From the preface: Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge.

By: George Berkeley

"How long will it take us to get there," I asked as I watched the earth dropping out from under the fast rising air car.

"About twelve hours," said Alice.

"I'm surprised," I said, "I thought that we could reach Europe in three hours, much less be able to reach any mountain retreat in America in that length of time."

"We are going to let you be surprised, David," said the Doctor's wife, Louise. "Alice asked if we might not try to obtain the most appropriate meditation retreat possible and a distinguished master of the art to guide you."

"With twelve hours to make the journey in this craft, you could be taking me to be taught by a Tibetan Lama at some mystical Shangri La, high in the Himalayas," I said, laughingly.

They all smiled but no one commented on this remark.

"How high will we fly on the way," I said.

"We will stay at around eighty thousand feet, David," said Dr. Karoll.

"No matter what altitude, it must be necessary for there to be some kind of traffic control to avoid air collisions in such fast moving craft," I said.

"There are not many craft of this type operated in earth, David," said Dr. Karoll. "This allows us to use an individual air traffic control method which is very simple. Attached to the controls is a radar like scanning system which locates all objects within miles of this craft. It automatically alters our course slightly to avoid any object, even a bird."

"Why are there not millions of these craft, just as we had millions of automobiles in America?" I asked.

"Ours is a society of harmonious cooperation, David, not one of many factions vigorously pursuing competitive and separate personal interests. We have a transportation service which is operated in the public interest by the public. Almost all travel between population centers is by public conveyance. Within the local population centers there is provided fast convenient travel and, for any necessary individual travel in the cities, we have vehicle pools. There is little need for the individual conveyances of your day. Our people enjoy excellent provisions for walking and bicycling the short distances from public transit stations. Supplying public transportation, electric power, residential needs and public accommodations are naturally functions of our government."

"It was beginning to look like our whole system of transportation needed a drastic overhaul in America, not just because of pollution but for many reasons," I commented. "As for the source of power, it was beginning to be extremely apparent that our private enterprise system must continue to devour the natural resources of the land in a mad scramble for profits that would not stop until we rendered the beauty of a great continent into a hell of abused land, polluted air, and water. Real poverty, not the false poverty of a mismanaged social system in a land of plenty, but a real poverty arising from depleted soil and natural resources was fast closing in."

"David," spoke Dr. Karoll, "yours were times when, as far as your government was concerned, instead of providing the basis for cooperation that would have used men's best capacities to serve their common needs, it guarded the position of those who exploited natural resources and manpower, both at home and abroad," said Dr. Karoll.

"Well," I said, "we were not ready, I don't believe, for the kind of government you're suggesting. It would have produced chaos. America's aggressive men, who grasped control of various industries, of oil and railroad, minerals, lumber, banking, farm lands, or real estate, were highly honored as fine citizens. The fortunes and power they fought for gave them the incentive to organize industry and utilize science, as well as to learn how to motivate the laboring man. If our government had taken over private industry, everything would have ground to a screeching halt. Political intrigue, greed, inefficiency and infighting for power would have created an impossible situation. I think corruption among competing private interests, vying for power over our government, was more functional than if the whole machinery was operated by one corrupt faction which had gained control over all."

"Well," said Dr. Karoll, "you just asked why we don't have millions of air cars. With our system we could easily produce them, but as you see, we have no reason to do so. All our people have adequate transportation and are occupied with far more satisfying activities than being cogs in the machinery for producing millions of new model air cars every year."

We all lapsed into silence. As I looked out on the scene visible from our position above the earth, my mind went back to the first occasion I rode with Alice in the air car. Alice must have been receptive to my thoughts for she turned toward me and smiled. "A listening ear for your thoughts, David."

"I wonder sometimes if I need to express them with words around you and your mother and Dr. Karoll," I said, with a smile.

"Communication can be richer and deeper without words," said Louise Karoll. "Spoken words may clip the wings of thought. They may narrow down to a single band of color the rainbow of feelings we are trying to convey. A word ineptly spoken can shatter a glorious inner communication between spirits, just as one might burst a soap bubble and shatter the swirling tremulous sphere of scintillating color."

