Transcript of the audio presentation, Reality, compiled, written and read by Richard Matheson, in which he offers basic observations on the metaphysical realities of life. © 1999 Richard Matheson. All rights reserved. Reality – Richard Matheson Reality My name is Richard Matheson. I have been a professional writer for fifty years. I have had published twenty-five books, nineteen novels and six short story collections. I have also written or co-written the scripts for nineteen theatrical films, thirteen television movies, and many television series programs among which are fourteen Twilight Zone scripts. I am telling you this to identify myself so that, hopefully, my writing background will give credence to what I have to say. Most importantly I have been a student of metaphysics for almost sixty years and have read hundreds of books on the subject. This is my primary credential. I will begin this presentation with a venerable cliché—namely: “unaccustomed as I am to public speaking...” Nothing could be closer to the truth. I am not a skilled public speaker. I am not even a passable public speaker. I can answer simple questions; that’s about it. On those rare occasions when I’ve been called upon to speak at a convention, I’ve delivered my speech by reading, word for word, what I’ve written beforehand. This presentation will be delivered in the same fashion: by reading aloud what I have already prepared for myself. Which brings up the question—if I’m so bad at giving speeches, why am I giving one? The reason is this I feel a need—virtually a compulsion to give this speech, I would say “lecture” but that sounds pompous. I’m not about to lecture you. I intend only to impart what I believe—and what many others believe—about what we call “Reality”. This is the title of my presentation then. Reality. Almost all the words I’ll speak were spoken or written by the many others I just mentioned. I once had the palm of my right hand appraised by an East Indian hand reader. He inked my palm in the way a fingerprint specialist would do it, then pressed my palm on a sheet of white paper and examined the print. He told me that he saw, on my palm, the outline of a bumblebee. What I did, he said, was travel—metaphorically speaking—from flower to flower, removing a bit of knowledge from each source, taking the entirety of what I gathered and combining It Into something homogenized, something new. I believe he was right. This speech is a combination of all the views, opinions and revelations I have placed in two books, one published, one not published. The published book is titled The Path; the unpublished one A Primer Of Reality. Almost every word in The Path came from the inspiration of a man named Harold W. Percival, which he revealed in his monumental book Thinking and Destiny. The statements taken from A Primer of Reality come from innumerable sources; I will credit them all. And I will have included in this CD a bibliography of the books in which I found these quotations. Hopefully, many of the books are still in print. What I have done—at least, what I have attempted to do—is structure these myriad elements into a progression of ideas which presents a coherent picture of reality. A picture which I hope is logical, understandable and convincing. In no way do I claim that any of the ideas presented are original with me. They're not. They are ideas that have been presented and discussed for many centuries. I am merely presenting them to you in specifically designed steps in order to make these ideas as comprehensible as I can. So, to begin. Reality. Reality Reality is not confusing. Complex, yes. There are a lot of details. But confusing? Difficult to understand? No. None of the men and women I will quote believe it’s confusing either. The quotations are simple and direct. Furthermore, none of them contradict each other. (Very important, that.) Herewith, then, what some very wise, very responsible—and, often very inspired— human beings have observed about Reality. The famous author Arthur Koestler wrote the following: Modern, quantum physics has discarded all our classical, common sense notions of time, space and matter. Thus both physics and parapsychology point to aspects or levels or reality beyond the reach of contemporary science. Author Stuart Holroyd observed that: One of Jung's profoundest convictions was that the physical and psychological sciences had been arbitrarily differentiated and must eventually converge. All right. What are we in reality? Brains and bodies and nothing more? No. More. Much more. Duke University's noted parapsychology investigator J.B. Rhine stated that: There is more to the mind of man than physical law can encompass. Parapsychologist Dr. Charles Tart said that: There are aspects of the human mind that simply cannot be reduced to materialistic explanations. Renowned psychic, parapsychologist and author-editor Eileen J. Garrett wrote as follows: Mind, in the universal sense, I know to be without and not within the human body. Philosophy professor-lecturer Dr. Benito F. Reyes wrote: Let us look at man other than as a packet of atoms and molecules, a quantifiable amount of energy, a bundle of nerves and adapting mechanism, a structure of bones and muscles. Let us stop looking at him as merely a body. And Harold W. Percival expressed it in this way: You should know that you are not your body. You should know that your body is not you. The body you are in is not you any more than your body is the clothes that your body wears. Take your body out of the clothes it wears and the clothes fall down. They cannot move without the body. Similarly, when the “you” in your body leaves your body, your body falls down and sleeps or is dead. Your body cannot do anything of itself without the conscious “you”. Your body is a physical organism. A living nature mechanism that you are operating. All right. Evidence of Mind-Matter Connection What evidence is there to justify the existence of this mind-matter co-existence? How does our “eternal selfhood” (as author Dr. Gina Cerminara calls it) make itself evident? I quote psychiatrist Laurence J. Bendit, author Georges Lakhovsky, metaphysician George W. Meek, yoga Parahamansa Yogananda and world-renowned psychic healer Edgar Cayce, as follows: The living body is a dual structure, part material in the sense that it consists of solids, liquids and gasses, part vital consisting of an interweaving of streams of energy. Every living being emits radiation. All living matter is enveloped in electrodynamic fields. Those fields are invisible and intangible. Until the development of modern vacuum tube voltmeters, it was not even possible to prove their existence. Our physical form is made of molecules. Molecules are made of atoms. Atoms are made of electrons. And electrons are made of life force—countless billions of specks of energy. Only through delusion do you see the body as solid flesh. In reality, it is not matter but energy. English, German and American scientists have reported that they have personally witnessed color motion picture films that show the human aura in great detail, reflecting changing thoughts and emotions. Every atom, every molecule, every group of atoms and molecules, however simple or complex, tells the story of itself—its pattern, its purpose—through the vibrations which emanate from it. And quoting Harold W. Percival again: Just as there is an atmosphere of the earth in which, you might say, the earth breathes and lives, maintains its form and has its being—so, too, is there an atmosphere into which, as an infant, man is born and maintains his being. If one could see this physical atmosphere of man (and woman), it would appear as innumerable particles in a room, made visible by a ray of sunlight. These would be seen to be circling or whirling about the body, all kept in movement by his breath. They would be seen to reach out, circle about and return into the body, following it wherever it goes and affecting the particles of other physical atmospheres with which it comes into contact. What is the basic truth behind this phenomenon? Well, for one thing, that there are realities beyond our day-to-day awareness. Realities which, nonetheless, exist. Eminent psychic researcher Dr. Louis K. Anspacher expressed it this way: In a world where apparently dead, inert, impenetrable matter has been volatilized into force points and vortices of swirling ions, protons, neutrons and electrons, revolving at a speed of 186,000 miles per second—the speed of light —in such a world where the very essence of matter has become immaterial, where instantaneous gravitation operates in an unexplained way, where a fourth dimension is already accepted as another environment, our very sense of continuity must make us ready to conceive other invisible dimensions, environments and coexistences. Famed British scientist Sir James Jeans put it this way: Today there is a wide measure of agreement that the stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality. The universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter. We are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter. Max Planck, the distinguished quantum physicist wrote: Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature.