An Unusual Short-Story
on the Challenge of
Sincerity, Addressed
“To Whom This May Come”
Edward Bellamy
H.P. Blavatsky (1831-1891) and Edward
Bellamy (1850-1898)
“…Among the mind-readers, politeness
never can extend to the point of insincerity…”
“…Let me now predict, though ages may elapse
before the slow event shall justify me, that in no way
will the mutual vision of minds, when at last it shall
be
perfected, so enhance the blessedness of mankind as
by rending the veil of self, and leaving no spot of
darkness
in the mind for lies to hide in. Then shall the soul
no longer be
a coal smoking among ashes, but a star set in a
crystal sphere.”
(Edward Bellamy)
A 2012 Editorial Note
In January 1889, as
H. P. Blavatsky was in a meeting with her London students, this question was
asked:
“I wonder if anyone has read a story in the last
number of Harper’s Magazine, a story
of a sailor who had been cast away on an island in one of the Archipelagoes, in
the South Seas, and finds a race of people who have entirely lost the art of
talking. They understand each other and see what they think, but they regard
sound as a very gross way of communicating thought.”
This was a reference to the present tale by Edward
Bellamy, and H. P. B. said:
“It would be a ‘Palace of Truth’. You could not say
then, ‘How happy I am to see you’, and send them to all kinds of disagreeable
places in your mind. They communicated in such a way as that in the olden
times. Their thoughts took objective form.” [1]
In “The Secret Doctrine”, H.P.B. writes about the
beginnings of human speech. She says that before the initial monosyllabic
speech - used by the “first approximately fully developed human beings at the
close of the Third Root-Race” - men still communicated “through what would now
be called thought-transference.” [2]
One of the main reasons why it is fascinating to have
access to such glimpses of a distant past is that large-scale
thought-transference is more than a fact belonging to archaic times. It
will be a reality again in our humanity, and such a moment is not too far away
now.
Life is cyclic, and it is worthwhile to investigate
the dawning of the future which we are living in the period between the 18th
century of “Enlightenment”, and the 23rd century.
The motto of the theosophical movement - “There is no religion higher than Truth”-
aims at paving the way for Transparency to emerge once more as a revealing Sun
amidst human minds. And this is beginning to happen already, whether humans are
ethically prepared for it or not.
Transparency is dangerous, however, as long as
thoughts and intentions are impure, or the environment in which they have to
move is unworthy. The task of the theosophical movement is to help make the awakening
of transparency take place without unnecessary suffering. The best way to do
this is to teach by words and by example the lesson of how to combine sincerity
and brotherhood, or truthfulness and goodwill. H.P.B. wrote:
“The time is not distant when the World of Science
will be forced to acknowledge that there exists as much interaction between one
mind and another, no matter at what distance, as between one body and another
in closest contact. When two minds are sympathetically related, and the instruments
through which they function are tuned to respond magnetically and electrically
to one another, there is nothing which will prevent the transmission of
thoughts…” [3]
There can be no brotherhood without utter sincerity,
and the theosophical movement is a long-term effort in this direction. Such a goal may seem rather obvious, but it is
not easy to attain, and a conscious commitment to it is necessary. On November
12, 1890, for instance, the members of the Inner Group of H.P.B.’s Esoteric
School, in London, took a new, special pledge. It had four clauses. The last
two of them said:
* “We pledge ourselves to refer to the judgement of
our Body any private matter that may directly, or indirectly, affect our common
interest - Theosophy.”
* “We pledge ourselves to be ready to give a frank
explanation to our Body on any matter which has given rise to question, and
generally to cultivate frankness of dealing with each other.” [4]
Such a policy is expressed in many a text of the
original literature. In a letter from HPB’s Master, one can see these words:
“A band of students of the Esot. Doctrines, who would
reap any profits spiritually must be in perfect harmony and unity of thought.” [5]
The same pedagogical approach is further explained in a
letter from H.P.B. to a group of London theosophists:
“…. It is the first rule in the daily life of a
student in occultism, namely, to never take off your attention from the
smallest circumstances that may happen, whether in your own or your
fellow-workers’ lives; to record and place them in order on those records,
whether they may or may not be connected with your spiritual pursuits, and then
bind (religare) them together by
comparing notes with the records of the others, and thus extract from them
their inner meaning. This you ought to do at least once a week. It is from
these totals that you would find out the direction and path to pursue. It is the phenomenon of ‘thought-transference’
(….) applied to the events in life.” [6]
Can the theosophical movement learn to develop such a
communion of thought, and effectively discharge its duty regarding the future
of mankind? One must not get deceived by
appearances: impressive as it may be, every failure in that department - from
1875 to 2075 and beyond - has been or will be an active part of the learning
process.
