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significance of this physical immensity and complexity? By

itself, plainly, it constituted nothing but sheer futility and

desolation. But with awe and hope we told ourselves that it promised an

even greater complexity and subtlety and diversity of the psychical.

This alone could justify it. But this formidable promise, though

inspiring, was also terrifying.

 

Like a nestling that peers over the nest’s rim for the first time, and

then shrinks back from the great world into its tiny home, we had

emerged beyond the confines of that little nest of stars which for so

long, but falsely, men called “the universe.” And now we sank back to

bury ourselves once more in the genial precincts of our native galaxy.

 

As our experiences had raised many theoretical problems which we could

not solve without further study of astronomy, we now decided to return

to the Other Earth; but after long and fruitless search we realized that

we had completely lost our bearings. The stars were all much alike, save

that few in this early epoch were as old and temperate as the Other Sun.

Searching at random, but at high speed, we found neither Bvalltu’s

planet nor mine, nor any other solar system. Frustrated, we came to rest

once more in the void to consider our plight. On every side the ebony of

the sky, patterned with diamonds, confronted us with an enigma. Which

spark of all this star-dust was the Other Sun? As was usual in the sky

of this early epoch, streaks of nebular matter were visible in all

directions; but their shapes were unfamiliar, and useless for

orientation.

 

The fact that we were lost among the stars did not distress us. We were

exhilarated by our adventure, and each was a cause of good spirits in

the other. Our recent experiences had quickened our mental life, still

further organizing our two minds together. Each was still at most times

conscious of the other and of himself as separate beings; but the

pooling or integration of our memories and of our temperaments had now

gone so far that our distinctness was often forgotten. Two disembodied

minds, occupying the same visual position, possessing the same memories

and desires, and often performing the same mental acts at the same time,

can scarcely be conceived as distinct beings. Yet, strangely enough,

this growing identity was complicated by an increasingly intense mutual

realization and comradeship.

 

Our penetration of one another’s minds brought to each not merely

addition but mutiplication of mental riches; for each knew inwardly not

only himself and the other but also the contrapuntal harmony of each in

relation to the other. Indeed, in some sense which I cannot precisely

describe, our union of minds brought into being a third mind, as yet

intermittent, but more subtly conscious than either of us in the normal

state. Each of us, or rather both of us together, “woke up” now and then

to be this superior spirit. All the experiences of each took on a new

significance in the light of the other; and our two minds together

became a new, more penetrating, and more self-conscious mind. In this

state of heightened lucidity we, or rather the new I, began deliberately

to explore the psychological possibilities of other types of beings and

intelligent worlds. With new penetration I distinguished in myself and

in Bvalltu those attributes which were essential to the spirit and those

mere accidents imposed on each by his peculiar world. This imaginative

venture was soon to prove itself a method, and a very potent method, of

cosmological research.

 

We now began to realize more clearly a fact that we had long suspected.

In my previous interstellar voyage, which brought me to the Other Earth,

I had unwittingly employed two distinct methods of travel, the method of

disembodied flight through space and a method which I shall call

“physical attraction.” This consisted of telepathic projection of the

mind directly into some alien world, remote perhaps in time and space,

but mentally “in tune” with the explorer’s own mind at the time of the

venture. Evidently it was this method that had really played the chief

part in directing me to the Other Earth. The remarkable similarities of

our two races had set up a strong “physical attraction” which had been

far more potent than all my random interstellar wanderings. It was this

method that Bvalltu and I were now to practice and perfect.

 

Presently we noticed that we were no longer at rest but slowly drifting.

We had also a queer sense that, though we were seemingly isolated in a

vast desert of stars and nebulae, we were in fact in some kind of mental

proximity with unseen intelligences. Concentrating on this sense of

presence, we found that our drift accelerated; and that, if we tried by

a violent act of volition to change its course, we inevitably swung back

into the original direction as soon as our effort ceased. Soon our drift

became a headlong flight. Once more the forward stars turned violet, the

hinder red. Once more all vanished.

 

In absolute darkness and silence we debated our situation. Clearly we

were now passing through space more quickly than light itself. Perhaps

we were also, in some incomprehensible manner, traversing time.

Meanwhile that sense of the proximity of other beings became more and

more insistent, though no less confused. Then once again the stars

appeared. Though they streamed past us like flying sparks, they were

colorless and normal. One brilliant light lay right ahead of us. It

waxed, became a dazzling splendor, then visibly a disc. With an effort

of will we decreased our speed, then cautiously we swung round this sun,

searching. To our delight, it proved to be attended by several of the

grains that may harbor life. Guided by our unmistakable sense of mental

presence, we selected one of these planets, and slowly descended toward

it.

