WEBVTT - S4/E4 | Evaluation 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:07.840 Hmm. Thirteen Days of Halloween Penance, a co production of 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:11.640 iHeart three D Audio Blumhouse Television and Grim and Mild 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:16.120 from Aaron Yankee. Headphones recommended Listener discretion advised. 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:42.959 Hm hmmm, well someone here soon as an expect. 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:47.800 No time to waste on the examination table. There prepper 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:56.480 for treatment? Oh where am I? 0:00:58.920 --> 0:00:59.400 Where am I? 0:00:59.680 --> 0:00:59.920 Doctor? 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:00.680 She's come to? 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:02.840 Why can't I move? 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:05.840 The application is already prepped? Am I in the hospital? 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:08.839 The clinical make a fist for me? Why am I restrained? 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:11.040 It's for your own safety, my safety. 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:14.119 You could hurt yourself or someone else. 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:16.440 Why would I do that? 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:17.280 That's the single dose? 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:18.560 What the fuck might be enough? 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:19.840 Why did you just inject me? 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:30.320 Huh? Why would you look at that? 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:33.720 I believe she's already responding. 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:35.919 Should it really be so fast acting? 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:40.320 She probably hasn't aiden, But this one, too is a 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:41.440 special case. 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:51.360 What's happening? Well, missus Rodrige, that's not my name, that's 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:52.960 not just remain coin. 0:01:53.840 --> 0:02:00.320 Everything will be much easier if you are cold. 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:05.000 You give me tell me what are you seeing? What 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:12.880 are you here? I think it could be sick. 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:15.360 Maybe we gave her too much. 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:18.120 Well, no science is exact. 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:19.920 Let's give it a beat. 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:24.400 Seven, Gatherine, can you. 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:30.920 Talk her through it? What am I just relaxed? 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:31.160 Now? 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:36.359 Talk to Catherine right back to check on you. 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:50.360 Could you imagine should be scheduled next week? 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:03.480 First time? Where are you just the next bed over? 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:14.919 How does it feel strange? I can't seem to focus. Yes, 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:19.320 it does give one a bit of a tumble. Well, 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:22.480 if you can listen to my voice while the worst 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:26.560 of it passes, you'll be right asway against soon, though 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:31.919 I suppose I should warn you I'm spectacularly tedious. Listen 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:34.360 to me too long and you may end up quite 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:41.800 literally bored to death. Who are you, oh, Catherine Sherwin? 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:46.080 I'm a scholar of medieval theology. Sounds dreadful, doesn't it. 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:48.640 I write books that no one reads, about books that 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:51.920 no one has read. My specialty is since Anselm of 0:03:52.000 --> 0:04:00.880 Canterbury and the ontological argument? You familiar um? And why 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.040 would you be? Anselm was a Catholic theologian of the 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:08.600 eleventh century, a thundering, black habited engineer of the Arcanetus 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:13.160 of God. Before he was my research subject, Anselm was 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:16.920 a homegrown obsession of my father's yes, Dad, It was 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:20.200 a bit of an amateur theologian himself. He spent so 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:24.839 many hours pouring over Anselm, Augustine and that whole spectral 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:29.880 faculty of god minded men from ages past. Of course, 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:31.599 when I was a girl, I had about as much 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:33.479 interest in all of that as I had in the 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:38.440 design of seward rains. But I suppose death does have 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:42.800 a way of rearranging one's engrossments. My father died when 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:47.640 I was in my first year at university. He was alone, 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:52.000 alone on one of his meditations, as he called them, 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:55.960 hiking the peak of a mountain in Scotland called khn Aran. 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:02.080 It was a heart attack, or so they assumed. But 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:05.919 would you guess this, He did make it to the top. 