“It sounds quite tempting.”
“Altering one’s thought processes is not the same thing as purifying them! Kurt, this will lead you to drug addiction!”
“That’s not what I meant by tempting, Oskar. Yes, I would be afraid to lose myself in it. I’m searching for, let us say, less chemical means. The human body has resources of its own for achieving this end. While I seek to open a new door of perception, it’s not by distorting my senses but by detaching myself from them.”
“In the first place, you would have to believe that there is a reality separate from the one captured by our senses!”
“We have talked about this a hundred times, Oskar. Mathematical objects are one aspect of this other reality. They form a universe apart, to which we barely have access.”
“It is a world you have the good fortune to frequent, Mr. Gödel.”
“Only as a temporary visitor, I’m sorry to say. Sometimes I hear voices when I work. These voices belong to mathematical beings. I would almost say … to angels. But my friends seem to get coughing fits when I mention the subject.”
Kurt was being unfair, particularly to Morgenstern, who had always greeted his fanciful ideas with unlimited indulgence. Finding him deaf to his flights of fancy, Kurt likened Oskar to a blind man who would deny the existence of colors on the grounds that he had never seen any.
Theolonius stripped off his jacket, giving us a good look at the shirt stretched over his pectoral muscles. The ladies smiled, half mocking and half stirred by this objective reality that their own men had long since given up maintaining. The hunk from California couldn’t get over his good fortune: he had assumed the role — not without courage — of the lunch party’s exotic black sheep and found an ally in the logician, a paragon of rationality. I wasn’t entirely surprised. Kurt felt that nothing should be discarded because of the dogma of reason. What seemed absurd today might become tomorrow’s truth.
“I, too, believe in angels. Every human being has an invisible and benevolent companion.”
“Gödel is not talking about harps and golden curls, Theolonius. For him it’s more a philosophical principle.”
“You are blunting my ideas, Charles, because they terrify you! I sense the existence of a suprasensory world and a specific ‘eye’ of the mind fitted to distinguish it. We possess a sense capable of apprehending abstraction. A sense similar to hearing or smell. Otherwise, how can we explain mathematical intuition?”
“Are you imagining an actual physical organ?”
“Why not? Certain mystical philosophers believed the pineal gland to be the seat of knowledge.”
“Among the Hindus the third eye, the instrument of clairvoyance, belongs to Shiva. No doubt it is the third eye of the man of the future. The pineal gland could be its internal appendage, still in dormancy.”
Hulbeck pointed out testily that the pineal gland was a hormonal regulator, not a cherub-detecting radar. By way of proof he advanced the dissections he had performed as a medical student. I didn’t see how it supported his assertion, but I enjoyed our unpredictable Dadaist’s fulminations against “that crap about a third eye.” Charles, who was overly fond of taking a polemical stance, sided against what might have been his own conviction. It was delicious to see him forced into the conservative role by his need to be in opposition. Theolonius sipped his whey, while my husband kneaded his stomach ostentatiously.
“Whoever has experienced the effulgence of mathematics, the conversation of the angels, will try to gain access to that realm again. And if I have to pass for a madman, Hulbeck, so be it.”
The angel of silence and the demon of embarrassment both descended on the table in the garden. Kurt’s friends didn’t like it when he openly embraced the common verdict about him. If he kept notions of this kind to himself, they would remain socially acceptable follies. If he stated them within a framework of logic and personal belief, the label of madness might still be avoided. But when he described himself as a madman, no one could hide behind a screen of politeness.
Penny came and laid her soft head on my lap. I patted it while looking for a way to defuse the situation. Kitty, no dullard, opted for false naïveté, as does every woman accustomed to pacifying warring spirits.
“I notice a depressing corollary to this assertion. If I’m going to believe in angels, then I also have to allow for the existence of evil spirits.”
“The ancient texts tell us that there exist an infinite number of evil spirits, and only seventy-two angels. I belong under the demonic auspices of Buer, a second-class demon. He champions philosophy, logic, and the properties of medicinal plants. Second class! I’m a little put out!”
“Do you believe in the deity, Mr. Gödel?”
“Yes. I consider myself a theist.”
At that point in my life, I almost preferred the folkloric aspect of religion to the core of faith itself: I liked Mass, its pomp and ritual. Kurt had bridled somewhat when I installed a Madonna at the end of the garden. In Protestant territory, I was declaring my Catholic roots. In any case, a little decorative devoutness couldn’t hurt. My husband leafed through the Bible from his bed on Sunday mornings. His faith was no doubt more exacting than mine.
“An awkward position for a modern philosopher.”
“It all depends on whether we are talking about faith or religion. Ninety percent of philosophers today believe that the task of philosophy is to expunge religion from people’s minds.”
“From what I’ve read, Kurt, you frequented the intellectuals of the Vienna Circle. They wanted to eradicate subjectivity. Even intuition. Isn’t that ironic? In the very city that gave birth to psychoanalysis?”
“I had friends and colleagues among the logical positivists, but I never declared myself a member. And I don’t think their work can be reduced to that. Furthermore, I would prefer to remain ‘Mr. Gödel’ to you.”
Overconfident, Theolonius had crossed the yellow line. Kurt was not allergic to the potty ideas of others, but his interlocutor’s two lapses were enough to make him withdraw into his shelclass="underline" his overfamiliarity, and the fact that he had studied up on Kurt’s life before meeting him.
Oppenheimer, still a little dazed from his nap, came to join us at the table.
“I don’t object to the idea of analysis. As long as it doesn’t get me into trouble!”
“There is nothing shameful about it. Our friend Pauli has been undergoing psychoanalysis for a long time. He has maintained a correspondence with Jung for years.”
Oppenheimer was patting his pockets fruitlessly in search of cigarettes. I handed him mine. Kitty, too, was out.
“I am still debating with myself over the scientific legitimacy of your profession, Charles. The psychoanalytic pantheon, after all, is not that far from the world of angels we were discussing earlier.”
Oppie was a much tougher adversary than Theolonius Jessup. Hulbeck, who was decidedly not having a good day, decided against entering into a confrontation.
“Would you tell us about Jung’s ideas?”