Open-mindedness and open-heartedness do lead to
spontaneous mind-reading, and to mind-readability. And this constitutes the best
foundation of universal brotherhood, as suggested by the following narrative. Bellamy’s
tale is an extraordinary study in the process of mental and emotional
communion.
The original title of “The Islands of the Mind-Readers” was “To Whom This May Come”.
We reproduce it from “Theosophy” magazine, July 1938 edition, pp. 398-403 (first part),
and August 1938 edition, pp. 445-453 (second and final part). [7]
(Carlos Cardoso Aveline)
NOTES:
[1] “The Secret Doctrine Dialogues”,
H. P. Blavatsky, Theosophy Co., Los Angeles, 722 pp., see p. 88. Another
version of the dialogue can be seen at “Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge”,
Theosophy Co., Los Angeles, 2014, 149 pp., 1923, p. 45.
[2] “The Secret Doctrine”, H. P.
Blavatsky, Theosophy Co., Los Angeles, volume II, pp. 198-199.
[3] “The Key to Theosophy”, H. P. Blavatsky, Theosophy
Co., Los Angeles, 1987, see p. 291.
[4] “The Inner Group Teachings of
H. P. Blavatsky”, Point Loma
Publications, San Diego, California, 188 pp., 1985, see pp. 26-27.
[5] “Letters From the Masters of
the Wisdom”, First Series, transcribed by C. Jinarajadasa, TPH, Adyar, 1973, see
Letter 3, pp. 13-14.
[6] This is a quotation from the
text “Learning From Each and Every Event”, by H. P. Blavatsky (subtitle: “A
Letter to London Students, on the Concatenation of Causes and Effects in Daily
Life”). The text can be found at our associated websites. In paper, see “The
Theosophist”, Adyar, July 1988, pp. 386-389, where it was published under the
title “Extract of a Letter to a London Group, 1887”.
[7] In the 20th century, North-American author George P. McCallum
wrote “The Island of Truth”, a short-story which has many an element in common
with Edward Bellamy’s narrative. See the volume entitled “The Island of Truth”,
Collier-MacMillan English Readers, 122 pp., copyright 1964, pp. 1-15.
The Islands of the Mind-Readers
(“To Whom This May
Come”)
Edward Bellamy
Part I
It is now about a
year since I took passage at Calcutta in the ship Adelaide for New York. We had baffling weather till New Amsterdam
Island was sighted, where we took a new point of departure. Three days later a
terrible gale struck us. Four days we flew before it, whither, no one knew, for
neither sun, moon, nor stars were at any time visible, and we could take no
observation.
Toward midnight of the fourth day the glare of
lightning revealed the Adelaide in a
hopeless position, close in upon a low-lying shore, and driving straight toward
it. All around and astern far out to sea was such a maze of rocks and shoals
that it was a miracle we had come so far. Presently the ship struck, and almost
instantly went to pieces, so great was the violence of the sea. I gave myself
up for lost, and was indeed already past the worst of drowning when I was
recalled to consciousness by being thrown with a tremendous shock upon the
beach. I had just strength enough to drag myself above the reach of the waves,
and then I fell down and knew no more.
When I awoke, the storm was over. The sun, already
half-way up the sky, had dried my clothing and renewed the vigor of my bruised
and aching limbs. On sea or shore I saw no vestige of my ship or my companions,
of whom I appeared the sole survivor. I was not, however, alone. A group of
persons, apparently the inhabitants of the country, stood near, observing me
with looks of friendliness which at once freed me from apprehension as to my
treatment at their hands. They were a white and handsome people, evidently of a
high order of civilization, though I recognized in them the traits of no race
with which I was familiar.
Seeing that it was evidently their idea of etiquette
to leave it to strangers to open conversation, I addressed them in English, but
failed to elicit any response beyond deprecating smiles. I then accosted them
successively in the French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese
tongues, but with no better results. I began to be very much puzzled as to what
could possibly be the nationality of a white and evidently civilized race to
which no one of the tongues of the great seafaring nations was intelligible.
The oddest thing of all was the unbroken silence with which they contemplated
my efforts to open communication with them. It was as if they were agreed not
to give me a clue
to their language by even a whisper, for while they regarded one another with
looks of smiling intelligence, they did not once open their lips. But if this
behavior suggested that they were amusing themselves at my expense, that
presumption was negatived by unmistakable friendliness and sympathy which their
whole bearing expressed.
A most extraordinary conjecture occurred to me. Could
it be that these strange people were dumb? Such a freak of nature as an entire
race thus afflicted had never been heard of, but who could say what wonders the
unexplored vasts of the Great Southern Ocean might thus far have hid from human
ken?