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:09.799 They found him there in the cold rocks, in the fog, 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:14.440 as high as the mountain goes. I always liked that 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:18.159 felled by his ambition, but he did make it all 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:23.320 the way up. After he was gone, I found myself 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:25.919 home for Christmas reading through the books and papers in 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:30.159 his study. One story from a book on his desk 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:35.200 that arrested my attention was about Saint Anselm's childhood. Apparently, 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:37.919 as a young boy Anselm had met face to face 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:45.039 with God himself, or so he said. The encounter took 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:48.359 place on top of a mountain called Beccadinona, near his 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:52.560 home town of Aosta in Italy. After the young Anselmo 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:55.880 climbed the cliffs and scrambled over the ice and rocks 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:59.400 to the summit, he was found by a wandering angel 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.479 and ushered into the secret mansion of the Lord, where 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:07.160 they welcomed him with a meal the bread of God. 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:13.200 Now when I read this, I couldn't help but wonder 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:17.120 if Daddy's solitary mountaintop journeys were all in the vain 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:20.120 hope that he would one day stumble into the garden 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:23.640 of a secret manner and be welcomed inside by a 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:29.919 seraphic majordomo and taste the bread of God himself. After 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:33.599 I uncovered this window into my father's obsession, I had 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:36.880 to learn more about Anselm. It was in this that 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.240 I first crossed paths with my life's work and Saint 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:46.040 Anselm's most favorite invention, the ontological argument for the existence 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:50.719 of God. Are you ready for me to prove it 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:58.920 to you? The existence of God? Anselm says, if God exists. 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:03.679 He is the great conceivable being. No being greater could 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:08.559 be imagined. Now, I ask, would the greatest conceivable being 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:12.280 be greater if it existed only in your mind? Or 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:15.120 if it existed both in your mind and in reality. 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:19.120 Surely if the being were real, it would be greater 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:23.360 than if it were only imaginary. Therefore, the imaginary one 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:28.120 is not the greatest. The real one is. Therefore, by definition, 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:33.480 the greatest conceivable being must and does exist, not just 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:41.480 in here but out there. Ah, I take it, you're 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:45.960 not convinced. Some say the same form can be used 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:48.640 to prove the existence of any silly thing, the most 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:54.080 perfect island or the most perfect cup of laps and tea. 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:59.000 But that first night, when I read the proof, I 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:02.520 was flawed. It was late in the evening, and I 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:06.760 was alone in his study, and everything was quiet except 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:09.800 for the crackle of snow falling outside the window. I 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:12.880 walked out into the night and let the snow fall 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:17.240 on my face and melt on my skin. Every sensation 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:21.560 was rapturous. The air around me was bursting with the 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:27.560 life force of the presence previously unknown. I knew there 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:32.720 was a God. I had absolute proof, and that knowledge 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:41.040 meant I would one day see my father again. I 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:45.120 slept fitfully that night, dreaming about strange clouds that gathered 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:48.400 round a mountain top. When I woke in the morning, 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:51.319 I ran to my father's study and read the ontological 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:58.240 argument again. But something was wrong. The words were the same, 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:01.120 but they lacked the force of certainty they had the 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:05.840 night previous. To my horror, I was no longer persuaded. 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:09.960 Instead of absolute proof, I was left with a humiliating 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:13.720 sense of the hollowness of it all, like the whole 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:16.480 thing had been a mere word game, some kind of 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:20.560 clever trick of grammar. I couldn't say what was wrong 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:24.439 with Anselm's argument, but it just didn't feel right at all. 