Eight Keys to Eden by Mark Clifton (book club reads TXT) 📖

tiny way, rebalance the equation of relationship with one slight thought, and lo, the stone no longer barred the way?

Too long ago, lost in the distant past, the crystals had forgot their own once-orientation of all other things to me-and-mine, forgot to credit it to man. To lift the boulder with one's strength to serve a purpose was within the ken of man, a thing that he[164] could do. To see it lifted, moved, without his strength, bespoke a greater strength than his, and purpose that he could not understand. And man fell to his knees in fear and awe.

For man knew only one relation to all things—to conquer if he could, and force acknowledgment of superior strength and purpose. To kill if that acknowledgment was not given. To survive by giving that acknowledgment to a stronger one than he.

Man groveled in the dust, the only pattern of survival that he knew when strength beyond his own was shown. But even while he knelt, to scheme a way that he-and-his might find ascendancy in future days. The one invariable pattern persisting from the cave man dressed in furs to diplomat in striped pants, the only pattern possible while me-and-mine ascendant is the aim and goal.

To show another pattern then, the crystals aim. Ascendancy of me-and-mine was meaningless, belonged to orders of awareness lower than intelligence that they could meet in partnership. Instruct them, then. No joy or purpose in conquering them. No companionship in these disgusting grovelings. Show them the inner forces that controlled the outer shapes of things.

Once crystals, now divorced from hardened form, the outer shape of things was no longer a consideration in their life; but for this form of life, still dependent for that life upon the maintenance of material form, no doubt the shapes and forms of things were paramount to them. Well then, show them the true relationship, sketch out upon the sands the diagram of how the forces that control the shapes of things are interwoven, interact.

Before the kneeling men, the cabalistic diagrams took shape, and lo, a spring of water flowed from dry and barren stone.

But man saw only shape of diagram, its cabalistic lines and form. A sacred thing, a magic thing, a sign that he might draw with finger in the air or in the sand, protection from the evil forces that surrounded him.

The sentient fields of force withdrew. Too soon, too soon. Man was not ready for communication. Too soon, too soon.[165]

But man did not forget, the memory lived on. And fathers spoke to sons, and made the outer forms of gestures, drew the cabalistic signs, and told of magic things and powers that these signs could do. To some, one diagram was shown, a way to build a house of stone that better weathered the storms of Earth. The house of stone became a holy place, a thing existing in its own right, and not, as was intended, an example of one use to which this arrangement of forces might be put.

And to some other man another diagram was shown, this time to slay an animal for food. And men fought wars over these differing symbols, each side determined to make its symbol ascendant over the other.

Deep within the Asian land where contact had been made, the memories lived on, and some of the meaning of the diagrams beyond their outer shape had gained sway. The racial memory persisted, and in the latter Pleistocene epoch the knowledge of altering shapes through force of mind became a racial memory, coalesced into cults of belief, degenerated into forms and phrases; but from generation to generation the memory was kept alive that once, when the world was new, the form of things was indeed changed by thought. This holy man, far away and long ago, had pointed his finger at a tree, and lo! a beautiful nymph had stepped forth clad in jewels and coins to make him rich. This hero climbed a mountain and a voice spoke unto him, and proof of this were letters cut in stone. Well-witnessed, this divine one changed some water into wine, and fed a multitude from five small loaves and fishes.

A kind of radiation of its own, always the cults who sought the inner meanings formed within that Asian land and spread outward through the world.

But out on the periphery, and not exposed to thought of inner meanings, another cult took shape. Here concern was solely with the outer shape and size and weight and measurement of things, and how the size and shape and weight of one interacted with another. The Dravidian culture, which grasped only the idea but[166] not the method of how the inner vibration could change the outer shape receded and became submerged in the Western cult that found a method in the measurement of shape and weight of things to make them change.

It was Rabindranath, centuries later, who described the essential difference between the Indian and the Grecian civilization as that between a forest culture which had known no walls, and a city culture where everything has limit and every inch must be mapped.

But perhaps, also, the Greeks had never seen this tree changed into bird, this cloud changed into flower. Not trapped by memories grown into tradition that must not die, they hit upon an approach that man could master. For it was the Greek beginnings which led to the Oxford definition of how to make scientific inquiry into the properties of things.

Inquiry into the properties, at first the outer shapes and weights, led inevitably straight back to vibrations. All matter is merely a specific vibration of energy, a range of vibrations feeling solid to the senses, as a range of light vibrations translate into color through the eyes.

E = MC²!

It took man far. He too began an exploration of the stars!

Failure in their first attempt had brought a wisdom to the sentient fields of force. This time they did not rush in with pyrotechnic displays to show the wondrous power they knew. Observing patiently through the centuries, by now they knew man well. They knew his weakness, yet by making thing react with thing, he'd proved his strength. For here he was among the stars.

