Book: The Necromancers

R >> Robert Hugh Benson >> The Necromancers




He drew himself up in his chair and began to fill his pipe.... In
three days he would be seated in a room with three or four persons, he
supposed. Of these, two--and certainly the two strongest
characters--had no religion except that supplied by spiritualism, and
he had read enough to know this was, at any rate in the long run,
non-Christian. And these three or four persons, moreover, believed
with their whole hearts that they were in relations with the invisible
world, far more evident and sensible than those claimed by any other
believers on the face of the earth. And, after all, Laurie reflected,
there seemed to be justice in their claim. He would be seated in that
room, he repeated to himself, and it might be that before he left it
he would have seen with his own eyes, and possibly handled, living
persons who had, in the common phrase, "died" and been buried. Almost
certainly, at the very least, he would have received from such
intelligences unmistakable messages....

He was astonished that he was not more excited. He asked himself again
whether he really believed it; he compared his belief in it with his
belief in the existence of New Zealand. Yes, if that were belief, he
had it. But the excitement of doubt was gone, as no doubt it was gone
when New Zealand became a geographical expression.

He was astonished at its naturalness--at the extraordinary manner in
which, when once the evidence had been seen and the point of view
grasped, the whole thing fell into place. It seemed to him as if he
must have known it all his life; yet, he knew, six months ago he had
hardly known more than that there were upon the face of the earth
persons called Spiritualists, who believed, or pretended to believe,
what he then was quite sure was fantastic nonsense. And now he was, to
all intents, one of them....

He was being drawn forward, it seemed, by a process as inevitable as
that of spring or autumn; and, once he had yielded to it, the conflict
and the excitement were over. Certainly this made very few demands.
Christianity said that those were blessed who had not seen and yet
believed; Spiritualism said that the only reasonable belief was that
which followed seeing.

So then Laurie sat and meditated.

Once or twice that evening he looked round him tranquilly without a
touch of that terror that had seized him in the smoking-room at home.

If all this were true--and he repeated to himself that he knew it was
true--these presences were about him now, so why was it that he was no
longer frightened?

He looked carefully into the dark corner behind him, beyond the low
jutting bookshelf, in the angle between the curtained windows, at his
piano, glossy and mysterious in the gloom, at the door half-open into
his bedroom. All was quiet here, shut off from the hum of Fleet
Street; circumstances were propitious. Why was he not frightened...?
Why, what was there to frighten him? These presences were natural and
normal; even as a Catholic he believed in them. And if they manifested
themselves, what was there to fear in that?

He looked steadily and serenely; and as he looked, like the kindling
of a fire, there rose within him a sense of strange exaltation.

"Amy," he whispered.

But there was no movement or hint.

Laurie smiled a little, wearily. He felt tired; he would sleep a
little. He beat out his pipe, crossed his feet before the fire, and
closed his eyes.


III

There followed that smooth rush into gulfs of sleep that provides
perhaps the most exquisite physical sensation known to man, as the
veils fall thicker and softer every instant, and the consciousness
gathers itself inwards from hands and feet and limbs, like a dog
curling himself up for rest; yet retains itself in continuous being,
and is able to regard its own comfort. All this he remembered
perfectly half an hour later; but there followed in his memory that
inevitable gap in which self loses itself before emerging into the
phantom land of dreams, or returning to reality.

But that into which he emerged, he remembered afterwards, was a
different realm altogether from that which is usual--from that country
of grotesque fancy and jumbled thoughts, of thin shadows of truth and
echoes from the common world where most of us find ourselves in sleep.

His dream was as follows:--

He was still in his room, he thought, but no longer in his chair.
Instead, he stood in the very center of the floor, or at least poised
somewhere above it, for he could see at a glance, without turning, all
that the room contained. He directed his attention--for it was this,
rather than sight, through which he perceived--to the piano, the
chiffonier, the chairs, the two doors, the curtained windows; and
finally, with scarcely even a touch of surprise, to himself still sunk
in the chair before the fire. He regarded himself with pleased
interest, remembering even in that instant that he had never before
seen himself with closed eyes....

