TC Lethbridge | The Sons of TC-Lethbridge | Tekh's Anthological Review

A Step in the Dark

Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1967

A Step in the Dark takes its name from a 1966, BBC TV series Three Steps in the Dark directed by Brian Branston and Bob Saunders. The film crew came down to Lethbridge’s home in Branscombe and filmed a number of his experiments which are described within this book. The experiments encourage the reader to step out of the three-dimensional world into one where time and distance play no part.

This book is really the third part in Lethbridge’s study of the pendulum. Much of what has been described before in previous works is repeated here. Lethbridge makes no apology for covering old ground, he admits that he dislikes having to do it but for the readers’ benefit, each of his books must be self-contained and self-explanatory. Having said that, many of the themes that have been previously introduced are elaborated on here.

During the many digressions that feature in his work, Lethbridge often took the opportunity to vent his spleen against the outside world. Many a humorous and amusing example can be found in A Step in the Dark. At one point, having paused to assess the remarkable nature of his findings, he ponders on the fact that maybe the study would be better off in the hands of churchmen or philosophers. He immediately has second thoughts on this notion and embarks on a barrage of abuse in their general direction. But what initially commences as a whinge, is quickly turned around and given a typical poetic and philosophical, finale!

Lethbridge’s humour is apparent in all of his books and it is an infectious quality that appears in abundance in A Step in the Dark. It is an endearing quality that enables him to discuss explorers’ gossip on cannibalism alongside the absence of a fixed universal scale in another dimension!

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