Perhaps by now he might communicate? Perhaps, by now, he would not prostrate himself and grovel in the dust, if someone said, "Hello!"

But careful, perhaps he would.

There had been a man by name of Galileo, with the first crude telescope he'd made, who first saw the rings of Saturn. But not as[167] rings, but rather in the planet's tilting, he had seen a spot of light on either side. And sometime later, when he looked again, the tilting of the planet back had made the rings edge on, and so they disappeared. He never looked again, nor told of what he'd seen; for legend had it that the god Saturn periodically devoured his own children, and this phenomenon he'd seen, if it became widely known, would be interpreted as the proof the legend was correct—and do incalculable damage to scientific inquiry. He'd known the temper of his fellow man well enough to take no chances of this kind, to note the experience in his works, perhaps discuss it with a cautious friend or two, but to add no further fuel to the raging fires of superstition that consumed men's minds and seared out possibility of rational thought.

So walk with care. For superstition still is paramount, despite the fact that some men know how to reach the stars.

To communicate this time, the fields of force took a sere planet, of barren, blistered rock, and with a concept made it into the garden of man's dreams. On one island, they set up a crystalline structure, a thing, this much concession to the mind of man; a tool, to amplify and clarify their thought to reach the still rudimentary but nevertheless present centers of man's mind—some certain man who might be ready to receive that thought.

Placed in man's exploratory path, the waiting was not long until man found it. They had not led him to it through any intuitive change of course that he might find suspect. The explorers landed, claimed it for Earth, and went away. None among them felt any pull from the crystal tool upon the mountaintop.

The scientists came to make their measurements. Their busy minds were full of weight and size and the relationship of thing to thing. Perhaps by now they too were so committed to the use of a thing to act upon another thing that they could not countenance the thought that thought could act upon a thing direct. They measured the crystal tool, and recorded all their measurements, but found no meaning in its arches and its spires. If any felt the impact of the thinking of the fields of force, he made no[168] sign nor gave response. Indeed, to preserve his status and reputation with his fellow scientists he'd not have dared admit a meaning that could not be measured with his instruments. Forevermore he'd be outcast, if he but hinted that he thought their science was insufficient to capture everything of meaning there. And to scientist most of all, his status with his fellow man means more than truth. At least to most. But are there some to whom the truth is paramount?

Yes, for had not scientist after scientist through the years risked and lost his status through his questioning? And then perhaps today there are such men.

So walk with care, and wait.

The colonists came, and as the scientists' minds had been filled with measurements and weights and analyses; the colonists' minds were filled with cabins, fields, food.

Surely, among men somewhere, there must be those not wholly captured on the one hand by formless superstition; and on the other hand not bound within the tightly narrowed circle of weight and measurement! Surely man must know by now he could not capture the inner meaning of a thing through a description of its outer surface.

But as long as man got by, and did great things by using physical things to act upon other physical things, even in considering the universal energy as a thing, he would look no farther.

All right then, a little nudge in another direction. Change the concept of the planet slightly, so that one thing cannot act upon another, no tool be used except this crystal set to act as intermediary. Let that happen, and out from Earth a man would come, perhaps a dozen men, perhaps a hundred ships, a thousand men, and all to find their ships, their tools, were gone. But someday there would come a man with mind trained in the ability to conceive that there might be a road to truth outside the useless superstitions that sent man to groveling in the dust at each small[169] breath that blew, and also one who would not quit because he had no weather vane to test the direction of that breath.

And they would know when that mind came.

The first man came. Take away his tools and wait. He did not fall to earth in awe nor freeze in fear. His mind searched curiously. Enough. The man was here. Shield off the planet from the rest that he be undisturbed in his thought.

Could he go farther? Conceive the purpose of this lack of tools, that it was by design? And still not grovel in the dust? They'd made their move. Could he respond?

He drew a circle in the sand!

Joy! Ecstasy!

This time there might be surcease to the loneliness, and two intelligences so unlike commune. The very unlikeness of each bringing to the other thought not yet considered, and together going on to find ... to find ...

Now let him see the fallacy of such strict measurement. Now let him think, to realize that measuring the balance of the status quo of things in only one relationship of an infinity of possibilities, to realize that he can change his measurements to balance an equation designed to express the status quo, or with equal truth, at his desire, he can change the status quo, the shape of things, to fit the equation he desires.

Let him wander, puzzled, worrying on this. Let him work it out himself, for experience from long ago had taught them that if man was not ready to accept an alien thought he could not, would not, accept but in his own interpreting.

Now, at last, at his readiness to make things fit the equation he conceives, instead of making the equation fit the things as they are, bring him closer in the range of the amplifier, the crystal tool, that communication might be direct.

He holds the key.

He knows the lock.

He finds the door.[170]

Show him the one small step remaining—the diagram, the design, the movement of the forces of his mind.

To turn the key.

Unlock the lock.

Throw wide the door.