Part 11

=Telepathic Perception.=--The pupil said: "While I lived in the most intimate relations with a woman, I arrived, like Gustav Jäger, at 'the discovery of the soul.' I was always in communication with her, often through obscure sensations, but very often through the sense of smell; these were subjective however, as other people were not aware of them. When she was travelling I knew whether she was in a steamer or on a train; I could distinguish the revolutions of the screw from the vibration of the railway carriage and the puffing of the engine. She used to make her presence felt by me at a certain hour of the day, _i.e._ five o'clock in the morning. Once, when she was in Paris, this time changed to four o'clock. When I consulted the table of time variations, I found that it was four o'clock in Paris when it was five o'clock with me. Another time she was in St. Petersburg, then our meeting took place an hour later; that also agreed with the time-table. When she hated me, I was conscious of a smell and taste like that of mortalin; this happened one night so distinctly that I had to rise and open the window. When she thought kindly of me, I perceived a smell of incense and often of jasmine, but these scents sometimes changed into sensations of taste. When she was in society without me I felt that she was away, and when the conversation turned on me I was aware whether they were speaking good or ill about me."

=Morse Telepathy.=--The pupil continued: "I was spending one evening at home alone; I did not know where she was, but had the feeling that she was lost to me. At 10.40 p.m. I was aware of a passing breath of perfume. Then I said to myself, 'She has been in the theatre! But in which?' I took the daily paper, read the theatre advertisements, and found that one theatre closed at 10.40. Further inquiry proved that my surmise was right.

"On another occasion when in company I broke off a lively conversation with a smile. 'What are you smiling at?' 'Just now the train from the south entered the terminus.' Another time under similar circumstances I said: 'Now the curtain falls on the last act in _Helsingfors_!' and I heard the applause which greeted the prima donna who had played in my piece. The conversation of the people in the restaurant after the conclusion of the piece sounded like ringing in my ears. I can hear that as far as from Germany when a prima donna is acting in one of my pieces there, although I do not know beforehand that it is going to be played. One evening I had gone to bed about half-past nine, and was awoken about half-past eleven by a smell of punch and tobacco and in the impression that two of my acquaintances in a café were talking about me. I had every reason to believe that I had been present there in some way or another, but I was so accustomed to this phenomenon that this time I did not test it. Flammarion gives a hundred such cases in his book _The Unknown_."

=Nisus Formativus, or Unconscious Sculpture.=--The pupil continued: "Once I signed a contract with a merchant. After sleeping the night over it, I noticed that he had cheated me. With angry thoughts I went out for my morning stroll. When I came back I wished to change my clothes, and threw my handkerchief on the table. After I had undressed myself I noticed that the handkerchief had been crumpled together by my nervous clutch, and now, where it lay, formed a cast of the merchant's head, like a plaster-of-Paris bust. The question arises: Had my hand unconsciously formed an image of my thoughts? Linen is a very plastic material, and one often finds excellent pieces of 'sculpture' in handkerchiefs, sheets, and cushions. When a married man comes home with his wife from a ball, he should look at the handkerchief chief which she has held the whole evening in her hand, and then perhaps he might see with whom she preferred most to dance.

"In India a Buddhist priest is said to represent the 208 incarnations of Vishnu by putting his hand in a linen bag, and moulding rapidly from within the linen of the bag into the shapes of an elephant, tortoise, etc. When St. Veronica's napkin retained the impress of Christ's face, that is not more improbable than that my pillow in the morning should show the impress of faces which are not like mine. I have read of Indian vases which are so modelled that at first one only sees a chaos resembling clouds, twisted entrails, or the convolutions of the brain. After the eye has become accustomed to this the confusion begins to be disentangled; all kinds of objects such as plants and animals emerge in clear outline. Whether all observers see the same I know not. But I believe that the moulder of the vase has worked unintentionally and unconsciously."

=Projections.=--The pupil continued: "But there are also projections which I cannot explain. It is possible that only poets and artists possess the power so to project their inward images in every life that they become half real. It is quite a usual occurrence that the dying show themselves to their absent friends. Living persons can also appear at a distance, but only to those who keep them in their thoughts. I used to show my initiated friends the following phenomenon: I observed a stranger who resembled an absent acquaintance. As soon as my eye completed the image, whatever unlikeness remained was erased. 'See, there goes X.,' I said. My friends saw the resemblance, understood that it was not X., comprehended my meaning, and agreed with me without further thought. If we shortly afterwards met X. we were astonished, and attempted to find no explanation in face of the inexplicable latter part of the phenomenon.

