Abraham looked at Jobran, who had removed Sophia’s locket from his pocket and was examining it. He then said, “It’s finally occurred to me, that Candara might have guessed that Sophia called me ‘JAW’ because that’s the way I had it inscribed on the back: ‘To Sophia, with love, JAW’—assuming that she could have surreptitiously read it that quickly, in the semi-darkness.”
“And so the last shred of her mystique falls,” Ted said solemnly, pouring himself another glass of wine from the newly-arrived bottle.
Jobran said, in a more conciliatory tone, “I think that people who claim to be mediums may have some genuine insights about teaching others how to live more ‘spiritually,’ and they may have some emotional insight into people’s personalities—this is all completely independent of whether or not they are literally ‘talking with the dead.’” He took a sip of his wine, and added, “I mean, there are tens of millions of people who consult mediums; they must be getting some benefit from it.”
Ted replied, “If you ask me, I still think it’s nothing but crap.”
Abraham said, in a frustrated tone, “Then tell me; do you ever think that there might be something going on in this planet, in this universe, besides the purely physical? When you are in the great outdoors, in the wilderness, don’t you ever think that there might be something that is, well, underlying everything? Some sort of force of creativity, and intelligence?”
Ted gulped down his glass of wine, and poured himself another glass, after offering to refill the others’ glasses, which they declined. Somewhat drunkenly, he said, “Well, if you two don’t want any more wine, pardon me if I indulge myself.” He picked up the wineglass, and pretended to examine it carefully. Then he said, “Personally, Rabbi, I’m not one of those tree-huggers that goes out and ‘communes with Nature,’ and all that bullshit.” He put down his glass carefully, and looked at Abraham earnestly, and said, “But on those rare occasions when I happen to find myself out in the wilderness, there are two primary thoughts that I have: One, that Evolution through Natural Selection is the most magnificent and stupendous conception that the human mind has ever had; and Two, that if there was a loving and benevolent God, why did he put so damn many stickers and poisonous plants in the world?” He laughed heartily at his own joke, and took a long gulp of wine.
Abraham refused to give in on the point, and continued to press his attack. “What was it that philosopher Immanuel Kant said: ‘Two things fill me with wonder: The starry heavens above, and the moral law within.’ Don’t even the wonders of the night skies make you feel anything…well, transcendent?”
Looking smug, Ted said, “Sure, the starry heavens above make me feel something; they make me feel that we are small and insignificant, and make me realize how ridiculous it is to think that there is anything like a God who has every hair on our heads numbered, and who is making sure that every sparrow that falls to the ground has divine permission.” He raised his wineglass in a toast to Abraham and Jobran, and said, “I’m sorry to inform you of this, gentlemen, but as Bertrand Russell said, we’re just a cosmic accident, a ‘fortuitous concourse of atoms,’ and nothing more. That’s it; end of story.” And he drained his glass of wine, and immediately refilled it.
Jobran now asked Ted, with genuine curiosity, “How about your relationships with women? Haven’t you ever felt that while you were with a woman you truly loved, and that loves you, that you were actually reaching out and almost touching a love that goes beyond itself? That the physical attraction between these two persons was actually pointing the way to something that is beyond the physical?”
Ted looked at Jobran with bleary eyes, and said, “I don’t know what the shit you’re talking about.” He straightened himself up, and pronounced, in a practiced voice, “To me, sex is the supreme biological pleasure only because it evolved that way. Nature made fucking feel great so that it would encourage us to reproduce, because the species that reproduces the most is the species that survives.”
Jobran and Abraham looked at each other and shook their heads, saying nothing.
Ted suddenly looked at his watch, and said, “Hey, it’s getting late. I need to get home and download my photos—I can’t wait to see the expression on that phony bitch’s face, captured in all its digital glory—so I can get them ready for a SPECIAL EDITION of our Stentoria Skeptic’s Newsletter.”
Abraham started to rise, and said, “I’ll drive you home.”
Ted raised his hand, and said, “No need, no need; I see a taxi right across the street that looks like he’s dying for a fare.” He stood up, gave a good-natured salute to Abraham, and said, “Our differences aside, Rabbi, you’re not a bad guy—for a professional religionist.” Then he held out his hand for Jobran to shake, and said, “I had fun tonight; I love poking holes in these psychic phonies’ stories; it’s what I live and breathe for.” The two shook hands, Ted took a last long swig of wine directly from the bottle, and departed.
Jobran and Abraham sat quietly, each one alone in his thoughts. Finally, Abraham said, “Well, maybe it’s just the rabbinical ‘religionist’ streak in me coming out, but I must say that I don’t exactly agree with Ted on most of these issues.”
“Me neither,” Jobran said, shaking his head. “I may not be able to articulate exactly what it is that I do believe about God and ultimate reality, but at least I can point to Ted, and definitely say, ‘I don’t believe that!’”
Abraham nodded, and was silent for a while. Finally, he said in a quiet voice, “I already know the answer to this, but I just have to hear it from your own lips: You’re absolutely certain that Candara didn’t conjure up Sophia? There’s not even a chance, right?”
