The Barnhouse Effect

Let me begin by evidenceing that I dont screw any(prenominal) more about where prof Arthur Barnhouse is hiding than anyvirtuoso else does. provided for iness short, enigmatic message left in my mailbox on Christmas Eve, I have not heard from him since his dis expression a category and a half ago. Whats more, readers of this article leave be disappointed if they express to learn how they skunk bring about the so-call(a)ed Barnhouse Effect. If I were open and willing to give a panache that hole-and-corner(a), I would sure bountiful be roughly issue more important than a psychology instructor.I have been urged to write this get across be origin I did research under the profs direction and because I was the root to learn of his dumbfounding discoery. save while I was his student I was never entrusted with society of how the work forcetal pierces could be released and directed. He was unwilling to trust any matchless with that teaching. I would homogeneous to poin t out that the term Barnhouse Effect is a creation of the democratic press, and was never used by Professor Barnhouse. The name he chose for the phenomenon was dynamopsychism, or force of the mind.I cannot believe that at that place is a civilized person soon enough to be convinced that such a force exists, what with its destructive do on display in every acresal capital. I deliberate hu patchity has al appearances had an inkling that this sort of force does exist. It has been common fancy that some people be luckier than opposites with inanimate objects standardized dice. What Professor Barnhouse did was to interpret that such luck was a measurable force, which in his case could be enormous. By my calculations, the prof was about cubic decimeter-five times more aright than a Nagasaki-type atomic flush it at the time he went into hiding. take aim asloThe Professor is a Dropout.He was not bluffing when, on the eve of Operation cerebrate, he t onetime(a) prevalent Hon us bow-wow Sitting here at the dinner table, Im pretty sure I can flatten anything on earthfrom Joe Louis to the smashing Wall of China. on that point is an understandable tendency to depend upon Professor Barnhouse as a supernatural visitation. The First Church of Barnhouse in Los Angeles has a throng numbering in the thousands. He is god similar in n both appearance nor intellect. The man who disarms the world is single, shorter than the average American male, stout, and averse to exercise. His I.Q. is 143, which is good but when certainly not sensitional. He is quite mortal, about to celebrate his ordinal birth twenty-four hours, and in good health. If he is alone now, the isolation wont bother him in addition much. He was quiet and shy when I knew him, and attended to find more companionship in books and music than in his associations at the college. Neither he nor his powers break heed out align the sphere of Nature. His dynamopsychic radiations are subject to man y move in don material laws that apply in the field of radio. Hardly a person has not now heard the snarl of Barnhouse static on his home receiver.The radiations are affected by sunspots and variations in the ionosphere. However, they differ from ordinary broadcast waves, in some(prenominal) important panaches. Their total energy can be brought to induce on any single point the prof chooses, and that energy is unrelieved by distance. As a weapon, thus, dynamopsychism has an impressive advantage over bacterium and atomic bombs, beyond the detail that it costs nothing to use it enables the professor to single out critical individuals and objects alternatively of slaughtering full-page populations in the butt on of maintaining international equilibrium.As planetary Honus Barker told the House Military Affairs charge Until someone finds Barnhouse, on that point is no defense against the Barnhouse Effect. Efforts to jam or pig out the radiations have failed. Premier Sleza k could have saved himself the fantastic expense of his Barnhouseproof shelter. scorn the shelters twelve-foot-thick lead armor, the premier has been floored twice while in it. There is talk of screening the population for men potentially as right on dynamopsychically as the professor.Senator Warren Foust demanded funds for this purpose last month, with the passionate result He who rules the Barnhouse Effect rules the world Com drop downar Kropotnik verbalize much the kindred thing, so some other(prenominal) costly armaments race, with a new twist, has begun. This race at least has its comical aspects. The worlds best gamblers are existence coddled by governments care so many nu egest physicists. There may be several light speed persons with dynamopsychic talent on earth, myself included. only when, without knowledge of the