Toynbee Idea
In Kubrick’s 2001
Resurrect Dead
On Planet Jupiter
For nearly forty years, these cryptic words, or similar variations, have been appearing on hand-crafted linoleum tiles about the size of license plates and embedded in streets, crosswalks, and interstates. They appear predominantly on the eastern seaboard, though some have been documented as far west as Ohio and, oddly, South America.
The phenomenon began in the mid-1980s, with the earliest and most prolific examples appearing in Philadelphia. For years, the tiles inspired wild speculation and a cult following of investigators, who documented the tiles and shared their theories. Occasionally, the tiles offered bizarre clues in the form of sidebar messages that further fueled the debate. These bonus messages reflected the author’s ire with various conspiracies fronted by the nefarious “Hellion” group, among others.
It’s uncertain what the “Toynbee Idea” is exactly. However, the most common interpretation suggests that it is an amalgam of the mission to Jupiter as described in Arthur C. Clark’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and an obscure passage written by British philosopher and historian Arnold Toynbee.
The gist of the theory plays on the Law of Conservation of Energy, in this case proposing that the human soul is not destroyed or released upon death but remains in the bodies of the dead and can, therefore, be reassembled… somehow…on Jupiter.
Toynbee’s passage reads:
Human nature presents human minds with a puzzle which they have not yet solved and may never succeed in solving, for all that we can tell. The dichotomy of a human being into ‘soul’ and ‘body’ is not a datum of experience. No one has ever been, or ever met, a living human soul without a body… Someone who accepts—as I myself do, taking it on trust—the present-day scientific account of the Universe may find it impossible to believe that a living creature, once dead, can come to life again; but, if he did entertain this belief, he would be thinking more ‘scientifically’ if he thought in the Christian terms of a psychosomatic resurrection than if he thought in the shamanistic terms of a disembodied spirit. – Arnold Toynbee
The identity of the tiler has never been conclusively proven, though recent research has uncovered some extremely compelling evidence. In his documentary Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles, Justin Duerr names Severino “Sevy” Verna as the most likely culprit. Deurr discovered compelling evidence in the margin of one of the South American tiles, which included a Philadelphia address. The occupant was the strange recluse, Sevy Verna.
Unfortunately, Sevy never made himself available for an interview or for any contact whatsoever. However, Duerr’s investigation was able to tie him to many of the clues attributed to the tiler. Additionally, proto-test tiles were discovered all around the address and surrounding neighborhood that match the style of the Toynbee Tiles.
If Sevy Verna is indeed the tiler, his story is as sad as it is fascinating. He grew up living near a funeral home and was both obsessed and frightened by death. By the early 1980s, he began developing his Toynbee Idea, though it was ridiculed by those he shared it with. This led him down a path of reclusiveness and paranoia, and he developed a hatred for the media.
Eventually, Sevy found a way to share his ideas. He customized his car with a long radio antenna and cruised the streets of Philadelphia, broadcasting his Toynbee Idea. Because of his limited range, it only affected the televisions and radios near his car as he perpetrated his slow-rolling wave of propaganda. When that proved ineffective, Sevy began making tiles.
The tiles were carved out of soft linoleum, then he sandwiched them between two pieces of tar paper. Cleverly, Sevy avoided detection while installing them by further modifying his car. He took out the passenger seat and corresponding floorboards, then just stopped in the road where he wanted to lay a tile. The tiles were laid in the summer months when the heat would help adhere them to the road, as the cars and foot traffic pressed them down. By the time the top layer of tarpaper was worn off, revealing the tile’s message, the bottom layer of paper had firmly integrated into the road, making them impossible to remove without ripping up the street.
Sevy Verna has moved from the Philadelphia address, and his current location is unknown. The tiles, however, continue to appear within a twenty-mile radius of Philadelphia, the most recent arriving in 2020. Of course, copycat tilers also exist and are much more prolific. Though it’s probably not what the tiler intended, his message was received, if not understood.
Jason Roberts is a Seattle-based author noted for his acclaimed Western Horror series The Dead Wind Trilogy and other works of cosmic horror infused with historical fiction. His web-based series, Dark Distractions, examines paranormal mysteries, unexplained phenomena, and all things strange.
