Dialogue between Pneon and Spiro

By Adam Sedia

Two occupants of the spiritual dimension discuss their interactions with humanity and what happens to those who pay attention.

P. Greetings, dear friend! It has been quite some time . . .

S. A hundred and forty-four years, to be exact – at least as measured on this world.

P. Where have you been?

S. Flitting as my fancy carried me – through the glowing nebulae to a thousand worlds around five hundred stars in twelve galaxies.

P. My, how you get around. Yet you return here . . .

S. I have seen many worlds, giant and miniscule, fiery and frozen, gaseous and rocky, desert worlds and sea worlds. Yet in all their bewildering beauty and variety not one compares to this little rock-and-sea world around a nondescript star in a nondescript galaxy. It has one thing I cannot find anywhere else.

P. What is that?

S. Man.

P. Ah, yes. I thought you might say that. While you were out touring the Universe’s sights I remained here, content to dwell with our corporeal counterparts whom you grew to miss so dearly. I knew I must either miss the visions you enjoyed or miss observing man, and I do not regret my decision at all. The universe has nothing like him – not even us. Although I am afraid that after your absence you will find him . . . changed.

S. Changed? How? I have not been back long enough to notice.

P. Then either you have forgotten what man is like or you must have just arrived.

S. The second, of course. I came straight to you.

P. Let us find a country town in Europe or America – or really almost anywhere now except among what they call the “traditional societies.” City dwellers never noticed us much, but the country folk always recognized us when we passed. But not anymore.

S. You are saying man ignores us and our realm? That is nothing new. There were those among the French who deemed it quite unfashionable to notice us.

P. No. This is not like that – well, it is, but far worse.

S. What do you mean?

P. In those days – I am sure you remember – the so-called philosophers railed against what they called superstition and went to great lengths to deny us and our kind – our entire sphere. But they did “protest too much, methinks.” The vehemence of their denials only revealed what they really knew. And then there were the townsfolk, the countryfolk – all those who knew better. Outside the fashionable city-dwellers, the rest of mankind still saw us. Many were afraid and recoiled in fear, it is true, but many others conversed with us.

S. I remember those days well. Does all mankind now reject us?

P. Not reject as much as deny. And even then, not deny as much as shrug at us in apathy. The philosophers of France insisted on a mechanical explanation for everything – mechanical not rational, as an intellect may act rationally, as well.

S. And we all know the Intellect that acts perfectly rationally.

P. We do, but not man – at least not any longer. Now man no longer insists on a mechanical explanation but assumes one. And so we and our kind have become irrelevant. Men pay no heed to us but go about their business – buying and selling, marrying and divorcing, living and dying – all without turning an eye towards us, even though we stand right over them.

S. Unprecedented indeed. And what of the angels and saints? Has man ceased praying, too?

P. You touch on a different realm entirely, but the answer is the same. If the universe is mechanical, what need exists for prayer?

S. Ah an impoverished existence that must be.

P. More than you can fathom – at least until you see it. Here is a country town – a place where before your wanderings no one would have denied your presence. It is dusk, when we are best seen. Walk the streets. Enter the homes. See if anyone notices you, and observe the kind of life they lead.

S. Unfathomable! Simply unfathomable. Usually we hide, but today I walked the streets. I crossed through walls into bedrooms. I hovered above families at their dinner. Not one even pretended not to see me. They truly do not see us anymore. In the city, that has always been so, but here, where they should have nothing to distract them, they now behave no differently.

P. Ah, but they are distracted.

S. Yes, I saw. I should have said so. Everyone staring at screens. Remarkable. When I left, there was only the telegraph.

P. The principle is the same, only now things are instantaneous and immersive. But mankind was just as mindless and distracted even in the days preceding the telegraph. It is not the surroundings but the mindset that renders them oblivious. You will still find those in the cities who sense our presence, and still a few who will acknowledge us.

S. How unimaginably burdensome that must be.

P. You have no idea. Indeed, not far from here lived a man who saw me and even spoke with me. But his fatal flaw was telling what he saw. I should tell you what happened to him.

S. You know I love a good story.

P. “Good” is subjective. Objectively I can call the story tragic.

S. Everything about this world is tragic. Except perhaps for tragedy itself. I learned that when I saw worlds without any consciousness.

P. Then your travels were not in vain. But now about the man – let us call him simply John, for he may indeed be last of the visionaries. He was young – not yet thirty – an ordinary man of above-average intelligence, but with an atypical upbringing that had attuned him to our world – religious, to be sure, but not oppressive, and with mentors who encouraged his questioning and patiently explained all they taught. But most significantly, he almost alone was taught about the past – about his ancestors and what they did and believed. History was the story of those like him, not a narrative of progress, in which the past was an age of ignorance and oppression, not worth studying.