"As you speak words, Mrs. Karoll, they have the opposite effect, stimulating the imagination to construct an elaborate mind picture to fill out the meaning of your words," I said.

"Ah!" said Dr. Karoll, "now there you have the mystery and magic of words. The spoken word creates a form with depth and color in the thought world which actually expresses all that its speaker was thinking, both what he desired to communicate and what he may have wished to conceal. The same spoken word, depending upon the quality of the thinking of its speaker may create an elaborately beautiful form, complex as the exterior of a medieval cathedral, or one as simple as a river polished stone."

"Well," I mused, "You certainly generated a picture in my mind with those words, whether there are such things as thought forms or not."

"Even more mysterious than this, David, the spoken word of a Master-Mind, imperfectly transcribed by a disciple, may still convey his full meaning, although centuries of time and the confusing idioms of an ancient tongue stand between."

"A statement like that would seem to be impossible to validate," I objected.

"From your present point of view, it may be. Such concepts may only be encountered successfully by the intellect after it has been disciplined to respond to the delicate and easily submerged intuitive faculties. When the mind is properly disciplined so that one consciously moves into the thought world, then he may see and know why this is possible," said Dr. Karoll. "However, this mystical power embodied in words spoken originally by a Master-Mind has been demonstrated again and again. Jesus said, `I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.' How can a phrase like that, which is certainly unintelligible in our language, have the impact to transform a personality?"

"I have seen such a thing happen," I said, "and it is a mystery."

"What we have here," said Dr. Karoll, "is not easy to explain, for the unconscious mind of the individual, rather than the conscious mind, comprehended the meaning of such words and then stimulated the reaction at the conscious mind level. This, of course, is why persons having such experiences may have seemed to you unreasonable when questioned concerning their faith and unequipped to give a rational basis for what they believe."

"Ah!" I said, "You have touched upon familiar ground with me there. There was hardly a mind as hard to deal with rationally as a `Saved by the Blood' fundamentalist."

"The reality behind their conversion experience was profound truth given to mankind by a Master-Soul, David," said Dr. Karoll.

"But how can seemingly senseless phrases contain truth?" I asked.

"Thought forms of beauty and truth created by a Master-Mind become living symbols, enduring down through the centuries. Living words of Master-Minds guide and ennoble the race of man. By their unique qualities, they separate themselves from all others. As the centuries roll by, they are burnished rather than eroded by the passing years."

"You speak riddles, Dr. Karoll," I said. "How can words be called living? Must we resort to those incomprehensible religious metaphors that frustrate the intellect?"

"The intellect, David, is inferior to the intuition and is lacking in mobility, just as an inanimate object can not be compared to a living creature. Anyone who is intellectually oriented is incapable of understanding a reference to living words, unless he is willing to control his intellect and cause it to cooperate with, and be receptive to, his intuition."

"That explains a whole lot," I said, "I did notice that among groups whose members had relatively undeveloped intellectual capacity, these intuitive religious convictions were quite common. Such people were inclined to belittle and feel contentious toward those who did exercise their rational faculties."

"Among such groups as you refer to, there was often a need for more intellectual development to provide the check and balance, and to prevent true intuitive whisperings from being confused with childish and superstitious distortions, hallucinations and other delusions generated by the imagination," said Dr. Karoll.

"Now you have helped me to understand much better, Dr. Karoll," I said. "I have known too many narrow minded, intellectually drab persons, who claimed religious conversion experiences, to imagine that theirs is a superior form of comprehension. How may I develop this receptivity to intuition without sacrificing my intellectual discernment?"

"Alex," said Mrs. Karoll, "wouldn't it be better to let David take up such questions as these in meditation? Through meditation, his own understanding will open up."

"To be sure, Louise," said Dr. Karoll.

"Is it possible that you are all conspiring to key up my interest in learning meditation?" I said, half seriously and half jokingly.

They just smiled at this. We again fell into silence as we viewed the cloud flecked scene below. Again my mind drifted back to that first trip aloft in the air car with Alice. Retracing my recent past, I found myself moving in thought from one event to the next, until I finally arrived back to my first waking experience in Dr. Karoll's home. At times like this, a subtle questioning from within nagged me. How much longer before I should awaken from this extended dream-fantasy to find myself being revived by friends in the year 1984?