| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: not be any real inconsistency after all. There is a doctrine whispered in
secret that man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door and run
away; this is a great mystery which I do not quite understand. Yet I too
believe that the gods are our guardians, and that we are a possession of
theirs. Do you not agree?
Yes, I quite agree, said Cebes.
And if one of your own possessions, an ox or an ass, for example, took the
liberty of putting himself out of the way when you had given no intimation
of your wish that he should die, would you not be angry with him, and would
you not punish him if you could?
Certainly, replied Cebes.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: with water, in which, above a bed of sand and shells, red and gold and
silver fish were swimming about. The room was both brilliant and
sombre. The ceiling necessarily absorbed the light and reflected none.
Although on the garden side all was bright and glowing, and the
sunshine danced upon the ebony carvings, the windows on the court-yard
admitted so little light that the gold threads in the lapis-lazuli
scarcely glittered on the opposite wall. This parlor, which could be
gorgeous on a fine day, was usually, under the Flemish skies, filled
with soft shadows and melancholy russet tones, like those shed by the
sun on the tree-tops of the forests in autumn.
It is unnecessary to continue this description of the House of Claes,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: you. In this lecture I have still only to add a few remarks on
the assurance and peace which fill the hour of change itself.
One word more, though, before proceeding to that point, lest the
final purpose of my explanation of suddenness by subliminal
activity be misunderstood. I do indeed believe that if the
Subject have no liability to such subconscious activity, or if
his conscious fields have a hard rind of a margin that resists
incursions from beyond it, his conversion must he gradual if it
occur, and must resemble any simple growth into new habits. His
possession of a developed subliminal self, and of a leaky or
pervious margin, is thus a conditio sine qua non of the Subject's
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