professors technique, they can never be anything but dice-table despots.With the secret, it would probably take them ten old age to become perilou s weapons. It took the professor that long. He who rules the Barnhouse Effect is Barnhouse and will be for some time. toss offularly, the mount up of Barnhouse is verbalize to have begun a year and a half ago, on the day of Operation Brainstorm. That was when dynamopsychism became significant politically. Actually, the phenomenon was discover in May, 1942, shortly afterward(prenominal)ward the professor turned down a direct commission in the Army and enlisted as an artillery buck private. Like X-rays and vulcanized rubber, dynamopsychism was discovered by accident.From time to time Private Barnhouse was invited to take part in games of jeopardy by his barrack mates. He knew nothing about the games, and usually begged off. But one evening, out of social grace, he agreed to shoot craps. It was either terrible or wonderful that he played, depending upon whether or not you resembling the world as it now is. Shoot sevens, Pop, someone said. So Pop shot sevensten in a row to giv e apart the barracks. He retired to his bunk and, as a mathematical exercise, calculated the odds against his feat on the back of a laundry slip.His chances of doing it, he found, were one in almost ten million Bewildered, he borrowed a braces of dice from the man in the bunk next to his. He act to roll sevens again, but got only the usual assortment of numbers. He lay back for a moment, then resumed his trifling with the dice. He involute ten more sevens in a row. He energy have dismissed the phenomenon with a low whistle. But the professor instead mulled over the circumstances surrounding his two lucky streaks. There was one single factor in common on both occasions, the kindred thought train had flashed through with(predicate) his mind fitting forrader he threw the dice.It was that thought train which aligned the professors brain cells into what has since become the most strong weapon on earth. The pass in the next bunk gave dynamopsychism its inaugural token of re spect. In an understatement certain to bring wry smiles to the faces of the worlds dejected demagogues, the soldier said, Youre hottern a two-dollar pistol, Pop. Professor Barnhouse was all of that. The dice that did his bidding weighed but a few grams, so the forces involved were minute but the unmistakable fact that there were such forces was earth-shaking.Professional caution kept him from revealing his discovery immediately. He wanted more facts and a body of theory to go with them. Later, when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, it was fear that do him hold his peace. At no time were his experiments, as Premier Slezak called them, a bourgeois plot to bail the true democracies of the world. The professor didnt know where they were leading. In time, he came to recognize another startling feature of dynamopsychism its strength increased with use. Within six months, he was able to govern dice thrown by men the length of a barracks distant.By the time of his discharge in 1 945, he could knock bricks abstemious from chimneys three miles forward. Charges that Professor Barnhouse could have won the last war in a minute, but did not care to do so, are absolutely senseless. When the war ended, he had the range and power of a 37-millimeter cannon, perhapscertainly no more. His dynamopsychic powers graduated from the small-arms class only after his discharge and takings to Wyandotte College. I enrolled in the Wyandotte Graduate School two years after the professor had rejoined the faculty. By chance, he was assigned as my thesis adviser.I was discontent about the assignment, for the professor was, in the eyes of both colleagues and students, a more or less ridiculous figure. He missed classes or had lapses of memory during lectures. When I arrived, in fact, his shortcomings had passed from the ridiculous to the intolerable. Were assigning you to Barnhouse as a sort of temporary thing, the dean of social studies told me. He looked apolo bemuseic and per plexed. Brilliant man, Barnhouse, I guess. Difficult to know since his return, perhaps, but his work before the war brought a great tidy sum of credit to our little school. When I reported to the professors laboratory for the first time, what I saw was more distressing than the gossip. Every surface in the live was covered with dust books and apparatus had not been disturbed for months. The professor sat napping at his desk when I entered. The only signs of recent activity were three affluent ashtrays, a pair of scissors, and a morning paper with several items snip from its apparent motion page. As he raised his head to look at me, I saw that his eyes were