Now among the scraps of useless information which
lumbered my mind was an acquaintance with the deaf-and-dumb alphabet, and
forthwith I began to spell out with my fingers some of the phrases I had
already uttered to so little effect. My resort to the sign language overcame
the last remnant of gravity in the already profusely smiling group. The small
boys now rolled on the ground in convulsions of mirth, while the grave and
reverend seniors, who had hitherto kept them in check, were fain momentarily to
avert their faces, and I could see their bodies shaking with laughter. The
greatest clown in the world never received a more flattering tribute to his
powers to amuse than had been called forth by mine to make myself understood.
Naturally, however, I was not flattered, but, on the contrary, entirely
discomfited. Angry I could not well be, for the deprecating manner in which
all, excepting of course the boys, yielded to their perception of the
ridiculous, and the distress they showed at their failure in self-control, made
me seem the aggressor. It was as if they were very sorry for me, and ready to
put themselves wholly at my service if I would only refrain from reducing them
to a state of disability by being so exquisitely absurd. Certainly this
evidently amiable race had a very embarrassing way of receiving strangers.
Just at this moment, when my bewilderment was fast
verging on exasperation, relief came. The circle opened, and a little elderly
man, who had evidently come in haste, confronted me, and bowing very politely,
addressed me in English. His voice was the most pitiable abortion of a voice I
had ever heard. While having all the defects in articulation of a child’s who
is just beginning to talk, it was not even a child’s in strength of tone, being
in fact a mere alternation of squeaks and whispers inaudible a rod away. With
some difficulty I was, however, able to follow him pretty nearly.
“As the official interpreter,” he said, “I extend you
a cordial welcome to these islands. I was sent for as soon as you were
discovered, but being at some distance, I was unable to arrive until this
moment. I regret this, as my presence would have saved you embarrassment. My
countrymen desire me to intercede with you to pardon the wholly involuntary and
uncontrollable mirth provoked by your attempts to communicate with them. You
see, they understood you perfectly well, but could not answer you.”
“Merciful heavens!” I exclaimed, horrified to find my
surmise correct; “can it be that they are all thus afflicted? Is it possible
that you are the only man among them who has the power of speech?”
Again it appeared that, quite unintentionally, I had
said something excruciatingly funny, for at my speech there arose a sound of
gentle laughter from the group, now augmented to quite an assemblage, which
drowned the plashing of the waves on the beach at our feet. Even the
interpreter smiled.
“Do they think it so amusing to be dumb?” I asked.
“They find it very amusing”, replied the interpreter,
“that their inability to speak should be regarded by any one as an affliction,
for it is by the voluntary disuse of the organs of articulation that they have
lost the power of speech, and as a consequence the ability even to understand
speech.”
“But,” said I, somewhat puzzled by this statement,
“didn’t you just tell me that they understood me, though they could not reply,
and are they not laughing now at what I just said?”
“It is you they understood, not your words,” answered
the interpreter. “Our speech now is gibberish to them, as unintelligible in
itself as the growling of animals; but they know what we are saying because
they know our thoughts. You must know that these are the islands of the
mind-readers.”
Such were the circumstances of my introduction to this
extraordinary people. The official interpreter being charged by virtue of his
office with the first entertainment of shipwrecked members of the talking
nations, I became his guest, and passed a number of days under his roof before
going out to any considerable extent among the people. My first impression had
been the somewhat oppressive one that the power to read the thoughts of others
could only be possessed by beings of a superior order to man. It was the first
effort of the interpreter to disabuse me of this notion. It appeared from his
account that the experience of the mind-readers was a case simply of a slight
acceleration from special causes of the course of universal human evolution,
which in time was destined to lead to the disuse of speech and the substitution
of direct mental vision on the part of all races. This rapid evolution of these
islanders was accounted for by their peculiar origin and circumstances.
Some three centuries before Christ, one of the
Parthian kings of Persia, of the dynasty of the Arsacidae, undertook a
persecution of the soothsayers and magicians in his realms. These people were
credited with supernatural powers by popular prejudice, but in fact were merely
persons of especial gifts in the way of hypnotizing, mind-reading,
thought-transference, and such arts, which they exercised for their own gain.
Too much in awe of the soothsayers to do them outright
violence, the king resolved to banish them, and to this end put them, with
their families, on ships and sent them to Ceylon. When, however, the fleet was
in the neighborhood of that island, a great storm scattered it, and one of the
ships, after being driven for many days before the tempest, was wrecked upon
one of an archipelago of uninhabited islands far to the south where the
survivors settled. Naturally the posterity of parents possessed of such
peculiar gifts had developed extraordinary psychical powers.