All in the room was extraordinarily vivid and clear-cut. It was true
that the firelight still wavered and sank again in billows of soft
color about the shadowed walls, but the changing light was no more an
interruption to the action of that steady medium through which he
perceived than the movement of summer clouds across the full sunlight.
It was at that moment that he understood that he saw no longer with
eyes, but with that faculty of perception to which sight is only
analogous--that faculty which underlies and is common to all the
senses alike.

His reasoning powers, too, at this moment, seemed to have gone from
him like a husk. He did not argue or deduce; simply he understood.
And, in a flash, simultaneous with the whole vision, he perceived that
he was behind all the slow processes of the world, by which this is
added to that, and a conclusion drawn; by which light travels, and
sounds resolve themselves and emotions run their course. He had
reached, he thought, the ultimate secret.... It was This that lay
behind everything.

Now it is impossible to set down, except progressively, all this sum
of experiences that occupied for him one interminable instant. Neither
did he remember afterwards the order in which they presented
themselves; for it seemed to him that there was no order; all was
simultaneous.

But he understood plainly by intuition that all was open to him.
Space no longer existed for him; nothing, to his perception, separated
this from that. He was able, he saw, without stirring from his
attitude to see in an instant any place or person towards which he
chose to exercise his attention. It seemed a marvelously simple point,
this--that space was little more than an illusion; that it was, after
all, nothing else but a translation into rather coarse terms of what
may be called "differences." "Here" and "There" were but relative
terms; certainly they corresponded to facts, but they were not those
facts themselves.... And since he now stood behind them he saw them on
their inner side, as a man standing in the interior of a globe may be
said to be equally present to every point upon its surface.

The fascination of the thought was enormous; and, like a child who
begins to take notice and to learn the laws of extension and distance,
so he began to learn their reverse. He saw, he thought (as he had seen
once before, only, this time, without the sense of movement), the
interior of the lighted drawing room at home, and his mother nodding
in her chair; he directed his attention to Maggie, and perceived her
passing across the landing toward the head of the stairs with a candle
in her hand. It was this sight that brought him to a further
discovery, to the effect that time also was of very nearly no
importance either; for he perceived that by bending his attention upon
her he could restrain her, so to speak, in her movement. There she
stood, one foot outstretched, the candle flame leaning motionless
backward; and he knew too that it was not she who was thus restrained,
but that it was the intensity and directness of his thought that
fixed, so to say, in terms of eternity, that instant of time....

So it went on; or, rather, so it was with him. He pleased himself by
contemplating the London streets outside, the darkness of the garden
in some square, the interior of the Oratory where a few figures
kneeled--all seen beyond the movements of light and shadow in this
clear invisible radiance that was to his perception as common light to
common eyes. The world of which he had had experience--for he found
himself unable to see that which he had never experienced--lay before
his will like a movable map: this or that person or place had but to
be desired, and it was present.

And then came the return; and the Horror....

He began in this way.

He understood that he wished to awake, or, rather, to be reunited with
the body that lay there in deep sleep before the fire. He observed it
for a moment or two, interested and pleased, the face sunk a little on
the hand, the feet lightly crossed on the fender. He looked at his own
profile, the straight nose, the parted lips through which the breath
came evenly. He attempted even to touch the face, wondering with
gentle pleasure what would be the result....

Then, suddenly, an impulse came to him to enter the body, and with the
impulse the process, it seemed, began.

That process was not unlike that of falling asleep. In an instant
perception was gone; the lighted room was gone, and that obedient
world which he had contemplated just now. Yet self-consciousness for a
while remained; he still had the power of perceiving his own
personality, though this dwindled every moment down to that same gulf
of nothingness through which he had found his way.

But at the very instant in which consciousness was passing there met
him an emotion so fierce and overwhelming that he recoiled in terror
back from the body once more and earth-perceptions; and a panic seized
him.

It was such a panic as seizes a child who, fearfully courageous, has
stolen at night from his room, and turning in half-simulated terror
finds the door fast against him, or is aware of a malignant presence
come suddenly into being, standing between himself and the safety of
his own bed.

On the one side his fear drove him onwards; on the other a Horror
faced him. He dared not recoil, for he understood where security lay;
he longed, like the child screaming in the dark and beating his hands,
to get back to the warmth and safety of bed; yet there stood before
him a Presence, or at the least an Emotion of some kind, so hostile,
so terrible, that he dared not penetrate it. It was not that an actual
restraint lay upon him: he knew, that is, that the door was open; yet
it needed an effort of the will of which his paralysis of terror
rendered him incapable....

