Page:Weird Tales Volume 4 Number 2 (1924-05-07).djvu/141



HAD NOT lived in the old house on Sheridan Square a week before I received a visit from my next-door neighbor and at once my interest was aroused. His name was Alladina Visrain and he was a full-blooded Persian from Sultanabad. Never have I met a man who was more learned and cultured than he. The Orient and the Occident had contributed their best to his knowledge. He was both a doctor of medicine and philosophy, an ardent devotee of research work of any kind.

There was nothing about his appearance that would have caused comment as he passed along the street unless one remarked on his finely molded, clear-cut features and the intense brilliance of his keen black eyes. He dressed simply, in dark clothes of American make and the quietness of his manner gave him dignity and even charm. His voice was as distinct and clear as though he had studied elocution for years, yet so softly did he speak, the words seemed but the echo of a dream.

"Since we are evidently to be neighbors for a considerable time," he said slowly, "I thought it would not be out of place for me to call and introduce myself. As a rule when a man moves to a country town all the neighbors visit him almost immediately. This is not the custom in the city. Yet how much more lonesome and cold is a great metropolis. To walk among crowds and to behold no familiar face is worse than to journey alone through the desert."

At my urgent invitation, he seated himself in a great chair by the side of the open-hearth, a companion one to mine and together we talked about a miscellany of trifling things until an unearthly hour. It was, I thought, the beginning of a friendship which was to continue for many a long day, but if I had known that evening how close that friendship was destined to be, my eyes would have bulged from their sockets in stark raving horror.

That evening was one of many which we spent together. We had much in common, we found, for we were both writers and both of us were intensely interested in unusual things.

"For years," said Alladina Visrain one evening as we sat smoking cigars before the fire in my rooms, "I have been somewhat of a student of psychology, psychanalysis, spiritualism and the transition of souls. In our religions we are all like children. The Christian scoffs at the Yogi and the Theosophist. The Buddhist and the Mohammedan look down on people of all other religions. Is it not amusing? Every man thinks his own belief is the true religion. The South Sea Islander worshipping the moon and the stars, the Siamese refusing to kill rattlesnakes and looking with awe at sacred tigers, the natives of India bowing before sick white elephants—is not life a most interesting enigma? We imagine that we have advanced a great deal since the Stone Age, but have we actually progressed at all? Does not the recent European conflict prove that the caveman is still very much alive within us? The changes recorded have been solely in exterior things such as dress and manners. Men scoffed at Morse when he spoke of his telegraph, but it came to be and now we have the radio as well. We have learned to pick up messages from the very ether about us. Someday other things will be accomplished quite easily which are now only spoken of in theory. Science is still very much in its infancy. For more than ten years I have believed that it would be possible for two men to exchange their souls if they were in the proper key, in perfect harmony and tune with one another. That is to say, to put it more concisely, I believe that it might be possible for your soul to enter my body and my soul to enter your body and when I speak of the soul I mean all that intangible part of a person that is mental, his mind, thoughts, likes and dislikes, ideas, etc. The great Caruso used to tap a glass with a knife and then sing the same note as came from the tinkling glass. When the two notes met at exactly the same moment, the glass was shattered to atoms. You see the notes opposed each other. Now if two natures or souls were in perfect harmony, without opposition of any kind, who knows what might be accomplished if the impulse of both were toward the same object."

"I am deeply interested in what you say," I told him. "It is a rather wild theory but I am sufficient of a scientist never to laugh at anything. Only fools ridicule that which they do not understand."

"I am glad to hear you speak like that," he went on, "for had your manner been otherwise I would have terminated the present conversation when I finished speaking a moment ago. However, since you are so obviously interested I will proceed to acquaint you with my theory." As he spoke, he drew from his pocket a round crystal ball about three inches in diameter. It was so clear and polished that it shone in the fire-glow like a great round diamond. "This thought-sphere came from the East," he said slowly, "and there are many legendary tales connected with it. It is said that he who possesses it can have what he desires. Whether or not there is any truth in this, I cannot say, and yet you are my friend, our personalities are in harmony and that is all I desire. If you are agreeable we will attempt right now to materialize my theory." He did not wait for me to assent. He took my acquiesence for granted. He walked over and placed the ball in the center of a small teakwood table. Then he placed two chairs beside the table so that they were directly opposite each other.

As he did so, he said, "Come, and who knows, perhaps it will be your good fortune to be a participant in one of the greatest discoveries of the age."

He seated himself at the table. "Before you sit down," he directed, "swish off the lights, for a room in darkness save for the glowing fire, is far more fitting for such an experiment as we are to attempt, than one that is brilliantly lighted."

After doing as he desired, plunging the room in semi-darkness, I sat down opposite him. "Now," he said slowly, "you must concentrate your whole mind on this experiment. Coue says that the imagination controls the will. Perhaps he is right. I never argue, but I think 139