Having set before them the end of evolving a new and
advanced order of humanity, they had aided the development of these powers by a
rigid system of stirpiculture [1].
The result was that after a few centuries mind-reading became so general that
language fell into disuse as a means of communicating ideas.
For many generations the power of speech still
remained voluntary, but gradually the vocal organs had become atrophied, and
for several hundred years the power of articulation had been wholly lost.
Infants for a few month after birth did, indeed, still emit inarticulate cries,
but at an age when in less advanced races these cries began to be articulate,
the children of the mind-readers developed the power of direct mental vision,
and ceased to attempt to use the voice.
The fact that the existence of the mind-readers had
never been found out by the rest of the world was explained by two considerations.
In the first place, the group of islands was small, and occupied a corner of
the Indian Ocean quite out of the ordinary track of ships. In the second place,
the approach to the islands was rendered so desperately perilous by terrible
currents and the maze of outlying rocks and shoals that it was next to
impossible for any ship to touch their shores save as a wreck. No ship at least
had ever done so in the two thousand years since the mind-readers’ own arrival,
and the Adelaide had made the one
hundred and twenty-third such wreck.
Apart from motives of humanity, the mind-readers made
strenuous efforts to rescue shipwrecked persons, for from them alone through
the interpreters could they obtain information of the outside world. Little
enough this proved when, as often happened, the sole survivor of a shipwreck
was some ignorant sailor, who had no news to communicate beyond the latest
varieties of forecastle blasphemy. My hosts gratefully assured me that as a
person of some little education they considered me a veritable godsend. No less
a task was mine than to relate to them the history of the world for the past
two centuries, and often did I wish, for their sakes, that I had made a more
exact study of it.
It is solely for the purpose of communicating with
shipwrecked strangers of the talking nations that the office of the
interpreters exists. When, as from time to time happens, a child is born with
some powers of articulation, he is set apart and trained to talk in the
interpreters’ college. Of course the partial atrophy of the vocal organs, from
which even the best interpreters suffer, renders many of the sounds of language
impossible for them. None, for instance, can pronounce v, f, or s, and as to the sound
represented by th, it is five
generations since the last interpreter lived who could utter it. But for the
occasional intermarriage of shipwrecked strangers with the islanders it is
probable that the supply of interpreters would have long ere this quite failed.
I imagine that the very unpleasant sensations which
followed the realization that I was among people who, while inscrutable to me,
knew my every thought, were very much what any one would have experienced in
the same case. They were very comparable to the panic which accidental nudity
causes a person among races whose custom it is to conceal the figure with
drapery. I wanted to run away and hide myself. If I analyzed my feeling, it did
not seem to arise so much from the consciousness of any particularly heinous
secrets, as from the knowledge of a swarm of fatuous, ill-natured, and unseemly
thoughts and half-thoughts concerning those around me and concerning myself,
which it was insufferable that any person should peruse in however benevolent a
spirit.
But while my chagrin and distress on this account were
at first intense, they were also very short-lived, for almost immediately I
discovered that the very knowledge that my mind was overlooked by others
operated to check thoughts that might be painful to them, and that, too,
without more effort of the will than a kindly person exerts to check the
utterance of disagreeable remarks. As a very few lessons in the elements of
courtesy cures a decent person of inconsiderate speaking, so a brief experience
among the mind-readers went far in my case to check inconsiderate thinking.
It must not be supposed, however, that courtesy among
the mind-readers prevents them from thinking pointedly and freely concerning
one another upon serious occasions, any more than the finest courtesy among the
talking races restrains them from speaking to one another with entire plainness
when it is desirable to do so. Indeed, among the mind-readers, politeness never
can extend to the point of insincerity, as among talking nations, seeing that
it is always one another’s real and inmost thought that they read. I may fitly
mention here, though it was not till later that I fully understood why it must
necessarily be so, that one need feel far less chagrin at the complete
revelation of his weaknesses to a mind-reader than at the slightest betrayal of
them to one of another race.
For the very reason that the mind-reader reads all
your thoughts, particular thoughts are judged with reference to the general
tenor of thought. Your characteristic and habitual frame of mind is what he takes
account of. No one need fear being misjudged by a mind-reader on account of the
sentiments or emotions which are not representative of the real character or
general attitude. Justice may indeed be said to be a necessary consequence of
mind-reader.
