Did
American actor Larry Hagman see one thing like this throughout his ‘journey’?
My reminiscence has all the time been akin to an
exceedingly eclectic however typically well-organised, well-maintained submitting
cupboard whose innumerable drawers comprise all the myriad details that I’ve
acquired all through my life, together with the 40 years that I’ve spent researching
and writing about cryptids, mythological beasts, and fantastical fauna (flora too)
of each possible, and unimaginable, variety. Often, nonetheless, a reality file
someway turns into misplaced, misfiled, or simply plain lacking. And so it was with
the slim however stimulating file of the feathered lions.
Fairly a number of years in the past now, I distinctly
keep in mind studying about some superstar’s autobiography during which he’d referred in
passing to some feathered lions – sufficient in itself to draw my consideration and
thereupon file away this intriguing snippet for some future use. Because the years
handed by, nonetheless, and it remained unused and unreturned to by me, its particulars
started to fade from my thoughts. Nonetheless, to not fear, I believed, I’ve it filed
safely away in my bodily archives in addition to in my cerebral ones – till,
that’s, the topic got here to thoughts once more earlier this week, prompting me to hunt
out the related info in my archives and write it up in the end for
ShukerNature. However might I discover it? Not an opportunity!
Furthermore, by now not ready even to
recall who the superstar was in whose autobiography these ethereal entities had
appeared, there appeared no probability of monitoring something down (on-line searches drew
a clean). So I lastly deserted the topic, and began trying up a completely totally different
one as an alternative – at which level the Library Angel, aka the Seraph of Serendipity,
clearly took pity on me, as has occurred so many occasions previously, to my timeless
gratitude.
If
such an unique creature as a feathered lion existed, what a spectacular sight it
could be!
Opening on my laptop computer a
cryptozoology-themed folder of chronologically-arranged recordsdata consisting of stories,
articles, and different information downloaded by me from the Internet through the 12 months 2016, I
began on the lookout for the file that I wanted for my new investigation, however there
have been a really sizeable variety of recordsdata in it, and I had no thought of the precise
date on which I would downloaded the file in query. So I robotically
rearranged all of that folder’s recordsdata into alphabetical order as an alternative, by file
title, hoping to identify the file rapidly by the use of its title’s topic. The
titles have been organised into columns, and whereas casually casting my eyes throughout and
down a number of of those columns earlier than starting the total painstaking scrutiny of
every file title in every column, my eyes alighted upon one specific file
title, and opened vast as they did so – ‘Larry Hagman sees feathered lions’! Of
course – Larry Hagman! Even earlier than opening the long-overlooked file, its title
alone was enough to usher forth the fundamental info that it contained,
however clearly I nonetheless opened it anyway. And here’s what I learn.
The related info had appeared in
a posthumously-published newspaper article recalling a number of the wild occasions
from Hagman’s life that he’d documented again in his 2001 autobiography Whats up
Darlin’: Tall (and Completely True) Tales About My Life. Hagman had of
course been an American actor greatest identified for his position as astronaut Tony Nelson
within the Nineteen Sixties fantasy comedy TV present I
Dream of Jeannie; and, above all else, for his globally-acclaimed tour de drive
as ultra-villainous oil baron J.R. Ewing within the shiny mega-successful American
cleaning soap Dallas, initially working from
the late Seventies to the late Eighties, then revived in numerous spin-offs that started
a decade later.
A multicoloured
monarch of all that he surveys!
The newspaper article had been revealed
again in 2012 (thus explaining why I would not thought to search for it within the 2016
folder, the rationale why it was in there and never within the 2012 folder being that
I would solely learnt about this text and downloaded it on 7 June 2016, however I would
lengthy since forgotten that small but essential reality!), by London’s Each day Mail, on, of all days, 9 December
(my birthday!), which was simply over a fortnight after Hagman had handed away,
on 23 November 2012.
Anyway, studying by means of this text it
transpired that a while previous to 2001, feeling very burdened after all the time
having been a complete workaholic and perfectionist had ultimately taken a
sizeable toll upon his emotional well-being (a state of affairs exacerbated after he had
maybe unwisely additionally determined to surrender two longstanding vices – smoking and slimming
tablets – on the exact same day), Hagman had sought assist, recommendation, and help
from all quarters. Two years after his points had begun, nonetheless, a type of
he’d consulted now advised that maybe he ought to “drop some acid”,
i.e. attempt taking some tabs of the potent hallucinogenic drug LSD.
Though Hagman initially dismissed this
thought, it turned firmly lodged in his thoughts, till ultimately he gave into
temptation, and obtained some pure LSD tabs from none aside from the late
American rock singer/songwriter David Crosby, of Crosby, Stills and Nash fame,
after he’d attended one in every of their live shows and had gone backstage to fulfill them afterwards.
Even so, it nonetheless took Hagman a month earlier than he lastly summoned up the nerve
to take one, and thereby expertise his first journey. Right here is how he described
it:
Only a few moments after I would
swallowed a tab, a part of the room I used to be in turned a cave that was guarded by
two feathered lions in addition to octopus-like creatures with lengthy, writhing tentacles.
So there it’s, such that it’s – the one
supply of knowledge relating to feathered lions that I’ve ever encountered, from
a very unlikely supply, and generated in a really sudden vogue. Though it
could not contribute significantly to our shared international lore on fantasy beasts, it’s nothing
if not fascinating, and memorable – which is why it has compelled me to trace it
down nearly a decade later, and doc right here on ShukerNature the unique creatures
talked about in it.
Cave-dwelling
ctopus-like creatures additionally featured in Hagman’s drug-induced hallucination
Lastly: all the very eyecatching illustrations
of feathered lions and cave-dwelling octopuses included right here have been created by me
specifically for this text yesterday, using the MagicStudio image-generation
program.
