The valley of eyes unseen
you would have said life was extinct, but in others we saw the
trance-production--for such it was--in actual process. As the subject
lay down on the couch he fixed his eyes on a curious bright blue
spark in the low ceiling, produced I don't know how, but apparently
by some cut gem illuminated from behind. I looked at one of these
things for some minutes, and most strange the appearance of it was:
although the light in its immediate neighbourhood was brilliant, in
some mysterious way this did not radiate, so that the rest of the
niche was no whit the brighter for it. The state of trance appeared
to be secured very easily, and very profoundly. In one case we halted
outside a recess while its occupant was in the act of lying down. He
took no notice whatever of us, but at once concentrated his gaze on the
blue spark in the ceiling and barely half a minute later was rigid,
of a dead-pallor, deep in the self-induced sleep. They were all ages,
these trance-subjects, from fresh youth to grey hair; yet on all their
features I noticed the one stamp of profound spirituality. Some of
them moved their lips in sleep, muttering, and we came to one recess
where an attendant had seated himself beside the trance-subject and was
listening closely to his words--but not writing anything down.
The next chamber inward was the hub of the whole building. It measured
about twenty yards square, and contained absolutely nothing beyond a
pedestal of solid marble surmounted by a big globe of some glassy
substance which radiated that curious rose-tinted light I had noticed
everywhere throughout the building. The sight of this lamp was ordinary
enough, but when I came to reflect what it meant, I could have fallen
down in my astonishment. In the corridor of recesses we had just left,
we had seen a brilliant blue light that didn't radiate. Here was a
soft rosy light which had been visible to us for the last half-hour,
_through endless walls of solid marble_. I had this explained to me
afterwards, but I must in common honesty confess the explanation was
beyond my scant scientific understanding, and the mystery of how
this people contrived to enhance or stifle the radiation of light
at will--to reverse, in fact, what we regard as the eternal laws of
physics--remains a mystery to me still.
Kalliboas now took us back to the courtyard, and across to another
building, from which came a subdued hum of voices. On entering the hall
we discovered a large gathering of youths seated on low benches, and a
tall greyheaded old man not unlike Kalliboas in appearance addressing
them. This, it seemed, was the tutor. At a sign from Kalliboas the
lecture went on, and although this elder spoke a good deal less
measuredly than our old guide, I found I could understand him with a
fair fluency. He was explaining to his students the secrets of the
human mind; from time to time he would call out a pupil, hypnotise
him with astonishing ease, and demonstrate to the rest the strangely
exaggerated powers of a person in hypnosis. Then students were set to
hypnotise one another, the most skilful being greeted with acclaim by
their fellows, and the least accomplished, whose laborious long-drawn
efforts reminded me acutely of performances I had seen on the public
stage in Europe, witheringly derided for their clumsiness. A youth
Kalliboas described to us as leader of the school succeeded in reducing
no less than six of his fellows simultaneously--an amazing exhibition;
he seemed to retain absolute control of their minds, plunging them
just as deeply into the sleep as he chose, and toying with his power
as a child may play with a coloured balloon. So lightly hypnotised was
one boy that I thought the operator had failed to put him to sleep at
all, and I remarked as much to the tutor, who shot me a curious little
glance, half amused, half malicious, and requested me to question the
youth.
This took me distinctly by surprise. I had imagined that all that was
claimed for the youth was that he had been successfully hypnotised by
his fellow student, in which case he might obey any command given him
by the latter, but wouldn't necessarily be susceptible to any words
of mine. Now it seemed the tutor wanted to represent him as not only
hypnotised, but clairvoyant.
I felt Poyning jog my elbow. 'Ask him,' he whispered in English, 'what
the ground is like near the tomb on the southern foothills.'
As I put the question I knew the eyes of both Kalliboas and the tutor
were on me very keenly. The boy hesitated for fully a minute, then
murmured that streams were pouring swiftly down the slope. 'I see also
men working,' he added.
I glanced at Poyning. His face expressed dry scepticism. I felt
incredulous myself, and inclined to be angry into the bargain. I could
hardly have believed that this people, who had so much to show that was
genuinely wonderful, would descend to trickery for so paltry a purpose
as impressing strangers, yet it seemed clear enough that was what had
happened. The supposedly hypnotised boy had thought--hence his long
hesitation--what the hillside at that point would most probably be like
now, and was offering his mere guess as an act of second sight. In any
case the test was unsatisfactory, as we had no means of verifying his
statement. This I pointed out to Kalliboas, and the tutor again gave
me that little half-malicious glance, which only deepened my suspicion
that we were being bluffed. Before very long I was wishing I'd kept my
suspicions under my own hat.
'We will give the stranger more convincing proof,' said the tutor,
rather grimly, and began questioning the hypnotised youth himself.
'What does the stranger carry under his robes?' he asked.
Without a moment's hesitation came the answer: 'He carries a book.'
'Of what kind?'
'Not our fashion.'