Part II
As regards the
interpreter himself, the instinct of courtesy was not long needed to check
wanton or offensive thoughts. In all my life before I had been very slow to
form friendships, but before I had been three days in the company of this
stranger of a strange race I had become enthusiastically devoted to him. It was
impossible not to be. The peculiar joy of friendship is the sense of being
understood by our friend as we are not by others, and yet of being loved in
spite of the understanding. Now here was one whose every word testified to a
knowledge of my secret thoughts and motives which the oldest and nearest of my
former friends had never, and could never, have approximated. Had such a
knowledge bred in him contempt of me, I should neither have blamed him nor been
at all surprised. Judge, then, whether the cordial friendliness which he showed
was likely to leave me indifferent.
Imagine my incredulity when he informed me that our
friendship was not based upon more than ordinary mutual suitability of
temperaments. The faculty of mind-reading, he explained, brought minds close
together, and so heightened sympathy, that the lowest order of friendships
between mind-readers implied a mutual delight such as only rare friends enjoyed
among other races. He assured me that later on, when I came to know others of
his race, I should find, by the far greater intensity of sympathy and affection
I should conceive for some of them, how true this saying was.
It may be inquired how, on beginning to mingle with the
mind-readers in general, I managed to communicate with them, seeing that while
they could read my thoughts, they could not, like the interpreter, respond to
them by speech. I must here explain that while these people have no use for a
spoken language, a written language is needful for purposes of record. They
consequently all know how to write. Do they, then, write Persian? Luckily for
me, no. It appears that for a long period after mind-reading was fully
developed, not only was spoken language disused, but also written, no records
whatever having been kept during this period. The delight of the people in the
newly found power of direct mind-to-mind vision, whereby pictures of the total
mental state were communicated, instead of the imperfect descriptions of single
thoughts which words at best could give, induced an invincible distaste for the
laborious impotence of language.
When, however, the first intellectual intoxication
had, after several generations, somewhat sobered down, it was recognized that
records of the past were desirable, and that the despised medium of words was
needful to preserve it. Persian had meantime been wholly forgotten. In order to
avoid the prodigious task of inventing a complete new language, the institution
of the interpreters was now set up, with the idea of acquiring through them a
knowledge of some of the languages of the outside world from the mariners
wrecked on the islands.
Owing to the fact that most of the castaway ships were
English, a better knowledge of that tongue was acquired than of any other, and
it was adopted as the written language of the people. As a rule, my
acquaintances wrote slowly and laboriously and yet the fact that they knew
exactly what was in my mind rendered their responses so apt that, in my conversations
with the slowest speller of them all, the interchange of thought was a rapid
and incomparably more accurate and satisfactory than the fastest of talkers
attain to.
It was but a very short time after I had begun to
extend my acquaintance among the mind-readers before I discovered how truly the
interpreter had told me that I should find others to whom, on account of
greater natural congeniality, I should become more strongly attached than I had
been to him. This was in no wise, however, because I loved him less, but them
more. I would fain write particularly of some of these beloved friends,
comrades of my heart, from whom I first learned the undreamed-of possibilities
of human friendship, and how ravishing the satisfactions of sympathy may be.
Who among those who read this has not known that sense of a gulf fixed between
soul and soul which mocks love! Who has not felt that loneliness which
oppresses the heart when strained to the heart that loves it best! Think no
longer that this gulf is eternally fixed, or is any necessity of human nature.
It has no existence for the race of our fellow-men which I describe, and by
that fact we may be assured that eventually it will be bridged also for us.
Like the touch of shoulder to shoulder, like the clasping of hands, is the
contact of their minds and their sensation of sympathy.
I say that I would fain speak more particularly of
some of my friends, but waning strength forbids, and moreover, now that I think
of it, another consideration would render any comparison of their characters
rather confusing than instructive to a reader. This is the fact that, in common
with the rest of the mind-readers, they had no names. Every one has, indeed, an
arbitrary sign of his designation in records, but it has no sound value. A
register of these names is kept, so that they can at any time be ascertained,
but it is very common to meet persons who have forgotten titles which are used
solely for biographical and official purposes. For social intercourse names are
of course superfluous, for these people accost one another merely by a mental
act of attention, and refer to third persons by transferring their mental
pictures - something as dumb persons might by means of photographs. Something
so, I say, for in the pictures of one another’s personalities which the
mind-readers conceive, the physical aspect, as might be expected with people
who directly contemplate each other´s minds and hearts, is a subordinate
element.
I have already told how my first qualms of morbid
self-consciousness at knowing that my mind was an open book to all around me
disappeared as I learned that the very completeness of the disclosure of my
thoughts and motives was a guarantee that I would be judged with a fairness and
a sympathy such as even self-judgment cannot pretend to, affected as that is by
so many subtle reactions.
