Raymond A. Palmer

“ Sinister Barrier is not fiction offered as truth: it is offered only as fiction. Therefore, it will not be believed. The natural skepticism of my readers is my safeguard."
"SINISTER BARRIER" was part and parcel of the same mystery we call "The Shaver Mystery" today! And like ourselves, Campbell called it factual in basis. Fans, consistency is a jewel! You, and Shaver, and your editor agree about about "Sinister Barrier" and its FACTS! Take a look at more of these SAME FACTS in the Shaver Mystery. We submit that Shaver has not been original. ”

“ I have them in the form of a thousand press clippings snatched from half a hundred newspapers in the Old World and the New. A thousand more were given me by adventurers hardier than myself; people who have explored farther and more daringly into forbidden acres than I have done. ”

“ Shaver's opinions fully substantiated by what some call the "astral." The "astral" can very well be nothing more "uncanny" than a real cave world with real people in it with real machines to operate, instead of "astral powers." We consider "spiritualism" to be just one more proof that Shaver theories are more than theories, but can be accepted as factual, and that there is only a need for more understanding. ”

“ Shaver is perfectly sane. If he is not, we are all nuts; (2) He is perfectly sincere about the caves, the people in them, the Titans, the space ships, and his experiences with rays, projections, voices, pains, etc.; (3) He does not attribute one single experience to what we might term a "ghost" for lack of a better term. Witches, poltergeists, goblins, gremlins, fairies, dwarfs—all of them are real, physical, alive, being either the real thing or the teleported or telepathed image of the real thing. ”

“ Almost immediately we began to receive letters from readers who had dabbled around with the alphabet and discovered that it worked amazingly well in many languages, and especially so in languages more ancient.
Also, apparently encouraged by our publication of the alphabet, Mr. Shaver (then a welder in a war plant) wrote an account of an "adventure" in caves beneath the earth at incredible depths, where lived a race of people known as dero (detrimental robot) who were evil in intent, and tero (integrative robot) who were good in intent. ”

“ Shaver, the Earth is honeycombed by "caverns" which are inhabited by good and bad human creatures who are victims of detrimental radiations from old and "diseased with radioactivity" machines, and also victims of a vast "secrecy" which has become so traditional that it is maintained at all costs. ”

“ These creatures who found their way back into the underground cities, or who were left there, guarded their havens jealously from those who did not have access to them, and this secrecy has been maintained for thousands of years. ”

“ He does not believe in life after death, or that man has a soul, or that things have a basis in something invisible and immaterial. If such exist, he says he has no proof, and therefore will neither accept or reject. Man may have a soul, he says, but you can't see it, taste it, feel it, smell it or hear it. ”

“ Shaver, have themselves created these superstitions to conceal their real existence, and thus obviate any real attempt to find them. Who would look for something he does not believe to exist? That is why the caves remain secret, he says. Even if we do see a dero, we call him a ghost and pull up the bedsheets. ”

“ The existence in far space of the Titans and Atlans living inside dark planets. The existence of giants of incredible size; of "micro-men" living within the microcosm; of "ghost-like" creatures, who are not human in appearance, yet are intelligent, and do not die—the Titans themselves do not die so long as they avoid the deadly suns.
THE science expounded by Mr. Shaver, and that he has learned from the "caves," such as the age poisons; the exd which is the push of gravity; the nature of matter and its formation and disintegration ”

“ These creatures (and incidentally all surface races too) are descendants of the "abandondero" who were those unfortunates who could not be evacuated from the planet when the original races who built the underground cities left this planet because they had discovered that the sun was throwing out radiations that caused aging, and death at approximately 70 years of age. (It was more in those days, because beneficial rays and machines could combat the age poisons to a certain extent.) ”

“ Certain galleys mysteriously disappeared, and yet the numbers were correct, and did not show a missing galley where one really was. The sense of particular passages was subtly changed by minor errors which were hard to catch by any proofreader not entirely familiar with the Mystery because they seemed to make proper sense and continuity. Thus, all proofreading had to be done by your editor himself, and by Mr. Hamling, the only other man in this office who could detect such a subtle change. ”