XV
EARTH TERMS

 

THIS is Stephen," the tripod spelled. "I do not quite know how to correlate my facts. The truth of the matter is that each philosophy and religion had, and has, at least one fundamental fact. Many facts make the truth if you could only sift them from the emotional hypotheses. Of these many facts, man is at all times conscious of one, which is the central fact of all: Consciousness is, or, as one says, 'I am.' But man has allowed his emotions to color this central fact, to dress it out in hues that shift and change and like a will-o'-the-wisp lead him from the path of truth."

 

I submit that if a ouija-board came at you in such a fashion you would be intrigued. "Emotional hypotheses," for instance! What could the phrase mean, if anything? Was it mere jargon?

 

"'Emotional hypotheses' will bear definition."

 

I said, more than half suspecting that any attempt the ouija­board might make to define the high-sounding term would prove incoherent.

 

But promptly the tripod replied:

 

"By emotional hypothesis is meant that impatience which leads the egotistical minds of men to jump at a conclusion rather than undergo the strain and suspense of logical reasoning. The truth is so simple. But for man's emotional hypotheses he could have read it in the fields thousands of years ago. And because of earth's present scientific understanding of natural law it has become simpler than simple if men will but think clearly from the premises they have already established."

 

How absurd for me to sit there and address this less than shadowy Stephen! Yet I argued: "But science has fenced off the natural world from that other world religion calls spiritual."

 

"The material and the spiritual are closer than scholars have said," replied Stephen. "But grasp first the truth of all truths, consciousness. Consciousness is. Now the earth terms on which I am depending to make myself clear to you are, quantity and quality. Quantity and quality are the fundamentals of consciousness. First, though, is there any question you care to ask?"

 

Thus to lay down a principle or two and then call for comment was in the beginning a favorite method of Stephen's instruction.

"There are many questions," I said. "But I count myself a fool to interrogate a ouija-board."

"Oh, drat the ouija-board!" exclaimed Stephen. "You never mind the toy. Remember that the greatest physical force known, electricity, was discovered by means of a boy's kite."

"Well, then, Stephen," I said, "do all persons survive at death?"

"They become as I," he answered. "Still possessed of a degree of my own I am a part of the great consciousness. I am only a part of a whole, yet the whole is I. You do not understand; later this will be made clear to you. But don't use the word 'death.' Man has read into this word so much that is somber, so much of unhappiness and despair. The earth term that corresponds to our thought here of what you call death, is graduation. And as I did not die, but rather graduated into a new mode of consciousness, so be assured that graduation, not death, awaits you."

 

Graduation? Here was another novel term. Surely neither Joan nor I were inventors of "quality," "quantity," "emotional hypothesis," "graduation."

 

Indeed, if by graduation Stephen meant a process of dying whereby one leaps at a bound into eternal bliss, or, in case one has sinned greatly, into eternal damnation, I must oppose him.

 

"To me," I said, "that notion has always seemed fishy."

"Whaley!" came back the ouija-board, with the ready pithiness which quickly made Stephen's personality appear so normal.

"I have graduated into a higher consciousness," the tripod continued. "By this I do not mean that I have reached the height of consciousness. My present degree is much the same as yours and that of Joan. But between that part of a given degree of consciousness which is on your side and that part of the same degree which is on my side, there is this difference: Here we do not see as through a glass darkly. We recognize ourselves here as a whole, and perfection is the end."

“Then, Stephen,” I asked, "you will in the future become different from what you are now? Will you die again?"

"Yes," he responded, "though by 'die' you mean 'graduate.'"

"But men have such an unholy fear of death," I said.

"Unholy? Yes and no," Stephen replied. "Unholy because they do not understand the truth. Holy because earth-life is their opportunity to develop the quantity of consciousness."

 

As I wrote down Stephen's words, I said to Joan: "Now you have two riddles—quality of consciousness and also quantity. And quantity I think is the more puzzling of the two." How might the word quantity be applied to consciousness? When we touched the tripod again it spelled:

 

"Understanding of consciousness, and of its quality and quantity, is essential to the progress of this revelation. So also must you understand the degrees of consciousness."

 

Stephen's second dying had gripped Joan's interest.

 

"Tell me!" she urged. "You say your future holds new experiences, new graduations. Does not this create uncertainty and doubt, even for you?"

 

"Why should I fear?" Stephen answered. "My second graduation, my third, my fourth, my fifth, each I shall recognize as a promotion, just as my first graduation was a promotion. On the one hand, I shall graduate many, many times into ever higher degrees of consciousness, reaching ultimately the supreme degree. On the other hand, a part of the whole is constantly reborn."

 

At mention of rebirth Joan, the practical, tilted her nose to an elevation a shade above normal. "I thought it was about time for that hocus-pocus of reincarnation to make its appearance!" she muttered.

