Despite the nonsense and confusion which characterized the treatments of magic which dated back to the period when the art was in common practice, the record of accomplishment of the art was impressive. There was curare and digitalis, and quinine, hypnotism, and telepathy. There was the hydraulic engineering of the Egyptian priests. Chemistry itself was derived from alchemy; for that matter, most modern science owed its’ origins to the magicians. Science had stripped off the surplusage, run it through the wringer of two-valued logic, and placed the knowledge in a form in which anyone could use it
Unfortunately, that part of magic which refused to conform to the neat categories of the nineteenth-century methodologists was lopped off and left out of the body of science. It fell into disrepute, was forgotten save as fable and superstition
Waldo began to think of the arcane arts as aborted sciences, abandoned before they had been clarified
And yet the manifestations of the sort of uncertainty which had characterized some aspects of magic and which he now attributed to hypothetical additional continua had occurred frequently, even in modern times. The evidence was overwhelming to anyone who approached it with an open mind: Poltergeisten, stones falling from the sky, apportation. ‘bewitched’ persons – or, as he Thought of them, persons who for some undetermined reason were loci of uncertainty – ‘haunted’ houses, strange fires of the sort that would have once been attributed to salamanders. There were hundreds of such cases, carefully recorded and well vouched for, but ignored by orthodox science as being impossible. They were impossible, by known law, but considered from the standpoint of a coextensive additional continuum, they became entirely credible
He cautioned himself not to consider his tentative hypothesis of the Other World as proved; nevertheless, it was an adequate hypothesis even if it should develop that it did not apply to some of the cases of strange events
The Other Space might have different physical laws – no reason why it should not. Nevertheless, he decided to proceed on the assumption that it was much like the space he knew
The Other World might even be inhabited. That was an intriguing thought! In which case anything could happen through ‘magic’. Anything! Time to stop speculating and get down to a little solid research. He had previously regretfully given up trying to apply the formulas of the medieval magicians. It appeared that they never wrote down all of a procedure; some essential – so the reports ran and so his experience confirmed – was handed down verbally from master to student. His experience with Schneider confirmed this; there were things, attitudes, which must needs be taught directly
He regretfully set out to learn what he must unassisted
‘Gosh, Uncle Gus, i’m glad to see you!
‘Decided I’d better look in on you. You haven’t phoned me in weeks.
‘That’s true, but I’ve been working awfully hard, Uncle Gus.
‘Too hard, maybe. Mustn’t overdo it. Lemme see your tongue.~ ‘I’m OK.’ But Waldo stuck out his tongue just the same; Grimes looked at it and felt his pulse
‘You seem to be ticking all right. Learning anything?
‘Quite a lot. I’ve about got the matter of the deKalbs whipped.
‘That’s good. The message you sent Stevens seemed to indicate that you had found some hookup that could be used on my pet problem too.~ ‘In a way, yes; but around from the other end. It begins to seem as if it was your problem which created Stevens’s problem.
‘Huh?
‘I mean it. The symptoms caused by ultra short-wave radiation may have had a lot to do with the erratic behaviour of the deKalbs.
‘How?’ ‘I don’t know myself. But I’ve rigged up a working hypothesis and I’m checking it.
‘Hm-m-m. Want to talk about it?
‘Certainly – to you.’ Waldo launched into an account of his interview with Schneider, concerning which he had not previously spoken to Grimes, even though Grimes had made the trip with him. He never, as Grimes knew, discussed anything until he was ready to
The story of the third set of deKalbs to be infected with the incredible writhings caused Grimes to raise his eyebrows. ‘Mean to say you caught on how to do that?