Sadly, Jobran said, “Not even the slightest chance. Unless Sophia’s memory was totally erased, she would have remembered the fiasco of our wedding night; and of course, if her memory had been totally erased, it leaves me wondering how in the world she ever would have been able to recognize me so readily.”
Abraham smiled, and said, “It probably had something to do with the fact that you were the one paying for the session,” and they both laughed heartily.
“So where do you go from here?” Abraham asked. “Do you want to try another medium? There are lots of other ones out there, much more well-known than our local one, who are probably not so obviously bogus.”
Jobran shook his head, and said, “I don’t see much point. I’m actually finding myself inclined to agree with Ted about the validity of spirit mediums.” He thought for a moment, then said, “Although I’m not sure I would even claim that Candara is a conscious and knowing fraud. There’s nothing ‘phony’ about researching your clients, and why shouldn’t this information appear during the course of your psychic work, even if only unconsciously? Even the thing about my initials on the locket, even if she did read them, maybe it only happened subconsciously, and it just popped out of her mind while she was in her ‘trance.’ But I know from what Jana told me about her, and the impressions I got from listening to her radio program, that she really seems to believe in what she does. One need not even doubt that mediums may genuinely believe that they have the ability to communicate with the spirit realm—but their belief doesn’t necessarily mean that it is actually taking place.”
Jobran looked genuinely troubled, and said, “Besides, while Candara seems sincere enough, how could one ever prove such beliefs? Mediumship is similar to channeling in this regard; so much of the value of what is said depends on the veracity of the person who is providing the information. People such as these aren’t claiming to simply be providing philosophical opinions they arrived at on their own; they are claiming that they got this information from supernatural sources. Sure, I know that they all issue disclaimers, saying that, ‘Just take this information, and if you find it useful, use it; otherwise, you can choose to ignore it.’ But it’s not just up to us—if a supposed ‘spirit entity’ truly has experienced
death, then what they have to say about it is extremely important; whereas if this ‘information’ is no more than the medium’s imagination and creativity, then the information given is worthless, and may actually be leading you away from the truth.”
Abraham said, “That’s a good point.”
Jobran went on, “Probably the most famous medium in this century is Edgar Cayce, the so-called ‘sleeping prophet,’ who went into trances and prescribed diagnoses and cures for the medical conditions of people during his ‘readings.’ He started this after he was himself hypnotized and then prescribed his own cure from laryngitis, and he became widely known and ultimately did more than 9,000 of such readings on medical questions—and 5,000 on other subjects— many of them without even seeing the person he was ‘reading’ for, and communicating with them only by mail. New Agers sometimes make a big deal out of the fact that he was from Kentucky, Alabama and Virginia, was an active churchgoer who taught Bible in Sunday School, yet he had readings that go into great detail about reincarnation, karma, Atlantis, astrology, and other occultic topics; however, Cayce was influenced by people like Arthur Lammers—who had studied the occult and Theosophy—and it is only since the time that Cayce met Lammers that reincarnation and similar doctrines enter his readings. Anyway, his family kept stenographic records of all his readings, and after his death his son Hugh Lynn Cayce and their ‘Association for Research and Enlightenment’ continued to propagate these teachings. Cayce claimed that he had no medical knowledge whatsoever, yet thousands of people absolutely swear to the efficacy of his proposed cures, not to mention his knowledge of anatomy.” Jobran looked at Abraham and shook his head, and said, “Of course, it’s easier to get subjective medical conditions ‘right’ than to get more objective predictions right, and Cayce had lots of failed prophecies of the second type: He predicted that Atlantis would arise from the ocean, that much of California and Japan would sink under water, and similar things, for example.”
Abraham nodded, and said, “But in the final analysis, the fraudulence of a given medium does not prove that there is no reality to the phenomenon.”
Jobran’s eyes looked sunken, and he said in a strained voice, “And I would be lying to you if I didn’t say that I truly wanted to believe that mediumship could work. Even tonight, sitting there…for a brief moment, I thought that maybe….” He stopped for a moment, until he had regained control of his emotions. “Maybe it would be different if Sophia had had a longer and more protracted illness, so that…her death wasn’t so unexpected…but the speed with which she died left me feeling that there was so much unsaid between us that needed to be said.” He clenched his fists together, and said in a voice filled with pain and anguish, “I sometimes think that if I could have just one more 24-hour hour day with Sophia, I could forgive God all of the suffering that I’ve been put through; just because it would help bring a sense of ‘closure’ to our earthly relationship.” Sadly, he shook his head, and added, “Then, I think it would be easier to wait until we had the chance to be reunited again after death.”
Abraham put his hand on his friend’s shoulder sympathetically, and said, “Unfortunately, because people have such desperate needs as you have, it creates a ready-made and willing market for people such as Candara claims to serve.” He took a small sip of his wine, and said, “And, to be quite honest, I think there may even be a sort of psychological benefit that accrues to people that consult people like Candara. In a sense, they’re sort of like psychologists or counselors, who allow you to just talk about your problems, while they pretend to listen. These mediums allow people to think that they’re really able to talk to their beloved departed ones, and it probably does them some psychological good to think so; it allows them to bring that sense of ‘closure’ that you talked about.”