obliterateed with fatigue. Hi, he said, just cant check outm to get my sleeping done at night. He lighted a cigarette, his hands trembling slightly. You the young man Im speculated to suffice with a thesis? Yes, sir, I said. In proceedings he converted my misgivings to alarm. You an afield veteran? he asked. Yes, sir. Not much left over there, is there? He frowned. Enjoy the last war? No, sir. Look like another war to you? Kind of, sir. What can be done about it? I shrugged. Looks pretty hopeless. He peered at me intently. Know anything about international law, the U. N. , and all that? Only what I pick up from the papers. Same here, he sighed. He showed me a fat crankbook packed with newspaper clippings. Never used to pay any attention to international politics. outright I study them the way I used to study rats in mazes. Everybody tells me the uniform thingLooks hopeless. cryptograph short of a miracle I began. Believe in magic? he asked sharply. The professor fished two dice from his vest pocket. I will audition to roll twos, he said. He rolled twos three times in a row. wiz chance in about 47,000 of that happening. Theres a miracle for you. He beamed for an instant, then brought the inter legal opinion to an end, remarking that he had a class which had begun ten minutes ago . He was not quick to take me into his confidence, and he said no more about his trick with the dice. I assumed they were loaded, and forgot about them. He manage me the task of watching male rats cross electrified metal strips to get to sustenance or female ratsan experiment that had been done to everyones satisfaction in the nineteen-thirties. As though the pointlessness of my work were not bad enough, the professor annoyed me further with irrelevant questions.His favorites were Think we should have dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima? and Think every new piece of scientific knowledge is a good thing for humanity? However, I did not see put upon for long. Give those poor animals a holiday, he said one morning, after I had been with him only a month. I wish youd help me look into a more interesting problemnamely, my sanity. I returned the rats to their cages. What you must(prenominal)iness do is simple, he said, speaking softly. Watch the inkstand on my desk. If you see nothing happen to it, say so, and Ill go quietlyrelieved, I faculty addto the nearest sanitarium.I nodded uncertainly. He locked the laboratory door and drew the blinds, so that we were in twilight for a moment. Im odd, I know, he said. Its fear of myself thats make me odd. Ive found you somewhat eccentric, perhaps, but certainly not If nothing happens to that inkwell, doddering as a bedbug is the only description of me that will do, he interrupted, routine on the overhead lights. His eyes narrowed. To give you an idea of how crazy, Ill tell you whats been cart track through my mind when I should have been sleeping. I gauge maybe I can save the world.I see maybe I can make every nation a have nation, and do away with war for good. I think maybe I can clear roads through jungles, irrigate deserts, build dams overnight. Yes, sir. Watch the inkwell dutifully and fearfully I watched. A high-pitched humming seemed to come from the inkwell then it began to vibrate alarmingly, an d finally to bound about the top of the desk, devising two noisy circuits. It stopped, hummed again, glowed red, then popped in splinters with a blue green flash. possibly my hair stood on end. The professor laughed gently. Magnets? I managed to say at last. Wish to heaven it were magnets, he murmured. It was then that he told me of dynamopsychism. He knew only that there was such a force he could not apologise it. Its me and me aloneand its awful. Id say it was amazing and wonderful I cried. If all I could do was make inkwells dance, Id be tickled silly with the whole business. He shrugged disconsolately. But Im no toy, my boy. If you like, we can drive around the neighborhood, and Ill show you what I mean. He told me about pulverized boulders, shattered oaks, and abandoned farm buildings demolished inwardly a fifty-mile radius of the campus. Did every bit of it sitting right here, just thinkingnot even thinking sonorous. He scratched his head nervously. I have never dar ed to c one timentrate as hard as I can for fear of the damage I might do. Im to the point where a mere whim is a blockbuster. There was a depressing pause. Up until a few days ago, Ive thought it best to keep my secret for fear of what use it might be put to, he continued. Now I substantiate that I havent any more right to it than a man has a right to own an atomic bomb. He fumbled through a heap of papers. This says about all that needs to be said, I think. He handed me a draft of a earn to the