The tension became intolerable.

"O God ... God ... God...." he cried.

And in an instant the threshold was vacated; the swift rush asserted
itself, and the space was passed.

* * * * *

Laurie sat up abruptly in his chair.


IV

Mr. Vincent was beginning to think about going to bed. He had come in
an hour before, had written half a dozen letters, and was smoking
peacefully before the fire.

His rooms were not remarkable in any way, except for half a dozen
objects standing on the second shelf of his bookcase, and the
selection of literature ranged below them. For the rest, all was
commonplace enough; a mahogany knee-hold table, a couple of easy
chairs, much worn, and a long, extremely comfortable sofa standing by
itself against the wall with evident signs, in its tumbled cushions
and rubbed fabric, of continual and frequent use. A second door gave
entrance to his bedroom.

He beat out his pipe slowly, yawned, and stood up.

It was at this instant that he heard the sudden tinkle of the electric
bell in the lobby outside, and, wondering at the interruption at this
hour, went quickly out and opened the door on to the stairs.

"Mr. Baxter! Come in, come in; I'm delighted to see you."

Laurie came in without a word, went straight up to the fire-place, and
faced about.

"I'm not going to apologize," he said, "for coming at this time. You
told me to come and see you at any time, and I've taken you at your
word."

The young man had an odd embarrassed manner, thought the other; an air
of having come in spite of uneasiness; he was almost shamefaced.

The medium impelled him gently into a chair.

"First a cigarette," he said; "next a little whisky, and then I shall
be delighted to listen.... No; please do as I say."

Laurie permitted himself to be managed; there was a strong, almost
paternal air in the other's manner that was difficult to resist. He
lit his cigarette, he sipped his whisky; but his movements were
nervously quick.

"Well, then...." and he interrupted himself. "What are those things,
Mr. Vincent?" He nodded towards the second shelf in the bookcase.

Mr. Vincent turned on the hearthrug.

"Those? Oh! those are a few rather elementary instruments for my
work."

He lifted down a crystal ball on a small black polished wooden stand
and handed it over.

"You have heard of crystal-gazing? Well, that is the article."

"Is that crystal?"

"Oh no: common glass. Price three shillings and sixpence."

Laurie turned it over, letting the shining globe run on to his hand.

"And this is--" he began.

"And this," said the medium, setting a curious windmill-shaped affair,
its sails lined with looking-glass, on the little table by the fire,
"this is a French toy. Very elementary."

"What's that?"

"Look."

Mr. Vincent wound a small handle at the back of the windmill to a
sound of clockwork, set it down again, and released it. Instantly the
sails began to revolve, noiseless and swift, producing the effect of a
rapidly flashing circle of light across which span lines, waxing and
waning with extraordinary speed.

"What the--"

"It's a little machine for inducing sleep. Oh! I haven't used that for
months. But it's useful sometimes. The hypnotic subject just stares at
that steadily.... Why, you're looking dazed yourself, already,
Mr. Baxter," smiled the medium.

He stopped the mechanism and pushed it on one side.

"And what's the other?" asked Laurie, looking again at the shelf.

"Ah!"

The medium, with quite a different air, took down and set before him
an object resembling a tiny heart-shaped table on three wheeled legs,
perhaps four or five inches across. Through the center ran a pencil
perpendicularly of which the point just touched the tablecloth on
which the thing rested. Laurie looked at it, and glanced up.

"Yes, that's Planchette," said the medium.

"For ... for automatic writing?"

The other nodded.

"Yes," he said. "The experimenter puts his fingers lightly upon that,
and there's a sheet of paper beneath. That is all."

Laurie looked at him, half curiously. Then with a sudden movement he
stood up.

"Yes," he said. "Thank you. But--"

"Please sit down, Mr. Baxter.... I know you haven't come about that
kind of thing. Will you kindly tell me what you have come about?"

He, too, sat down, and, without looking at the other, began slowly to
fill his pipe again, with his strong capable fingers. Laurie stared at
the process, unseeing.

"Just tell me simply," said the medium again, still without looking at
him.

Laurie threw himself back.

