by Dion Fortune
“I do not.”
“You do.”
“I don't.”
“You do.”
“I understand,” said Malcolm after a moment. “But that cannot be in this life, you know.”
“I know that. That epoch has passed away. Evolution has moved on. We are in the airy sign of Aquarius today. The workings are astral. That is why you get the ideal of celibacy in religious life instead of the old ideal of fecundity. The priestess is installed on the astral, Dr. Malcolm.”
“I get you. But does that work?”
“You ought to know.”
He thought a minute.
“Yes, it does. I've proved it. I don't know how it works, though.”
“All magic works in the imagination.”
“But the—vital force doesn't transmit in the imagination.”
“It does.”
“Can't see it.”
“What is a sacrament?”
“The outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.”
“Is marriage a sacrament?”
“Supposed to be, I believe.”
“And what is the nature of its inward and spiritual grace?”
“Love, I suppose.”
“Something more tangible than that—magnetism. You remember telling me that the invisible reality behind all physical manifestation was of the nature of electricity? Well—there it is—in function—more tangible than emotion; less tangible than protoplasm.”
Malcolm sat lost in thought as he took in the implications of what I had said.
“Does the protoplasm emanate the magnetism, or does the magnetism emanate the protoplasm?” he asked at last.
“Both,” said I, “but the magnetism came first in evolutionary time, and comes first in all manifestations of life. You can't have protoplasm without magnetism.”
“Can you have magnetism without protoplasm?”
“Yes, and that is one of the secret occult keys. Over and above the outward and visible sign there is the inward and spiritual grace.”
“And the outward and visible sign is—protoplasm? Yes, of course. Protoplasm—the basic substance—pure albumen—yes, it would work like that. Have you ever considered the miracle of the chick developing out of white of egg, which is also pure albumen?”
“Have you ever considered the miracle of the universe developing out of space?”
“My dear child, if you consider anything long enough you find it is a miracle. I have worked on the central nervous system all my life, and I am supposed to know something about it, but I haven't the haziest notion how sensation transmutes into movement. The talk of afferent and efferent impulses is the talk of a fool—it means nothing—it's just baby noises on a higher arc. Goo—goo—ga! That's what the half of scientific terminology is. The fools can't see that description isn't the same thing as explanation. I can describe the central nervous system, no one better, but I'm damned if I can explain it. Child, do you know that the principal service I do for the patients that come to me is to stop other folk mucking them about? It's a red-letter day for me when I get a case I can treat. Diagnose? Yes, I'll stick the label on all right; and prophesy their latter end if that's any comfort to them, but it generally isn't. That's why I get sick of the central nervous system—there's so little you can do about it. Mind you, I like the fine-drawn accuracy of neurology, and I've contributed my share to that; but when I look at the patients lined up at my clinics, I feel like an old hen sitting on a clutch of china eggs. I can't do anything for ninety per cent of the poor devils. All these fancy treatments are no earthly use—cause a lot of pain and cost a lot of money and do no good. Salvarsan and morphia are the only drugs that are any real use to me, and I tell you, I get fed up with them.”
I rose. “Shall we finish here and go downstairs and have some coffee?”
He rose, too.
“Keep those hands up as much as you can,” he said.
He took the left hand, which was the worse of the two, and laid it in the bosom of my robe, and taking a safety-pin from his own tie, improvised a sling. He unfastened the brooch that held the crossed-over folds and readjusted it to help take the strain. It was just like dressing a child. Malcolm never let his mind come near the woman he was handling. I was simply the patient, and his gentleness was extraordinary. It was not that he handled me gingerly. Far from it. The hands were firm, the movements definite, as he bent the arm to bring it into the position he wanted it to be in; but it was so smooth, so exact, the pressure came on so gradually, the angle was so perfectly calculated, that he gave the wrenched and bruised hands no pain. I would not have believed one could have handled battered flesh to soothe it till I saw it done. Nor would I believe that Malcolm, who was generally simmering like a kettle on the perpetual point of boiling over, could suddenly become remote and quiet and abstract. It was as if he were a long distance off. But as he fastened the catch of the brooch his eyes met mine, and suddenly Malcolm, the man, came back again. He went rigid, the folds of my dress still in his hands. It was as if he had touched a live rail and was held by the current. I smiled at him and gently disengaged my frock from his grasp.
“Thank you, my friend,” I said. “I do not give the name of friend lightly,” I added.
“I'm so very sorry I hurt your hands,” he said in a low voice, turning his head away.
“Do not be sorry. It is well. There always has to be a sacrifice in these matters. We would have done something like that deliberately if it had not happened incidentally. But it is much better as it is. When the magic works of itself, spontaneously, it shows that the cosmic forces are behind it. That is a very different matter to human will power, you know.”
“I won't have to twist your wrists again, will I? I don't think I could do it in cold blood, you know.”
“Oh, no, there isn't anything like that. It isn't done deliberately. But magic is a terrific strain, we may as well face the fact. A physical strain as well as a mental strain.”
“When I stood at your altar it was next door to tetanus, is that what you mean?”
