Up Above and Down Below

In Part One of this book, two children journey to an otherworldy realm, in which a Sphere, a Rubbery Man, and a Rock Man join their quest. An Archon, who rules the land, collects aliens as exhibits and seeks to use their bodies to become immortal. In the end they must confront the Archon who has become a thing with immense powers.
In the second part, the two youths re-encounter the Rock Man, who has become a homeless person in their earth world. Together, they seek to help a runaway who dissociates into symbolic worlds. The children, with the help of a Homeless Outreach Worker, are challenged to find the cause of her problem and to rescue her from a psychiatric hospital. These stories give clues about how to understand persons who are distressed and enter symbolic realities, and to show how friendship and love can triumph in the end.

As a young man, the author had experiences of a symbolic world, which helped him to envision fictional ones that are archetypically sound. He also draws upon his teaching of college classes on the symbolism of indigenous cultures and paleolithic art found in deep caves. Last, his familiarity with his own dreams, and teaching classes on dream interpretation has helped to keep him in touch with the symbolic world.