* * * * *
There was no one standing or sitting around the tastefully furnished
entry hall of the Institute of Insight when Wallace Cavender walked
into it. He was almost half an hour late for the regular Sunday night
meeting of advanced students; and even Mavis Greenfield, Dr. Ormond's
secretary, who always stayed for a while at her desk in the hall to
sign in the stragglers, had disappeared. However, she had left the
attendance book lying open on the desk with a pen placed invitingly
beside it.
Wallace Cavender dutifully entered his name in the book. The distant
deep voice of Dr. Aloys Ormond was dimly audible, coming from the
direction of the lecture room, and Cavender followed its faint
reverberations down a narrow corridor until he reached a closed door.
He eased the door open and slipped unobtrusively into the back of the
lecture room.
As usual, most of the thirty-odd advanced students present had seated
themselves on the right side of the room where they were somewhat
closer to the speaker. Cavender started towards the almost vacant rows
of chairs on the left, smiling apologetically at Dr. Ormond who, as
the door opened, had glanced up without interrupting his talk. Three
other faces turned towards Cavender from across the room. Reuben
Jeffries, a heavyset man with a thin fringe of black hair circling an
otherwise bald scalp, nodded soberly and looked away again. Mavis
Greenfield, a few rows further up, produced a smile and a reproachful
little headshake; during the coffee break she would carefully explain
to Cavender once more that students too tardy to take in Dr. Al's
introductory lecture missed the most valuable part of these meetings.
From old Mrs. Folsom, in the front row on the right, Cavender's
belated arrival drew a more definite rebuke. She stared at him for
half a dozen seconds with a coldly severe frown, mouth puckered in
disapproval, before returning her attention to Dr. Ormond.
Cavender sat down in the first chair he came to and let himself go
comfortably limp. He was dead-tired, had even hesitated over coming to
the Institute of Insight tonight. But it wouldn't do to skip the
meeting. A number of his fellow students, notably Mrs. Folsom, already
regarded him as a black sheep; and if enough of them complained to Dr.
Ormond that Cavender's laxness threatened to retard the overall
advance of the group towards the goal of Total Insight, Ormond might
decide to exclude him from further study. At a guess, Cavender thought
cynically, it would have happened by now if the confidential report
the Institute had obtained on his financial status had been less
impressive. A healthy bank balance wasn't an absolute requirement for
membership, but it helped ... it helped! All but a handful of the
advanced students were in the upper income brackets.
Cavender let his gaze shift unobtrusively about the group while some
almost automatic part of his mind began to pick up the thread of Dr.
Al's discourse. After a dozen or so sentences, he realized that the
evening's theme was the relationship between subjective and objective
reality, as understood in the light of Total Insight. It was a
well-worn subject; Dr. Al repeated himself a great deal. Most of the
audience nevertheless was following his words with intent interest,
many taking notes and frowning in concentration. As Mavis Greenfield
liked to express it, quoting the doctor himself, the idea you didn't
pick up when it was first presented might come clear to you the fifth
or sixth time around. Cavender suspected, however, that as far as he
was concerned much of the theory of Total Insight was doomed to remain
forever obscure.
He settled his attention on the only two students on this side of the
room with him. Dexter Jones and Perrie Rochelle were sitting side by
side in front-row chairs--the same chairs they usually occupied during
these meetings. They were exceptions to the general run of the group
in a number of ways. Younger, for one thing; Dexter was twenty-nine
and Perrie twenty-three while the group averaged out at around
forty-five which happened to be Cavender's age. Neither was blessed
with worldly riches; in fact, it was questionable whether the Rochelle
girl, who described herself as a commercial artist, even had a bank
account. Dexter Jones, a grade-school teacher, did have one but was
able to keep it barely high enough to cover his rent and car payment
checks. Their value to the Institute was of a different kind. Both
possessed esoteric mental talents, rather modest ones, to be sure, but
still very interesting, so that on occasion they could state
accurately what was contained in a sealed envelope, or give a
recognizable description of the photograph of a loved one hidden in
another student's wallet. This provided the group with encouraging
evidence that such abilities were, indeed, no fable and somewhere
along the difficult road to Total Insight might be attained by all.
In addition, Perrie and Dexter were volunteers for what Dr. Aloys
Ormond referred to cryptically as "very advanced experimentation." The
group at large had not been told the exact nature of these
experiments, but the implication was that they were mental exercises
of such power that Dr. Al did not wish other advanced students to try
them, until the brave pioneer work being done by Perrie and Dexter was
concluded and he had evaluated the results....