“Yes, that is what I mean. You dare not move, because if you do, it breaks the contacts, and the muscular tension becomes simply terrific, especially when invoking or projecting power with the arms outheld.”
“I have noticed the development of your neck muscles and shoulder girdle. You have the same kind of neck as the women who carry heavy weights on their heads. Am I going to see all these performances in due time?”
“You are.”
“Hmm. It will be very interesting.”
It will be more than interesting, thought I, knowing what I meant to do with Malcolm.
He watched me while I did the salutations that cut the contacts, for we do not banish in a sealed place of working. Then he followed me down the narrow stairs back to the normal world again—if, of course, any spot where I was could be called really normal.
Malcolm came with me to the kitchen, and made tea under my direction, for my hands were not to be trusted with boiling kettles at the moment. He was an utterly helpless creature in a kitchen, without an idea on the subject, and all thumbs with the teapot despite his exquisite manipulative skill. He got quite as much tea into the turn-ups of his trousers as we subsequently drank. I wanted to get him back to normal again before he left me, but he was so utterly changed that I wondered what normal for him might be. He lay back in my big chair in a daydream, and I thought he was going to sleep. However, the tea roused him, and he blinked at me as if surprised to see me there. “
“So that is the sort of thing we are going to do, is it?” said he.
“It is the beginning of it,” said I.
“Satisfactory?”
“Quite, so far as it goes.”
“More to follow?”
“Yes, but the worst is over. The beginning is always the biggest strain. It gets easier as it goes on. Usually we can ease in the power a little more gradually than this, but it came with a rush because you had al
ready got so much lying latent in you, and it roused at a touch.”
“Not particularly latent, Miss Le Fay. I had all this well up on the surface when I was a lad. Naturally it faded a good deal of recent years, but it has never been very deeply buried; it never took much to rouse it. A magazine story I read on a railway journey did it once.”
“Was it illustrated?”
“It was. In colour, too. It was a Christmas number.”
That explains it. Colour is all-important.”
“Why?”
“Because colour equates with force; and so, for the matter of that, do musical pitch and rhythm.”
“You are opening a completely new world to me, Miss Le Fay, and yet I think I knew it existed. I knew the exact delimitations of science; I knew where the proven ended and the speculative began, and I have always been very careful of the distinction, particularly in my own line of work, where we always have to be on the look-out for the hysterias, and suggestion plays so big a part. Miss Le Fay, I have seen things happen to the mind through the body, and to the body through the mind that—well—you might believe, but nobody else would. You asked me whether I believed in the power of the mind over the body, and I poured scorn on you. I was thinking of those New Thought tinkerings with organic disease. Of course they can't do anything except administer placebos, though placebos are well worth having to the poor devil that's got the disease. But genuine mind-healing of a genuine disease—well, I have yet to see a case.
“You should see me do mind-healing, Miss Le Fay. Funniest thing you ever saw. A large part of my work is distinguishing between organic and functional nervous disorders. The functional cases, of course, are the hysterics. In comes the paralytic on his stretcher, and we get to work. Some folks use a mallet; I don't, I use my fingers.
“So you can't use your arm, my poor man?”—“No sir, I can't—What's your trade?”—He tells me.—“Foreman bully you?”—Then comes a tale of insult and oppression and general injury to his amourpropre. I get my fingers on his elbow”—Malcolm leant over towards me. “No, I won't do it to you, it will hurt your bruises.” He laid a hand on my knee. “So you've been paralysed from the waist downward, have you, madam, since your motor accident?” “Yes, doctor.”
Malcolm's fingers suddenly pressed. I kicked out sharply and involuntarily. He chuckled.
He repeated the pressure, and up came that ridiculous foot once more.
“You do that again,” said I, “and I'll kick you in good earnest.”
“I did get kicked in good earnest once by an alleged paralytic,” said he, “and it very nearly cost me my front teeth. If I drew a commission on all the money I've saved insurance companies, I'd be a millionaire. But the patients aren't all frauds, you know, by any manner of means. Lots of them genuinely think they are ill. So they are, but not physically. And that's the sort that get healed at these big religious meetings at the Albert Hall. I've known my own cases come up there, Miss Le Fay, and some damn fool of a G.P. gives ‘em a certificate to say they're genuine physical healings. It's not my business to spoke their wheels, but you can see what I've come to think of these things, can't you?”
“Not that I blame G.P.s for making mistakes over the central nervous system. I know what gets sent up to me from our our own Out Patients. What I blame them for is putting their names to a thing they haven't checked up on. It seems to me that when people go in for these mystical things they take leave of their wits, Miss Le Fay. What happens to them?”
“Auto-hypnosis and deliberately induced dissociation of personality are part of the method of the Mysteries. Some people know what they are about, and some do not. Those that do not, get dissociated and stay dissociated.”
“I see. Artificially induced and localised insanity. Hyper-suggestible to start with, and then cultivate it. That was suggestion you were giving me this evening, Miss Le Fay.”
“I know it was, Dr. Malcolm. But there was something more to it than that. It started as suggestion, but it ended as something much more. Or rather, it would have ended as something much more if I had let it go on, but I pulled it up in the early stages, as it was our first attempt at working together, and I did not want to put too much strain on you.”
