Theos-Talk Archives (November 2001 Message tt00532)

Vegetables?" suggested Pancho. 
"How could he have lived on vegetables?" cried the judge. "To say 
nothing about their being coloured with verdigris and pickled with 
sulphuric acid, one half of the doctors he consulted told him that it 
was unnatural and unhealthy to eat cooked vegetables; while the other 
half told him that there could be nothing more pernicious to one's 
health than to eat them raw? Moreover my brother did not like 
vegetables without salt or pepper, or a speck of vinegar; and the 
doctor said that salt and vinegar were the worst kitchen poisons that 
were ever invented. A to pepper, he would not hear of it; because he 
said that it was nearly as bad as tobacco." 
"How about milk?" asked Pancho. 
"Milk!" sobbed the judge, overcome by emotions awakened by the 
memory of his brother. "Would you have my poor brother poisoned with 
chalk-water and rotten calfs' brains?" 
"Butter?" exclaimed Pancho. 
"Oleo-margarine," sighed Mr. Snivel. 
"Sugar?" 
"Sand, ground glass, white lead," groaned the judge. 
"But he must have had something to eat." 
"I tell you there was nothing for him that was not adulterated or 
might have been so. Moreover he began to be afraid of everything, and 
not without reason; for everything did him harm. He took to living on 
fruits; but he was always afraid that they would give him the colic; 
and sure enough they did give him the colic. So he had to quit even 
that." 
"And what became of him?" asked Pancho. 
"He died out of fear that he could not live any longer, and the 
doctor said that if he had only begun to diet himself sooner, he 
might have become all right." 
Overcome by these sad recollections the judge wiped his nose with 
his handkerchief. 
"His was a lingering death," he continued. "For a long time he was 
sick; actually starving to death. He suffered much; but at least we 
took pity on him and called in another doctor in consultation, and he 
gave him something to quiet him. It quieted him so much that we had 
to bury him three days afterwards." 
"Comfort yourself," said Pancho. "In less than three hundred years 
from now, the medical profession as a whole will have discovered that 
there can be no other rational system of medicine for good or evil, 
than by acting upon his will and imagination. There is no other 
physician than Faith. Your brother ought to have dismissed his doctor 
and made a voyage, so as to get a change of surroundings and to 
divert his mind from his gloomy thoughts." 
"Made a voyage!" ironically exclaimed the judge. "How could he 
have avoided stopping at hotels?" 
"But why should he not have stopped at hotels?" asked Pancho 
surprised. 
"It seems," answered the judge, "that you are not up to the latest 
discoveries in medicine. You do not seem to know that a person may 
catch consumption by staying in a room which has once been inhabited 
by a consumptive person. Have you never heard of bacillae and 
microbes? Where will you go to escape them?" 
A rap at the door interrupted the conversation; a servant entered, 
handing to the judge a card, upon which was printed- 
DR. C. A. Lomel, 

Professor of Medicine.

"Death approaches," said the judge. 
"The other gentlemen are waiting below," said the servant. 
"Fear not," said the judge to Pancho. "No harm shall befall the 
Image. For once it spoke the truth and the verses have saved its 
life. Remain until I return. If they are not willing to go, I shall 
use my authority." 
So saying the judge shook his fist and descended the stairs, where 
he found the medical practitioners already waiting. They were very 
much displeased when they heard that the legal owner of the Image had 
been found and that the statue could not be dissected. Dr. Lomel 
especially was very much incensed. he had brought with him a large 
boxful of knives, saws, chisels, gags, syringes, and other anatomical 
instruments. 
"What does this new nonsense mean?" he exclaimed frantically. "It 
seems that Herr von Snivelinsky is determined to continue in the 
sleigh-of-hand business and does not wish his tricks to be exposed." 
"A nice kind of a business we have done this morning," 
sarcastically said another. "We have lost our valuable time and our 
travelling expenses." 
"I shall remunerate you for your trouble," answered the 
judge; "but the statue cannot be dissected without the consent of the 
owner. Moreover it is a living thing and cannot bear vivisection." 
At this declaration there arose a general murmur among the 
doctors. 
"Living or not living," they said, "if there is something 
remarkable about it, it ought to be sacrified to science." 
"It reflects the thoughts of other people," said the judge. 
This statement was received with uproarious laughter and cries 
of "Nonsense!" 
"You are sick without knowing it, and should go through a regular 
course of treatment," said one of the doctors, addressing the judge. 
"Thoughts, my friend," said another, tapping Mr. Snivel 
condescendingly upon the shoulder, "are four dimensional dynamides 
and cannot be reflected." 
"I move," said a third, "that a committee be appointed for a de 
lunatico inquirendo." 
"I move," retorted Mr. Snivelinsky, "that you make yourselves 
scarce at your earliest convenience, and if you do not understand 
this plain language, I shall use an argumentum ad hominem. The Image 
does not require your services. It has had a distemper; but this 
morning a stranger has arrived and brought a remedy, and it is now 
decidedly better." 
"What! Who is that fellow," roared out Dr. Lomel, "who dares to 
practice medicine in this country? Has he any certificates to entitle 
him to cure people? You, Mr. Snivelinsky, are a judge. You ought to 
see that the laws of this country are not infringed upon without 
punishment, and the health of the community endangered by a foreign 
quack." 
"Such a recovery," said another doctor, "is entirely illegitimate, 
irrational, and contrary to the interests of science." 
"I wish we had come sooner," groaned one of his collaegues. 
"When will the dissection begin?" asked another who was hard of 
hearing, and who had not understood the conversation. 
"There will be no dissection, sir," shouted Dr. Calomel into his 
ear. "The patient has recovered." 
"Oh!" exclaimed the hard-hearing doctor. "Such a thing has never 
happened to me in my life." 
It was with great difficulty that the doctors were made to retire. 
Snivelinsky settled their bills, and as he did not have enough cash 
in the house, they took away hams and pickled pork, an old clock, a 
coat, and a family Bible - not however without the consent of the 
judge, who was glad to get rid of them at any cost. As they left, 
they cast wistful glances up to the garret which contained the 
Talking Image. 

