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Welcome to the eigth article in the Jack Long series

Jack Long . . . Facts, Fiction, Hope

THE EARLIEST RECORDED STATEMENT ABOUT THE HIDDEN MEANING OF GOLF

We have learned from a portion of the Golfnostic Gospels that in 138 A.D., while Caddyus was preaching in a small town near El Sandtrapya (the Egyptian city where the Golfnostic Gospels were found buried in a cave), he was approached by Duerf (pronounced Doo-erf), a renowned Second Century philosopher. Duerf asked Caddyus to explain whether there was a meaning to feriosaxum (the name given to a shepherd's diversion of hitting a round rock with his staff) beyond the obvious satisfaction of whacking a rock as far as possible. (The origins of feriosaxum were explained in the first Article.

To the best of our knowledge, this was the first time that Caddyus had been asked to address this philosophical question. Caddyus told Duerf that, indeed, there was a deeper and hidden meaning associated with the diversion of feriosaxum, and that such meaning was tied to the ideas of "pure concentration", "flight" and "re-creation". Caddyus' reply to Duerf may be translated and summarized as follows:

Pure concentration is necessary to hit a round rock a great distance. Accordingly, pure concentration causes the exhilaration associated with bestowing flight upon a rock, watching it soar, and "sensing" it soar.

These feelings of exhilaration combine to create a sense of "re-creation", giving the shepherd a fleeting glimpse of release from the physical restraints of the body and the world. (Based upon other sections of the text, when Caddyus used the word "world", he was speaking about what we would call "gravity".)

Today, the word "re-creation" has been shortened to recreation, and we don't talk about the primordial feelings associated with creating flight, and with watching and sensing the ball soar through the air. The ball soars initially at geometrically increasing rates of speed that make it seem as though we have momentarily broken through the barriers of time and place, approaching for just a few seconds a nearly mystical state of lightness and release. The only point here is that in antiquity, these ideas were associated with the game we now call"golf".

In more recent times, other persons have addressed in their own ways and with their own jargon, some of the things Caddyus was talking about.

We all know that Scotland is a place where folks know a thing or two about golf. In the Nineteenth Century, the Scottish poet, Sir Walter Scott, is reported to have proclaimed:

Come one, come all! this rock shall fly

From its base, and with it I.

Sigmund Freud recognized that many of us dream about flight on a fairly regular basis, and that the desire to fly is a strong subconscious desire. Caddyus understood that, at some level, feriosaxum was an attempt to actualize this desire to fly.

I believe that Caddyus would want us occasionally to step back from focusing only on the technical, competitive and social aspects of the game, and to consider the primal ideas of flight, lightness of being, and re-creation.

For some of us, the feeling of disappointment at having had a "bad round" can be offset by remembering that for some drives and fairway shots, we brought forth from within ourselves the pure concentration necessary to obtain glimpses of spirituality and centeredness. Will thinking about these things help to improve our scores over time? I don’t know, but . . . perhaps.

Based upon my experiences and my conversations with close friends, I believe that some of us occasionally experience a momentary sense of exhilaration or release or otherworldliness when playing golf.

Most of us do not to talk about these moments, and I believe that one of the reasons for this is the fact that these moments are hard to describe. In any event, I am trying to collect descriptions of these moments, and I would be grateful to any reader who might respond to this article with such a description.

Modern-day observers of the game will ask whether the art of putting can lead to glimpses of spirituality and centeredness.

This question was never considered by Caddyus because, as discussed in an earlier article, it never occurred to the shepherds of antiquity to intentionally hit their round rocks for only short distances.

In fact, such an idea would have seemed not only silly, but also a threat to their masculinity. I believe that the answer to the question is "Yes". However, this is an open question which deserves, and will receive, further consideration.

Jack Long is a golf-theorist and founder of The Paranormal Golf Institute. He is working on a series of articles based in part upon:

Cold War research documents in the field of paranormally controlled trajectories (PCT), documents recently discovered in the archives of the PCT Institute in Niblickvostock in the former Soviet Union; and

His own, and other recent translations of the Golfnostic Gospels unearthed last year in caves near the northern Egyptian city of El Sandtrapya.

No part of this article may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from Jack Long, PGI, 192 College Street, Burlington, VT 05401.

The other articles in the series can be found by clicking the links below.