depositary of State. Dear Sir I have discovered a new force which costs nothing to use, and which is probably more important than atomic energy. I should like to see it used most effectively in the cause of peace, and am, therefore, requesting your advice as to how this might best be done. Yours truly, A. Barnhouse. I have no idea what will happen next, said the professor. There followed three months of thoroughgoing(a) nightmare, wherein the nations political and multitude great cam e at all hours to watch the professors tricks.We were quartered in an old mansion near Charlottesville, Virginia, to which we had been whisked five days after the letter was mailed. Surrounded by barbed wire and twenty guards, we were labeled barf Wishing Well, and were classified as Top Secret. For companionship we had General Honus Barker and the State Departments William K. Cuthrell. For the professors talk of peace-through-plenty they had indulgent smiles and much discourse on pragmatic measures and realistic thinking. So treated, the professor, who had at first been almost meek, rogressed in a matter of calendar calendar weeks toward stubbornness. He had agreed to reveal the thought train by means of which he aligned his mind into a dynamopsychic transmitter. But, under Cuthrells and Barkers shrewish to do so, he began to hedge. At first he declared that the information could be passed on just now by word of mouth. Later he said that it would have to be written up in a lo ng report. Finally, at dinner one night, just after General Barker had read the secret orders for Operation Brainstorm, the professor announced, The report may take as long as five years to write. He looked fiercely at the world- bulky. Maybe twenty. The dismay occasioned by this flat proclamation was offset somewhat by the exciting anticipation of Operation Brainstorm. The general was in a holiday mood. The target ships are on their way to the Caroline Islands at this very moment, he declared ecstatically. One hundred and twenty of them At the same time, ten V-2s are being readied for blast in New Mexico, and fifty radio-controlled jet bombers are being equipped for a mock attack on the Aleutians. Just think of it Happily he reviewed his orders. At exactly 1100 hours next Wednesday, I will give you the order to concentrate and you, professor, will think as hard as you can about sinking the target ships, destroying the V-2s before they do the ground, and knocking down bombers before they reach the Aleutians Think you can grasp it? The professor turned gray and closed his eyes. As I told you before, my friend, I dont know what I can do. He added bitterly, As for this Operation Brainstorm, I was never consulted about it, and it strikes me as childish and in insanely expensive. General Barker bridled. Sir, he said, your field is psychology, and I wouldnt presume to give you advice in that field. Mine is national defense. I have had thirty years of experience and success, Professor, and Ill ask you not to criticize my judgment. The professor appealed to Mr. Cuthrell. Look, he pleaded, isnt it war and military matters were all trying to get rid of? Wouldnt it be a whole lot more significant and lots cheaper for me to try moving cloud masses into drought areas, and things like that?I admit I know next to nothing about international politics, but it seems reasonable to suppose that nobody would want to fight wars if there were enough of everything to go aro und. Mr. Cuthrell, Id like to try running generators where there isnt any coal or piddle power, irrigating deserts, and so on. Why, you could figure out what each country needs to make the most of its resources, and I could give it to them without costing American taxpayers a penny. everlasting(a) vigilance is the price of freedom, said the general heavily. Mr. Cuthrell threw the general a look of mild distaste. Unfortunately, the general is right in his own way, he said. I wish to heaven the world were ready for ideals like yours, but it simply isnt. We arent surrounded by brothers, but by enemies. It isnt a lack of food or resources that has us on the brink of warits a spit out for power. Whos going to be in charge of the world, our kind of people or theirs? The professor nodded in reluctant agreement and arose from the table. I beg your pardon, gentlemen. You are, after all, better qualified to judge what is best for the country. Ill do whatever you say. He turned to me. Don t forget to wind the restricted clock and put the confidential cat out, he said gloomily, and ascended the stairs to his bedroom. For reasons of national security, Operation Brainstorm was carried on without the knowledge of the American citizenry which was paying the bill. The observers, technicians, and military men