s Prayer to his disciples.

If I felt able to hear Abba, was it impossible for another voice to enter my head from beyond? Yes, clear as a bell. It was Ludwig.

Unreal?

While you catch your breath or chuckle, let me say that I am a Taurean sort who is an apostle of reason.

I'm the last person in the world to believe such happenings. But there he was. Or seemed to be.

The result was a series of seven conversations I published in my Kindle book “Tractatus” – named for Wittgenstein’s classic early work on logic and mysticism.

Skeptic

Since then, I have remained a skeptic about what happens to us when we die.

But now my mind is open to the probability that I have no real idea about the question.

I shall share the substance of these letters in short form here. They stand as a unit of dialogue. When this was done contact ceased. It was as if the conversation was necessary.

We did discuss how things are "there" and I will share that as well.

Proof

Does this prove anything? No. Could I have dreamed it up? If the answer is yes, I am surprised. Because I didn’t.

I share it because I feel there are many others who are less willing than I to discuss what they see as intensely private and intimate experiences. I think each living person is a treasure trove hiding their riches even from themselves.
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