Powers of three, modern dismissal of miracles, relationships with the so-called dead

Yesterday, as mentioned in "242, and crabs," seeing a reference to the eight points of the compass made me think that if there were eight directions in a two-dimensional space, the number of directions for any n-dimensional space would be the nth power of three minus one (because the center is not a direction). I calculated these in my head up to the fifth power of three.

Today I read the H. G. Wells short story "The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham," which is about how the titular old man successfully switches bodies with a young man named Eden after making him his heir, the idea being that Elvesham's body will die, and Elvesham (in Eden's body) will inherit his own possessions and continue his life as a healthy young man.

The story is narrated by Eden. When he wakes up to find himself in Elvesham's body, he thinks it must be a dream and tries to go back to sleep. He has recourse to a curious alternative to counting sheep:

I shut my eyes, breathed regularly, and, finding myself wakeful, began to count slowly through the powers of three.

How often do people count through the powers of three? I'd say that's a pretty remarkable coincidence.

There's more, though. Yesterday I also participated in an email discussion with some of my Romantic Christian blogging associates about the advisability of speaking openly of miracles. Bruce Charlton expressed the opinion that, while telling miracle stories may have been helpful at most other times in history, it was usually net-harmful in the modern West because people assume atheistic materialism and reject miracles out of hand, so that a miracle story generally has no other effect than damaging the credibility of the person who tells it. I responded that, while assumptions are important, people do sometimes update them in response to experience, and that a materialist who never hears of any miracles is unlikely to question his axioms.

Continuing with Mr. Eden's reaction to the strange situation in which he finds himself:

Had I been a man of any other age, I might have given myself up to my fate as one enchanted. But in these sceptical days miracles do not pass current.

In the end, though, the evidence of his own experience forces him to update his assumptions:

I have been a materialist for all my thinking life, but here, suddenly, is a clear case of man's detachability from matter.

A specific instance of Bruce's opinion about sharing miracles, and how the advisability of doing so has changed over time, can be found in his post of the day before yesterday, "Contact with the (so-called) dead - past and present." In this post, he dismisses spiritualism as unlikely to be helpful but says contact with the resurrected dead is a different matter:

For some people, in some situations, contact with one or more of the resurrected dead may even be their primary spiritual task. 

For a start, it can be a vital source of spiritual guidance.

He goes on to say that this sort of contact has its potential pitfalls as well, but that many of these can be avoided by maintaining a policy of secrecy, "by not disclosing to others with whom we have contact, and keeping secret their information and guidance."

The day I read that post, I had also read H. G. Wells's story "The Moth," which is about an entomologist who is haunted by a mysterious moth which he believes to be the vengeful ghost of a rival entomologist with whom he had feuded. This, combined with Bruce's post, made me think of Whitley Strieber's book The Afterlife Revolution, detailing his ongoing relationship with his late wife, who he believes often appears in the form of a moth. So confident is Strieber of the reality of this ongoing relationship and communication that he lists his wife as a co-author of the book, even though it was written entirely after her death.

Last night, I was working in my study when I suddenly heard a loud thump behind me. Turning around, I saw that one of my books had spontaneously fallen off the shelf: an English translation of Oswald Wirth's Le Tarot des imagiers du Moyen Âge. -- The Tarot of the Medieval Image-makers, badly translated as The Tarot of the Magicians. I had read the book only once, four years ago, but I decided right then that I should read it again. I was about to turn to the first chapter but had a strong impression that I should instead go back and read the preface. I did so.

The preface is all about Stanislas de Guaita, the French poet and Rosicrucian. The two men met in 1887, when Wirth was 27 and de Gauita was 26. Wirth learned the Tarot and the French language from de Guaita and created his first Tarot deck under the Frenchman's guidance two years later. De Guaita died young, in 1897, and Le Tarot des imagiers du Moyen Âge was not published until 1927, three decades after de Guaita's untimely death. Nevertheless, Wirth presents the book as having been written in collaboration with his late friend.

I am convinced that the master for whom the veil of mystery was lifted, does not abandon his colleague who is straining to discern the truth. . . . Our true initiators often do not reveal themselves to our senses, and sometimes remain as silent as the symbolic compositions of the Tarot, but they keep watch on our efforts at deciphering, and as soon as we have found the first letter, they can mysteriously prompt the second to put us on the path of the third. Guaita certainly helped me, for my thought calls to him so that between us a telepathic connection is established. The relationship between one mind and another is in the nature of things, that has nothing in common with the classic or modernized necromancy in the form of spiritism. . . .

Like Raphael and Mozart, Guaita was to die young. It was granted to me to live on, but the incomparable friend, the inspiring master, has never died for me. His thought remains as mine; and with him and through him I aspire to initiate myself into the secret things. We collaborate secretly, for he who has gone encourages me to pursue his work . . . .

I am conscious of never having ceased to be the secretary of Stanislas de Guaita . . . whose acts continue, for nothing is lost in this sphere of strength.

May the reader be grateful to Stanislas de Guaita for the ideas which I express, and indulge his pupil who sets them forth here.

I am convinced that this kind of thing is far more common than most people imagine.