CHAPTER
L.
MY WEIGHT ANNIHILATED.- " TELL ME," I CRIED IN ALARM," IS THIS TO
BE A LIVING TOMB?"
" If you will reflect upon the condition we are now in, you will perceive
that it must be one of unusual scientific interest. If you imagine a body at
rest, in an intangible medium, and not in contact with a gas or any substance
capable of creating friction, that body by the prevailing theory of matter and
motion, unless disturbed by an impulse from without, would remain forever at
absolute rest. We now occupy such a position. In whatever direction we may now
be situated, it seems to us that we are upright. We are absolutely without
weight, and in a perfectly frictionless medium. Should an inanimate body begin
to revolve here, it would continue that motion forever. If our equilibrium
should now be disturbed, and we should begin to move in a direction coinciding
with the plane in which we are at rest, we would continue moving with the same
rapidity in that direction until our course was arrested by some opposing
object. We are not subject to attraction of matter, for at this place
gravitation robs matter of its gravity, and has no influence on extraneous
substances. We are now in the center of gravitation, the ‘Sphere of
Rest.’"
" Let me think it out," I replied, and reasoning from his remarks, I
mentally followed the chain to its sequence, and was startled as suddenly it
dawned upon me that if his argument was true we must remain motionless in this
spot until death ( could beings in conditions like ourselves die beyond the
death we had already achieved ) or the end of time. We were at perfect rest, in
absolute vacancy, there being, as I now accepted without reserve, neither gas,
liquid, nor solid, that we could employ as a lever to start us into motion.
" Tell me," I cried in alarm, " is this to be a living tomb? Are
we to remain suspended here forever, and if not, by what method can we hope to
extricate ourselves from this state of perfect quiescence?" He again took
the bar of iron from my hand, and cautiously gave it a whirling motion,
releasing it as he did so. It revolved silently and rapidly in space without
support or pivot.
" So it would continue," he remarked, " until the end of time,
were it not for the fact that I could not possibly release it in a condition of
absolute horizontal rest. There is a slight, slow, lateral motion that will
carry the object parallel with this sheet of energy to the material side of this
crevice, when its motion will ‘ be arrested by the earth it strikes.’"
" That I can understand," I replied, and then a ray of light broke
upon me. " Had not Cavendish demonstrated that, when a small ball of lead
is suspended on a film of silk, near a mass of iron or lead, it is drawn towards
the greater body? We will be drawn by gravity to the nearest cliff," I
cried.
" You mistake," he answered; " Cavendish performed his
experiments on the surface of the earth, and there gravity is always ready to
start an object into motion. Here objects have no weight, and neither attract
nor repel each other. The force of cohesion holds together substances that are
in contact, but as gravitation can not now affect matter out of molecular
contact with other forms of matter, because of the equilibrium of all objects,
so it may be likewise said, that bodies out of contact have at this point no
attraction for one another. If they possessed this attribute, long ago we would
have been drawn towards the earth cliff with inconceivable velocity. However, if
by any method our bodies should receive an impulse sufficient to start them into
motion, ever so gently though it be, we in like manner would continue to move in
this frictionless medium until "-
" We would strike the material boundary of this crevice,"
I interrupted.
" Yes; but can you conceive of any method by which such voluntary motion
can now be acquired?"
" No."
" Does it not seem to you," he continued, " that when skillful
mechanics on the Earth's surface are able to adjust balances so delicately that
in the face of friction of metal, friction of air, inertia of mass, the
thousandth part of a grain can produce
motion of the great beams and pans of such balances, we, in this location where
there is no friction and no opposing medium -none at all-should be able to
induce mass motion?"
" I can not imagine how it is possible, unless we shove each other apart.
There is no other object to push against,-but why do you continue to hold me so
tightly?" I interrupted myself to ask, for he was clasping me firmly again.
" In order that you may not leave me," he replied.
" Come, you trifle," I said somewhat irritated; " you have just
argued that we are immovably suspended in a frictionless medium, and fixed in
our present position; you ask me to suggest some method by which we can create
motion, and I fail to devise it, and almost in the same sentence you say that
you fear that I will leave you. Cease your incongruities, and advise with me
rationally."
" Where is the bar of iron?" he asked.
I turned towards its former location; it had disappeared.
" Have you not occasionally felt," he asked, " that in your
former life your mind was a slave in an earthly prison? Have you never,
especially in your dreams, experienced a sensation of mental confinement?"
" Yes."
" Know then," he replied, " that there is a connection between
the mind and the body of mortal beings, in which matter confines mind, and yet
mind governs matter. How else could the will of men and animals impart voluntary
motion to earthy bodies? With beings situated as are the animals on the surface
of the Earth, mind alone can not overcome the friction of matter. A person could
suspend himself accurately on a string, or balance himself on a pivot, and wish
with the entire force of his mind that his body would revolve, and still he
would remain at perfect rest."
" Certainly. A man would be considered crazy who attempted it," I
answered.
" Notwithstanding your opinion, in time to come, human beings on the
surface of the earth will investigate in this very direction," he replied,
" and in the proper time mental evolution will, by experimentation, prove
the fact of this mind and matter connection, and demonstrate that even
extraneous matter may be made subservient to mind influences. On earth, mind
acts on the matter of one's body to produce motion of matter, and the spirit
within, which is a slave to matter, moves with it. Contraries rule here. Mind
force acts on pure space motion, moving itself and matter with it, and that,
too, without any exertion of the material body which now is a nonentity, mind
here being the master."
" How can I believe you?" I replied.
" Know, then," he said, " that we are in motion now, propelled by
my will power."
" Prove it."
" You may prove it yourself," he said; " but be careful, or we
will separate forever."
Releasing his grasp, he directed me to wish that I were moving directly to the
right. I did so; the distance widened between us.
" Wish intensely that you would move in a circle about me."
I acquiesced, and at once my body began to circle around him.
" Call for the bar of iron."
I did as directed, and soon it came floating out of space into my very hand.
" I am amazed-," I ejaculated; " yes, more surprised at these
phenomena than at anything that has preceded."
" You need not be; you move now under the influences of natural laws that
are no more obscure or wonderful than those under which you have always existed.
Instead of exercising its influence on a brain, and thence indirectly on a
material body, your mind force is exerting its action through energy on matter
itself. Matter is here subservient. It is nearly the same as vacuity, mind being
a comprehensive reality. The positions we have heretofore occupied have been
reversed, and mind now dominates. Know, that as your body is now absolutely
without weight, and is suspended in a frictionless medium, the most delicate
balance of a chemist can not approach in sensitiveness the adjustment herein
exemplified. Your body does not weigh the fraction of the millionth part of a
grain, and where there is neither material weight nor possible friction, even
the attrition that on surface earth results from a needle point that rests on an
agate plate is immeasurably greater in comparison. Pure mind energy is capable
of disturbing the equilibrium of matter in our situation, as you have seen
exemplified by our movements and extraneous materials, ‘dead matter ‘ obeys
the spiritual. The bar of iron obeyed your call, the spiritless metal is
subservient to the demands of intelligence. But, come, we must continue our
journey."
Grasping me again, he exclaimed: " Wish with all intensity that we may move
forward, and I will do the same."
I did so.
" We are now uniting our energies in the creation of motion," he said;
" we are moving rapidly, and with continually accelerated speed; before
long we will perceive the earthy border of this chasm."
And yet it seemed to me that we were at perfect rest.