“But of course, that psychological benefit only occurs where the subject actually believes in the powers of the medium,” Jobran said.
Abraham grinned, and said, “But you—you arch-skeptic, you—know better than that.” He paused a moment, then added with a mock-serious expression, “As a rabbi, and as your informal spiritual adviser, I feel compelled to warn you that the there is only one place in the Bible—First Samuel 28—where a medium brought back a dead person, and it didn’t achieve a good result.”
Jobran smiled, and said, “I’ll never consult a medium again, I swear. And as for this time…well, let’s just say, ‘The devil made me do it!’”
This brought a flash of interest into Abraham’s eyes, and he said, “I’m well familiar with your various doubts about God; what about the so-called ‘devil’? Do you believe in old Satan himself?”
Jobran thought for a moment, then said, “Quite frankly, no—although a lot of people offered him as a kind of argument to justify why Sophia had been taken from me. ‘God didn’t take Sophia away from you; the Devil took her away from you.’ But to me the whole ‘devil’ idea solves nothing, since God could obviously prohibit the Devil from doing any of the evil things he is supposed to be doing; so God is either involved actively, or involved by virtue of his own inactivity.” Jobran toyed with the stem of his wineglass, and said, “No, even though it would be easy for me to believe that Sophia was taken away from me at precisely the time when it would cause me the most pain, I still can’t believe that some demonic force is the cause of it. I think it is a case of the absence of the goodness of God—rather than the positive evil of some force such as Satan—that pervades the world, and makes so many things bad. For me, if there were a force at loose in the world ‘as a roaring lion…seeking whom he may devour,’ (1 Pet 5:8) it is hard to explain how there could be so much goodness in the world. How is it even possible for us to find love at all? Although Sophia’s death obviously devastated me personally, if someone were to offer me a magic elixir that would cause me to forget her—and thus all of the pain of our separation, as well—I would absolutely have no interest in taking it. The good times with her were so overwhelmingly beautiful, that if the possibility of pain were the only way I could have experienced it, I wouldn’t change things.”
Abraham nodded, and said, “I’m glad to hear that. This whole ‘the Devil made me do it’ notion is a Christian conception, not a Jewish one. In the Tanakh, ‘satan’ is just another member of the angelic household, who serves God—in Job 1:6, for example—as in effect God’s prosecuting attorney, or as the accuser or adversary of man, which is why modern translations use the term ‘Adversary’ rather than ‘satan.’ And passages such as the 14th chapter of Isaiah are talking about the King of Babylon, not some demonic creature named ‘Lucifer.’ Christians need to read their Bibles more carefully.”
“They do,” Jobran said, with a slight smile. “They just have a bigger Bible than you Jews do.” He yawned, and looked at his watch. “Well, unfortunately, it’s time for me to get to work. You said you can drop me off?” Abraham nodded.
Yawning again as he stood up and reached for his wallet, Jobran said, “Well, I may not know whether or not the devil exists—but jobs that make you go to work at Midnight on Saturday prove to me that Hell certainly exists!”
“Don’t blame your boss,” Abraham said, taking the check out of Jobran’s hand. “The devil probably made him do it,” he said, with a broad grin.
27
PASCAL’S NEW WAGER
Abraham knocked loudly. Jobran immediately answered the door, shook his
hand, and let him in.
“Have a seat,” Jobran said, indicating both the couch and the chair.
“Assuming that I can stay seated, as opposed to jumping up with excitement,” Abraham said, sitting at the end of the couch. He sat expectantly, as if waiting for Jobran to say or do something.
“Want anything to drink?” Jobran said.
“Ice water is fine,” Abraham replied, and Jobran went into the kitchen. Finally, when he could stand it no more, Abraham stood up and followed Jobran into the
kitchen, and said, “Well?”
“Well, what?” Jobran said, with a deadpan expression.
Exasperated, Abraham said, “You said over the phone that you had finally reached the end of your Quest—which I took to mean that you had come to your definitive conclusion about religion and life after death.”
“That’s true,” Jobran said, leading the way back into the living area, and sitting down, his face still expressionless.
Now growing frustrated and angry, Abraham said, “Look, Jobe—you suddenly called me over here, and I dropped everything else and came. I’ve been waiting for half a year to hear your great final conclusion about immortality. So now, you’ve got my undivided attention; what is it? What have you decided?” He sat down on the couch, his face looking tired, and he stared straight at Jobran. “Otherwise, I’ve got things on my own mind that I need to take care of.”
Jobran finally quit trying to mask his excitement, and said in an apologetic tone, “Hey—I’m sorry, Abe; I was just teasing, and trying to build up the suspense; I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time, as well.”
“So don’t drag it out, then,” Abraham said, impatiently. “Get to it. What is it?”
Jobran stood up, and wrung his hands nervously, and said, “Well, first of all, you have to understand that this is partially a ‘pragmatic’ solution; I don’t claim to have found out anything with a demonstrable amount of certainty, or anything like that.”
Abraham nodded, and said, “Sure; the whole thing about religion is somewhat of a crap shoot, anyhow, when you don’t just stick with the beliefs that you were raised in.”
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