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:32.280 And that's where I stayed. For thirty years. I became 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:36.440 a scholar of Saint Anselm. I under a professorship at Oxford, married, 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.640 had children, sent them off to university to foster their 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:43.520 own obsessions. I wrote several books about Anselm, dozens of 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:47.920 articles on the subject of the ontological argument, its modern proponents, 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:52.240 and so on and so on, bloody blaody blah. But 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:54.920 as many in my profession know, though they dare not 0:09:55.080 --> 0:10:00.920 confess expertise has diminishing returns. In all all those years 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:06.160 and through all that study, I never once again found 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.640 what I was searching for that moment that night, where 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:13.880 I knew in my bones the ontological argument was sound, 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:23.480 and I knew he orri it was out there. This 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:27.760 rather boring life of flapping dust jackets and compiling endnotes 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:31.840 went on until one day, at an academic conference, I 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:37.120 was approached by another professor, not of theology or medieval studies, 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:42.640 but of biochemistry. I'd just given a presentation on modern 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:46.480 challenges on the ontological argument, and she met me afterwards 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:48.280 to see if I would like to chat over a 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:53.840 cup of tea. Her name was Professor Raymond. She was 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:58.240 a dashing woman with long black hair and livid eyes, 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:03.400 and her attention was dangerously exciting. I could hardly say no. 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:10.400 Raymard led me to a secluded corner in the college's library. 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:13.880 Once we were snuggled away in our little den, to 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:17.800 my astonishment, she narrated that she had one night long 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:23.040 ago become absolutely convinced that the ontological argument had force, 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:26.600 only to find upon waking the next morning that she 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:30.520 was once again doubtful. But she had never been able 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:35.000 to shake the memory of the Catharsis, the almost psychedelic 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:39.160 arising to a second substance of life that came from 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:46.440 that one night when it seemed true. Since then, she 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:49.160 had thought about the argument every day, but with a 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:52.880 different sort of lens than I had. Raymond asked me, 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:54.640 suppose that. 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:58.120 The argument is at bottom correct, and that it does 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:02.600 prove the greatest conceivable being must exist in reality out there? 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:06.160 Why are we so quick to assume we know what 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:10.240 the other qualities of the greatest conceivable being are? Might 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:14.079 not our idea of greatness be an illusion, a biological 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:19.440 contingency based on our ancestral environment. For example, we believe 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:22.679 the greatest conceivable being to be the biggest because it 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:26.440 is cooked into our animal brains that bigger beasts win 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:31.120 over smaller ones in a fight. But sweet aside the 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:35.880 preferences of generous Homo sapiens and ask, from the perspective of, say, 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:41.080 an atom of hydrogen, what are the qualities of the 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:48.000 greatest conceivable being? Might bound cell be proving the existence 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:51.560 of a different kind of being altogether? And if so, 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:55.959 what are those qualities that are the greatest as conceivable 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.920 by the universe, the true superlatives, if you will. 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:07.240 This stirred something both thrilling and frightening in me. I 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:10.080 remembered for the first time in years, the dream I 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:15.200 had about the clouds round the mountain top. Anyway, Raymond 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:18.360 had a theory about our mutual obsession with Anselm's argument 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:23.760 that to truly grasp the proof through ontology requires not 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:29.880 just an intellectual understanding, but an experience. To use the 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:33.720 analogy of an alien life form from the burning, sulfurous planet, 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:39.400 who could never understand the wetness of water, no matter 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:41.880 how many papers it read on the chemical properties of 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.320 H two O. The wetness must be seen with the eyes, 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:49.360 and felt with the skin, and tasted with the tongue. 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:53.280 And whom you've had the experience of a damp cloth 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:57.400 wrung out and dripping on your toes, you don't understand 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:04.080 what water is. After all, didn't Anselm himself taste of 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:07.880 the bread of God. This seemed true enough to me. 