Psi

“ Electronics said: "Quite obviously the answer to psi is in the electrical currents of the brain. Our newest electro-encephalograph has demonstrated...."
Chemistry said: "Solution to psi inevitably will be found in the chemical balance of the cells...."
Parapsychology said: "We must continue to ignore those who insist upon attributing physical properties to a non-physical characteristic...."
And underneath this learned babble, Miryam heard the moth-like whispering of her own people, starving in the Ghetto, or hidden throughout the city, disguised, furtive, tense. ”

“ The "apparatus" in any Psi lab is no more complicated than a folding screen, some playing cards, perhaps a deck of Rhine ESP cards and a slide rule. This place went so far as to sport a laboratory bench and a number of lab stools, on which Lindstrom, Mary Hall and I perched. My egghead Psi expert was barely able to restrain himself—he had some bitter things to tell me.
I beat him to it. "Take that injured glower off your puss," I snapped. "Your business is testing people for their Psi powers. Why shouldn't I call on you for help? What are friends for?" ”

“ But precognition is hard to prove, and if we are going to get you into the Lodge, I think we had better stick to Maragon's advice and work on your healing powers. It's Maragon you'll have to convince. He's the last word."
"I know," she said, wriggling her skinny knees against me. "And it scares me."
"Maybe it should," I said, trying to draw away a bit. "Your life won't be your own once your have been admitted to one of the degrees. But life in a Psi society has its compensations. ”

“ The microscopic cell, a minute speck of matter that is to become man, has in it the promise and the germ of mind. May we not then draw the inference that the elements of mind are present in those chemical elements—carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, sodium, potassium, chlorine—that are found in the cell. Not only must we do so, but we must go further, since we know that each of these elements, and every other, is built up out of one invariable unit, the electron, and we must therefore assert that Mind is potential in the unit of Matter—the electron itself... ”

“ The spectroscope tells us that when we break a mass of matter down to its finest particles, or, as some people prefer to call them, ultimate molecules, the vibrations of these ultimate parts of each different kind of matter are absolutely distinct; so that if we get the ultimate particle, say of calcium, and observe its vibrations we find that the kind of vibration or unrest of one substance—of the calcium, for instance—is different from the kind of unrest or mode of vibration—which is the same thing—of another substance, let us say sodium. ”

“ The sensations of touch and pressure are doubtless consequent on accelerated changes of matter, produced by mechanical disturbance of the mingled fluids and solids composing the parts affected. There is abundant evidence that the gustatory sensation is due to the chemical actions set up by particles which find their way through the membrane covering the nerves of taste; for, as Prof. Graham points out, sapid substances belong to the class of crystalloids, which are able rapidly to permeate animal tissue, while the colloids which cannot pass through animal tissue are insipid. ”

“ As far as sight and hearing are in question, we know that they are only excited by vibrations of inconceivable complexity; and the chemical senses are probably not more simple. Even the least psychical of peripheral sensations, that of pressure, has in its excitation conditions which, though apparently simple, are seen to be complicated enough when we consider the molecules and their attractions. The principle with which I 236set out requires me to maintain that these feelings are communicated to the nerves by continuity, so that there must be something like them in the excitants themselves. ”

“ A muscle-curve registers the history of the fundamental molecular change produced by excitation in a living tissue, exactly as the curve of molecular reaction registers an analogous change in an inorganic substance. The two represent the same thing; in the latter the molecular upset is evidenced by the change of conductivity, while in the former it is manifested by the change of form. We have thus means of studying molecular reaction produced by stimulus of varying frequency, intensity and duration. An abyss separates the phenomena of living matter from those of inanimate matter. ”

“ When one point is acted on by a chemical reagent, not only is its electric excitability changed, but its time relations—its latent period, the time-rate of its acquiring the maximum electric variation, and the recovery from the effect of stimulus—become also modified. Using the block method, we may place a drop of excitant Na2CO3 on A and depressant KBr on B. On simultaneous vibration of A and B, the A effect being relatively much stronger than B effect, the resultant is an upward deflection. ”

“ The physiology and psychology of the twenty-first century explained it. It was indeed, simple enough, for everything is easy when you know it.
It was found that a subtle fluid somewhat of the nature of electricity, which was altogether imperceptible to sight, but whose presence was indicated by a very delicate gauge called a psychometer pervaded the nerve centres of all human beings. It imparted to them such a highly sensitive condition that wherever the fluid was in great abundance it gave to its possessor a corresponding amount of attraction, or influence over others. ”

“ It is generally believed among scientific men that each particle of a compound body is made up of a number of indivisible atoms, each of which is inconceivably minute in size. And as these compound bodies have each a peculiar chemical constitution, so must each of their ultimate parts be composed of a peculiar arrangement of simpler atoms, and thus have a certain shape of its own more or less different from the shape of every other compound atom. Both the substance of a nerve, and the active part of a nerve-medicine, consist of a number of definite compound atoms. ”

“ The senses must be rather divided into a mechanical, chemical, temperature, and light sense, to which the electrical sense will perhaps have to be added. Such a division undoubtedly better answers to the senses which exist in the lower animals, and when the series is considered in an ascending order, the gradual differentiation of the chemical sense into taste and smell, and of the mechanical sense into touch, hearing, and pressure sense, becomes evident. ”

