"You may be correct on the matter, Darling. I have tried to ease her gently into learning but such a savagely shrewd mind as that of our Leticia would not be deterred by a few lessons. A wonderful exposition of trepanation, that was. I could not have said it better myself. Of course, you know I had to wonder. The things that others consider evil, if they are so, or they merely go against the grain and part of the?inner kernel. The truth that society wants us to suppress about ourselves. The original sin, that is also the source of our glory.
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I have attended to some lunatics. Some of their eyes are unambiguously dulled, some are too feverish to reason with. Yet others, I have found myself understanding why Dr Reynolds selected those few for his experiments. It is a kind of a blessing and a cure. The curse is in not being able to control themselves. The blessing is, according to Dr Reynolds at least, to be able to see into higher realms. They do see something, as you say, only I have to wonder,?if they see outside. or inside, into who they are supposed to be. The primeval state that man was born into on purpose, rather than by accident. Of course, as we have all concluded, there is just something special about me that makes me see such things. The natural state might not be so natural for others.?It may very well be the catalyst that drives the lot of them crazy, because they don't know how to be the normal self,, how to function as one. The mind might not like suppression for its own sake, but could still find the comfort of understanding it, ability to handle it well.
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The treatment is fairly severe. But when you think about it, should the human mind be deprived of the natural state of predatory cognition that horrifies it so, it might be a blessing for it. The pain, the change, as radical as may be, perhaps they all contribute to the mind feeling at peace with itself. I may shudder at such a notion of peace, and you certainly would, but the rest of them might even welcome it, without being aware of their relief. I have to wonder, from the scientific point of view, how many faculties they can preserve after the surgery, and where those all go. After all, just because they remain dormant, does not mean they are nonexistent. Dr Reynolds experimented extensively with locating such hidden faculties, both before and after the surgery, He believes to have located the higher mental function in some cases even after chunks of the brain tissue were removed, which may be the one thing that fascinates me the most about the whole study of brains.
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For if it doesn't vanish,?cannot work fully within the mind itself tangibly, and cannot be traced with electro magnetism to the surrounding area, exactly where can it go? I?suspect there may be more to the physical theories of Ether than meets the eye.??Maybe he does make them schizophrenic, and maybe, something else, less and more at the same time. Several of his patients learned to know things they were not supposed to see, know, or understand. Things about the world, of which they had no learning, and things about the future which was far from obvious. The results were not conclusive enough, too few successes for any serious scientist. But if Reynolds makes them see something, I am coming back to the same quandary. Does he make them look outside, inside, or towards some other location altogether?" Henry speculated with a curious smile that spoke of his delight with the question, and lack of satisfying answers to it. The combination that enabled him to exert himself and his creative imagination in the most unusual, and most importantly, original ways. ?
Kat