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:11.760 I'd spent years trying to recreate the experience of that 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:15.080 night in my father's study, and I didn't know anything 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:23.400 that could conjure it again. Well, she did, Remard had 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:27.640 in her laboratory happened to isolate a compound called seven 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:33.560 methyl ionamine. This molecule was an enzymatic byproduct of a 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:37.040 species of alpine lichen that grew on rocks above the 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:40.880 tree line in certain mountain ranges. It just so happened. 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:44.240 She noticed that this molecule was similar in structure to 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:48.200 a number of other molecules that are known as ensogens, 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:53.480 those used in religious ceremonies to bring messages from the gods. 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:56.360 She said that she had, on more than one occasion 0:14:56.400 --> 0:15:00.280 happened to ingest a significant amount of this compound, and 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:04.400 she believed it had given her profound insights into the 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:11.840 ontological argument and the being to which it pointed naturally. 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:15.120 I asked what these insights were. She said that they 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:17.880 were difficult to put into words. She said, I would 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:21.200 need to see for myself. I would need to wring 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:26.080 the cloth to understand what it meant for water to 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:32.960 be wet. So I took what she offered me. It 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:36.520 was a white powder in a small plastic bag. She 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.360 gave me a dosy'ch advisory said she'd be in touch. 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:45.120 I mulled over it for a while. I'd never taken 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.480 drugs of any sort, not even a puff of grass. 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:50.960 In my school years, I only drank wine at Christmas time, 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:55.320 but I felt I owed it to myself, or perhaps 0:15:55.360 --> 0:16:01.680 to Daddy, to understand what Raymard was hinting at. It 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:04.200 was a night my husband was away on some silly 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:07.400 mission of his, collecting fossils in Devon or some such 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:11.640 so I had the house to myself. I dipped candles. 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:16.480 Isn't that humorous? Why did I like candles? It just 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:19.920 seemed the thing to do. But I only had half 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:22.920 a dozen or so in the house. So there they were, 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:25.840 my six candles, melting on the sofa table while I 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:33.040 waited for the drug to take effect. I didn't know 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:36.240 what to expect, and for a long time nothing happened. 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:40.640 I rubbed my toes on the carpet and took deep 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:46.880 breaths and waited to feel something. I confess after some 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.880 time I grew rather bored. I began to wonder if 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:53.160 the powder had lost its potency, or if Reymard had 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:56.240 been pulling some kind of prank. For a while, I 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:59.320 became convinced this must be the case, and that I 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:03.280 had just swallowed several grams of baby powder dissolved in 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:06.560 a cup of tea. I was so embarrassed, What a 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:11.560 stupid thing to even try. But then, while I was 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:15.520 sitting there, feeling sorry for myself, I witnessed something quite 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:19.320 strange in my border. I'd flicked on the television, which 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:22.600 was showing a football match, but at some point, without 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:27.880 me noticing, everyone had stopped playing. No one was running 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:31.320 or kicking, no line up for a penalty, and they 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:34.520 weren't leaving the pitch either. They were just standing there, 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.679 all of them, stock still on the green. The crowd 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:43.000 in the stands had fallen silent, and one by one 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:46.600 all of the players began looking up up into the 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:51.320 sky at what. I had no idea. I suppose at 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:56.040 the camera hovering over the pitch, because our eyes met. 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:00.280 I was looking at them, and they were looking to me. 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:05.440 No one moved. For what seemed like ages, they gazed 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:09.159 into my eyes. I said to myself, now that is 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:13.399 rather odd. Then one of the football announcers answered me. 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:19.280 He said, scarcely ever happens. And I said, what makes 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:22.320 them do that? And the man at the microphone said, 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:27.119 they're showing respect for the arrival of an important guest. 