“It was not induced by the machine, and it was not symbolism,” said Montgomery. “I can tell you exactly what it was.”
“Please do.”
“I wasn’t quite sure of myself even after a whole day with this experience,” said Montgomery slowly. “I spent a couple of hours afterwards brushing up on my psychoanalysis a bit, to see if it was creditable in terms of your field.
“I find your authorities agreeing almost universally that the psyche of the individual has an unknown beginning and a long history antedating the event of its physical birth. My experience with the Mirror confirms it. I was a living, responsive entity at the time my mother’s organism tried to destroy me. The event I spoke of was a threatened miscarriage. Through the endocrine flow that passed between us I recognized that I was being killed. Poisons were beginning to circulate within me and essential elements withheld.
“There was the impression that the maternal body was too weak to support me. My growth demands were too great, and the only way it could survive was by destroying me. And then, on a biochemical level, I made a bargain. My organism agreed with the mother organism to accept less, to limit my demands for sustenance in exchange for the right to live. The bargain was made and kept.
“That was my first major piece of education. I learned that in order to live I must limit myself, always take less than I need, diminish myself to the subsistence level in every way. That was a pattern I have maintained throughout my life. I have never dared create — to do so meant death. I learned that long ago as a fetus, and the lesson remained until today.”
Dr. Spindem took a deep breath. “Major, you leave me no doubt about the absolute danger of this Institute. You are treading in the most dangerous areas of human experience. Of course we admit that the human psyche does not come into existence at birth. But it is utterly impossible for you to know that the things you have described ever took place. Even admitting that these fantasies are your own and not the induction of this machine, it is mental suicide to attempt your own interpretation. Only a skilled and experienced professional mind could possibly provide you with a proper understanding of them.”
“In the Forties,” said Montgomery, “one of your own people, the Hungarian psychoanalyst, N. Fodor, showed a practical method of reaching the pre-birth unconscious and de-educating the individual in the lessons learned there which are no longer applicable to post-birth life. You cannot deny the validity of it. The Mirror is simply an extension and improvement over Dr. Fodor’s findings. Tomorrow I shall prove it to you.”
“How?” Spindem demanded.
“Tomorrow I shall create something for the first time in my life. I shall create an airfoil which will revolutionize high-altitude flight.”