Page 114 - The Evil Called Mockery

112 THE EVIL CALLED MOCKERY

The Worry of the Materialists
The facts discussed in this chapter, namely the truth underly-
ing matter, timelessness, and spacelessness, are extremely clear in-
deed. As expressed earlier, these are not some sort of philosophy or
way of thinking, but crystal-clear scientific truths, impossible to
deny. On this issue, rational and logical evidence admits no other al-
ternatives: For us, the universe—with all the matter composing it
and all the people living on it—is an image, a collection of percep-
tions that we experience in our minds and whose original reality we
cannot contact directly.
Materialists have a hard time in understanding this—for exam-
ple, if we return to the example of Politzer's bus. Although Politzer
technically knew that he could not step out of his perceptions, he

could admit it only for certain cases. For him, events take place in
the brain until the bus crash takes place, then events escape from the
brain and assume a physical reality. At this point, the logical defect
is very clear: Politzer has made the same mistake as the materialist
Samuel Johnson, who said, "I hit the stone, my foot hurts, therefore
it exists." Politzer could not understand that in fact, the shock felt
after a bus impact was a mere perception too.
One subliminal reason why materialists cannot comprehend
this is their fear of the implication they must face if they compre-
hend it. Lincoln Barnett tells of the fear and anxiety that even "dis-
cerning" this subject inspires in materialist scientists:
Along with philosophers' reduction of all objective reality to a
shadow-world of perceptions, scientists became aware of the alarming
limitations of man's senses. 19

Any reference to the fact that we cannot make contact with
original matter, and that time is a perception, arouses great fear in a