"Let's go and sit in the park."
They marched out of the store and found a vacant bench in front of the church. Pigeons were strutting around under the trees, the odd overeager sparrow hopping about amongst them.
"It's called ESP or parapsychology," said Alberto. "Or it's called telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychokinetics. It's called spiritism, astrology, and urology."
"But quite honestly, do you really think it's all hum-bug?"
"Obviously it would not be very appropriate for a real philosopher to say they are all equally bad. But I don't mind saying that all these subjects together possibly chart a fairly detailed map of a landscape that does not exist. And there are many 'figments of the imagination' here that Hume would have committed to the flames. Many of those books do not contain so much as one iota of genuine experience."
"Why are there such incredible numbers of books on such subjects?"
"Publishing such books is a big commercial enterprise. It's what most people want."
"Why, do you think?"
"They obviously desire something mystical, something different to break the dreary monotony of everyday life. But it is like carrying coals to Newcastle."
"How do you mean?"
"Here we are, wandering around in a wonderful adventure. A work of creation is emerging in front of our very eyes. In broad daylight, Sophie! Isn't it marvelous!"
"I guess so."
"Why should we enter the fortune-teller's tent or the backyards of academe in search of something exciting or transcendental?"
"Are you saying that the people who write these books are just phonies and liars?"
"No, that's not what I'm saying. But here, too, we are talking about a Darwinian system."
"You'll have to explain that."
"Think of all the different things that can happen in a single day. You can even take a day in your own life. Think of all the things you see and experience."
"Yes?"
"Now and then you experience a strange coincidence. You might go into a store and buy something for 28 crowns. Later on that day Joanna comes along and gives you the 28 crowns she owes you. You both decide to go to the movies--and you get seat number 28."
"Yes, that would be a mysterious coincidence."
"It would be a coincidence, anyway. The point is, people collect coincidences like these. They collect strange-- or inexplicable--experiences When such experiences-- taken from the lives of billions of people--are assembled into books, it begins to look like genuine data. And the amount of it increases all the time. But once again we are looking at a lottery in which only the winning numbers are visible."
"But there are clairvoyants and mediums, aren't there, who are constantly experiencing things like that?"
"Indeed there are, and if we exclude the phonies, we find another explanation for these so-called mysterious experiences."
"And that is?"
"You remember we talked about Freud's theory of the unconscious . . ."
"Of course."
"Freud showed that we can often serve as 'mediums' for our own unconscious. We might suddenly find ourselves thinking or doing something without really knowing why. The reason is that we have a whole lot of experiences, thoughts, and memories inside us that we are not aware of."
"So?"
"People sometimes talk or walk in their sleep. We could call this a sort of 'mental automatism.' Also under hypnosis, people can say and do things 'not of their own volition.' And remember the surrealists trying to produce so-called automatic writing. They were just trying to serve as mediums for their own unconscious."
"I remember."
"From time to time during this century there have been what are called 'spiritualist revivals,' the idea being that a medium could get into contact with a deceased person. Either by speaking in the voice of the deceased, or by using automatic writing, the medium would receive a message from someone who had lived five or fifty or many hundreds of years ago. This has been taken as evidence either that there is life after death or that we live many lives."
"Yes, I know."
"I'm not saying that all mediums have been fakes. Some have clearly been in good faith. They really have been mediums, but they have only been mediums for their own unconscious. There have been several cases of mediums being closely studied while in a trance, and revealing knowledge and abilities that neither they nor others understand how they can have acquired. In one case, a woman who had no knowledge of Hebrew passed on messages in that language. So she must have either lived before or been in contact with a deceased spirit."
"Which do you think?"