“So you were just trying my paces, were you?”
“Yes, trying your paces; picking up the starting point and getting you used to the feel of the forces.”
“And the next stage?”
“We have got our starting point in your recurring dream. That gives us all we need. Now I will be teaching you the technique we use, and you will be gradually getting used to the force and we will be able to increase the voltage.”
“What does my recurring dream give you, Miss Le Fay?”
“It gives us, both you and me, access to the higher levels of your consciousness, the levels that lie beyond the subconscious to which ordinary, fleeting dreams give access.”
He looked at his watch.
“Good Lord, look at the time! I have made you a visitation. Lucky tomorrow is Sunday. May I come in and fix your hand? It will want doing.”
“You may. You will be very welcome. But tell me this before you go, and tell me frankly, as you would if you were one of your own patients—what effect has your experience this evening had upon you?”
He smoothed his greying red hair, pushing it back from that wonderful forehead with both hands, a very characteristic gesture of his.
“To begin with, I was half glamoured and half sceptical. Now I am not nearly so glamoured nor nearly so sceptical. I can see that this business has a psychological aspect that comes within the range of reason, just as I could see that yoga has a physiological basis in the central nervous system. I can see that you understand that basis, which is more than the New Thought woman did; and I can see that you are a sensible woman, which is also more than she was. I shall thoroughly enjoy experimenting with you, especially if you will allow me to keep systematic records of what we do and the results we obtain. I am turning over in my mind the question as to whether you are an exceedingly clever hypnotist with a knowledge of psychology which you use in combination with the imaginative powers of a first-class novelist, or whether there is something more in it all than that, as I see you believe. I don't know. I am keeping an open mind. I haven't seen anything—so far—that couldn't be explained psychologically, but it is early days yet, and you may have a few cards up your sleeve that I haven't seen. I have not yet discovered where the risk lies which you take so seriously. You might capsize the artyarty type of youth, but I should not think there was very much you could do to a tough old bird like me. However, I'm quite willing you should have a free hand to do your damnedest. I'm with you, Miss Le Fay. It is exceedingly interesting.”
“Will you write up the records?”
“I will,” said he.
“Will you tell me one thing before you go. Have I brought you peace?”
“Yes, certainly you have. I feel very comfortable and rather sleepy.”
He rose. I accompanied him to the door. He paused, hesitating on the threshold. I drew my fur about me and strolled slowly down the road with him. He did not speak till we came to a standstill on the wharf. Then he said:
“How did you know I wanted you to walk down the road with me?”
“It is my business to know things.”
“Can you read my thoughts?”
“More or less. If you put any force behind them in my direction, I expect I should know it.”
“Do you know when I lie to you?”
“Yes.”
He stood staring across the now ebbing river towards his own rooms.
“Yes, Miss Le Fay, you have given me peace, the peace that passeth all understanding, and I thank you for it.”
He lifted his hat and turned on his heel and left me.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Next morning my hands were so swollen and stiff that I could neither dress nor do my hair, but sat in front of the fire in a white velvet dressing-gown, toa
sting my toes in their scarlet mules and drinking chocolate and wondering when Malcolm would turn up to give me the massage he had promised. It was on an occasion like this that I found the disadvantage of having a gentleman char instead of the more usual char-lady. I thought Malcolm would survive the sight of me in a dressing-gown, for it differed but little save in voluminousness from the loose robes I habitually wore in the house; but I did not wish him to see me with my hair streaming over my shoulders.
I called my domestic, who was busied about his duties.
“Mr. Meatyard,” I said, “have you ever plaited a horse's tail?”
“Lor bless yer, mum, I taken prizes at the van-’oss parades.”
I thought it was more likely his charge had taken them than he had, but did not wish to hurt his feelings by pointing out the inaccuracy.
“Do you think you could plait my hair for me? I don't want any straws in it, or anything fancy like that.”
“Course I can. Do yer fine!”
He set to work with my silver-backed brushes with great gusto, and had got my mass of hair disentangled and spread out like a cape when there came a bang on the knocker. Brush in hand, he went to the door, and I heard him greeting a friend.
“Blimey, guv'nor! Is it you?”
“Yes, it's me,” came Malcolm's voice. “What are you doing with that brush, stealing it?”
“Naow. Given all that up since I ‘ad this job. I'm doin’ ‘er ‘air.”
He opened the door and ushered in Malcolm.
“Tike a seat, guv'nor. I'll soon ‘ave ‘er finished.”
“Would you like a cup of chocolate?” said I, thinking it best to take everything as a matter of course.
“Thanks very much,” said Malcolm, helping himself from the earthenware pot keeping warm in the embers.
Mr. Meatyard laid down my brush and started on a plait, backing away from me as the plait lengthened, Malcolm watching him.
“ ‘ang onto that for ‘alf a mo’, will yer, sir?” he said, handing Malcolm the tip to hold while he got to work on the other plait. Then, filling his mouth with a handful of hairpins, he twisted both plaits round my head in a very creditable imitation of my usual coiffure.