The Romeo Error
Page 25
To the scientist and mystic alike, life is divisible. It consists of the dynamic processes of generation, growth, degeneration, and death in matter, all according to the established laws of thermodynamics as they apply to normal space-time. But it also consists of other processes that do not necessarily obey the same laws.
On all the evidence available to us, and that of psychic surgery is only the most accessible and dramatic, the other levels are closely associated with, but also relatively independent of, physical matter. The healer operates entirely on the second system, effecting cures by the manipulation of that level with the substance of his own equivalent level, and probably recruiting the active but unconscious assistance of the patients by the physical productions that accompany his treatment. The fact that the healer himself accomplishes complex diagnosis, the delicate operation, and the associated and very shrewd diversion all unconsciously, makes it necessary to assume that he in turn is being manipulated. And herein lies the crunch.
I can, to my own intellectual satisfaction, cope with all the contradictions in the life and death relationship that give rise to the Romeo Error. I can trace the development of our attitudes to death in the light of our growing understanding of the mechanics of life. I experience no difficulty in coming to terms with the altered states of awareness made possible by new chemicals and the rediscovery of old techniques. I find no problems inherent in the fact that personality can be dissociated and even completely disconnected from its base in the body. I can even reconcile the facts of obsession, possession, hauntings, and poltergeists with the framework of the life sciences as they stand now modified by the discoveries of the past few years.
But I have trouble with, the kind of control I find in psychic surgery. I can see no way of accounting for meaningful, directed, intelligent guidance of this kind without assuming that there is an organization or a design behind all life that goes beyond natural selection, chance, causality, or even the complete survival of an integrated personality.
I am driven to the conclusion that there is form in the void. You may call it God if you like.
Conclusion
I am very conscious of the fact that the end of this book is not the end of the argument. My writing ends where it has because I have reached a personal turning point. I am confident that the obvious gaps in our understanding of the complex relationship between life and death will soon be closed and that, given the time to come to terms with this new knowledge, we can learn to avoid the Romeo Error. But I am much less confident about the next step.
Physically, I shall be returning for a longer and closer look at the Luzon healers. Mentally, I face a more difficult journey that only begins in the Philippines, for it is there that I am confronted with something rather alarming. There is a barrier in action -- not just a limit to understanding brought about by our lack of knowledge, but an absolute embargo on certain kinds of information.
When a patient with a metal hip joint is brought to the Philippines for the sole purpose of investigating the operating procedure, and the healer has worked until all those present can see the shape of the prosthesis, and the cameras are about to take the critical film that will prove beyond doubt that the body really has been opened -- the lights fail. When a resarch physicist on his own and without equipment goes to visit a healer, he sees hundreds of psychokinetic effects; but when he returns with electronic apparatus that will record the types and quantities of energy involved -- nothing happens. When a healer succeeds in physically removing a bladder stone of a peculiar shape, and the specimen is being carried carefully back to Europe to be matched with existing X-ray pictures, and prove that it is in fact the identical calculus -- it vanishes completely from the sealed jar.
These are not isolated incidents that can be shrugged off as accidents. They are taken from a very long series to which everyone who has ever tried to investigate the Philippine phenomenbn is an unwilling contributor. Films can be taken of the operations, but it has not yet been possible to produce a single picture that provides completely univocal proof of the procedure. Experiments can be conducted, but something always goes wrong just before they reach a level of accomplishment that would make them academically acceptable.
Scientifically, this is an absurd situation, but it is not unique to the Philippines. When comparing notes with those working in other parts of the world, I learn of poltergeists that leap into action the moment an experimenter dismantles his apparatus; of vital tape recordings that burst into flame as they are about to be played back; of crucial witnesses who disappear without trace. It is easy to dismiss all these things as coincidence or experimental error until you know the people involved. None of them is incompetent or paranoid, or has a vested interest in creating confusion; all of them would rather get a straightforward uncomplicated answer to their inquiries. But like it or not, it appears that some things cannot or will not be known. Or at least not by our present approach.
So we try to find new and less direct approaches, but it seems that there is a line beyond which we cannot move at any one time. Later, this threshold may be lifted, and suddenly everyone will be getting results to a problem that a year ago seemed insoluble. Science often works like this, but in these particular fields it begins to look as though the obstructions are set up deliberately -- either to thwart us altogether or to program our access to new information so that we do not travel too far or too fast. It is possible that we are doing battle on these frontiers with our own uncooperative unconscious minds; or, as some suggest, that we are kept in check in our planetary kindergarten by a cautious cosmic nanny.
I do not know the answer, but I am beginning to learn that the builder of this barrier is not necessarily always benign. I will go on with the search for a new way to gain the understanding we need, but I must admit that right now on the edge of this unexpected chasm, I am a little afraid.
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