corporate investiture, he were God. Now, the particular motion of
the incarnated portions of the unparticled matter is the thought of
man ; as the motion of the whole is that of God.
_P._ You say that divested of the body man will be God ?
_V._ [_After much hesitation._] I could not have said this ; it
is an absurdity.
_P._ [_Referring to my notes._] You _did_ say that "divested of
corporate investiture man were God."
_V._ And this is true. Man thus divested _would be_ God - would
be unindividualized. But he can never be thus divested - at least
never _will be_ - else we must imagine an action of God returning
upon itself - a purposeless and futile action. Man is a creature.
Creatures are thoughts of God. It is the nature of thought to be
irrevocable.
_P._ I do not comprehend. You say that man will never put off
the body ?
_V._ I say that he will never be bodiless.
_P._ Explain.
_V._ There are two bodies - the rudimental and the complete ;
corresponding with the two conditions of the worm and the butterfly.
What we call "death," is but the painful metamorphosis. Our present
incarnation is progressive, preparatory, temporary. Our future is
perfected, ultimate, immortal. The ultimate life is the full design.
_P._ But of the worm's metamorphosis we are palpably cognizant.
_V._ _We_, certainly - but not the worm. The matter of which
our rudimental body is composed, is within the ken of the organs of
that body ; or, more distinctly, our rudimental organs are adapted
to the matter of which is formed the rudimental body ; but not to
that of which the ultimate is composed. The ultimate body thus
escapes our rudimental senses, and we perceive only the shell which
falls, in decaying, from the inner form ; not that inner form itself
; but this inner form, as well as the shell, is appreciable by those
who have already acquired the ultimate life.
_P._ You have often said that the mesmeric state very nearly
resembles death. How is this ?
_V._ When I say that it resembles death, I mean that it
resembles the ultimate life ; for when I am entranced the senses of
my rudimental life are in abeyance, and I perceive external things
directly, without organs, through a medium which I shall employ in
the ultimate, unorganized life.
_P._ Unorganized ?
_V._ Yes ; organs are contrivances by which the individual is
brought into sensible relation with particular classes and forms of
matter, to the exclusion of other classes and forms. The organs of
man are adapted to his rudimental condition, and to that only ; his
ultimate condition, being unorganized, is of unlimited comprehension
in all points but one - the nature of the volition of God - that is
to say, the motion of the unparticled matter. You will have a
distinct idea of the ultimate body by conceiving it to be entire
brain. This it is _not_ ; but a conception of this nature will
bring you near a comprehension of what it _is_. A luminous body
imparts vibration to the luminiferous ether. The vibrations generate
similar ones within the retina ; these again communicate similar
ones to the optic nerve. The nerve conveys similar ones to the brain
; the brain, also, similar ones to the unparticled matter which
permeates it. The motion of this latter is thought, of which
perception is the first undulation. This is the mode by which the
mind of the rudimental life communicates with the external world ;
and this external world is, to the rudimental life, limited, through
the idiosyncrasy of its organs. But in the ultimate, unorganized
life, the external world reaches the whole body, (which is of a
substance having affinity to brain, as I have said,) with no other
intervention than that of an infinitely rarer ether than even the
luminiferous ; and to this ether - in unison with it - the whole
body vibrates, setting in motion the unparticled matter which
permeates it. It is to the absence of idiosyncratic organs,
therefore, that we must attribute the nearly unlimited perception of
the ultimate life. To rudimental beings, organs are the cages
necessary to confine them until fledged.
_P._ You speak of rudimental "beings." Are there other
rudimental thinking beings than man ?
_V._ The multitudinous conglomeration of rare matter into
nebulæ, planets, suns, and other bodies which are neither nebulæ,
suns, nor planets, is for the sole purpose of supplying _pabulum_ for
the idiosyncrasy of the organs of an infinity of rudimental beings.
But for the necessity of the rudimental, prior to the ultimate life,
there would have been no bodies such as these. Each of these is
tenanted by a distinct variety of organic, rudimental, thinking
creatures. In all, the organs vary with the features of the place
tenanted. At death, or metamorphosis, these creatures, enjoying the
ultimate life - immortality - and cognizant of all secrets but _the
one_, act all things and pass everywhere by mere volition: -
indwelling, not the stars, which to us seem the sole palpabilities,
and for the accommodation of which we blindly deem space created -
but that SPACE itself - that infinity of which the truly substantive
vastness swallows up the star-shadows -- blotting them out as
non-entities from the perception of the angels.
_P._ You say that "but for the _necessity_ of the rudimental
life" there would have been no stars. But why this necessity ?
_V._ In the inorganic life, as well as in the inorganic matter
generally, there is nothing to impede the action of one simple
_unique_ law - the Divine Volition. With the view of producing
impediment, the organic life and matter, (complex, substantial, and
law-encumbered,) were contrived.
_P._ But again - why need this impediment have been produced ?
_V._ The result of law inviolate is perfection - right -
negative happiness. The result of law violate is imperfection, wrong,
positive pain. Through the impediments afforded by the number,
complexity, and substantiality of the laws of organic life and
matter, the violation of law is rendered, to a certain extent,
practicable. Thus pain, which in the inorganic life is impossible,
is possible in the organic.
_P._ But to what good end is pain thus rendered possible ?