S. Ah, so he was truly educated, not just processed.

P. Exactly, which rendered him almost unfit for functioning in modern society. His sensibilities, his failure to conform to preconceived ideas, and above all his incessant questioning unwittingly made him enemies and hampered his advancement at every turn. Still, due to his natural intelligence he found some sort of success: comfortable if middling office work in the city. But he was utterly alone.

S. He had no family?

P. His parents and sister lived far away, and they did not understand him, either. As for a family of his own, well, that demanded of him the insurmountable task of finding a woman of his own generation who could understand him. Friends, he had a few, for men are more resistant to conditioning and naturally more headstrong in their beliefs. But women, as you know, as a general rule give in more easily to social pressure. John was rather handsome and mildly successful but not rich, and he struck most as odd. With those two marks against him, he had utterly given up on the thought of romance, let alone marriage, and resigned himself to a solitary life.

S. Such stories all share that common thread: those who see us do so in a solitude that they have grown used to.

P. Exactly: those who have grown comfortable with themselves. And such was John. Indeed, he was much more comfortable with himself than with anyone else. And for that reason I visited him. It took him a while, but he noticed me.

S. Even he took time to notice you? In the years before I left, almost every human would notice me immediately.

P. As I said, it is not because they cannot see, but because they choose not to see. I was afraid that even this “attuned” young man would plant his eyes on his screens, oblivious to my presence at his very side. I persisted, and after not long he satisfied my expectations and saw me.

S. Did he speak to you?

P. Oh, yes. We conversed at great length. As you might expect, he brimmed with questions about our realm and what we knew and sensed here, and what I had seen of him. Of course I saw everything – things he kept hidden – and, being honest, I told him.

S. (chuckling) How did he react to that discovery?

P. Exactly as he should have. He shrugged. There was nothing he could change about the past.

S. Admirable. And he still talked with you?

P. Very much so. We spoke as friends, every day. We discussed the universe and God and mathematics and music and poetry. Though I am ageless, I had things to learn from him, for the human mind is equal to any of ours in everything but perception. His reasoning was equal to any spirit I have known. As far as mortals go, he was one of the best I have known. Granted, only a few have seen me, let alone spoken to me, so I can compare him only to very few among men.

S. It sounds delightful. I confess to being a little envious. I would exchange all my travels to partake of such a friendship, especially with a creature from the mortal sphere. Yet you speak of this in the past tense, so I infer there was a change.

P. Sadly, yes.

S. What happened?

P. It was at my instigation, I confess. There are things even a spirit regrets. It started when he asked me why I decided to show myself to him. I asked him what he meant and explained that I never hid myself from him.

“But why did I not see you until only a few months ago?” he asked.

“You finally chose to see me,” I answered. He only stared back blankly and I added, “I thought you never would.”

“Wait,” he said, still in disbelief,” you mean you were visible to me this entire time?”

“Well, I cannot tell you what you see or not, but I have done nothing that would make you notice me any differently from before.”

“All I had to do was notice,” he said to himself.

“Yes,” I agreed.

He paused, still reeling from the profundity of the revelation, then spoke in an awed tone, “Then that means everyone can see you.”

“Those who can see, can see me,” I answered. “They need only look.”

“I must tell this to the world,” he said. “Imagine if everyone just saw what was in front of them. The things they could learn. How much knowledge could the human race obtain!”

S. Oh, no. I hope you warned him of the folly of that idea.

P. Of course I did! I genuinely liked him – and still do. I wanted him to be happy and did everything I could to dissuade him from his plan. I explained everything to him: how those who chose not to see could not be forced to see; how the knowledge of our realm would drive most mortals mad with incomprehension; how it was more comfortable for mankind to deny us than to face the reality of our existence – and of the thousands of other spirits beyond even our sphere.

S. I take it none of this persuaded him.

P. It did at first. “You are right,” he said, sighing. “Who will believe me?” I thought the matter ended there and our conversations continued for weeks. I told him what we perceive in our sphere and shared my knowledge of the universe – what the most distant galaxies hold, what the dinosaurs looked like, what mortal scientists have gotten wrong. For us this is all the most mundane knowledge but for him I was revealing the universe’s deepest mysteries. I could tell he had a myriad of questions, but out of either respect or fear – is there a difference? – he held back and listened.

Not only was it refreshing to have this discussion with a being who genuinely did not know already what I was describing, but also with one who listened so well. As you know, human beings tend to speak over you rather than listen.

