The Book of the Damned | Page 6

gradations, or steps in series
between positiveness and negativeness, or realness and unrealness: that
some seeming things are more nearly consistent, just, beautiful, unified,
individual, harmonious, stable--than others.
We are not realists. We are not idealists. We are intermediatists--that
nothing is real, but that nothing is unreal: that all phenomena are
approximations one way or the other between realness and unrealness.
So then:
That our whole quasi-existence is an intermediate stage between
positiveness and negativeness or realness and unrealness.
Like purgatory, I think.
But in our summing up, which was very sketchily done, we omitted to
make clear that Realness is an aspect of the positive state.
By Realness, I mean that which does not merge away into something
else, and that which is not partly something else: that which is not a
reaction to, or an imitation of, something else. By a real hero, we mean
one who is not partly a coward, or whose actions and motives do not
merge away into cowardice. But, if in Continuity, all things do merge,
by Realness, I mean the Universal, besides which there is nothing with
which to merge.
That, though the local might be universalized, it is not conceivable that
the universal can be localized: but that high approximations there may

be, and that these approximate successes may be translated out of
Intermediateness into Realness--quite as, in a relative sense, the
industrial world recruits itself by translating out of unrealness, or out of
the seemingly less real imaginings of inventors, machines which seem,
when set up in factories, to have more of Realness than they had when
only imagined.
That all progress, if all progress is toward stability, organization,
harmony, consistency, or positiveness, is the attempt to become real.
So, then, in general metaphysical terms, our expression is that, like a
purgatory, all that is commonly called "existence," which we call
Intermediateness, is quasi-existence, neither real nor unreal, but
expression of attempt to become real, or to generate for or recruit a real
existence.
Our acceptance is that Science, though usually thought of so
specifically, or in its own local terms, usually supposed to be a prying
into old bones, bugs, unsavory messes, is an expression of this one
spirit animating all Intermediateness: that, if Science could absolutely
exclude all data but its own present data, or that which is assimilable
with the present quasi-organization, it would be a real system, with
positively definite outlines--it would be real.
Its seeming approximation to consistency, stability,
system--positiveness or realness--is sustained by damning the
irreconcilable or the unassimilable--
All would be well.
All would be heavenly--
If the damned would only stay damned.

2
In the autumn of 1883, and for years afterward, occurred

brilliant-colored sunsets, such as had never been seen before within the
memory of all observers. Also there were blue moons.
I think that one is likely to smile incredulously at the notion of blue
moons. Nevertheless they were as common as were green suns in 1883.
Science had to account for these unconventionalities. Such publications
as Nature and Knowledge were besieged with inquiries.
I suppose, in Alaska and in the South Sea Islands, all the medicine men
were similarly upon trial.
Something had to be thought of.
Upon the 28th of August, 1883, the volcano of Krakatoa, of the Straits
of Sunda, had blown up.
Terrific.
We're told that the sound was heard 2,000 miles, and that 36,380
persons were killed. Seems just a little unscientific, or impositive, to
me: marvel to me we're not told 2,163 miles and 36,387 persons. The
volume of smoke that went up must have been visible to other
planets--or, tormented with our crawlings and scurryings, the earth
complained to Mars; swore a vast black oath at us.
In all text-books that mention this occurrence--no exception so far so I
have read--it is said that the extraordinary atmospheric effects of 1883
were first noticed in the last of August or the first of September.
That makes a difficulty for us.
It is said that these phenomena were caused by particles of volcanic
dust that were cast high in the air by Krakatoa.
This is the explanation that was agreed upon in 1883--
But for seven years the atmospheric phenomena continued--

Except that, in the seven, there was a lapse of several years--and where
was the volcanic dust all that time?
You'd think that such a question as that would make trouble?
Then you haven't studied hypnosis. You have never tried to
demonstrate to a hypnotic that a table is not a hippopotamus. According
to our general acceptance, it would be impossible to demonstrate such a
thing. Point out a hundred reasons for saying that a hippopotamus is not
a table: you'll have to end up agreeing that neither is a table a table--it
only seems to