* * * * *
"Headaches, Dr. Al," said Perrie Rochelle. "Sometimes quite bad
headaches--" She hesitated. She was a thin, pale girl with untidy
arranged brown hair who vacillated between periods of vivacious
alertness and activity and somewhat shorter periods of blank-faced
withdrawal. "And then," she went on, "there are times during the day
when I get to feeling sort of confused and not quite sure whether I'm
asleep or awake ... you know?"
Dr. Ormond nodded, gazing at her reflectively from the little lectern
on which he leaned. His composed smile indicated that he was not in
the least surprised or disturbed by her report on the results of the
week's experiments--that they were, in fact, precisely the results he
had expected. "I'll speak to you about it later, Perrie," he told her
gently. "Dexter ... what experiences have you had?"
Dexter Jones cleared his throat. He was a serious young man who
appeared at meetings conservatively and neatly dressed and shaved to
the quick, and rarely spoke unless spoken to.
"Well, nothing very dramatic, Dr. Al," he said diffidently. "I did
have a few nightmares during the week. But I'm not sure there's any
connection between them and, uh, what you were having us do."
Dr. Ormond stroked his chin and regarded Dexter with benevolence. "A
connection seems quite possible, Dexter. Let's assume it exists. What
can you tell us about those nightmares?"
Dexter said he was afraid he couldn't actually tell them anything. By
the time he was fully awake he'd had only a very vague impression of
what the nightmares were about, and the only part he could remember
clearly now was that they had been quite alarming.
Old Mrs. Folsom, who was more than a little jealous of the special
attention enjoyed by Dexter and Perrie, broke in eagerly at that point
to tell about a nightmare _she'd_ had during the week and which _she_
could remember fully; and Cavender's attention drifted away from the
talk. Mrs. Folsom was an old bore at best, but a very wealthy old
bore, which was why Dr. Ormond usually let her ramble on a while
before steering the conversation back to the business of the meeting.
But Cavender didn't have to pretend to listen.
From his vantage point behind most of the group, he let his gaze and
thoughts wander from one to the other of them again. For the majority
of the advanced students, he reflected, the Institute of Insight
wasn't really too healthy a place. But it offered compensations.
Middle-aged or past it on the average, financially secure, vaguely
disappointed in life, they'd found in Dr. Al a friendly and eloquent
guide to lead them into the fascinating worlds of their own minds. And
Dr. Al was good at it. He had borrowed as heavily from yoga and
western mysticism as from various orthodox and unorthodox
psychological disciplines, and composed his own system, almost his own
cosmology. His exercises would have made conservative psychiatrists
shudder, but he was clever enough to avoid getting his flock into too
serious mental difficulties. If some of them suffered a bit now and
then, it made the quest of Total Insight and the thought that they
were progressing towards that goal more real and convincing. And
meeting after meeting Dr. Al came up with some intriguing new twist or
device, some fresh experience to keep their interest level high.
"Always bear in mind," he was saying earnestly at the moment, "that an
advance made by any member of the group benefits the group as a whole.
Thus, because of the work done by our young pioneers this week I see
indications tonight that the group is ready to attempt a new
experiment ... an experiment at a level I frankly admit I hadn't
anticipated you would achieve for at least another two months."
Dr. Ormond paused significantly, the pause underlining his words.
There was an expectant stirring among the students.
"But I must caution you!" he went on. "We cannot, of course, be
certain that the experiment will succeed ... in fact, it would be a
very remarkable thing if it did succeed at a first attempt. But if it
should, you will have had a rather startling experience! You will have
seen a thing generally considered to be impossible!"
He smile reassuringly, stepping down from the lectern. "Naturally,
there will be no danger. You know me well enough to realize that I
never permit the group or individuals to attempt what lies beyond
their capability."
* * * * *
Cavender stifled a yawn, blinked water from his eyes, watching Ormond
walk over to a small polished table on the left side of the room in
front of the rows of chairs. On it Mavis Greenfield had placed a
number of enigmatic articles, some of which would be employed as props
in one manner or another during the evening's work. The most prominent
item was a small suitcase in red alligator hide. Dr. Ormond, however,
passed up the suitcase, took a small flat wooden plate from the table
and returned to the center of the room.
"On this," he said, holding up the plate, "there rests at this moment
the air of this planet and nothing else. But in a minute or two--for
each of you, in his or her world of subjective reality--something else
_will_ appear on it."
