Originally published on skywebsite.com/hollow/cavernworlds/id21.html (2002-04-20), a page of Dean De Lucia's website; recovered from the Internet Archive.
An earlier version of Go Ask Alice! Wonderland as a Cavern World, by Dean De Lucia, in Dean's Corner.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?
In 1865, Lewis Carroll published Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It is significant that Wonderland was only accessed after an extremely long fall into the deep depths of the Earth:
" Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice ' without pictures or conversation?'
So she was considering in her own mind ( as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid ), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!' ( when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural ); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.
Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs.
She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labelled 'ORANGE MARMALADE', but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.
'Well!' thought Alice to herself, after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they'll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn't say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house! ' ( Which was very likely true. )
Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end! `I wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?' she said aloud. `I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down , I think--' ( for, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a very good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over ) '--yes, that's about the right distance--but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I've got to?' ( Alice had no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand words to say.)
Presently she began again. ' I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it'll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think--' ( she was rather glad there was no one listening, this time, as it didn't sound at all the right word ) '--but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma' am, is this New Zealand or Australia?' ( and she tried to curtsey as she spoke-- fancy curtseying as you're falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it? ) ' And what an ignorant little girl she'll think me for asking! No, it'll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.'
Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking again. ' Dinah'll miss me very much to-night, I should think!' ( Dinah was the cat .) ' I hope they'll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are no mice in the air, I'm afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that's very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?'
And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, `Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?' and sometimes, `Do bats eat cats?' for, you see, as she couldn't answer either question, it didn't much matter which way she put it. She felt that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly, `Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?'
When suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.
Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment: she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it. There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, `Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!' She was close behind it when she turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen: she found herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof."
Of course, we don't take Alices fall too seriously; forone thing, had she really fallen such a distance, she would have fallen faster and faster, and for another she would have had a hard landing due to the force of gravity. In short, her fall of diminishing speed and intensity defies the laws of physics as we know them. And there's the rub- the laws of physics as we know them." What if Alice fell under the jurisdiction of natural laws which are different from those which we observe on the surface of our planet?
On the surface we equate gravity with the density of mass, an observation which holds largely true ( we'll graciously exclude the behavior of clouds, even the frozen ones in the polar regions, from our consideration for the moment ). But science cannot define what actually causes gravity, nor has science any direct perception of how gravity acts in the depths below, nor direct perception of the depths below, period! Volcanic activity is more likely to be a relative surface phenomena; by the time lava made its way to the surface from any source at the core, it probably would have cooled along the way. And even seismographs have to be interpreted according to unproven theory; they by no means constitute direct perception nor evidence of the interior of the Earth. So if we have no direct perception of gravity at great depths depths, we cannot truly negate the deceleration of Alice's fall, nor the soft landing.
Gravity as an electrostatic force, however, corresponds very well to the description of Alice's fall. Gravity would diminish with depth in such a case because the radiation producing the gravity effects does not penetrate the Earth's shell, neither uniformly nor completely; the behavior of tides demonstrates this. Therefore, her rate of fall would diminish with depth and eventually, at a certain depth, she could conceivably come in for a soft landing.
( See Cater on Tides: SkyWebsite.com is for sale | HugeDomains )
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Alice had other unusual, even zany experiences in Wonderland: she ran across talking animals which exhibited abstractive intelligence- not much, but some; a chesire cat which could fade in and fade out at will; what to speak of mushrooms, pills and cake a la fairy food which all seemed equally magical. Wonderland seemed more like a dreamland, and it it along these lines of thought that we may best come to understand the meaning behind Carroll's writing.
Wonderland *was* a dreamland, but dreams are not false- they take place on a subtle, astral plane, on the mental platform. On that plane, the objects of desires manifest simply by thinking, feeling and willing, through no extraneous endeavors; the mind travels at its own speed, free of inertia. This is different from our experience in the physical world. In the physical realm, our bodies are bound by gravity and travel slowly. Growth of our bodies, and even our brain's development are conmeasurate in relation to the inertia of our world.
But how to access this plane? Why not always? On the surface of our planet- and any planet- matter is bound by by gravity more than matter responds to the thoughts of the mind ( as transmitted through ethereal medium.) The mind acts on matter within the confines of the body with which it has direct contact, but cannot compete with the grasp which gravity has upon matter. Deep within our planet's shell, however, matter experiences a different condition- it lies largely beyond the penetrating restraint and bias of gravity's radiation, and practically enjoys a delicate equilibrium. In this situation, the mind finds itself much more able to not only exert its will over matter, but free to participate in the astral realm in many ways. Perhaps a different sort of physics in underground envornoments is what was actually being communicated in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
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And what about the talking rabbit with the pocket watch? Was it a figment of Alice's mental invention, true in its own world? Maybe the best answer comes by way of a rhetorical question- how is an animal's brain going to develop in such a realm, free from the restraints of gravity? Maybe enough to exhibit some abstractive intelligence, at least enough to converse. This would give new meaning to Ramayanic and Puranic descriptions of talking animals such as Jatayu the bird, Hanuman the simian and Jambhavan the gorilla, who was found by Shree Krishna in his very deep cavern home. It would also vindicate cryptic reports of talking animals.
Some books are written in the form of fiction in order to introduce certain concepts without disturbing the minds of those who are inclined to believe otherwise. Was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland just such a book? Go ask Alice- when she's ten feet tall, of course!
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Click here for the song White Rabbit:
click here to download file [sound file not captured: jeffersonairplaneWhiterabbit2.mp3]
WHITE RABBIT (G. Slick)
One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small,
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all.
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall.
And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall,
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call.
Call Alice
When she was just small.
When the men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low.
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know.
When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead,
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"
Remember what the dormouse said:
"Feed your head. Feed your head. Feed your head"
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