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:32.600 I said, well, I suppose I'm flattered, and he said, 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:39.000 I'm not talking about you. The hare stood up on 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:41.919 the back of my neck. I felt jets of cold 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:45.800 water rushing over my bones. I swirled round to look 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:50.440 behind me, but saw nothing except the blank wall. However, 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:54.679 I knew there was someone in the house with me. 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:59.600 I didn't know who it was. I said, I'm afraid, 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:04.640 but the announcer wouldn't reply again. The football players all 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:07.919 stood there, looking right at me, not smiling, saying nothing, 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:14.480 just watching what I was going to do. Suddenly, they 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:18.119 all raised their arms and pointed upward to the sky. 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:24.479 Without warning, the telly switched off. Then all the lights 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:28.639 began to grow dim. The lamp bulbs faded to gray, 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:32.119 and even the flames on my half dozen candles shrunk 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:38.200 down to mruborn pinpricks of light. I stood and they 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:42.040 all snuffed out completely. The only light left was what 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:47.240 I could see up the staircase from the second story. 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:50.920 It was as if the tide of darkness were rising 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:58.520 through the house. In that darkness, there were things. I 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:02.200 could hear them, soft squeaks and shuffling on the wood 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:05.600 of the floor, like little infants crawling towards me to play, 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:12.440 But without laughter or even breath, I lunged for the 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:15.160 staircase and climbed it into the safety of the light. 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:17.920 But no sooner had I come into the upper hall 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:22.119 than the lamps there began to fade as well. The 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:26.040 dark flood was rising evermore, driving me up and up. 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:29.640 I heard the crawling of the creatures. Now upon the stairs, 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:33.639 How could I go any higher? Then I looked to 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:37.200 the ceiling and saw, yes, in the little crack around 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:38.919 the door to the loft, there was a glow of 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:43.480 yellow light. I snatched the chain, leave it down the door, 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:46.080 and scurried off the ladder as fast as I could. 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:56.440 The loft was lit with a single yellow light bulb. 0:20:57.160 --> 0:21:01.320 The shadows were throbbing, and there in the just within 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:06.520 reach of the light, there it was the stack of 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:12.359 things from Daddy's office. I tore open the boxes and 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:16.359 began paging moniately through the papers inside. These were not 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:19.400 my father's books, which were now part of my own library, 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:23.600 but his notes and his diaries. I blazed through the pages, 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:26.000 searching for something that would make sense of it all. 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:29.199 I said out loud, what is it you want to 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:36.640 show me? And Then a voice, speaking from a darkened 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:46.719 corner of the loft whispered, what shood dear. At that moment, 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:49.919 the tattered notebook in my hand fell open to a 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:53.119 page where my father had made a long diary entry 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:57.280 about plans for one of his meditations, a mountain hike 0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:02.200 at Ben Lower's. He noted his transportation, his packing list, 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:04.919 the books he would take with him, et cetera, et cetera. 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:09.760 But after his return from the mountain, the entry was 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:14.400 only two words, written with such force his pen had 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:25.760 cut through the page. It said most ancient. After this, 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:29.119 I have very little memory of that night. I know 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:32.119 there was something else. The man in my house told 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:36.960 me something important, but I couldn't recall beyond that, only 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:40.800 faint sensations of fibers, like soft hair brushing against my 0:22:40.960 --> 0:23:27.760 skin and hearing a melody ah. When I woke the 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:30.960 next morning, I was in a rather strange position, blank 0:23:31.000 --> 0:23:33.520 curled on the floor of my son's bedroom, with a 0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:36.639 vague sense of discomfort in my mouth and a taste 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:41.239 of salt on my tongue. When I went to wash up, 0:23:41.320 --> 0:23:43.680 I discovered the source of the taste in my mouth, 0:23:44.080 --> 0:23:47.000 which was an unexpected gap in the molars on the 0:23:47.000 --> 0:23:50.359 lower left side of my jaw. I searched around the 0:23:50.359 --> 0:23:54.159 house for the missing tooth to no avail, but no 0:23:54.240 --> 0:23:57.320 sense wailing about a lost tooth. Here and there. I 0:23:57.520 --> 0:24:01.840 was exhilarated about what had been revealed