"Most assuredly. It was a scene in my early childhood, and originated
in the Valley of the Jhelum, in the Punjab. The officer and lady were
my parents. It was the last time I ever saw them. I was the boy."
"May I ask how it is possible to reproduce a scene so long passed out
of existence, and which took place so many thousand miles away?"
"Easily told, but not so easily understood by one whose mind has
never been trained to think in these occult channels," answered the
elder man; "for to understand the thing at all, you must first divest
your mind of time and space as outside entities, for these are in
reality but modes of thought, and have only such value as we give
them. India, doubtless, seems very far to you, but to one whose
powers of will have been sufficiently developed, it is no farther
than the wall of this room. So it is with time. How can we see that
which no longer exists? But a little reflection will show us that
even on the physical plane we see that which does not exist every day
of our lives. Look at the stars. The light by which some of them are
recognized has been millions of years in transit, so that we do not
behold them as they are tonight, but as they were at that remote
period of time; meanwhile they may have been wrecked and scattered in
meteoric dust."
"But that is hardly an explanation of the scene referred to,"
answered Paul. "Whenever I direct my eyes in the right quarter, the
stars are visible; whether they be actually there or not, they are
there to me; but not so with the vision of the room. In my normal
condition there is no room there, while in my normal condition the
stars are always there."
"True, and because your normal condition is sympathetically attuned
to the vibrations of starlight. Your consciousness is located in your
brain, and so long as those vibrations continue to strike with
sufficient force upon the optic nerve, you will be conscious of the
light. But suppose the machinery of your body were finer--suppose
your senses were absolutely in accord with those vibratory movements,
instead of only partially so--do you not know that the starlight
would reveal far more than it now does? Then you would see not only
the light, but the scenes that are carried in the light, but which by
reason of their obtuseness can not penetrate your senses. Were this
improvement in men really achieved, our conceptions of time and space
would be modified, and the condition of other worlds as plainly seen
as our own."