"Stephen," I put in, "you have said that each philosophy and religion shadows forth a fundamental fact. Is rebirth the fundamental truth of the Oriental doctrine of transmigration of the soul?"

"But surely," the ouija-board replied.

"Do you mean to tell us," Joan asked, that you existed prior to your earth existence?"

"But surely," the ouija-board repeated.

"Stephen," I said, joining in Joan's impatience, "as I recall the transmigration idea it holds that souls leaving the bodies of men are sometimes reborn into the bodies of animals, and vice versa. Surely you do not mean that we should take such a mad notion seriously?"

"I have not said so," Stephen answered. "Stop and recall my definition of emotional hypothesis. The transmigration thought is but a guess at the truth, a theory in some measure correct, yet highly colored by emotional reasoning."

"But you still insist, do you, Stephen, that you will be born again into this world of men? I questioned.

"Yes," he replied. "I am sure to be born again—it cannot be otherwise—yet not all of me as I knew myself before. But you do not understand. For the present accept the thought that consciousness is constantly reborn. Then accept this fact: The individual, once graduated from earthly existence, never again returns as an individual. As an individual he goes on and on; ever nearer he approaches and ultimately reaches supremacy. These two thoughts may now seem contradictory. The contradiction will disappear when you understand what I mean by rebirth."

"Well," I said, "may I ask this—are you glad you died?"

"Had I remained longer on the earth plane," Stephen spelled in reply, "I would have had greater opportunity to develop the quantity of my consciousness. Yet here I can develop quality of consciousness, with which to be born again into your world in order there to develop quantity."

 

In my first effort to record this speech I became confused, and so asked Stephen to repeat his words.

 

"Anything to oblige," he replied. And again the speech, entire, spelled itself out.

 

I have said that the mere performance of the tripod has appealed to Joan and me as evidence that the philosophy had origin in mind other than our own. Now and then some long sentence would complete itself only to find us forgetful of its first half. Entire clauses would be missing. We would cudgel our brains to remember them, and when we failed the tripod, without hesitation, would repeat the sentence. Such occurrences added but a mite to the bigger marvel—the logic with which the performing tripod, starting with a few definitions, developed its thought into a rounded­out system, finishing one subject, then passing on to the next, until finally the work was done.

 

But Stephen's twice-spelled speech had awakened rebellion in my practical Joan. "Where's all this stuff leading to?" she demanded to know. "What's the point of it? And it contradicts itself! If the dead are reborn, why don't they bring back to earth the knowledge they acquire while they're dead?"

 

As she spoke we replaced our fingers on the tripod. It moved quickly across the board.

 

"I, rather the quality of my consciousness," it spelled, "will bring back a greater power to assimilate mortal experience; that is, to develop quantity."

"Your answer is evasive," charged Joan. "Put it this way— when you were here, why did you not remember your previous earth experiences? You didn't, I suppose. I am sure I don't remember ever having had a previous existence."

"I did have glimpses," Stephen responded, "just as you have glimpses of previous earth existence. The first time I went to England there were certain places that were startlingly familiar. All people who travel have this experience more or less. Then often I experienced that feeling, common to every one, of having previously done things which were, as a matter of fact, quite new. Then, too, some things were easier for me to learn and understand than others. And here is another term we shall have frequent occasion to use—glimpse. Men have had many glimpses."

"It is interesting!" exclaimed Joan.

"The fairy-tale of Aladdin and his wonderful lamp is a glimpse," the tripod continued. "Aladdin had only to rub the lamp and the genie would appear. You have but to call and I am with you. Glimpses are not really essential to my revelation, yet they will prove suggestive once you have learned to recognize them. Store the glimpse-thought away with those other ideas—consciousness, quality of consciousness, quantity of consciousness, degrees of consciousness, and rebirth of consciousness."

 

I objected, declaring myself unequal to it all.

 

"So you say," replied Stephen. "Yet to you is being given this revelation—not so entirely by me as you think. There are many others, of higher degree, interested. In fact, this is the greatest of happenings to us here. Poor you!"

 

The words "poor you" seemed drawled out, the tripod creeping tantalizingly at a snail's pace.

 

"Yet for all your mock sympathy," said I, "adequate understanding of the riddles you are propounding would require hours and days of thought."

"Consider the necessary thinking in the light of a recreation," Stephen answered. "Consider how nimble such exercise will make your mind. But pardon me, old top, if I ask you to store one more thought away—the idea of supremacy, the supreme degree of consciousness

"What we call God?" I asked.

"God is consciousness," Stephen replied. "Consciousness is God. Consciousness is within you. God is within you. The germ of supremacy is yours and is mine and is in all things animate and inanimate. Consciousness is. It is all there ever was or will be, without beginning and without end."

"Stephen," I offered, "You indicate that, perhaps, supremacy has been reached by certain individuals. Who are some of these?"

"Christ," the answer came, "and most of those whom the world calls saints."

"Was Christ, then, just a man?" I asked.