During this time Pancho remained with the Image, thinking of the 
medical superstitions of our days and how impossible it is to 
eradicate them at once. He saw that there is no vacuum in nature, 
neither in the physical world nor in the world of mind, and that 
ideas are indestructible and cannot be rooted out, but must be 
displaced by other ideas. He knew that the vaunted medical 
agnosticism of our times is not much better than the destructive 
science of the past, but that it would serve as a stepping-stone to a 
better and more rational system - one that would cure the will and 
the mind, instead of that false system which merely seeks to suppress 
the external manifestation of internal causes. 
He was disturbed in his meditations by a voice coming from the 
Image, which said, 
"Cursed be every one who does not blow in our horn! There are 
several kinks of wisdom; one that comes from the East and another 
that comes from the West, but that which comes from the East is the 
best, and must be accepted." 
"Ungrateful wretch!" exclaimed Pancho. "Is this your gratitude for 
my saving your life, that you now again try to put poison into my 
ear? There is only one wisdom, because there is only one truth; and 
it comes neither from the East nor from the West, but from the 
attainment of selfknowledge." 
While Pancho was speaking, the rosy light which he had once 
perceived at the shrine at Urur, appeared again in the room, and a 
golden flame floated about the head of the Image. A struggle between 
light and darkness seemed to take place within the body of the 
statue, but the light became victorious, for the flame became 
absorbed by the body of the Image, and a great change took place in 
the latter. The previously lifeless eyes became lit up by the light 
of intelligence, a smile played around its lips, the Image began to 
breathe, and arose from the table. 
"There is only one truth," it said solemnly, "and this is the magic 
word which, as you have pronounced it, has broken the spell that kept 
me enchained in matter. Listen, O mortal! You have in vain attempted 
to find perfecction in this world of illusion. You have had occasion 
to fully convince yourself that there is not a single department in 
our present civilization in which you will not find the vilest 
deception and frauds, gross ignorance and wilful imposture. Science 
and religion, medicine and philosophy, politics and trade, love and 
marriage, and everything that you may name, not excepting The Society 
for the Distribution of Wisdom, is full of humbug and ignorance, Even 
a humbug itself is a lie, because it is not all humbug, but contains 
a spark of truth. Crime is a lie, because it is the result of 
ignorance, and therefore not thoroughly criminal. Do you know the 
reason why God has created the world?" 
"Surely," answered Pancho, "He did it for no other purpose than to 
have it carried off by the devil!" 
"Lo!" said the Image, "I will tell you where you can find the key 
to the understanding of the mystery; but the understanding I cannot 
give. The universal panacea, the cure of all evils of body and soul, 
is M E R C U R Y, the symbol of wisdom. It must be distilled in the 
water of thought, and purified by the fire of Divine Love, and it 
will then cure ignorance, the mother of all ills that afflict 
mankind. It is the true Elixir of Life; but it is only accessible to 
the favourites of God; to those that have been well circumcised and 
cut entirely loose from all the bondage of matter. Think not that you 
can find anything without blemish in a world where evil is as 
omnipresent as good. There is no good without evil, neither can you 
destroy evil without at the same time destroying the good contained 
therein. Therefore it is said that we must let the wheat and the 
tares grow together until the day of the havest." 
"And will not the tares destroy the wheat if they are permitted to 
grow?" asked Pancho. 
"Have you so little faith in the superior power of good," said the 
Image, "that you cannot see that it is greater than evil? Does not 
the most delicious fruit grow upong the richest manure? There is a 
higher love than the attraction of the senses; there is a higher 
knowledge than that of the reasoning intellect. Divine Wisdom is 
higher than human philosophy, and the justice of the Supreme more 
powerful than manmade law." 
"How can we make mankind realize the sublimity of Divine Truth?" 
inquired Pancho. 
The answer was: 
"No man can teach another the truth if the truth does not manifest 
itself in and trough him. Do not follow those that in a loud voice 
claim to be able to show you the truth, but seek for the truth 
itself. You cannot expose the truth, but you can expose ignorance. 
Let the truth be hidden from the eyes of the fool, but put the fool 
upon a pedestal, so that others may recognize in him their own 
folly." 
"What about the Mysterious Brotherhood?" asked Pancho. 
He received no answer. Before his exes a great transformation took 
place. Brighter and brighter shone the light in the interior of the 
Image, and the statue grew more and more ethereal and transparent. It 
was as if the whole substance of its body had become changed into a 
cloud of living light, through which the objects in other parts of 
the room could be seen. The whole form was in a state of harmonious 
vibration, trembling and swaying to and fro like a gossamer cloud in 
the morning breeze. At last even the cloud-like appearance was gone; 
there was nothing of a material character left; the Image had become 
all soul - a streak of supernatural glory - whichh slowly faded away.