The assurance of being so judged by every one might
well seem an inestimable privilege to one accustomed to a world in which not
even the tenderest love is any pledge of comprehension, and yet I soon
discovered that open-mindedness had a still greater profit than this. How shall
I describe the delightful exhilaration of moral health and cleanness, the
breezy oxygenated mental condition, which resulted from the consciousness that
I had absolutely nothing concealed!
Truly I may say that I enjoyed myself. I think surely
that no one needs to have had my marvelous experience to sympathize with this
portion of it. Are we not all ready to agree that this having a curtained
chamber where we may go grovel, out of sight of our fellows, troubled only by a
vague apprehension that God may look over the top, is the most demoralizing
incident in the human condition? It is the existence within the soul of this
secure refuge of lies which has always been the despair of the saint and the
exultation of the knave. It is the foul cellar which taints the whole house
above, be it never so fine.
What stronger testimony could there be to the
instinctive consciousness that concealment is debauching, and openness our only
cure, than the world-old conviction of the virtue of confession for the soul,
and that the uttermost exposing of one’s worst and foulest is the first step
toward moral health?
The wickedest man, if he could but somehow attain to
writhe himself inside out as to his soul, so that its full sickness could be
seen, would feel ready for a new life. Nevertheless, owing to the utter
impotence of words to convey mental conditions in their totality, or to give
other than mere distortions of them, confession is, we must needs admit, but a
mockery of that longing for self-revelation to which it testifies. But think
what health and soundness there must be for souls among a people who see in
every face a conscience which, unlike their own, they cannot sophisticate, who
confess one another with a glance, and shrive with a smile! Ah, friends, let me
now predict, though ages may elapse before the slow event shall justify me,
that in no way will the mutual vision of minds, when at last it shall be
perfected, so enhance the blessedness of mankind as by rending the veil of
self, and leaving no spot of darkness in the mind for lies to hide in. Then
shall the soul no longer be a coal smoking among ashes, but a star set in a
crystal sphere.
From what I have said of the delights which friendship
among the mind-readers derives from the perfection of the mental rapport, it
may be imagined how intoxicating must be the experience when one of the friends
is a women, and the subtle attractions and correspondences of sex touch with passion
the intellectual sympathy. With my first venturing into society I had begun, to
their extreme amusement, to fall in love with the women right and left. In the perfect
frankness which is the condition of all intercourse among this people, these
adorable women told me that what I felt was only friendship, which was a very
good thing, but wholly different from love, as I should well know if I were
beloved. It was difficult to believe that the melting emotions which I had
experienced in their company were the result merely of the friendly and kindly
attitude of their minds toward mine, but when I found that I was affected in
the same way by every gracious woman I met, I had to make up my mind that they
must be right about it, and that I should have to adapt myself to a world in
which friendship being a passion, love must needs be nothing less than a
rapture.
The homely proverb, “Every Jack has his Jill,” may, I
suppose, be taken to mean that for all men there are certain women expressly
suited by mental and moral as by physical constitution. It is a thought
painful, rather than cheering, that this may be the truth, so altogether do the
chances preponderate against the ability of these elect ones to recognize each
other even if they meet, seeing that speech is so inadequate and so misleading
a medium of self-revelation. But among the mind-readers the search for one’s
ideal mate is a quest reasonably sure of being crowned with success, and no one
dreams of wedding unless it be, for so to do, they consider, would be to throw
away the choicest blessing of life, and not alone to wrong themselves and their
unfound mates, but likewise those whom they themselves and those undiscovered
mates might wed. Therefore, passionate pilgrims, they go from isle to isle till
they find each other, and as the population of the islands is but small, the
pilgrimage is not often long.
When I met her first we were in company, and I was
struck by the sudden stir and the looks of touched and smiling interest with
which all around turned and regarded us, the women with moistened eyes. They
had read her thought when she saw me, but this I did not know, neither what the
custom was in these matters, till afterward. But I knew from the moment she
first fixed her eyes on me, and I felt her mind brooding upon mine, how truly I
had been told by those other women that the feeling with which they had
inspired me was not love.
With people who become acquainted at a glance, and old
friends in an hour, wooing is naturally not a long process. Indeed it may be
said that between lovers among the mind-readers there is no wooing, but merely
recognition. The day after we met she became mine.
Perhaps I cannot better illustrate how subordinate the
merely physical element is in the impression which mind-readers form of their
friends than by mentioning an incident that occurred some months after our
union. This was my discovery, wholly by accident, that my love, in whose
society I had almost constantly been, had not the least idea what was the color
of my eyes, or whether my hair and complexion were light or dark. Of course, as
soon as I asked her the question, she read the answer in my mind, but she
admitted that she had previously had no distinct impression on those points. On
the other hand, if in the blackest midnight I should come to her, she would not
need to ask who the comer was. It is by the mind, not the eye, that these
people know one another. It is really only in their relations to soulless and
inanimate things that they need eyes at all.
