The First Algernon Blackwood MEGAPACK ®. Algernon Blackwood
safer regions of his normal state. Stahl did not now oppose or deny. Catching the wave of the Celt’s experience, he let his thought run sympathetically with it, alongside, as it were, guiding gently and insinuatingly down to earth again.
And the result justified this cunning wisdom; O’Malley returned to the common world by degrees. For it was enchanting to find his amazing adventure explained even in this partial, speculative way. Who else among his acquaintances would have listened at all, much less admitted its possibility?
“But, why in particular me?” he asked. “Can’t everybody know these cosmic reactions you speak of?” It was his intellect that asked the foolish question. His whole Self knew the answer beforehand.
“Because,” replied the doctor, tapping his saucer to emphasize each word, “in some way you have retained an almost unbelievable simplicity of heart—an innocence singularly undefiled—a sort of primal, spontaneous innocence that has kept you clean and open. I venture even to suggest that shame, as most men know it, has never come to you at all.”
The words sank down into him. Passing the intellect that would have criticized, they nested deep within where the intuition knew them true. Behind the clumsy language that is, he caught the thought.
“As if I were a saint!” he laughed faintly.
Stahl shook his head. “Rather, because you live detached,” he replied, “and have never identified your Self with the rubbish of life. the channels in you are still open to these tides of larger existence. I wish I had your courage.”
“While others—?”
The German hesitated a moment. “Most men,” he said, choosing his words with evident care, “are too grossly organized to be aware that these reactions of a wider consciousness can be possible at all. Their minute normal Self they mistake for the whole, hence denying even the experiences of others. ‘Our actual personality may be something considerably unlike that conception of it which is based on our present terrestrial consciousness—a form of consciousness suited to, and developed by, our temporary existence here, but not necessarily more than a fraction of our total self. It is quite credible that our entire personality is never terrestrially manifest.’” Obviously he quoted. the Irishman had read the words somewhere. He came back more and more into the world—correlated, that is, the subconscious with the conscious.
“Yet consciousness apart from the brain is inconceivable,” he interposed, more to hear the reply than to express a conviction.
Whether Stahl divined his intention or not, he gave no sign.
“‘We cannot say with any security that the stuff called brain is the only conceivable machinery which mind and consciousness are able to utilize: though it is true that we know no other.’” the last phrase he repeated: “‘though it is true that we know no other.’”
O’Malley sank deeper into his chair, making no reply. His mind clutched at the words “too grossly organized,” and his thoughts ran back for a moment to his daily life in London. He pictured his friends and acquaintances there; the men at his club, at dinner parties, in the parks, at theaters; he heard their talk—shooting—destruction of exquisite life; horses, politics, women, and the rest; yet good, honest, lovable fellows all. But how did they breathe in so small a world at all? Practical-minded specimens of the greatest civilization ever known! He recalled the heavy, dazed expression on the faces of one or two to whom he had sometimes dared to speak of those wider realms that were so familiar to himself….
“‘Though it is true that we know no other,’” he heard Stahl repeating slowly as he looked down into his cup and stirred the dregs.
Then, suddenly, the doctor rose and came over to his side. His eyes twinkled, and he rubbed his hands vigorously together as he spoke. He laughed.
“For instance, I have no longer now the consciousness of that coffee I have just swallowed,” he exclaimed, “yet, if it disagreed with me, my consciousness of it would return.”
“The abnormal states you mean are a symptom of disorder then?” the Irishman asked, following the analogy.
“At present, yes,” was the reply, “and will remain so until their correlation with the smaller conscious Self is better understood. These belligerent Powers of the larger Consciousness are apt to overwhelm as yet. That time, perhaps, is coming. Already a few here and there have guessed that the states we call hysteria and insanity, conditions of trance, hypnotism, and the like, are not too satisfactorily explained.” He peered down at his companion. “If I could study your Self at close quarters for a few years,” he added significantly, “and under various conditions, I might teach the world!”
“Thank you!” cried the Irishman, now wholly returned into his ordinary self. He could think of nothing else to say, yet he meant the words and gave them vital meaning. He moved across to another chair. Lighting a cigarette, he puffed out clouds of smoke. He did not desire to be caught again beneath this man’s microscope. And in his mind he had a sudden picture of the speculative and experimenting doctor being “requested to sever his connection” with the great Hospital for the sake of the latter’s reputation. But Stahl, in no way offended, was following his own thoughts aloud, half speaking to himself.
“… For a being organized as you are, more active in the outlying tracts of consciousness than in the centers lying nearer home,—a being like yourself, I say, might become aware of Other Life and other personalities even more advanced and highly organized than that of the Earth.”
A strange excitement came upon him, making his eyes shine. He walked to and fro, O’Malley watching him, a touch of alarm mingled with his interest.
“And to think of the great majority that denies because they are—dead!” he cried. “Smothered! Undivining! Living in that uninspired fragment which they deem the whole! Ah, my friend,”—and he came abruptly nearer—“the pathos, the comedy, the pert self-sufficiency of their dull pride, the crass stupidity and littleness of their denials, in the eyes of those like ourselves who have actually known the passion of the larger experience—! For all this modern talk about a Subliminal Self is woven round a profoundly significant truth, a truth newly discovered and only just beginning to be understood. We are much greater than we know, and there is a vast subconscious part of us. But, what is more important still, there is a super-consciousness as well. the former represents what the race has discarded; it is past; but the latter stands for what it reaches out to in the future. the perfect man you dream of perhaps is he who shall eventually combine the two, for there is, I think, a vast amount the race has discarded unwisely and prematurely. It is of value and will have to be recovered. In the subconsciousness it lies secure and waiting. But it is the super-consciousness that you should aim for, not the other, for there lie those greater powers which so mysteriously wait upon the call of genius, inspiration, hypnotism, and the rest.”
“One leads, though, to the other,” interrupted O’Malley quickly. “It is merely a question of the swing of the pendulum?”
“Possibly,” was the laconic reply.
“They join hands, I mean, behind my back, as it were.”
“Possibly.”
“This stranger, then, may really lead me forward and not back?”
“Possibly,” again was all the answer that he got.
For Stahl had stopped short, as though suddenly aware that he had said too much, betraying himself in the sudden rush of interest and excitement. the face for a moment had seemed quite young, but now the flush faded, and the light died out from his eyes. O’Malley never understood how the change came about so quickly, for in a moment, it seemed, the doctor was calm again, quietly lighting one of his black cigars over by the desk, peering at him half quizzingly, half mockingly through the smoke.
“So I urge you again,” he was saying, as though the rest had been some interlude that the Irishman had half imagined, “to proceed with the caution of this sane majority, the caution that makes for safety. Your friend, as I have already suggested to you, is a direct expression of