to me, the 0:24:02.480 --> 0:24:08.440 most Ancient. I tried to call Raymond on the telephone 0:24:08.440 --> 0:24:12.520 that very morning. Could it be that most Ancient was 0:24:12.520 --> 0:24:16.920 one of her true superlatives? Had I and Daddy before 0:24:16.960 --> 0:24:20.480 me somehow discovered one of the objective properties of the 0:24:20.480 --> 0:24:25.479 greatest conceivable being. It's hard to express how true and 0:24:25.640 --> 0:24:30.280 how important this discovery felt. I was tingling all over, 0:24:32.080 --> 0:24:35.880 but alas Raymond's telephone rang and rang and rang without answers, 0:24:35.920 --> 0:24:41.000 so I couldn't share what I'd found. It was, I 0:24:41.000 --> 0:24:45.960 think the loneliest I had ever been ah, but I 0:24:46.080 --> 0:24:49.359 was ravenous to learn more. A few nights later, I 0:24:49.440 --> 0:24:52.680 fabricated a story to feed my husband about an overnight 0:24:52.720 --> 0:24:56.720 trip to visit relatives on my side. Instead, I set 0:24:56.720 --> 0:25:00.160 out to have another meeting with the presents. This time, 0:25:00.280 --> 0:25:03.000 I wanted to learn as much as I possibly could, 0:25:03.320 --> 0:25:06.879 so I ignored Raymard's dosage instructions and took the rest 0:25:07.000 --> 0:25:14.159 of what she had given me. In one go, I 0:25:14.240 --> 0:25:16.439 had landed at the ruins of an abbey in the 0:25:16.440 --> 0:25:19.800 East Country, thinking this setting would aid in perceiving the 0:25:19.880 --> 0:25:23.800 qualities of Anselm's God. Of course, I had to do 0:25:23.840 --> 0:25:26.240 a bit of fence jumping, since the grounds were closed 0:25:26.240 --> 0:25:30.080 to tourists after sunset, but I didn't think much of it. 0:25:30.480 --> 0:25:32.760 Little was left but a broken wall on the southern 0:25:32.840 --> 0:25:36.080 face and a row of stone archways, all of it 0:25:36.119 --> 0:25:38.480 now covered in moss so green it seemed to glow 0:25:38.480 --> 0:25:44.760 in the dark. I took the powder and waited, writing 0:25:44.800 --> 0:25:47.240 meanwhile in my journal, which I had brought along so 0:25:47.320 --> 0:25:52.879 I could record my experience despite my previous encounter. It 0:25:52.920 --> 0:25:55.919 took long enough that I began to wonder, if you 0:25:56.000 --> 0:25:57.800 may laugh at me for this, But so be it. 0:25:58.480 --> 0:26:02.040 I wondered if it had ever done anything in the 0:26:02.080 --> 0:26:05.200 first place, and the source of my previous experience had 0:26:05.200 --> 0:26:08.600 been nothing but my own mind, perhaps in the effort 0:26:08.680 --> 0:26:14.200 of arriving at some form of madness. Oh but as 0:26:14.240 --> 0:26:17.679 I put all this down to paper, I began to 0:26:17.720 --> 0:26:27.280 hear voices singing a quiet melody that was unlike any 0:26:27.400 --> 0:26:30.919 chance I'd ever heard before. I tried to sing along, 0:26:45.359 --> 0:26:53.480 and then I was somewhere else. Entirely the abbey was gone. 0:26:54.320 --> 0:26:58.399 I was floating up, as if clutching to a trail 0:26:58.520 --> 0:27:04.720 of steam rising in the sky. But I wasn't simply 0:27:04.840 --> 0:27:11.239 rising up. I was rising backwards, backwards in time. I 0:27:11.280 --> 0:27:15.960 saw the earth below my feet, with civilization retreating, every 0:27:16.040 --> 0:27:19.320 road fading to grass, and then grass fading to stone, 0:27:19.359 --> 0:27:22.480 and then stone to icy waters, and then icy waters 0:27:22.520 --> 0:27:28.680 to entrails of flame, a landscape of illimitable, writhing worms 0:27:28.720 --> 0:27:35.520 made of molten rock. The earth glowed like a forge, 0:27:35.760 --> 0:27:42.720 and I was silent. And then he was there with me, 0:27:43.840 --> 0:27:48.320 the presence from the shadows in my loft, the one 0:27:48.320 --> 0:27:52.080 who would show me the way. I asked him, Are 0:27:52.119 --> 0:27:55.920 you going to welcome me into the mansion of God? 0:27:56.640 --> 0:28:07.159 The voice said, The sterile earth burned below us. I 0:28:07.240 --> 0:28:14.439 asked what we were looking at? He said rest. I 0:28:14.480 --> 0:28:18.159 gathered my wits and remembered why I had come. I 0:28:18.240 --> 0:28:22.720 asked him of the ontological argument. I asked him what 0:28:22.920 --> 0:28:25.840 it was I had understood the night in my father's 0:28:25.840 --> 0:28:31.200 study that I could no longer see now, And damn 0:28:31.200 --> 0:28:33.360 it to hill as I tell it, I can't explain 0:28:33.440 --> 0:28:36.639 precisely what he said. He did whisper something to me 0:28:37.160 --> 0:28:40.720 from just behind my ears, so that I could feel 0:28:40.720 --> 0:28:47.440 his breadth through my hair, something so so not words, 0:28:47.480 --> 0:28:52.280 more like a melody, a melody that somehow in itself 0:28:52.400 --> 0:28:56.160 carried a logic. And I knew. I knew in some 0:28:56.520 --> 0:29:01.200 sense it contained a hidden premise that made the ontological 0:29:01.400 --> 0:29:06.760 argument irrefuteable. I could almost put it into words. It 0:29:06.840 --> 0:29:10.240 was right behind the veil in the back of my mind. 0:29:10.840 --> 0:29:13.160 How I failed around for my notebook so I would 0:29:13.160 --> 0:29:15.040 be ready to write it down as soon as I 0:29:15.080 --> 0:29:18.520 worked it out. But then then below, as the earth 0:29:18.560 --> 0:29:23.000 opened its mouth a chasm of unimaginable heat and darkness, 0:29:24.240 --> 0:29:38.480 I asked, Must I go in there? He whispered. A 0:29:38.640 --> 0:29:42.760 change came over me, the beginning of an unfolding of 0:29:42.840 --> 0:29:49.280 sensation into impossible dimensions of strangeness and understanding and pain, 0:29:49.880 --> 0:29:57.640 thought without meaning, sight without light. There was an infinite more, 0:29:57.760 --> 0:30:05.400 but I could not remember it. I came to the 0:30:05.440 --> 0:30:09.360 next morning with a policeman gruptly shaking me awake. Had 0:30:09.400 --> 0:30:11.160 slept in the grass at the crest of the hill, 0:30:11.280 --> 0:30:14.240 somewhere beyond the abbey. I dealt with the policeman quickly 0:30:14.240 --> 0:30:19.640 as I could, and darted off to my car leave me. 0:30:19.680 --> 0:30:24.400 Through the pages of my journal, I'd left several indecipherable illustrations, 0:30:24.800 --> 0:30:27.480 along with scribbled notes from the part of the night 0:30:27.680 --> 0:30:32.840 I could not recall. One note said the terrible Angel 0:30:33.440 --> 0:30:38.640 the Majordomo. Another said the bread of God. It is 0:30:38.800 --> 0:30:44.920 of God, but it is not bread. And finally, at 0:30:44.920 --> 0:30:47.680 the end of my notes I had written with such 0:30:47.840 --> 0:30:53.680 force that my pen tore through the pages most secret. 0:30:55.440 --> 0:30:58.719 Upon reading this, my heart raised, Could this be another 0:30:58.800 --> 0:31:04.200 of the true superlityis of the greatest conceivable being? It 0:31:04.280 --> 0:31:07.440