It must not be supposed that their disregard of one
another’s bodily aspect grows out of any ascetic sentiment. It is merely a
necessary consequence of their power of directly apprehending mind, that
whenever mind is closely associated with matter the latter is comparatively
neglected on account of the greater interest of the former, suffering as lesser
things always do when placed in immediate contrast with greater. Art is with
them confined to the inanimate, the human form having, for the reason
mentioned, ceased to inspire the artist. It will be naturally and quite
correctly inferred that among such a race physical beauty is not the important
factor in human fortune and felicity that it elsewhere is. The absolute
openness of their minds and hearts to one another makes their happiness far
more dependent on the moral and mental qualities of their companions than upon
their physical. A genial temperament, a wide-grasping, godlike intellect, a
poet soul, are incomparably more fascinating to them than the most dazzling combination
conceivable of mere bodily graces.
A woman of mind and heart has no more need of beauty
to win love in these islands than a beauty elsewhere, of mind and heart. I
should mention here perhaps that this race which makes so little account of
physical beauty is itself a singularly handsome one. This is owing doubtless in
part to the absolute compatibility of temperaments in all the marriages, and
partly also to the reaction upon the body of a state of ideal mental and moral
health and placidity.
Not being myself a mind-reader, the fact that my love
was rarely beautiful in form and face had doubtless no little part in
attracting my devotion. This, of course, she knew, as she knew all my thoughts,
and knowing my limitations, tolerated and forgave the element of sensuousness
in my passion. But if it must have seemed to her so little worthy in comparison
with the high spiritual communion which her race know as love, to me it became,
by virtue of her almost superhuman relation to me, an ecstasy more ravishing
surely than any lover of my race tasted before. The ache at the heart of the
intensest love is the impotence of words to make it perfectly understood to its
object. But my passion was without this pang, for my heart was absolutely open
to her I loved. Lovers may imagine, but I cannot describe, the ecstatic thrill
of communion into which this consciousness transformed every tender emotion. As
I considered what mutual love must be where both are mind-readers, I realized
the high communion which my sweet companion had sacrificed for me. She might
indeed comprehend her lover and his love for her, but the yet higher
satisfaction of knowing that she was comprehended by him and her love
understood she had foregone. For that I should ever attain the power of mind-reading
was out of the question, the faculty never having been developed in a single
lifetime.
Why my inability should move my dear companion to such
depths of pity I was not able fully to understand until I learned that
mind-reading is chiefly held desirable, not for the knowledge of others which
it gives its possessors, but for the self-knowledge which is its reflex effect.
Of all they see in the minds of others, that which concerns them most is the
reflection of themselves, the photographs of their own characters. The most
obvious consequence of the self-knowledge thus forced upon them is to render
them alike incapable of self-conceit or self-depreciation. Every one must needs
always think of himself as he is, being no more able to do otherwise than is a
man in a hall of mirrors to cherish delusions as to his personal appearance.
But self-knowledge means to the mind-readers much more
than this: nothing less, indeed, than a shifting of the sense of the identity.
When a man sees himself in a mirror he is compelled to distinguish between the
bodily self he sees and his real self, the mental and moral self, which is
within and unseen. When in turn the mind-reader comes to see the mental and
moral self reflected in other minds as in mirrors, the same thing happens. He
is compelled to distinguish between this mental and moral self which has been
made objective to him, and can be contemplated by him as impartially as if it
were another’s from the inner ego which still remains subjective, unseen, and undefinable.
In this inner ego the mind-readers recognize the essential identity and being,
the noumenal self, the core of the soul , and the true hiding of its eternal
life, to which the mind as well as the body is but the garment of a day.
The effect of such a philosophy as this - which indeed
with the mind-readers is rather an instinctive consciousness than a philosophy -
must obviously be to impart a sense of wonderful superiority to the
vicissitudes of this earthly state, and a singular serenity in the midst of the
haps and mishaps which threaten or befall the personality. They did indeed
appear to me, as I never dreamed men could attain to be, lords of themselves.
It was because I
MIGHT NOT hope to attain this enfranchisement from the false ego of the apparent
self, without which life seemed to her race scarcely worth living, that my love
so pitied me.
But I must hasten on, leaving a thousand things
unsaid, to relate the lamentable catastrophe to which it is owing that instead
of being still a resident of those blessed islands, in the full enjoyment of
that intimate and ravishing companionship which by contrast would forever dim
the pleasures of all other human society, I recall the bright picture as a
memory under other skies.