_V._ All things are either good or bad by comparison. A
sufficient analysis will show that pleasure, in all cases, is but the
contrast of pain. _Positive_ pleasure is a mere idea. To be happy
at any one point we must have suffered at the same. Never to suffer
would have been never to have been blessed. But it has been shown
that, in the inorganic life, pain cannot be thus the necessity for
the organic. The pain of the primitive life of Earth, is the sole
basis of the bliss of the ultimate life in Heaven.
_P._ Still, there is one of your expressions which I find it
impossible to comprehend - "the truly _substantive_ vastness of
infinity."
_V._ This, proba
bly, is because you have no sufficiently generic
conception of the term "_substance_" itself. We must not regard it
as a quality, but as a sentiment: - it is the perception, in thinking
beings, of the adaptation of matter to their organization. There are
many things on the Earth, which would be nihility to the inhabitants
of Venus - many things visible and tangible in Venus, which we could
not be brought to appreciate as existing at all. But to the
inorganic beings - to the angels - the whole of the unparticled
matter is substanceethat is to say, the whole of what we term "space"
is to them the truest substantiality ; - the stars, meantime,
through what we consider their materiality, escaping the angelic
sense, just in proportion as the unparticled matter, through what we
consider its immateriality, eludes the organic.
As the sleep-waker pronounced these latter words, in a feeble tone,
I observed on his countenance a singular expression, which somewhat
alarmed me, and induced me to awake him at once. No sooner had I
done this, than, with a bright smile irradiating all his features, he
fell back upon his pillow and expired. I noticed that in less than a
minute afterward his corpse had all the stern rigidity of stone. His
brow was of the coldness of ice. Thus, ordinarily, should it have
appeared, only after long pressure from Azrael's hand. Had the
sleep-waker, indeed, during the latter portion of his discourse, been
addressing me from out the region of the shadows ?
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR
OF course I shall not pretend to consider it any matter for wonder,
that the extraordinary case of M. Valdemar has excited discussion. It
would have been a miracle had it not-especially under the
circumstances. Through the desire of all parties concerned, to keep
the affair from the public, at least for the present, or until we had
farther opportunities for investigation -- through our endeavors to
effect this -- a garbled or exaggerated account made its way into
society, and became the source of many unpleasant misrepresentations,
and, very naturally, of a great deal of disbelief.
It is now rendered necessary that I give the facts -- as far as I
comprehend them myself. They are, succinctly, these:
My attention, for the last three years, had been repeatedly drawn to
the subject of Mesmerism; and, about nine months ago it occurred to
me, quite suddenly, that in the series of experiments made hitherto,
there had been a very remarkable and most unaccountable omission: --
no person had as yet been mesmerized in articulo mortis. It remained
to be seen, first, whether, in such condition, there existed in the
patient any susceptibility to the magnetic influence; secondly,
whether, if any existed, it was impaired or increased by the
condition; thirdly, to what extent, or for how long a period, the
encroachments of Death might be arrested by the process. There were
other points to be ascertained, but these most excited my curiosity
-- the last in especial, from the immensely important character of
its consequences.
In looking around me for some subject by whose means I might test
these particulars, I was brought to think of my friend, M. Ernest
Valdemar, the well-known compiler of the "Bibliotheca Forensica," and
author (under the nom de plume of Issachar Marx) of the Polish
versions of "Wallenstein" and "Gargantua." M. Valdemar, who has
resided principally at Harlaem, N.Y., since the year 1839, is (or
was) particularly noticeable for the extreme spareness of his person
-- his lower limbs much resembling those of John Randolph; and, also,
for the whiteness of his whiskers, in violent contrast to the
blackness of his hair -- the latter, in consequence, being very
generally mistaken for a wig. His temperament was markedly nervous,
and rendered him a good subject for mesmeric experiment. On two or
three occasions I had put him to sleep with little difficulty, but
was disappointed in other results which his peculiar constitution had
naturally led me to anticipate. His will was at no period positively,
or thoroughly, under my control, and in regard to clairvoyance, I
could accomplish with him nothing to be relied upon. I always
attributed my failure at these points to the disordered state of his
health. For some months previous to my becoming acquainted with him,
his physicians had declared him in a confirmed phthisis. It was his
custom, indeed, to speak calmly of his approaching dissolution, as of
a matter neither to be avoided nor regretted.
When the ideas to which I have alluded first occurred to me, it was
of course very natural that I should think of M. Valdemar. I knew the
steady philosophy of the man too well to apprehend any scruples from
him; and he had no relatives in America who would be likely to
interfere. I spoke to him frankly upon the subject; and, to my
surprise, his interest seemed vividly excited. I say to my surprise,
for, although he had always yielded his person freely to my
experiments, he had never before given me any tokens of sympathy with
what I did. His disease was if that character which would admit of
exact calculation in respect to the epoch of its termination in
death; and it was finally arranged between us that he would send for
me about twenty-four hours before the period announced by his
physicians as that of his decease.
It is now rather more than seven months since I received, from M.
Valdemar himself, the subjoined note:
My DEAR P -- ,
You may as well come now. D -- and F -- are agreed that I cannot hold
out beyond to-morrow midnight; and I think they have hit the time
very nearly.
VALDEMAR
I received this note within half an hour after it was written, and in
fifteen minutes more I was in the dying man's chamber. I had not seen
him for ten days, and was appalled by the fearful alteration which
the brief interval had wrought in him. His face wore a leaden hue;
the eyes were utterly lustreless; and the emaciation was so extreme
Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe Page 45