e of strange
lights, the hurricane forces of tempestuous energies sweeping space
would blind, deafen, shrivel, annihilate us like so many flies swept
into a furnace. Nature has been kind; she has surrounded us with
natural ray-filters of protection."

His voice now seemed issuing from a kind of vacancy. Save for a slight
darkening of the air, nothing was visible of him. He went on:

"With our limited senses we are, in a way, merely peeping out
of little slits in an armored conning-tower of life, out at the
stupendous vibratory battles of the cosmos. Other creatures, in other
planets, no doubt have other sense-organs to absorb other vibratory
ranges. Their life-experiences are so different from ours that
we could not possibly grasp them, any more than a blind man could
understand a painting.

"Nor could those creatures understand human life. We are safe in
our own little corner of the universe, comfortably sheltered in our
vestments of clay. And what we cannot understand, though it is all
perfectly natural, we call religion, the supernatural, God."

From a great vacancy, the Master's words proceeded. Leclair, tugging
in vain at the bonds that, invisible yet strong as steel, held him
powerless, stared with wild eyes.

"There is no supernatural," said the now disembodied voice. "What
we call spirit, psychic force, hypnosis, spiritualism, the fourth
dimension, is really only life on another scale of vibration. If we
could see the whole scale, we would recognize it as a vast, coherent,
perfectly natural and rational whole, in which we human beings fill
but a very insignificant part. That, monsieur, is absolutely true!

"I have investigated, I have ventured along the coasts of the unknown
vibratory sea, and even sailed out a little way on the waters of
that unknown, mysterious ocean. Yet even I know nothing. What you are
beholding now is simply a slightly new form of vibratory effect. The
force that is holding you paralyzed on that chair is still another. A
third, sent down the air-squadron. And--there are many more.

"I am not really vanishing. That is but an illusion of your senses,
unable to penetrate the screen surrounding me. I am still here, as
materially as ever. Illusion, _mon cher monsieur_, yet to you very
real!"

The voice seemed moving about. The Frenchman now perceived something
like a kind of moving blur in the cabin. It appeared a sort of hole of
darkness, in the light; and yet the light shone through