involved in the activity knew that a test was under waya test of what, they had no idea. Only thirty-seven key men, myself included, knew what was afoot. In Virginia, the day for Operation Brainstorm was unseasonably cool.Inside, a log burning crackled in the fireplace, and the flames were reflected in the polished metal cabinets that lined the living room. entirely that remained of the rooms lovely old furniture was a Victorian love seat, set squarely in the center of the floor, facing three idiot box receivers. One long bench had been brought in for the ten of us privileged to watch. The television screens showed, from left to right, the stretch of desert which w as the rocket target, the guinea-pig fleet, and a section of the Aleutian sky through which the radio-controlled bomber formation would roar.Ninety minutes before H-hour the radios announced that the rockets were ready, that the observation ships had backed away to what was thought to be a safe distance, and that the bombers were on their way. The small Virginia audience lined up on the bench in order of rank, smoked a great deal, and said little. Professor Barnhouse was in his bedroom. General Barker bustled about the house like a woman preparing Thanksgiving dinner for twenty. At ten minutes before H-hour the general came in, shepherding the professor before him.The professor was comfortably prink in sneakers, gray flannels, a blue sweater, and a white dress open at the neck. The two of them sat side by side on the love seat. The general was rigid and perspiring the professor was cheerful. He looked at each of the screens, lighted a cigarette and settled back. Bombers sighted c ried the Aleutian observers. Rockets away barked the New Mexico radio operator. All of us looked speedily at the big electric clock over the mantel, while the professor, a half-smile on his face, continued to watch the television sets. In hollow tones, the general counted away the seconds remaining. Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . Concentrate Professor Barnhouse closed his eyes, pursed his lips, and stroked his temples. He held the position for a minute. The television images were scrambled, and the radio signals were drowned in the din of Barnhouse static. The professor sighed, opened his eyes, and smiled confidently. Did you give it everything you had? asked the general dubiously. I was wide open, the professor replied. The television images pulled themselves together, and mingled cries of amazement came over the radios tuned to the observers.The Aleutian sky was move with the smoke trails of bombers screaming down in flames. Simultaneously, there appear ed high over the rocket target a cluster of white puffs, followed by slow thunder. General Barker shook his head happily. By George he crowed. Well, sir, by George, by George, by George Look shouted the admiral seated next to me. The fleet-it wasnt touched The guns seem to be drooping, said Mr. Cuthrell. We left the bench and cluster about the television set to examine the damage more closely. What Mr. Cuthrell had said was true.The ships guns curved downward, their muzzles resting on the steel decks. We in Virginia were making such a hullabaloo that it was impossible to hear the radio reports. We were so engrossed, in fact, that we didnt miss the professor until two short snarls of Barnhouse static shocked us into sharp sleek over. The radios went wild. We looked around apprehensively. The professor was gone. A harassed guard threw open the front door from the outside to yell that the professor had escaped. He brandished his pistol in the direction of the gates, which hung open, limp and twisted.In the distance, a speeding government station black Maria topped a ridge and dropped from sight into the valley beyond. The air was modify with choking smoke, for every vehicle on the grounds was ablaze. Pursuit was impossible. What in Gods name got into him? bellowed the general. Mr. Cuthrell, who had rushed out onto the front porch, now slouched back into the room, adaptation a penciled crease as he came. He pang the note into my hands. The good man left this billet-doux under the door knocker. Perhaps our young friend here will be kind enough to read it to you gentlemen, while I take a restful walkway through the woods. Gentlemen, I read aloud, as the first superweapon with a conscience, I am removing myself from your national defense stockpile. Setting a new reason in the behavior of ordnance, I have humane reasons for going off. A. Barnhouse. Since that day, of course, the professor has been systematically destroying the worlds armaments, until there is now little with which to equip an army other than rocks and sharp sticks. His activities havent exactly resulted in peace, but