We share all thought, literally and already. Difference of experience creates an imagined gulf between us. Voices whisper sentencelessly through the dark corridors. Turn on a light and they scatter like nocturnal insects. To glimpse the tail of one can be absolutely terrifying. The insane are locked in this confused whirl, amid the roaring voices.
Two strangers sit down next to one another in a cafe, their minds buzzing with separate conscious thoughts. They notice one another and smile -- each knows the other is married and lonely for his wife. One is lonely because his wife is on a trip. The other is lonely because he is a widower. "You seem lonely," says the widower. "Not at all," says the other, "I am waiting for my wife." They never know their minds had met.
Two children are playing. A ball is coming towards them. It is a many- colored ball. "Catch it!" cries one. The other reaches for it as it bursts. They awaken -- ashamed.
The audience sits in a theater spell-bound by the scene before them. When the actress speaks, all lips move inaudibly. When the actor suffers, all muscles tense imperceptibly. Then a new face looms out of the screen, grows larger, and the lips open on a scream: "It is you!"
It is raining. The clock ticks. I am leaning on my elbow. The wind blows through the cracks. The door rattles in its frame. My arm is tired of staying in one position. There is a pressure on the wrist. My temple burns on one side. I wonder what will happen next. Someone laughs. If he had heard the rain, the clock, and the door, he would have kept silent. Had I been laughing, I would not have heard these things.
Gaze into a cat's eye or a gorilla's. You will notice a peculiar thing that will make you shudder. Sometimes cats claw at human eyes. Sometimes gorillas enrage.
Telepathy and death are wound inextricably together. To see why this is so, you must understand consciousness. When, late at night in your bed, you hear a distant automobile, you and the driver are parts of yourself. When you speak, you are alone and the listener is both you and himself. Two men, one on the mountain and the other in the village, cannot communicate. Each is looking into a mirror. Wave, and he waves -- shout, and he replies. All of us see the same moon and feel the same heartbeat, but we can never admit it. One says the moon is a pale disc, another that it is a satellite of the Earth, a third that it is a silver world. My heart thumps, yours clatters, and his booms. Consciousness is distortion.
But much telepathy passes unnoticed. Dogs in the night, a dream of Mabel, Dr. Rhines' dice games -- these are self-conscious tricks that mean nothing. What of the more obvious examples? You know when another is lying. You know who is going down the stair. You know emotion without seeing it. You know the intelligence of others. Some sign gives them away. It is coincidence? Guessing games again? Then think of what you could not possibly know, what no one could tell you. Is there any doubt you do not know that fellow on the gibbet or the thought of that girl on the stake? Watch someone die and you may read his mind at ease.
You need not got so far. We human beings understand one another better than we think. Argue, deny, shout, denounce, destroy. Nothing alters truth. You, reader, see my flaws and concentrate on them. You wonder why I choose this word and not that.
My arguments are weak and you can drum up stronger ones against them. But we are eye to eye for all of that.
Stop it. What do you mean? I don't like it. What is it? And all these fears prevent us from speaking without words. Men are most conscious. They are alone in the world. The responsibility is great. Whom could we talk with if all minds were one? We would be alone and too conscious.I am a fool and you are wise,
You and I know the sun will rise!
Now, in schizophrenia, where the symbol is taken for the object, telepathy is relatively simpler. That is, it involves not merely communication of a verbal nature between people, but subverbal or superverbal interconnection between all things. Thus, the objects in a room, strut-noises, animals, and one's food are all parts of the general interconnection and equal in the content of their meaning. The trouble is that schizophrenes are usually less intelligent than others, and therefore misunderstand what is happening. They use psychosis as a retreat from the world. Intelligent schizophrenes, of whom many achieve fame, know full well what the truth is.
It is just as in the formula for making oneself invisible: Make sure you are not merely making yourself invisible to yourself! In mind-reading, make sure the voices in your head are not your own.