"Well, I will," he said. "I know it's absurdly childish; but I'm a
little frightened. It's about a dream."

"That's not necessarily childish."

"It's a dream I had tonight--in my chair after dinner."

"Well?"

* * * * *

Then Laurie began.

For about ten minutes he talked without ceasing. Mr. Vincent smoked
tranquilly, putting what seemed to Laurie quite unimportant questions
now and again, and nodding gently from time to time.

"And I'm frightened," ended Laurie; "and I want you to tell me what it
all means."

The other drew a long inhalation through his pipe, expelled it, and
leaned back.

"Oh, it's comparatively common," he said; "common, that is, with
people of your temperament, Mr. Baxter--and mine.... You tell me that
it was prayer that enabled you to get through at the end? That is
interesting."

"But--but--was it more than fancy--more, I mean, than an ordinary
dream?"

"Oh, yes; it was objective. It was a real experience."

"You mean--"

"Mr. Baxter, just listen to me for a minute or two. You can ask any
questions you like at the end. First, you are a Catholic, you told me;
you believe, that is to say, among other things, that the spiritual
world is a real thing, always present more or less. Well, of course, I
agree with you; though I do not agree with you altogether as to the
geography and--and other details of that world. But you believe, I
take it, that this world is continually with us--that this room, so to
speak, is a great deal more than that of which our senses tell us that
there are with us, now and always, a multitude of influences, good,
bad, and indifferent, really present to our spirits?"

"I suppose so," said Laurie.

"Now begin again. There are two kinds of dreams. I am just stating my
own belief, Mr. Baxter. You can make what comments you like
afterwards. The one kind of dream is entirely unimportant; it is
merely a hash, a _rechauffee_, of our own thoughts, in which little
things that we have experienced reappear in a hopeless sort of
confusion. It is the kind of dream that we forget altogether,
generally, five minutes after waking, if not before. But there is
another kind of dream that we do not forget. It leaves as vivid an
impression upon us as if it were a waking experience--an actual
incident. And that is exactly what it is."

"I don't understand."

"Have you ever heard of the subliminal consciousness, Mr. Baxter?"

"No."

The medium smiled.

"That is fortunate," he said. "It's being run to death just
now.... Well, I'll put it in an untechnical way. There is a part of
us, is there not, that lies below our ordinary waking thoughts--that
part of us in which our dreams reside, our habits take shape, our
instincts, intuitions, and all the rest, are generated. Well, in
ordinary dreams, when we are asleep, it is this part that is active.
The pot boils, so to speak, all by itself, uncontrolled by reason. A
madman is a man in whom this part is supreme in his waking life as
well. Well, it is through this part of us that we communicate with the
spiritual world. There are, let us say, two doors in it--that which
leads up to our senses, through which come down our waking experiences
to be stored up; and--and the other door...."

"Yes?"

The medium hesitated.

"Well," he said, "in some natures--yours, for instance, Mr.
Baxter--this door opens rather easily. It was through that door that
you went, I think, in what you call your 'dream.' You yourself said it
was quite unlike ordinary dreams."

"Yes."

"And I am the more sure that this is so, since your experience is
exactly that of so many others under the same circumstances."

Laurie moved uncomfortably in his chair.

"I don't quite understand," he said sharply. "You mean it was not a
dream?"

"Certainly not. At least, not a dream in the ordinary sense. It was an
actual experience."

"But--but I was asleep."

"Certainly. That is one of the usual conditions--an almost
indispensable condition, in fact. The objective self--I mean the
ordinary workaday faculties--was lulled; and your subjective
self--call it what you like--but it is your real self, the essential
self that survives death--this self, simply went through the inner
door, and--and saw what was to be seen."

Laurie looked at him intently. But there was a touch of apprehension
in his face, too.

"You mean," he said slowly, "that--that all I saw--the limitations of
space, and so forth--that these were facts and not fancies?"

"Certainly. Doesn't your theology hint at something of the kind?"

Laurie was silent. He had no idea of what his theology told him on the
point.

"But why should I--I of all people--have such an experience?" he asked
suddenly.

The medium smiled.

"Who can tell that?" he said. "Why should one man be an artist, and
another not? It is a matter of temperament. You see you've begun to
develop that temperament at last; and it's a very marked one to begin
with. As for--"

Laurie interrupted him.