Among a people who are compelled by the very
constitution of their minds to put themselves in the places of others, the
sympathy which is the inevitable consequence of perfect comprehension renders
envy, hatred, and uncharitableness impossible. But of course there are people
less genially constituted than others, and these are necessarily the objects of
a certain distaste on the part of associates. Now, owing to the unhindered
impact of minds upon one another, the anguish of persons so regarded, despite
the tenderest consideration of those about them, is so great that they beg the
grace of exile, that, being out of the way, people may think less frequently
upon them.
There are numerous small islets, scarcely more than
rocks, lying to the North of the Archipelago, and on these the unfortunates are
permitted to live. Only one lives on each islet, as they cannot endure each
other even as well as the more happily constituted can endure them. From time
to time supplies of food are taken to them, and of course, at any time they
wish to take the risk they are permitted to return to society.
Now, as I have said, the fact which, even more than
their out-of-the-way location, makes the islands of the mind-readers
unapproachable, is the violence with which the great antarctic current, owing
probably to some peculiar configuration of the ocean-bed, together with the
innumerable rocks and shoals, flows through and about the Archipelago.
Ships making the island from the southward are caught
by this current and drawn among the rocks, to their almost certain destruction,
while owing to the violence with which the current sets to the North, it is not
possible to approach from that direction, or at least it has never been
accomplished. Indeed, so powerful are the currents, that even the boats which
cross the narrow straits between the main islands and the islets of the
unfortunate to carry the latter their supplies, are ferried over by cables, not
trusting to oar or sail.
The brother of my love had charge of one of the boats
engaged in this transportation, and being desirous of visiting the islets, I
accepted an invitation to accompany him on one of his trips. I know nothing of
how the accident happened but in the fiercest parts of the currents of the
straits we parted from the cable, and were swept out to sea. There was no
question of stemming the boiling current, our utmost endeavors barely sufficing
to avoid being dashed to pieces on the rocks. From the first there was no hope
of our winning back to the land. So swiftly did we drift that by noon - the accident
having befallen in the morning - the islands, which are low-lying, had sunk
beneath the southeastern horizon.
Among these mind-readers distance is not an
insuperable obstacle to the transfer of thought. My companion was in
communication with our friends, and from time to time conveyed to me messages
of anguish from my dear love; for being well aware of the nature of the
currents and the unapproachableness of the islands, those we had left behind as
well as we ourselves knew well we should see each other’s faces no more. For
five days we continued to drift to the north-west, in no danger of starvation,
owing to our lading of provisions, but constrained to unintermitting watch and
ward by the roughness of the weather. On the fifth day my companion died from
exposure and exhaustion. He died very quietly, - indeed, with great appearance
of relief. The life of the mind-readers while yet they are in the body is so
largely spiritual that the idea of an existence wholly so, which seems vague
and chill to us, suggests to them a state only slightly more refined than they
already know on earth.
After that I suppose I must have fallen into an
unconscious state, from which I roused to find myself on an American ship bound
for New York, surrounded by people whose only means of communicating with one
another is to keep up while together a constant clatter of hissing, guttural, and
explosive noises, eked out by all manner of facial contortions and bodily
gestures. I frequently find myself staring open-mouthed at those who address
me, too much struck by their grotesque appearance to bethink myself of
replying.
I find that I shall not live out the voyage, and I do
not care to. From my experience of the people on the ship I can judge how I
should fare on land amid the stunning Babel of a nation of talkers. And my
friends - God bless them! - how lonely I should feel in their very presence!
Nay, what satisfaction or consolation, what but bitter mockery, could I ever
more find in such human sympathy and companionship as suffice others and once
sufficed me - I who have seen and known what I have seen and known!
Ah, yes, doubtless it is far better I should die; but
the knowledge of the things that I have seen I feel should not perish with me.
For hope’s sake men should not miss this glimpse of the higher, sun-bathed
reaches of the upward path they plod. So thinking, I have written out some
account of my wonderful experience, though briefer far, by reason of my
weakness, than fits the greatness of the matter. The captain seems an honest,
well-meaning man, and to him I shall confide the narrative, charging him, on
touching shore, to see it safely in the hands of some one who will bring it to
the world’s ear.
[ NOTE: The extent of my own connection with the
foregoing documents is sufficiently indicated by the author himself in the
final paragraph. E. B. ]
(The end)
NOTE:
[1] Stirpiculture: the production
of special stocks by careful breeding. (CCA)
000
In September 2016, after a careful analysis of the state of the esoteric
movement worldwide, a group of students decided to form the Independent Lodge of Theosophists,
whose priorities include the building of a better future in the different
dimensions of life.
000