"But one day I went down a street and 'saw' my friend Dr. Y. who lived fifty miles away. It was he, and yet it was not he. It was the same little figure although somewhat wavering and uncertain. The grey-yellow face was also the same although almost ghost-like, with deep furrows which followed the oval lines of the face, and with the forced laugh of suffering. When I came home I read in the paper that the man was dead."

=Apparitions.=--The pupil continued: "One evening I passed a well-known theatre while a performance was going on inside. There was no one outside. Suddenly on the pavement I saw an actor who had died thirty years previously, after he had first gone crazy with vexation because he had failed as an actor in this very theatre. His face, like that of my deceased friend the doctor's, was lined with those parallel furrows which run from the forehead to the jaw. 'Was it he, or not?' I asked myself, and left the question open. On another occasion I was travelling by rail in a foreign country. The train halted at a station for three minutes. On the platform in broad daylight a man was going up and down with a paint-box in his hand. He looked nervous and suffering and was badly dressed. 'That is he!' I thought. 'How has he got here? Why has he come down in the world?' During this three minutes I suffered all the tortures of uncertainty and of a bad conscience, for I was partly to blame for his misfortune and his poverty. The train went on, and I have never discovered whether it were really he. It was certainly improbable.

"Yet another time I was travelling by rail. At a remote station a man came into my compartment and sat opposite me. I thought he was an acquaintance, but he looked at me unrecognisingly. Then I let my eyes fall. Immediately he regarded me with an ironical smile which I again recognised. 'It is he,' I thought, 'but he will not greet me.' So I suffered for some hours. My conscience endured all that I owed him. Whether it really was he I know not, but the effect was the same."

=The Reactionary Type.=--The teacher said: "Men seem to react against themselves and their own bad qualities when they demand from others what they cannot themselves do. A man who is full of hate demands to be loved. A faithless deceiver came lately to me and finished his wily talk by saying, 'All I ask is that you trust me!' He only asked that in order that he might be able to deceive me. But perhaps he trusted me more than himself; he did not know himself, but had an inkling of what he was. Perhaps he felt that my belief in him would strengthen and elevate him, and might possibly neutralise his untrustworthiness. It sounded at any rate very naïve, and I felt myself honoured by the compliment.

"Again, a spendthrift who had no means of his own always cautioned me to be frugal. He gave brilliant parties, but when he came to me he only got potatoes and herrings, and yet he thought that was beyond my means. On one occasion I had bought 200 grammes of nickel-sulphate for my chemical experiments. They cost fifty-two pence. The spendthrift came to visit me, looked at the sulphate, and exclaimed, 'Can you afford it? Nickel-sulphate which is so dear.' Fifty-two pence! Then he invited me to a drive in a carriage, and a meal which cost fifty-two kronas for an altogether unproductive purpose. When he had to pay the reckoning he suffered torments. Perhaps he was by nature a skinflint, who had yielded to a mania for extravagance and reacted against it. I tried to explain this once to him, as on principle I wished to think well of the man."

=The Hate of Parasites.=--The teacher continued: "There are men who are spiritually so empty that they only live on others. I have an acquaintance (when one is over fifty one does not ask for friends any more) who constantly visits me but never says anything. Our social intercourse consists in my speaking alone. When he leaves me after several hours, I feel as if I had been undergoing blood-letting. It is certainly good to be able to talk oneself out often, but one would often like to have an answer to one's questions; but I never get an answer, not even to a question in his own special line. I can only remember one expression which this man used, and that was extraordinarily stupid. Somebody had slandered me, and my 'acquaintance' had believed every word and painted my figure in false colours. Finally one evening I defended myself, and proved that my slanderer was not in his right senses. He rejected my explanation, exclaiming 'Fie! how cynical you are!'

"What did this answer mean? First, that I must not wash myself clean, for he wanted to have me dirty; secondly, that he gave me the lie; thirdly, that his sympathies were on the side of the slanderer. I draw the inference that this man hated me, and therefore visited me. If he could not have intercourse with me, he could not abuse my confidence and gratify his hate. His tactics were--to live my life, to devour my soul, to gnaw my bones. The attraction he felt to me he called sympathy, though it was antipathy. There are many kinds of hate, and a wife's 'love' to her husband is a variety of hate. She desires his virile power in order to become a husband and make him into a passive-wife."

=A Letter from the Dead.=--The teacher said: "It seems as though one could live the life of another parallel with one's own, or as though one might be in touch with a stranger on another continent. One morning I received a letter of twenty-quarto pages from America. Long letters make me nervous; they always begin with flattery and end with scolding. I read, as I usually do, the signature first, which was unknown to me. Then I dipped into the letter here and there, and saw that the writer wished to influence me. One word pricked me like a needle, and I tore the letter into small pieces which I threw in the paper-basket. In the night I dreamt that the remarkable man,[1] who seemed still to guide my steps after his death, showed me an old manuscript which I had not found worth reading. The old servant held the manuscript against the light, and then I saw like a water-mark another writing between the lines. Immediately afterwards I saw in my dream a broken-off leaden wire, but closer inspection showed its surface to be gold. When I awoke in the morning I understood the dream in its perfectly clear symbolism. I went to the paper-basket, collected the fragments of the stranger's letter, and spent six hours in piecing them together. Then I began to read. I should premise that the handwriting was so like that of my deceased and honoured teacher, that I believed I was reading a letter from the dead."

[Footnote 1: He refers probably to the Chief Librarian in the Royal Stockholm Library, where he had been an assistant in his youth.]

=A Letter from Hell.=--"The letter pricked me like a packet of needles. But it was so interesting that I was continually lured onward to read to the end. The writer began by saying that he had received his first intellectual awakening through my books. Since then his course for twenty years had been very irregular; led astray by the prevailing ape-morality, he had gone in evil ways. In the midst of his wandering, it happened to him as to Dante and others--he came into hell, but found a Virgil who led him out and saved him. Then his own real life began. He passed all the sciences from philosophy to chemistry under critical review, and found them consisting of mere conventional lies. He drifted about helplessly till he found an anchorage-ground in faith in Christ, the Exorciser of demons, the highest Wisdom, the Redeemer who saves from doubt, despair, and madness.

"During the perusal I felt sometimes as though I were reading my own life or a satire on it. Annoyed by what seemed a tactless encroachment, I often wished to throw the letter away but could not; the dream always recurred to me, and the letter contained new and bold ideas sparkling in a chaos of contradictions and paradoxes. In short, it proved a turning-point in my life. It exposed my faults, but showed me at the same time that I had held the right course, in spite of the deflections and cross-currents to which I had been exposed."

=An Unconscious Medium.=--"Now let me say a few words about my deceased mentor, who already in his lifetime exercised a great influence on my development, though without knowing or wishing it. I was young, precocious, dull, and untrustworthy, mostly because I wished to preserve my personal independence, but also because I was godless, and consequently immoral without any other principle except that of getting on. He, my chief, attracted me, in spite of the fact that I was antipathetic to him in most things. My position required that I should serve him devotedly, but I wished also to serve my own interests. He was a spiritist and Swedenborgian, but I was a materialist. This he was aware of, because I was brutally truthful. But struggle as I might, I came under his influence and became his medium. There were days on which he was so blind that he could not read the old manuscripts which he was editing. One day he gave me a mediæval codex in a difficult character, and half in joke told me to read it. I read it at once, without having learnt the character. Then he had discovered me. But I worked alone, although unconsciously. One day I stumbled on a pile of old documents, and found a date which he had been hunting for for twenty years. Another time I found an historic detail of great importance which altered our ideas of our early history. One day our paths diverged.

=The Revenant.=--"Years passed. I lived abroad, but my thoughts often reverted to the savant who had had a great influence on my life. Often, without any special reason, I spoke of him for hours at a time--not always with the respect which I owed him. I was, it must be remembered, a pioneer, to whom nothing was sacred, neither parents nor teacher. One day I heard that the old man was dead. Eight days later there appeared in the paper this mysterious announcement. An intimate friend of the deceased received, eight days after his death, through the post, a letter from him. The paper considered it a jocose mystification on the part of the deceased, who loved jokes. I guessed who might have been entrusted with the letter, but felt astonished that a dying man could take such pleasure in jesting, especially about things which he had taken so seriously. When, two years later, began the experiences described in my book _Inferno_, I felt that I was in touch with my departed teacher. There were certain roguish traits in the phenomena which reminded me of him. I remember one night addressing the question to the darkness, 'Is it you?' The whole affair was in his style, teasing in form, but well-meaning in purpose. I received no answer, but the impression remained--a mixture of terrible grim earnest and behind it a friendly smile, comforting, pardoning, protecting, just as in his lifetime, when he practised patience with my ill manners."