"Yes, yes," he said. "But there's another point. What about that fear
I had when I tried to--to awaken?"

There passed over the medium's face a shade of gravity. It was no more
than a shade, but it was there. He reached out rather quickly for his
pipe which he had laid aside, and blew through it carefully before
answering.

"That?" he said, with what seemed to the boy an affected carelessness.
"That? Oh, that's a common experience. Don't think about that too
much, Mr. Baxter. It's never very healthy--"

"I am sorry," said Laurie deliberately. "But I must ask you to tell me
what you think. I must know what I'm doing."

The medium filled his pipe again. Twice he began to speak, and checked
himself; and in the long silence Laurie felt his fears gather upon him
tenfold.

"Please tell me at once, Mr. Vincent," he said. "Unless I know
everything that is to be known, I will not go another step along this
road. I really mean that."

The medium paused in his pipe-filling.

"And what if I do tell you?" he said in his slow virile voice. "Are
you sure you will not be turned back?"

"If it is a well-known danger, and can be avoided with prudence, I
certainly shall not turn back."

"Very well, Mr. Baxter, I will take you at your word.... Have you ever
heard the phrase, 'The Watcher on the Threshold'?"

Laurie shook his head.

"No," he said. "At least I don't think so."

"Well," said the medium quietly, "that is what we call the Fear you
spoke of.... No; don't interrupt. I'll tell you all we know. It's not
very much."

He paused again, stretched his hand for the matches, and took one
out. Laurie watched him as if fascinated by the action.

Outside roared Oxford Street in one long rolling sound as of the sea;
but within here was that quiet retired silence which the boy had
noticed before in the same company. Was that fancy, too, he
wondered...?

The medium lit his pipe and leaned back.

"I'll tell you all we know," he said again quietly. "It's not very
much. Really the phrase I used just now sums it up pretty well. We
who have tried to get beyond this world of sense have become aware of
certain facts of which the world generally knows nothing at all. One
of these facts is that the door between this life and the other is
guarded by a certain being of whom we know really nothing at all,
except that his presence causes the most appalling fear in those who
experience it. He is set there--God only knows why--and his main
business seems to be to restrain, if possible, from re-entering the
body those who have left it. Just occasionally his presence is
perceived by those on this side, but not often. But I have been
present at death-beds where he has been seen--"

"Seen?"

"Oh! yes. Seen by the dying person. It is usually only a glimpse; it
might be said to be a mistake. For myself I believe that that
appalling terror that now and then shows itself, even in people who do
not fear death itself, who are perfectly resigned, who have nothing on
their conscience,--well, personally, I believe the fear comes from a
sight of this--this Personage."

Laurie licked his dry lips. He told himself that he did not believe
one word of it.

"And ... and he is evil?" he asked.

The other shrugged his shoulders.

"Isn't that a relative term?" he said. "From one point of view,
certainly; but not necessarily from all."

"And ... and what's the good of it?"

The medium smiled a little.

"That's a question we soon cease to ask. You must remember that we
hardly know anything at all yet. But one thing seems more and more
certain the more we investigate, and that is that our point of view is
not the only one, nor even the principal one. Christianity, I fancy,
says the same thing, does it not? The 'glory of God,' whatever that
may be, comes before even the 'salvation of souls.'"

Laurie wrenched his attention once more to a focus.

"Then I was in danger?" he said.

"Certainly. We are always in danger--"

"You mean, if I hadn't prayed--"

"Ah! that is another question.... But, in short, if you hadn't
succeeded in getting past--well, you'd have failed."

Again there fell a silence.

It seemed to Laurie as if his world were falling about him. Yet he was
far from sure whether it were not all an illusion. But the extreme
quietness and confidence of this man in enunciating these startling
theories had their effect. It was practically impossible for the boy
to sit here, still nervous from his experience, and hear, unmoved,
this apparently reasonable and connected account of things that were
certainly incomprehensible on any other hypothesis. His remembrance of
the very startling uniqueness of his dream was still vivid.... Surely
it all fitted in ... yet....

"But there is one thing," broke in the medium's quiet voice. "Should
you ever experience this kind of thing again, I should recommend you
not to pray. Just exercise your own individuality; assert yourself;
don't lean on another. You are quite strong enough."

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