CHAPTER V

WORLDS INNUMERABLE

 

1. THE DIVERSITY OF WORLDS

 

THE planet on which we now descended after our long flight among the

stars was the first of many to be visited. In some we stayed, according

to the local calendar, only a few weeks, in others several years, housed

together in the mind of some native. Often when the time came for our

departure our host would accompany us for subsequent adventures. As we

passed from world to world, as experience was piled upon experience like

geological strata, it seemed that this strange tour of worlds was

lasting for many lifetimes. Yet thoughts of our own home-planets were

constantly with us. Indeed, in my case it was not till I found myself

thus exiled that I came to realize fully the little jewel of personal

union that I had left behind. I had to comprehend each world as best I

could by reference to the remote world where my own life had happened,

and above all by the touchstone of that common life that she and I had

made together.

 

Before trying to describe, or rather suggest, the immense diversity of

worlds which I entered, I must say a few words about the movement of the

adventure itself. After the experiences which I have just recorded it

was clear that the method of disembodied flight was of little use. It

did indeed afford us extremely vivid perception of the visible features

of our galaxy; and we often used it to orientate ourselves when we had

made some fresh discovery by the method of psychological attraction. But

since it gave us freedom only of space and not of time, and since,

moreover, planetary systems were so very rare, the method of sheer

random physical flight alone was almost infinitely unlikely to produce

results. Physical attraction, however, once we had mastered it, proved

very effective. This method depended on the imaginative reach of our own

minds. At first, when our imaginative power was strictly limited by

experience of our own worlds, we could make contact only with worlds

closely akin to our own. Moreover, in this novitiate stage of our work

we invariably came upon these worlds when they were passing through the

same spiritual crisis as that which underlies the plight of Homo sapiens

today. It appeared that, for to enter any world at all, there had to be

a deeplying likeness or identity in ourselves and our hosts.

 

As we passed on from world to world we greatly increased our

understanding of the principles underlying our venture, and our powers

of applying them. Further, in each world that we visited we sought out a

new collaborator, to give us insight into his world and to extend our

imaginative reach for further exploration of the galaxy. This “snowball”

method by which our company was increased was of great importance, since

it magnified our powers. In the final stages of the exploration we made

discoveries which might well be regarded as infinitely beyond the range

of any single and unaided human mind.

 

At the outset Bvalltu and I assumed that we were embarking on a purely

private adventure; and later, as we gathered helpers, we still believed

that we ourselves were the sole initiators of cosmical exploration. But

after a while we came in psychical contact with another group of

cosmical explorers, natives of worlds as yet unknown to us. With these

adventurers, after difficult and often distressing experiments, we

joined forces, entering first into intimate community, and later into

that strange mental union which Bvalitu and I had already experienced

together in some degree on our first voyage among the stars.

 

When we had encountered many more such groups, we realized that, though

each little expedition had made a lonely start, all were destined sooner

or later to come together. For, no matter now alien from one another at

the outset, each group gradually acquired such far-reaching imaginative

power that sooner or later it was sure to make contact with others.

 

In time it became clear that we, individual inhabitants of a host of

other worlds, were playing a small part in one of the great movements by

which the cosmos was seeking to know itself, and even see beyond itself.

 

In saying this I do not for a moment claim that, because I have shared

in this vast process of cosmical self-discovery, the story which I have

to tell is true in a fully literal sense. Plainly it does not deserve to

be taken as part of the absolute objective truth about the cosmos. I,

the human individual, can only in a most superficial and falsifying way

participate in the superhuman experience of that communal “I” which was

supported by the innumerable explorers. This book must needs be a

ludicrously false caricature of our actual adventure. But further,

though we were and are a multitude drawn from a multitude of spheres, we

represent only a tiny fraction of the diversity of the whole cosmos.

Thus even the supreme moment of our experience, when it seemed to us

that we had penetrated to the very heart of reality, must in fact have

given us no more than a few shreds of truth, and these not literal but

symbolic.

 

My account of that part of my adventure which brought me into contact

with worlds of more or less human type may be fairly accurate; but that

which deals with more alien spheres must be far from the truth. The

Other Earth I have probably described with little more falsehood than

our historians commit in telling of the past ages of Homo sapiens. But

of the less human worlds, and the many fantastic kinds of beings which

we encountered up and down the galaxy and throughout the whole cosmos,

and even beyond it, I shall perforce make statements which, literally

regarded, must be almost wholly false. I can only hope that they have

the kind

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