Prefazione di Tom DeLonge per il libro "Cathedrals of Glass: A Planet of Blood and Ice"

There are many things in our lives that we don't understand; for instance, how do our dogs know when we are about to arrive home? Or, how do some mothers feel pain when their children are hurt, even when they are far away? And how did a man bend a spoon with his mind, as witnessed by a powerful head of state?

We don’t know the answers to these questions, but there is no disputing that these strange things do happen.

Did you know that scientists proved plants can feel human intent? They proved that the plants knew when they were threatened, cherished and even when their human owners were having sexual intercourse in the next room.

For every grain of sand on all the beaches in the world, there is a synapse in your brain, a connection organically formed to store information, solve problems, and access the infinite. Over time, humans are expected to achieve great things “if we put our minds to it,” as the saying goes.

When I met AJ Hartley, I had him perfectly matched in my mind to write Sekret Machines, a story that spans as much space itself, as it does events connected to consciousness (coming in Book 3). But then AJ mentioned he had another story that he had just written that he called Eyes in the Dark. At first, the title seemed too cliché to me, but upon experiencing the story, I realized it made perfect sense. But still, I felt there was something else out there we could find that sounded more poetic, more ominous.

AJ has a gift for words and for imagination. These gifts are displayed in all of his novels. What caught me off-guard this time was something else completely: he was playing with the delicate and diverse perceptions of the human mind. Consciousness itself was a character. That resonated with me, and thus with what To The Stars is all about.

I have about fifty stories I want to tell, so there is not that much room in my kitchen. I’m like a pissed-off grandmother baking on Christmas morning. Don't dare enter! But then here comes this guy with a damned good recipe. And most of it is already cooked. It just needs a nice plate, and a party that is hungry. And here you have our collaboration.

We worked on a new title, and after a series of word-play and thought clusters, we landed on Cathedrals of Glass, a play on the mountainous landscape within the story that is composed of a beautiful, but deadly mix of sharpened glass and ice.

What I love about the play on the word “cathedrals” is much of the esotericism behind the monuments themselves. Did you know that ancient cathedrals contain a long-forgotten science that is full of what the architects called “sacred geometry”? It was architecture that somehow managed to resonate certain (un)natural frequencies with human biology. Creating a resonate oscillator with the human mind. What a wild concept. There is a lot that we just don't fucking know! And that is why I started my company, To The Stars. Because we need to know more. And by sorting these mysterious concepts within a cohesive explanation, or  story they all may just start to make sense to people. And in turn re-ignite that forgotten part of human experience from our distant past. (Atlantis anyone? Oh . . . wait . . . that is Sekret Machines Book 2! I keep getting ahead of myself here!)

When we evolve over the next few hundred years, I truly believe humanity will change profoundly. All the conspiratorial and esoteric concepts about religious rites, rituals, sacred geometry, remote viewing, ESP, telepathy and astral-travel will become “normal” science. And we will long forget our Texas Instruments calculators, because there will be a re-discovered APPLE supercomputer in the ether, one that we can access whenever we desire, and which is way more fun to use than the latest iPhone.

Cathedrals of Glass: A Planet of Blood and Ice, explores these questions: What are souls? Where do they go? What is consciousness and where does it live? What is the power of the human mind? And what is the threat of it unleashed? Are ghosts, consciousness and etheric apparitions all part of the same galactic operating system? Or, are we to blame for those incarnations ourselves, literally forming matter and physical holograms out of “mind-power,” as if the human mind itself can assemble a tangible, organic property out of invisible waves of light? . . .  Some call those “waves of probability.”

Maybe an apparition is just a hologram your mind “believed” into existence. Because when you believe something truly and totally, well . . . maybe you actually can walk on water like Jesus. Hell, I bet you could walk on fire itself, like they do in those far-out Middle-Eastern rituals. Or, maybe you could commit to something more necessary, like changing the weather, as the Native Americans did during those legendary rain dances we heard so much about as kids.

Either way, we must not pretend we know how to contain the potential of the human mind. We must not try to predict it, ignore it, or worse, not use it.

Cathedrals of Glass: A Planet of Blood and Ice, will give you a violent tow up supernatural mountain, and then drop you into the dark forbidding abyss. The story is modern and cerebral, told through the eyes and ears of young adults along isolated and troubled paths. Here, life and death are at their doorstep, and the universe likes to play tricks. People can die from such nefarious games. After reading Cathedrals, you will think twice about what is real, and what is possible . . .

And then maybe you, yourself, can learn how to dance across that delicate boundary of human existence . . .

Like walking on water, fire, or making the sky rain. 

Oh yeah, or, bending metal spoons with your mind.