The Ghost of Guir House

"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."