The students nodded comprehendingly. So far, the experiment was on
familiar ground. Dr. Ormond gave them all a good-humored wink.
"To emphasize," he went on, "that we deal here with practical,
down-to-earth, _real_ matters ... not some mystical nonsense ... to
emphasize that, let us say that the object each of you will visualize
on this plate will be--a ham sandwich!"
There were appreciative chuckles. But Cavender felt a twinge of
annoyance. At the moment, when along with fighting off fatigue he'd
been trying to forget that he hadn't eaten since noon, Dr. Al's choice
looked like an unfortunate one. Cavender happened to be very fond of
ham.
"Now here," Ormond continued, putting the plate down, "is where this
experiment begins to differ from anything we have done before. For all
of us will try to imagine--to visualize as being on this plate--_the
same ham sandwich_. And so there will be no conflict in our
projections, let's decide first on just what ingredients we want to
put on it." He smiled. "We'll make this the finest ham sandwich our
collective imagination can produce!"
There were more chuckles. Cavender cursed under his breath, his mouth
beginning to water. Suggestions came promptly.
"Mustard?" Dr. Ormond said, "Of course--Not too sharp though,
Eleanor?" He smiled at Mrs. Folsom. "I agree! A light touch of
delicate salad mustard. Crisp lettuce ... finely chopped gherkins.
Very well!"
"Put it all on rye," Cavender said helplessly. "Toasted rye."
"Toasted rye?" Ormond smiled at him, looked around. "Any objections?
No? Toasted rye it shall be, Wally. And I believe that completes our
selection."
He paused, his face turning serious. "Now as to that word of caution I
gave you. For three minutes each of you will visualize the object we
have chosen on the plate I will be holding up before me. You will do
this with your eyes open, and to each of you, in your own subjective
reality, the object will become, as you know, more or less clearly
discernible.
"But let me tell you this. Do not be too surprised if at the end of
that time, when the exercise is over, the object _remains visible to_
you ... does not disappear!"
There was silence for a moment. Then renewed chuckles, but slightly
nervous ones, and not too many.
Dr. Ormond said sternly, "I am serious about that! The possibility,
though it may be small tonight, is there. You have learned that, by
the laws of Insight, any image of subjective reality, if it can be
endowed with _all_ the attributes of objective reality by its human
creator, _must_ spontaneously become an image in objective reality!
"In this case, our collective ham sandwich, if it were perfectly
visualized, could not only be seen by you but felt, its weight and the
texture of each of its ingredients perceived, their appetizing
fragrance savored"--Cavender groaned mentally--"and more: if one of
you were to eat this sandwich, he would find it exactly as nourishing
as any produced by the more ordinary methods of objective reality.
"There are people in the world today," Dr. Ormond concluded, speaking
very earnestly now, "who can do this! There always have been people
who could do this. And you are following in their footsteps, being
trained in even more advanced skills. I am aware to a greater extent
than any of you of the latent power that is developing--has
developed--in this group. Tonight, for the first time, that power will
be focused, drawn down to a pinpoint, to accomplish one task.
"Again, I do not say that at the end of our exercise a ham sandwich
will lie on this plate. Frankly, I don't expect it. But I suggest very
strongly that you don't let it surprise or startle you too much if we
find it here!"
There was dead stillness when he finished speaking. Cavender had a
sense that the lecture room had come alive with eerie little chills.
Dr. Ormond lifted the plate solemnly up before him, holding it between
the fingertips of both hands.
"Now, if you will direct your attention here ... no, Eleanor, with
your eyes open!
"Let us begin...."
* * * * *
Cavender sighed, straightened up in his chair, eyes fixed obediently
on the wooden plate, and banned ham sandwiches and every other kind of
food firmly from his thoughts. There was no point in working his
appetite up any further when he couldn't satisfy it, and he would have
to be on guard a little against simply falling asleep during the next
three minutes. The cloudiness of complete fatigue wasn't too far away.
At the edge of his vision, he was aware of his fellow students across
the room, arranged in suddenly motionless rows like staring zombies.
His eyelids began to feel leaden.
The three minutes dragged on, came to an end. Ormond slowly lowered
his hands. Cavender drew a long breath of relief. The wooden plate, he
noted, with no surprise, was still empty.
"You may stop visualizing," Ormond announced.
There was a concerted sighing, a creaking of chairs. The students came
out of their semitrances, blinked, smiled, settled into more
comfortable positions, waiting for Dr. Al's comments.
"No miracles this time!" Ormond began briskly. He smiled.