=The Meeting in the Convent.=--The teacher continued: "During my wanderings I happened once to visit a convent with a travelling companion in a corner of Europe. What interested me specially was the library, for I had long been trying to trace Anschar's[1] journal. After I had slept the night in a cell which bore the inscription 'B. Victor III. P.P.,' in memory of Pope Victor III 'who punished the heretics who denied the divinity of Christ,' I was taken into the library. The first thing shown me was a collection of Latin hymns of the Middle Ages which had been edited by my deceased teacher. The inner side of the title-page contained some handwriting by the editor, which was so peculiar that it could hardly be imitated. I asked the Benedictine monk who accompanied me, whose signature it was. He answered, 'The convent librarian's.' 'Are you certain?' I asked. 'Yes, quite certain.' This discovery of his handwriting, which I had never seen elsewhere, after so many years made a deep impression on me. I asked myself whether the monk, acting as a medium, could have imitated the handwriting of the deceased editor. After an afternoon's search I found the valuable explanation that Anschar's journal had been taken by Abbot Thymo from Corvey to Rome in A.D. 1261. It was known that it had since disappeared, but now I had found a trace of it. I felt as though my deceased friend had brought me here into the convent in order to discuss Anschar's journal, concerning the fate of which we had often made guesses and searches."

[Footnote 1: A famous French missionary in Sweden, a.d. 801-865.]

=Correspondences.=--The teacher said: "It seems to me as though Swedenborg's correspondences or correlatives were to be found again in all departments, as though natural laws on a higher plane can be applied to the spiritual life of man. If an object comes too close to the magnifying glass, it becomes indistinct. Similarly one cannot see the object of one's affections if she comes too close. She becomes small and indistinct, loses outline and colour; but remove her to the proper focus, and she becomes magnified and clear. Thus it is with princes and their valets de chambre.

"But there are also exceptions to the rule. Many friends gain by proximity; one must see them often, otherwise they change their shape and become ghostly and alarming. Others again seem better at a distance; whenever we meet them we lose an illusion. The attraction between lovers can increase in proportion to the square of the distance between them, and also in reverse proportion; the greater the distance, the greater the pain of separation. It seems also possible to apply the facts of electricity in the psychical sphere. Pellets of elder-pith attract one another so long as they are of opposite polarity, but when they are saturated or over-saturated they repel one another. But the mutual repulsion also takes place when a foreign body is interposed between them, for then an influence is produced which operates laterally."

=Portents.=--The teacher continued: "As soon as I believe in an Almighty God, who can suspend the few natural laws which we know, and bring into operation the countless host of laws which we do not know, I must believe in miracles. Swedenborg does not deal so hardly with anyone (at the same time that he commiserates them) as the asses who revere the creation and the laws of nature, without believing in the Creator and Law-giver. They go with their noses on the ground, and if anything unusual happens 'in the air,' as they say, they call it 'a meteorological phenomenon,' and attribute it to such and such natural causes. They register the phenomenon in their records without dreaming of anything behind it, and forthwith forget the matter.

"We, on the other hand, will mention some events of recent years and connect them with certain natural phenomena which may possibly denote the presence of warning and chastising powers.

"On the 7th June, 1905, Sweden and Norway separated. A year previous an earthquake took place which had its centre in the Kattegat. One shock reached Christiania and caused a terrible panic in the churches; people trampled one another to death or lost their reason. Another shock affected Stockholm and caused alarm, but in a minor degree; among those affected by it was a prince of high military rank. In January, 1905, a hurricane burst over Christiania, tore the roof from the royal castle, and injured the fortress of Akershus. The same hurricane travelled east-ward to Stockholm, tore the roof from the guards' barracks and threw it on the drilling-ground. These statements can be verified by reference to the newspapers. The question is: 'Are these portents or not?' Are symbolic natural phenomena portents?"

=The Difficult Art of Lying.=--The teacher said: "When people lie deliberately, usually with the object of gaining something, I often do not hear what they say. One day a carpenter came to me with a complaint. I listened to him and helped him. The next day he came again in order to do a piece of work. Then, among other things he let this remark fall: 'To-day, thank God, she is better.' 'Who?' I asked. 'I mentioned yesterday that my child had fallen down the staircase.' Then I felt ashamed of having taken so little interest in his troubles, and murmured some sympathetic words. But when he had gone I thought over the matter. Since I generally hear very well and attend to what people say, I was astonished that I had not noticed his account of his trouble. I could not explain it to myself.

"Some time later, after some months, I conceived a strong feeling of distrust towards this man. I remembered the German proverb, 'A liar should have a good memory,' and determined to test him. Therefore I said to him abruptly, 'Did you have a good summer?' 'Splendid,' he answered. 'Is your wife quite well?' 'Perfectly.' 'Your child too?' 'She has never passed through the summer so well.' Accordingly he had lied when he said the little girl had had an accident, and had subsequently forgotten it. What was unreal could leave no impression behind--an interesting fact, as it seemed to me. In connection with this I remembered that an actor, a pessimist and hopeless despairer, had to play the part of a believing and positive character on a certain occasion. That evening the audience could hardly hear a word of what he said. I was astonished at the time, but now I understand that he was lying."