BASEL, SWITZERLAND—The recent meeting of the International Esoterical Association (IEA) attracted several hundred Esotericists from all over the world. Held every four years, it gives Esotericists the opportunity to share what ordinary people would consider strange or even "nutty" ideas. Thus, it provides an important outlet for what is often a frustrating pursuit: the discovery of unusual truths.
To forestall some of the mockery and ridicule that Esotericists often encounter, one of the by-laws of the Association is a total ban on snickering or laughing during the conference sessions or in private conversations between sessions.
Keynote speaker at the conference this year was Dr. Herbert Manglethorp of Bristol, UK, who reported the results of his life-long research efforts to "find the answer to everything," as he put it. In his address to the conference he stated that he had, indeed, finally found that elusive goal, a goal which has eluded philosophers and scientists for countless centuries. The audience waited breathlessly, of course, for Manglethorp to reveal the actual answer. One could "hear a pin drop" as he leaned into the microphone, and whispered solemnly: "The Answer to Everything, I have discovered, is: SEVENTEEN!"
In spite of the Association's rules, one could hear some snickering and even one loud "Bullsh*t!"
During the question-and-answer discussion afterwards (which was quite lively), some Esotericists were very critical, and posed some probing questions. Manglethorp insisted that he was not being evasive, although most of his responses were along the lines of: "Just test it! Try putting 'Seventeen' into practice! It works! I have tried it on hundreds of otherwise unanswerable questions, and it never fails."
One attendee, Prof. Bernhard Haggle of Sydney, Australia, pointed out that similar research had been done by a team at Brisbane University, and that their results (admittedly still somewhat tentative at the present) showed that the Answer to Everything was actually "Cranberry."
"Isn't it rather silly to think that the Answer to Everything is just a number? And why THAT number?" asked Haggle.
Manglethorp said that the number was significant: he first began to suspect there was something special about Seventeen, when he recalled that when he was that exact age, he really did know everything. "QED!!" he gloated.