Recently surveying the British animation which inspired me I found myself discussing the films of Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin.
I was delighted to discover that the copy I found on eBay was signed by Postgate himself and also included two Small Films postage stamps (not pictured) of Bagpuss and Ivor the Engine.
I've come quite a long way from the subject matter of my book "Retreat" (2020) so was really surprised to discover in the last fifth of the book that Postgate experienced a massive satori. After a medical operation, and apparently not owing to any medication, he elaborates:
This was not a day one would take much notice of in the ordinary way, but I think I was seeing it all for the first time in my life. No more than that did I see, but what I saw there was so clear and complete, with a beauty so simple and essential, that I was poleaxed with amazement...I was there for, maybe, five minutes, but those five minutes held eternity in every direction. First there was beauty. Everything I saw was no more than what it was, but, as it was, it possessed, was part of, a single clear essence of itself, and of everything else. (Oh dear, words!)
The experience was totally life-changing:
What hit me then was a realisation that this joy in life that drives through all things is the life that drives all things... I knew that I was seeing clearly for the first time in my life...seeing how things are... the beauty was was so clear, so complete and safe, and the relief so profound, that with an almost physical release I let go and gave myself entirely to the enjoyment, to the sheer delight of seeing... I knew I had found the central truth that, without knowing it, my life had been spent seeking.
Oliver isn't shy about sharing the experience with people and they all thing he's barking mad. His son Kevan, however, had just returned from India and an ashram and was able to shed some light on the situation:
He was deeply delighted and glad for me, telling me that I had inadvertently fallen into a state of non-being that is the goal of spiritual development. We had a very happy time together, a time for which I was particularly grateful because I was beginning to need some reassurance. Prue [his wife] had let it be known, in the nicest possible way, that she had heard quite enough about the ecstasy...