Which Reality?

The moral of the episode summarized in the preceding post is that reality overwhelms fantasy. But it matters which reality we inhabit. When the scientist, Hess, is confronted by a powerful demon, the Sabbath Goat, that he has helped to conjure, he reverts to his former skepticism, denies that the Goat even exists and runs straight at it:

"The Sabbath Goat opened Its great mouth and gulped him down like a fly."

-James Blish, Black Easter IN Blish, After Such Knowledge (London, 1991), pp. 319-425 AT 17, p. 423.

I take that to mean that, in this (fictional) reality, the Goat does literally exist! He is not a psychological projection or "'...mushroom dream...'" (ibid.) etc.

 

The Goat swallowing Hess is the exact equivalent of the moment in "The Saturn Game" when:

 

"The ridge cracked asunder and fell in shards." (p. 37)

 

Someone denies reality. Reality intervenes.