“ The important point is not whether a body is solid, liquid, and gaseous, but how many atoms are bound together in a molecule, and how they are bound together. This is one of the teachings of modern spectroscopy. A molecule containing a few atoms only gives a spectrum of lines. Increase the number of atoms, and you will obtain a spectrum of fluted bands; increase it once more, and you will obtain a continuous spectrum. The scientific evidence for the statements I have made is unimpeachable. In the first place, I may examine spectra of bodies which I know to be compound. ”

“ The little mass of matter forming the chemical molecule, when it can vibrate freely, as in the gaseous state, emits a peculiar system of waves, a system which varies principally with the chemical species of the molecule, but which varies also, though rather secondarily, with the distance apart of the molecules and the nature and intensity of the forces that induce a vibratory movement in it. ”

“ For in­ves­ti­ga­tions on velocity of trans­mission of excitation, stimulus is applied on the petiole at some distance from the pulvinus, by means of suitable electrodes. Excitation is now transmitted along the intervening length of petiole, the conduct­ing power of which will be found appropriately modified under the action of chemical and other agents. In this normal method of mounting, the more excitable lower half of the pulvinus is below; excitatory reaction produces the fall of the petiole, gravity helping the movement. ”

“ To obtain a sufficient magnification we must necessarily place somewhat larger quantities of living substance under observation and apply a stimulus of such frequency or length of duration that the chemical alterations as a result of excitation are so increased as to be plainly perceptible with the aid of our chemical indicators. Unfortunately, we do not possess specific chemical indicators for every individual molecular constituent process of the cell and so cannot dispose with the help of indicators of the combined happenings in a greater quantity of living substance. ”

“ In the ordinary condition, the nervous fluid is clogged, as it were, with intermixed electric matter, which, by marring the regular continuity of the fluid from without to the brain, reduces in some degree the exciting pressure on the brain, which prevents the function of the fluid being employed to its utmost. ”

“ From inhaled ethers, producing insensibility without rigidity, it would seem that they contribute a kind of electric matter to the interior of the nerves, but which, from being uncongenial, is happily soon displaced. All excess being the more prejudicial, the quicker the displacement the better. Any ether imparted to the fluids of the nerves, may effect reduction in the quantity of the true fluid through the cuticle orifices; or make breaks in what is left, so as to leave the nervous fluid incompetent to [Pg 88] produce excitement of the brain ”

“ The nervous fluid excites the sensation of colour; the medium of space connects mediately the object with the nervous fluid, which fluid acts on the optic cerebral organ by pressure and degrees of pressure. The nervous fluid, nor anything else, acts essentially, that is, by means of properties and qualities; and its acting on the brain is caused by external agency, the fluid itself being inert. ”

“ In considering the theory of Respiration, he supposes that phos-oxygen combines with the venous blood without decomposition; but that, on reaching the brain, the light is liberated in the form of Electricity, which he believes to be identical with the nervous fluid. On this supposition, sensations and ideas are nothing more than motions of the nervous ether; or light exciting the medullary substance of the nerves and brain into sensitive action! ”

“ Chemical reaction, between atoms, is spoken of by chemists as a "sensitive" reaction. Sensitiveness is found even in the Particles of Inorganic Substance, and may be regarded as the first glimmerings of thought. Science recognizes this when it speaks of the unconscious sensation of the Particles as athesis or "feeling," and the unconscious Will that responds thereto, as tropesis, or "inclination." ”

“ But in the case first considered, in which the quantities of the different sorts of molecules are not determined by the temperature and pressure and the quantities of the different kinds of matter in the body as determined by its ultimate analysis, the components of which the quantities or the potentials appear in the fundamental equation must be those which are determined by the proximate analysis of the body, so that the variations in their quantities, with two variations relating to the thermodynamic state of the body, shall include all the variations of which the body is capable. ”

“ The particular way in which nerve-medicines affect different parts of the nervous system might perhaps be explained by supposing minute chemical differences in the composition of the atoms of which those parts are constructed, sufficient to alter their relations to the atoms of certain remedies. If we adopt the Atomic theory, we must perceive that no two chemical bodies can be precisely alike in the shapes of their particles. ”

“ The one class comprises all the agencies in the External Medium which appreciably affect the organism; the other class all the changes in the organism which appreciably disturb the equilibrium of any organ. Although the pressure of the atmosphere, for example, unquestionably affects the organism, and determines organic processes, it is not reckoned as a stimulus unless the effect become appreciable under sudden variations of the pressure. ”

“ The pressure on this plane will be p=NMu2 where M is the mass of a corpuscule, N the number in unit of volume, and u its velocity normal to the plane. Now, we know that the very greatest pressure existing in the universe must be much less than the pressure p, which would be exerted against a body which stops all the corpuscules. We are also tolerably certain that N, the number of corpuscules which are at any one time within unit of volume, is small compared with the value of N for the molecules of ordinary bodies. ”

“ Without stating the difficulty there is in conceiving how the Electrical Fluid can be accumulated by or confined within our Nervous System, we may observe that where the Electrical Fluid, or Fluid resembling that put in motion by the foregoing Experiments, is accumulated by an Animal, such as the Torpedo or Gymnotus, a proper apparatus is given to the Animal, by means of which it is enabled to collect and to discharge this Fluid. ”

“ By the stimulus of wine or opium the whole arterial system, as well as every other part of the moving system, is excited into increased action. All the secretions, and with them the production of sensorial power itself in the brain, seem to be for a time increased, with an additional quantity of heat, and of pleasureable sensation. ”