Algernon Blackwood

“ The perfect man you dream of perhaps is he who shall eventually combine the two, for there is, I think, a vast amount the race has discarded unwisely and prematurely. It is of value and will have to be recovered. In the subconsciousness it lies secure and waiting. But it is the super-consciousness that you should aim for, not the other, for there lie those greater powers which so mysteriously wait upon the call of genius, inspiration, hypnotism, and the rest."
"One leads, though, to the other," interrupted O'Malley quickly. ”

“ Stahl shook his head. "Rather, because you live detached," he replied, "and have never identified your Self with the rubbish of life. The channels in you are still open to these tides of larger existence. I wish I had your courage."
"While others--?"
The German hesitated a moment. "Most men," he said, choosing his words with evident care, "are too grossly organized to be aware that these reactions of a wider consciousness can be possible at all. Their minute normal Self they mistake for the whole, hence denying even the experiences of others. ”

“ For all this modern talk about a Subliminal Self is woven round a profoundly significant truth, a truth newly discovered and only just beginning to be understood. We are much greater than we know, and there is a vast subconscious part of us. But, what is more important still, there is a super-consciousness as well. ”

“ Whether Stahl divined his intention or not, he gave no sign.
"'We cannot say with any security that the stuff called brain is the only conceivable machinery which mind and consciousness are able to utilize: though it is true that we know no other.'" The last phrase he repeated: "'though it is true that we know no other.'"
O'Malley sank deeper into his chair, making no reply. ”

“ For when the "inner catastrophe" completed itself and escape should come--that transfer of the conscious center across the threshold into this vaster region stimulated by the Earth--all his longings would be housed at last like homing birds, nested in the gentle places his yearnings all these years had lovingly built for them--in a living Nature! ”

“ This ugly little life!
"Because you've tasted a moment of genuine cosmic consciousness and now you feel the limitations of normal personality," Stahl added, more soothingly. He sat down beside him and sipped his own coffee.
"Dispersed about the whole earth I felt, deliciously extended and alive," O'Malley whispered with a faint shiver as he glanced about the little cabin, noticing the small windows and shut door. "Upholstery" oppressed him. "Now I'm back in prison again."
There was silence for a moment. Then presently the doctor spoke, as though he thought aloud, expecting no reply. ”

“ It surely was that old Garden of innocence and joy where the soul, while all unvexed by a sham and superficial civilization of the mind, might yet know growth--a realm half divined by saints and poets, but to the gross majority forgotten or denied. ”

“ But Stahl, in no way offended, was following his own thoughts aloud, half speaking to himself.
"... For a being organized as you are, more active in the outlying tracts of consciousness than in the centers lying nearer home,--a being like yourself, I say, might become aware of Other Life and other personalities even more advanced and highly organized than that of the Earth."
A strange excitement came upon him, making his eyes shine. He walked to and fro, O'Malley watching him, a touch of alarm mingled with his interest. ”

“ A keen sensation--pain--and you become aware. Subconscious processes then become consciously recognized. I bruise your lung for instance; you become conscious of that lung for the first time, and feel it. You gather it up from the general subconscious background into acute personal consciousness. Similarly, a word or mood may sting and stimulate some phase of your consciousness usually too remote to be recognized. Last night--regions of your extended Self, too distant for most men to realize their existence at all, contacted the consciousness of the Earth herself. ”

“ Living in that uninspired fragment which they deem the whole! Ah, my friend,"--and he came abruptly nearer--"the pathos, the comedy, the pert self-sufficiency of their dull pride, the crass stupidity and littleness of their denials, in the eyes of those like ourselves who have actually known the passion of the larger experience--! ”

“ It is quite credible that our entire personality is never terrestrially manifest.'" Obviously he quoted. The Irishman had read the words somewhere. He came back more and more into the world--correlated, that is, the subconscious with the conscious.
"Yet consciousness apart from the brain is inconceivable," he interposed, more to hear the reply than to express a conviction. ”