“Once in a while another road crosses yours. Neither its past nor its future has any connection whatsoever with the world we know. If you happened to take that turn you might find yourself on another planet in another space-time with nothing left of you or your world but the continuity of your ego.
“Or, if you have the necessary intellectual strength and courage, you may leave the roads, or paths of high probability, and strike out over the hills of possible time, cutting through the roads as you come to them, following them for a little way, even following them backwards, with the past ahead of you, and the future behind you. Or you might roam around the hilltops doing nothing but the extremely improbable. I cannot imagine what that would be like — perhaps a bit like Alice-through-the-Looking-Glass.
“Now as to my evidence — When I was eighteen I had a decision to make. My father suffered financial reverses and I decided to quit college. Eventually I went into business for myself, and, to make a long story short, in nineteen-fifty-eight I was convicted of fraud and went to prison.”
Martha Ross interrupted. “Nineteen-fifty-eight, Doctor? You mean forty-eight?”
“No, Miss Ross. I am speaking of events that did not take place on this time track.”
“Oh.” She looked blank, then muttered, “With the Lord all things are possible.”
“While in prison I had time to regret my mistakes. I realized that I had never been cut out for a business career, and I earnestly wished that I had stayed in school many years before. Prison has a peculiar effect on a man’s mind. I drifted further and further away from reality, and lived more and more in an introspective world of my own. One night, in a waynot then clear to me, my ego left my cell, went back along the time track, and I awoke in my room at my college fraternity house.
“This time I was wiser — Instead of leaving school, I found part-time work, graduated, continued as a graduate fellow, and eventually arrived where you now see me.” He paused and glanced around.
“Doctor,” asked young Monroe, “can you give us any idea as to how the stunt was done?”
‘Yes, I can,” Frost assented –“I worked on that problem for many years, trying to recapture the conditions. Recently I have succeeded and have made several excursions into possibility.”
Up to this time the third woman, Estelle Martin, had made no comment, although she had listened with close attention. Now she leaned forward and spoke in an intense whisper.
“Tell us how, Professor Frost!”
“The means is simple. The key lies in convincing the subconscious mind that it can be done — ”
“Then the Berkeleian idealism is proved!”
“In a way. Miss Martin. To one who believes in Bishop Berkeley’s philosophy the infinite possibilities of two-dimensional time offer proof that the mind creates its own world, but a Spencerian determinist, such as good friend Howard Jenkins, would never leave the road of maximum probability. To him the world would be mechanistic and real. An orthodox free-will Christian, such as Miss Ross, would have her choice of several of the side roads, but would probably remain in a physical environment similar to Howard’s.
“I have perfected a technique which will enable others to travel about in the pattern of times as I have done. I have the apparatus ready and any who wish can try it. That is the real reason why these Friday evening meetings have been held in my home-so that when the time came you all might try it, if you wished.” He got up and went to a cabinet at the end of the room. “You mean we could go tonight. Doctor?” “Yes, indeed. The process is one of hypnotism and suggestion.
Neither is necessary, but that is the quickest way of teaching the sub-conscious to break out of its groove and go where it pleases. I use a revolving ball to tire the conscious mind into hypnosis. During that period the subject listens to a recording which suggests the time-road to be followed, whereupon he does. It is as simple as that. Do any of you care to try it?”