S. Oh, yes. That is no small part of why they do not even bother to see us.

P. But this one listened – perhaps because he paused to observe. When I was gone he wrote all I had told him – obsessively. I did not know that at the time, and only learned it when he published it in a volume. That is when the troubles began. The few friends he had left him. His family disowned him. He lost his work and soon his home. He went from town to town, taking what work he could find, living where he could afford, and everywhere revealing what he had seen and what I had told him.

S. I can imagine how that went. Did he ever realize the wisdom of the warning you gave him?

P. The reception initially was not as bad as I had expected. Some listened out of curiosity and even tried to observe our realm, but nearly all of them failed because they tried too hard. They had a preconceived idea of what they should perceive – men with wings or little gray men with large black eyes or levitating bedsheets.

S. You say “nearly all.” Some did see us?

P. One or two, but they were frightened and turned away. Of the others who did not try to see us, some quietly agreed, but decided that they already knew better – again based on preconceptions. They walked away sympathetic, but walked away nonetheless. Most, however, regarded him as insane. That was the easiest conclusion to draw because it was the most comfortable for them. After all, an uncredentialed man speaking about things they could not perceive could only be insane to them.

S. (laughing) Credentials! Nothing has shut human perception out from our world as much as a university degree.

P. And it was the credentialed who ended up destroying my new friend. In one town he offended a schoolteacher who fancied herself a scientist. She reported him to the police as a menace, a threat to his own health and safety. The police, not wishing to offend the lady, took John into custody and hauled him before a judge for what they call an “involuntary commitment.” Witnesses came forward. I cannot say they lied or even exaggerated. They honestly believed that John was raving mad because he saw things that they did not, and that therefore he posed harm to himself. But the persuasive witness was a court-paid psychologist who provided a diagnosis –

S. A what?

P. Ah, forgive me. You have been away for long. It is a study that purports to reduce the human mind to mechanistic operations, much like the body. Yet in attempting that it is remarkably imprecise. There are some in this field who treat the human mind with an appropriate level of mystery and imprecision, but judges and juries do not like imprecision. They want answers, and sadly those who purport to offer the most precise conclusions are precisely those least qualified to opine on a subject as imprecise as the human mind.

S. Just like those who opine anything for money. So what happened to our unfortunate friend?

P. Just as you would expect. The system did what it was designed to do. The witnesses and the judge had already concluded that he was crazy, so the proceedings merely confirmed what was already decided. It did not help that John did not put up much of a fight. From what he had said to me, I knew he considered himself mad, as the only one who could see in a room and a world full of the blind.

The judgment was for him to be “committed,” as they say. To this day he remains locked up with the raving lunatics in the asylum. Luckily, no chemical treatments have been administered. He hardly needs sedatives.

I apologized, but he blamed me for nothing. Indeed, he has peace he never knew before. He knows full well he can profess that I am a mere hallucination, and his case would be “re-evaluated.” But that would be a lie, and the lie would be a stronger prison than the asylum walls. Besides, in the asylum he is fed, clothed, and sheltered, and everyone leaves him undisturbed, thinking him insane.

And so he remains. I appear to him there still, and he still converses with me. Strangely, he seems happier than I have ever seen him. He has come to peace with what the world is – the visible and the invisible.

S. A man who knows the truth and is happy to suffer for it. You know, for that reason alone I should envy man. We dwell behind the veil – if a veil it is – and see everything. Nothing is a mystery to us and hence we know truth. But man – ah! – limited in perception and reason, but how glorious the truth must shine when he finds it! And to suffer for truth – that is a delight of which we can only dream, a glory I can barely comprehend.

P. Every spirit feels exactly the same way.

S. No doubt those who rejected him and locked him up think themselves enlightened and liberated.

P. Of course, and that is why none of us bother with them.

S. (laughing) How true! How very true!

(after a pause) You know, I think I will find a man like this John – or better yet, five. One man they can call insane, but six – in different nations and with different language – well, that should give them pause, make them think twice, reconsider the evidence.

P. Try if you will. Even if you find five others like him with the courage to tell the world what you have revealed, I think you will find the rest of mankind equally incredulous. Remember: they do not see because they cannot, but because they choose not.

S. Willful ignorance is man’s perpetual curse, but I am not the kind to give up so easily. After all, I have eternity.

Adam Sedia (b. 1984) lives in his native Indiana, where he practices as a civil and appellate litigation attorney. His poems have appeared in print and online publications, and he has published two volumes of poetry: The Spring's Autumn (2013) and Inquietude (2016). He also composes music, which may be heard on his YouTube channel. He lives with his wife, Ivana, and their two children.