6oo POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



come. It is well known to physicists that these molecules nowhere 

 actually touch each other, nor do they come near doing so. The 

 spaces between them are filled up by ether. Into the interstices 

 of the ether it is easy for the odic force to introduce itself. It is, 

 in fact, unlikely that the gross particles of stone exist at all ; for, 

 as some physicists have shown, these are but eddies or vortex- 

 rings in the ether itself, which is the only material reality. 



Mr. Marvin showed very clearly that this supposed legend was 

 not lightly to be set aside as mythology ; or, rather, that it is 

 likely that mythology is the only true history. The same psychic 

 strength and wisdom which have caused Odin to be remembered 

 and revered as a god by our ancestors, was the same psychic force 

 by which he overcame the cohesion of matter. For us all to do 

 this is doubtless only a question of time. Many adepts are already 

 able to do more wonderful things than these. In time the evolu- 

 tion of man will bring these latent powers to light, superseding 

 our common reason with astral intuition as reason has supplanted 

 mere animal instinct. 



Having thus shown the broad principles on which studies in 

 the new psycho-physics must rest, Mr. Marvin described a special 

 contrivance or application of these principles to the work of the 

 Camera Club. 



He had devised a camera with a lens having curved facets ar- 

 ranged on the plan of the eye of the fly. To each one of the seven 

 facets led an insulated tube provided within by an electric con- 

 nection, so that electric or odic impulses could be transferred from 

 the brain or retina through the eye of each different observer to 

 the many-faced lens. From the lens these impulses would be con- 

 verged on a sensitive plate, as the rays of light are gathered to- 

 gether in ordinary photography. 



From the members of the Camera Club, seven of those having 

 greatest animal magnetism and greatest power of mental concen- 

 tration were chosen for the experiment. Connection was made 

 from the eye of these observers to the corresponding parts of the 

 lens; then all were to remain in utter darkness and perfect 

 silence, each person fixing his mind on a cat. They were not to 

 think of any particular cat, but of a cat as represented by the in- 

 nate idea of the mind or ego itself. This was highly important, 

 for the purpose of Mr. Marvin was not simply to fix by photog- 

 raphy an ephemeral recollection, as Mr. Rogers and Mr. Lee had 

 done ; it was to bring out the impression of ultimate feline real- 

 ity. The innate image in the mind was the object desired. One 

 man's thought of a cat would be individual, ephemeral, a recollec- 

 tion of some cat which he had some time seen, and which by the 

 mind's eye would be seen again. From seven ideals, sympathet- 

 ically combined, the true cat would be developed. This combina- 



