XX
THE PROFESSOR

 

QUANTITY of consciousness, according to Stephen, is developed through the use will makes of the quality of consciousness.

 

This statement, as I thought it over, seemed to introduce a new element, and so I asked, "Where does will come from?"

 

"Will," Stephen answered, "is simply freedom for individual development. True, man's free will parallels certain aspects of instinct and even of organic and inorganic reaction. Yet between these extremes of a thing alike throughout in kind there is a difference of—"

 

In the midst of the sentence Joan withdrew her hands from the tripod. "I am tired of theories," she said. "I wish Stephen would get some one to give us another sonnet.

 

"All right, ask him!" I agreed, eager for a test of the ouija­board's ability to duplicate its previous poetical performance.

 

"Why, yes, if you like," the board spelled.

"There was once a poet who committed suicide. He has been wanting to talk—everybody here wants to talk. It's quite as

unusual for us as for you, you know. The poet will be here in a minute; I've called him. While we are waiting, Joan, just let me

say this: Quantity of consciousness is the gift the individual makes to the whole. Here's the poet."

Then, without hesitating, save at the end of each line, that I might write the words down, the ouija-board spelled the

following:

"From wakening sun till sleeping star, my race Was but a feeble span of flickering light A lonely candle casting through the night

But shadow's shadow on the wavering face

Of men's emotions, then puffed out apace.

Oh, earth-contorted concepts and the blight

Of truths but glimpsed, your soul-benumbing might

Now sweeps o'er nations like a flaming mace!

 

"And I, whose own hand rent the temple veil, Essaying entrance bare of preciousness That wise men offer, now say this to thee:

Regret is vain; for rust cannot empale

The quality of gold, and consciousness

Sits judge of self and her free-willed degree."

With the sonnet completed and recorded in my note-book,
Joan asked, as we placed our fingers back on the tripod, "Is the

poet still here?"

"Yes," spelled the board.

"Have you been a long time dead?" asked Joan.

"I have been here a long time," the tripod answered. "It

would seem so to you. But we do not count time as you do." "Have you been happy?"

"Very happy, as are all who are here," was the reply. "My only regret, which is useless, is that I played the Judas to my quality, that I failed to contribute to the common whole of my degree here the gift of quantity. The potentiality of my quality would have made it possible for me to have offered something not unworthy."

"Perhaps," said Joan, "you left the world poems that it still finds beautiful?"

"That men's thoughts," the ouija-board spelled, "live after them in the memory of those who await graduation, is one of the greatest of all glimpses. For that intellect so strong as to produce of itself thoughts and words that survive it must of necessity be more potential than its production."

"Have you since your death ever before talked to any one here on earth?" questioned Joan.

"Not directly," came the answer. "This is my first privilege." "And how do you busy yourself?" Joan asked next.

"Does one go on writing poetry forever?"

 

"What we strive for here," the poet replied, is the height of consciousness, the perfect realization of individuality and of that individuality's relation to the whole. And now, good-by!"

 

The tripod resumed its customary bobbing speed, and we knew that Stephen was again "on the line."

 

"I think," said he, "that the sonnet just given you exquisitely illustrates the idea of quality and quantity. First the poet tells you of his quality, the flickering light which could burn but faintly in a world of emotional hypotheses. Then he recalls to your mind the great war, in its inception the supreme egotism of the ages. But even in thought so overwhelming he cannot forget his own personally supreme emotional hypothesis, his suicide. Thereby he halted his development of quantity. Yet how beautifully he puts the glorious truth: "Rust cannot empale the quality of gold. Equally glorious is the truth he states in conclusion, that consciousness, free-willed in its higher degrees, is judge of self. And now, here is some one else who would like to talk to you."

 

The some one was—the professor. It was his first appearance.

"This, my dear sir and madam, is Professor X.," the tripod spelled. "The poem just dictated to you, and that dictated some time ago, are truly wonderful demonstrations of the possibilities of communication between the two planes. These demonstrations are a very great satisfaction to me. But in your enthusiasm for the beauties of poesy do not neglect the more important phase of the revelation, the literal statement of truth."

 

Here was the professor saying outright, I am so-and-so. The anomaly of the pointblank statement was not apparent to me at the time, because I knew nothing of coloring. But when Stephen later explained how readily the subconscious mind of a receiving station can distort a name or other concrete item of fact, Joan and I asked ourselves what assurance there could be that the communicator claiming to be Professor X. really was he, if, indeed, there was involved anything other than an obscure phenomenon of our own mentality.

 

It was with this question in mind that I read Mrs. K., on the occasion of her visit with us, a number of the communications we had received from the professor. She was interested, it will be remembered, by the suggestion of agreement between the personality of our professor and that of the actual professor, though she indicated she did not know Professor X. intimately enough to justify her in expressing a really definite opinion.

 

Interrupting briefly the narrative of Stephen's philosophy, I shall here relate certain messages that came shortly after Mrs. K.'s visit. To Joan and me they seem pertinent to the question: Was our professor really So-and-so?

 

On April 10, 1919, I asked, in the course of mental communication, "Is there any message for Mrs. K?"

 

The response was introduced by the name "Helen," three times repeated. Then the communicator, whom at the time we supposed to be Mr. K., appeared to be showing Joan the interior of a house, first a library, then an up-stairs room, and finally a hall. Joan, speaking in her own character, sought to describe this interior. When the communication was finished I touched Joan's wrist, and read her my notes. We agreed that the message was intended for Mrs. K., if for any one. And so the script was forwarded her with this statement: "'Helen' is a new name so far as we are concerned. It has never appeared before, and means nothing to us."

 

Then on April 13th, before sufficient time had elapsed for receipt of a reply from Mrs. K., the professor appeared, saying:

 

"I have put it over at last, my dear sir, put it over at last."

 

"Why, good evening, professor," I said, recognizing the customary form of address—"my dear sir."

 

And then the professor surprised me by speaking the name "Helen. He followed the name with: "My dear Mrs. K., do not be afraid to cross the bridge…. If it would not be too much trouble for you, cross the bridge…. Tell Helen you have crossed the bridge." He paused, then said: "Not forgotten the promise, promise I made to manifest myself from totally unheard-of quarter, Helen…. After years this is answer, Helen. Tried hard for two years here…. Put it over, by George! put it over. Boats, boats on the river. Rowboats."

 

Studying this communication of April 13th, Joan and I wondered whether we had not jumped at conclusions when we associated the communication of April 10th with Mr. K. Could the April 10th communicator have been the professor? Was the name of our professor's wife Helen? Mrs. K. would know. A copy of the April 13th communication was sent her.

 

A letter from Mrs. K., received about a week later, commented on both the April 10th communication and that of the 13th. She said: "When I read the first Helen script it had no significance for me. Then I thought of the wife of your professor. Her name is Helen."

 

Mrs. K. went on to say that she had showed the two scripts to the professor's wife, who had found them interesting. Why? I submit the facts of the case with little comment, other than to say that Joan—or I, if knowledge of mine could matter one way or the other—knew practically nothing of Professor X.'s personal life.

 

The interior description, linked as it was with the coming of the name "Helen," proved rather impressive; for, despite vagueness and certain inaccuracies, the house described might, it seemed, be the X. home.

 

For instance, Joan's description of the library made reference to a "long, long table." The professor's library, we learned from Mrs. X., who herself wrote us finally relative to the communications, did contain a very long table, made originally for some one who wanted to spread engravings out on it. On the other hand, the communication's effort to specify the table's position with reference to the bookshelves of the room was a failure. Other details of the library, as described in the communication, were hardly more successful, except one— reference to a student-lamp.

 

A sentence of the library description was: "He" (by which, I took it, Joan meant the "Helen" communicator) "says he had a student-lamp and the cussed thing smoked."

 

In Joan's experience, oil as an illuminant has been supplanted by electricity. What would prompt her subliminal to guess that Professor X. preferred to remain faithful, in his library, to the "student-lamp" of his earlier years? If guess it was, it hit home with astonishing accuracy.

 

"My husband read preferably by a student-lamp," Mrs. X. wrote us. "He would often turn it too high and then be disgusted if the 'wretched thing' smoked. He might or might not have called it 'cussed.' The latter expression, however, would easily have translated his annoyance."

 

The description of the up-stairs room carried mention of a fireplace and "a tall sort of mahogany highboy," and sought to give the location of the fireplace and highboy with reference to various windows. An up-stairs room in the X. home, it proved, does contain a fireplace and also a highboy. But this might be true of any up-stairs room in any home. The communication's attempt to specify the location of the fireplace and highboy, while seeming to approximate accuracy, was not free from confusion. Then, too, the fireplace was described as having "a funny, old-fashioned, curved mouth." The fireplace in the room where the highboy stands does not have a curved mouth.

 

Yet, oddly enough, in another up-stairs room of the X. home, Mrs. X. informed us, there is an old-fashioned fireplace, the mouth of which is curved.

 

The house interior description closed with Joan's exclaiming: "What a peculiar hall! It hasn't any top. I see; the hall runs clear to the top, with rooms around it on the second floor."

"The reference to the hall is excellent," Mrs. X. said. "The hall does run up two stories, and the rooms on the second floor open off it."

 

Concerning the house description, viewed as an entirety, Mrs. X. wrote:

 

"The testimony of each single point is of great interest when a composite picture, as it were, is made. The script conveys an intimate impression of familiarity with the interior of a house unknown to either of you. This is to me the impressive note of the testimony."

 

Let us pass now to the communication of April 13th. Its item of least interest was the reference to "boats on the river." Professor X. and his wife, it proved, were fond of boating together. But the liking for boating is so general that "boats on the river" would fit the experience of thousands.

 

Quite curious, however, was the professor's requesting Mrs. K. to "cross the bridge" and to "tell Helen you have crossed the bridge." Was the language simply symbolical? Perhaps so, even if the identity of our professor with