HEARING WITHOUT EARS.--"WHAT WILL BE THE END?"
A flood of recollections came over me, a vivid remembrance of my
earth-learned school philosophy. "I rebel again," I said, "I deny your
statements. We can neither be moving, nor can we be out of the
atmosphere. Fool that I have been not to have sooner and better used my
reasoning faculties, not to have at once rejected your statements
concerning the disappearance of the atmosphere."
"I await your argument."
"Am I not speaking? Is other argument necessary? Have I not heard your
voice, and that, too, since you asserted that we had left the
atmosphere?"
"Continue."
"Have not men demonstrated, and is it not accepted beyond the shadow of
a doubt, that sound is produced by vibrations of the air?"
"You speak truly; as men converse on surface earth."
"This medium--the air--in wave vibrations, strikes upon the drum of the
ear, and thus impresses the brain," I continued.
"I agree that such is the teachings of your philosophy; go on."
"It is unnecessary; you admit the facts, and the facts refute you; there
must be an atmosphere to convey sound."
"Can not you understand that you are not now on the surface of the
earth? Will you never learn that the philosophy of your former life is
not philosophy here? That earth-bound science is science only with
surface-earth men? Here science is a fallacy. All that you have said is
true of surface earth, but your argument is invalid where every
condition is different from the conditions that prevail thereon. You use
the organs of speech in addressing me as you once learned to use them,
but such physical efforts are unnecessary to convey sense-impressions
in this condition of rest and complacency, and you waste energy in
employing them. You assert and believe that the air conveys sound; you
have been taught such theories in support of a restricted philosophy;
but may I ask you if a bar of iron, a stick of wood, a stream of water,
indeed any substance known to you placed against the ear will not do the
same, and many substances even better than the atmosphere?"
"This I admit."
"Will you tell me how the vibration of any of these bodies impresses the
seat of hearing?"
"It moves the atmosphere which strikes upon the tympanum of the ear."
"You have not explained the phenomenon; how does that tympanic membrane
communicate with the brain?"
"By vibrations, I understand," I answered, and then I began to feel that
this assertion was a simple statement, and not sufficient to explain how
matter acts upon mind, whatever mind may be, and I hesitated.
"Pray do not stop," he said; "how is it that a delicate vibrating film
of animal membrane can receive and convey sound to a pulpy organic mass
that is destitute of elasticity, and which consists mostly of water, for
the brain is such in structure, and vibrations like those you mention,
can not, by your own theory, pass through it as vibrations through a
sonorous material, or even reach from the tympanum of the ear to the
nearest convolution of the brain."
"I can not explain this, I admit," was my reply.
"Pass that feature, then, and concede that this tympanic membrane is
capable of materially affecting brain tissue by its tiny vibrations, how
can that slimy, pulpy formation mostly made up of water, communicate
with the soul of man, for you do not claim, I hope, that brain material
is either mind, conscience, or soul?"
I confessed my inability to answer or even to theorize on the subject,
and recognizing my humiliation, I begged him to open the door to such
knowledge.
"The vibration of the atmosphere is necessary to man, as earthy man is
situated," he said. "The coarser attributes known as matter formations
are the crudities of nature, dust swept from space. Man's organism is
made up of the roughest and lowest kind of space materials; he is
surrounded by a turbulent medium, the air, and these various conditions
obscure or destroy the finer attributes of his ethereal nature, and
prevent a higher spiritual evolution. His spiritual self is enveloped in
earth, and everywhere thwarted by earthy materials. He is insensible to
the finer influences of surrounding media by reason of the overwhelming
necessity of a war for existence with the grossly antagonistic
materialistic confusion that everywhere confronts, surrounds, and
pervades him. Such a conflict with extraneous matter is necessary in
order that he may retain his earthy being, for, to remain a mortal, he
must work to keep body and soul together. His organs of communication
and perception are of 'earth, earthy'; his nature is cast in a mold of
clay, and the blood within him gurgles and struggles in his brain, a
whirlpool of madly rushing liquid substances, creating disorder in the
primal realms of consciousness. He is ignorant of this inward turmoil
because he has never been without it, as ignorant as he is of the rank
odors of the gases of the atmosphere that he has always breathed, and
can not perceive because of the benumbed olfactory nerves. Thus it is
that all his subtler senses are inevitably blunted and perverted, and
his vulgar nature preponderates. The rich essential part of his own self
is unknown, even to himself. The possibility of delight and pleasure in
an acquaintance with the finer attributes of his own soul is clouded by
this shrouding materialistic presence that has, through countless
generations, become a part of man, and he even derives most of his
mental pleasures from such acts as tend to encourage the animal
passions. Thus it follows that the sensitive, highly developed,
extremely attenuated part of his inner being has become subservient to
the grosser elements. The baser part of his nature has become dominant.
He remains insensible to impressions from the highly developed
surrounding media which, being incapable of reaching his inner organism
other than through mechanical agencies, are powerless to impress. Alas,
only the coarser conditions of celestial phenomena can affect him, and
the finer expressions of the universe of life and force are lost to his
spiritual apprehension."
"Would you have me view the soul of man as I would a material being?"
"Surely," he answered; "it exists practically as does the more gross
forms of matter, and in exact accord with natural laws. Associated with
lower forms of matter, the soul of man is a temporary slave to the
enveloping substance. The ear of man as now constituted can hear only by
means of vibrations of such media as conduct vibrations in matter--for
example, the air; but were man to be deprived of the organs of hearing,
and then exist for generations subject to evolutions from within,
whereby the acuteness of the spirit would become intensified, or
permitted to perform its true function, he would learn to communicate
soul to soul, not only with mankind, but with beings celestial that
surround, and are now unknown to him. This he would accomplish through a
medium of communication that requires neither ear nor tongue. To an
extent your present condition is what men call supernatural, although in
reality you have been divested of only a part of your former material
grossness, which object has been accomplished under perfectly natural
conditions; your mind no longer requires the material medium by which to
converse with the spiritual. We are conversing now by thought contact,
there is no atmosphere here, your tongue moves merely from habit, and
not from necessity. I am reading your mind as you in turn are mine,
neither of us is speaking as you were accustomed to speak."
"I can not accept that assertion," I said; "it is to me impossible to
realize the existence of such conditions."
"As it is for any man to explain any phenomenon in life," he said. "Do
you not remember that you ceased to respire, and were not conscious of
the fact?"
"Yes."
"That your heart had stopped beating, your blood no longer circulated,
while you were in ignorance of the change?"
"That is also true."
"Now I will prove my last assertion. Close your mouth, and think of a
question you wish to propound."
I did so, and to my perfect understanding and comprehension he answered
me with closed mouth.
"What will be the end?" I exclaimed, or thought aloud. "I am possessed
of nearly all the attributes that I once supposed inherent only in a
corpse, yet I live, I see clearly, I hear plainly, I have a quickened
being, and a mental perception intensified and exquisite. Why and how
has this been accomplished? What will be the result of this eventful
journey?"
"Restful, you should say," he remarked; "the present is restful, the end
will be peace. Now I will give you a lesson concerning the words Why and
How that you have just used."