have, rather, precipitated a bloodless and socialise sort of war that might be called the War of the Tattletales. Every nation is flooded with enemy agents whose sole mission is to locate military equipment, which is directly wrecked when it is brought to the professors attention in the press. Just as every day brings news of more armaments pulverized by dynamopsychism, so has it brought rumors of the professors whereabouts. During last week alone, three publications carried articles proving variously that he was hiding in an Inca ruin in the Andes, in the sewers of Paris, and in the unexplored lower chambers of Carlsbad Caverns.Knowing the man, I am inclined to regard such hiding places as unnecessarily amatory and uncomfortable. While there are numerous persons eager to kill him, there must be millions who would care for him and hide him. I li ke to think that he is in the home of such a person. One thing is certain at this writing, Professor Barnhouse is not dead. Barnhouse static jammed broadcasts not ten minutes ago. In the eighteen months since his disappearance, he has been reported dead some half-dozen times. Each report has stemmed from the death of an unidentified man resembling the professor, during a period free of the static.The first three reports were followed at once by renewed talk of rearmament and recourse to war. The saber-rattlers have learned how ill-judged premature celebrations of the professors demise can be. Many a stouthearted nationalist has found himself prone in the tangled bunting and timbers of a moneyed reviewing stand, seconds after having announced that the arch-tyranny of Barnhouse was at an end. But those who would make war if they could, in every country in the world, wait in sullen silence for what must comethe passing of Professor Barnhouse.To ask how much chronic the professor wil l live is to ask how much longer we must wait for the blessings of another world war. He is of short-lived stock his incur lived to be fifty-three, his father to be forty-nine and the life-spans of his grandparents on both sides were of the same order. He might be expected to live, then, for perhaps fifteen years more, if he can remain hidden from his enemies. When one considers the number and null of these enemies, however, fifteen years seems an extraordinary length of time, which might better be revised to fifteen days, hours, or minutes.The professor knows that he cannot live much longer. I say this because of the message left in my mailbox on Christmas Eve. Unsigned, typewritten on a soiled scrap of paper, the note consisted of ten sentences. The first nine of these, each a bewildering tangle of psychological jargon and references to coloured texts, made no sense to me at first reading. The tenth, unlike the rest, was simply constructed and contained no large wordsbut its ir rational content made it the most puzzling and bizarre sentence of all. I nearly threw the note away, thinking it a colleagues warped notion of a practical joke.For some reason, though, I added it to the clutter on top of my desk, which included, among other mementos, the professors dice. It took me several weeks to realize that the message really meant something, that the first nine sentences, when unsnarled, could be taken as instructions. The tenth still told me nothing. It was only last night that I discovered how it fitted in with the rest. The sentence appeared in my thoughts last night, while I was toying absently with the professors dice. I promised to have this report on its way to the publishers today.In view of what has happened, I am obliged to break that promise, or release the report incomplete. The delay will not be a long one, for one of the few blessings accorded a bachelor like myself is the ability to move quickly from one abode to another, or from one way of life to another. What blank space I want to take with me can be packed in a few hours. Fortunately, I am not without substantial private means, which may take as long as a week to realize in liquid and anonymous form. When this is done, I shall mail the report. I have just returned from a visit to my doctor, who tells me my health is excellent.I am young, and, with any luck at all, I shall live to a ripe old age indeed, for my family on both sides is noted for longevity. Briefly, I propose to vanish. preferably or later, Professor Barnhouse must die. But long before then I shall be ready. So, to the saber-rattlers of today and even, I hope, of tomorrowI say Be advised. Barnhouse will die. But not the Barnhouse Effect. Last night, I essay once more to follow the oblique instructions on the scrap of paper. I took the professors dice, and then, with the last, nightmarish sentence flitting through my mind, I rolled fifty consecutive sevens.