'What does it contain?'
'Much writing.'
'What does the writing say?'
'It is in an unknown tongue.'
There was a pause. I thought now that I could see through the whole
ingenious trick. The tutor could have got the knowledge of my
notebook in two ways: he might have seen the outline of it under
my garments--though I didn't look down, and am unaware that it was
particularly noticeable--or he may have learned from Kalliboas, who
might easily have got it from my own language tutor, that I was in
the habit of writing notes and carried the record next my skin. The
very fact that the tutor had suggested to his student the idea of
something under my garments argued that he himself had foreknowledge of
the book, and that he was passing the knowledge on by a simple act of
thought-transference. But for what followed I was quite unprepared.
The tutor placed a slate and a stylus in the boy's hand.
'You will now,' he said very firmly, 'copy the last of the writing that
you see.'
To my amazement the pupil at once began to write, slowly and
laboriously. He filled about three lines, then stopped short.
'Why do you write no more?' demanded the tutor.
'There is no writing after.'
'What are the words you have written?'
'I do not understand.'
The tutor handed the slate to me. 'Is that, stranger,' he said, 'the
writing you have made in your book?'
I took the slate, and at the same instant nearly dropped it. The
writing had manifestly been copied line for line like a drawing, and
without comprehension of its meaning, yet it was perfectly legible. It
read:
"Poyning rather pointedly asks _why_ we are not allowed to visit the
tomb on the southern foothills."
I remembered that as the last entry I had made, and I could have kicked
myself for making it, still more for having it brought to light now. We
had by this time come, as I have already remarked, to the stage when
we could believe pretty well anything of this uncanny people. What if
they knew English? The sentence I had written was not particularly
incriminating, but quite enough to give a hint of our mistrust, and to
arouse mistrust in return.
To my surprise, Poyning seemed rather gratified than alarmed over the
upshot of the affair. When he had read the writing he gave Kalliboas a
very straight look in which there was almost a touch of defiance, and
told him coolly enough that we were now satisfied with the test. Then
we withdrew.
If the old man's suspicions had been awakened he concealed them to
perfection. He threw himself on to a couch in the sunshine and began to
talk as if nothing out of the common had occurred.
'You have understood all that you have seen to-day, strangers?' he
inquired.
'Not everything,' said I. 'In the recesses that surround the great hall
many had cast themselves into the false sleep. To what end?'
'In that way,' replied the old man, 'we are able to know matters which
take place at great distances from this city. Otherwise how should we,
who have never visited the world of the outer peoples, know what they
do?'
'Do you mean to say you _do_ know?' cried Poyning.
Kalliboas bowed his head. 'It is even so,' he said. 'And is that
strange hearing to you?'
'Strange! It is impossible!'
There was a shade of the pity that is akin to contempt in the old man's
answer. 'Why impossible?' he said quietly. 'Can it be that you are so
steeped in ignorance as not to know that by far the greatest power
upon this earth is the mind of man? Which is master of the world--man
or the forces of nature, the sentient mind or the blundering violence
that acts it knows not how? Even your peoples of the outer world, who
have not studied these matters, have advanced thus far: to know that
mind may control matter and act far from the human brain which is its
source. How much more should we know of the powers of mind, who have
lived in this valley untouched by the lust and greed and superstition
which have kept you barbarous, and down through the centuries have
steadily pressed onwards in the search for light? The art of projecting
the human soul was very early understood and practised among us.
To-day, we have brought it to a high effectiveness.'
'But how is it done?' I cried.
'You have even now seen our wise ones at work,' said Kalliboas. 'They
induce the false sleep, and while the body lies on the couch, the soul
goes wandering forth over the world. The sleep affects different of our
wise ones in different ways. In some there is what we call the shadow
soul, which goes abroad while the brain which gave it birth remains in
relation to it at home, active, causing the lips to speak. A recorder
is always beside those wise ones during their sleep. Others, who are
the more numerous, only at the awakening know what they have seen, and
record for themselves. Every day our wise ones are at work in those
halls. Their visions are collected and compared; thus we build up a
complete picture of the world. Not that the picture'--the old man's
words rang out in scorn--'is often to be looked upon with profit, save
as a warning to ourselves. Well we know how your peoples have lived and
died in a squalid turmoil of cruelty and hatred and intolerance; how
you have spurned and persecuted your wise and noble, and exalted your
knaves; how jealousy and suspicion are rife among your races, how far
you yet stand below the ideals our great founder held. But not wholly
profitless are the soul-wanderings of our wise ones. Through them we
learn of the few discoveries made by your few philosophers--though in
truth there is little you discover which was not already known to us
many centuries ago.'
'Tell me, Kalliboas,' I said, 'are only your wise ones skilled in
mind-projection?'
'Indeed, no,' he replied. 'Only those judged to possess strength,
however, are elected novices at the Hall of Wandering Souls, to become
eventually our wise ones, our scouts over the rest of the earth.'